When an Anti-Magnetic Monster Met a Pig-Slaughtering Knife

Lorna recalled some unpleasant things.

He was the one who had captured her and taken her to the laboratory!

"He's Number One."

The modified killer with the lowest number under Stryker, and the one who had survived the longest.

Apart from the time he had captured her, she had seen this thing at work in the laboratory.

He had torn a disobedient mutant in half, then wiped his hands clean and gone to eat a sandwich.

"Lorna, that man—"

Before Soft Serve could finish, Number One suddenly appeared on the windowsill, the hem of his gray trench coat flapping in the wind.

"Whoa! Right in our faces?"

Sing Sing pressed down the brim of his hat and clicked his tongue in amazement.

Lorna spread her fingers, then clenched them.

She could sense that Number One's weapons, and even the reinforcing material implanted in his bones, were all made of an anti-magnetic high-molecular polymer.

Her powers were completely useless against him.

She looked around.

Hmm, the television, the toaster, and the table lamp...

Lorna wasn't sure she could defeat Number One by controlling those three things.

He climbed through the window and landed without a sound.

"Polaris," Number One said. "The doctor said it would be best to bring you back alive, but if that's inconvenient..."

He raised his right hand, pressing his five fingers together.

"Your head will do."

"Wait a second."

Sing Sing was still holding half a bowl of the vanilla ice cream Soft Serve had made earlier.

He scooped up a spoonful and stuffed it into his mouth, speaking indistinctly. "Brother, did you just climb up from outside?"

Number One turned to look at him.

"The outside wall up to the sixth floor. Did you use the roof of my Ford pickup to climb up?"

Number One didn't answer.

Sing Sing set the bowl on the coffee table, walked to the window, and looked down.

There were two deep footprints in the pickup's roof, and a crack had appeared in the windshield.

Sing Sing turned around, his expression pained. "I borrowed that truck!"

Number One frowned.

"There are two dents in the roof! The side mirror's gone! The windshield's cracked! Do you know how expensive car repairs are in the United States? One side mirror alone costs over two hundred bucks!"

Sing Sing pointed at Number One's nose, furious.

"Who you kill is none of my business, but what's the big idea stepping on my truck? Who's going to reimburse me for this? Stryker? Tell him to transfer me the money!"

Number One's expression turned bewildered.

In all his years carrying out missions, he had never encountered a target who didn't run, beg for mercy, or fight back, but instead demanded car repair money from him.

His confusion lasted only three-tenths of a second.

He raised his hand and thrust his fingertips straight at Sing Sing, lightning-fast, a textbook killing blow.

Sing Sing raised his hand and threw the ice cream at Number One's face.

His right hand reached behind his waist, and silver flashed. His Pig Butchering Knife was already held across the outside of Number One's forearm just as he dodged the ice cream.

The blade pressed against the surface of the gray arm and slid upward along the grain of the muscle.

Another half inch forward, and it could have taken the entire arm off along the joint.

Sing Sing was just about to put force into his wrist when Number One's arm suddenly jerked back.

His speed was absurd.

The gray arm slid clear of the blade's edge, and his other hand was already smashing toward Sing Sing's face.

There was nothing fancy about the punch.

Straight, fast, and heavy.

Seeing trouble, Sing Sing let out a yelp and immediately held the Pig Butchering Knife across his face.

"Dong!"

The fist slammed into the flat of the blade. Sing Sing slid half a meter backward with his feet against the floor, the soles of his leather shoes leaving two black streaks.

The first thing he did when he stopped wasn't to look at his opponent.

He looked down at his soles.

"Damn it!"

"Italy-made handmade leather shoes!"

"Even if they're high-quality Putian knockoffs, I still had to haggle the price down to one hundred ninety-nine!"

Lorna stood beside him, a vein twitching on her forehead. "Is this really the time to worry about your shoes?"

Sing Sing raised a hand and pressed down the brim of his hat.

"You don't understand."

"Half a man's dignity is in his hairstyle, and the other half is in his shoes."

"Now he's shortened the life of my soles. This isn't a personal grudge; it's a class contradiction."

Lorna ignored the rest of Sing Sing's nonsense and cautiously shared what she knew. "He was Stryker's earliest modified subject. His bones, muscles, and neural reflexes have all been enhanced."

"No one he's targeted has escaped alive."

Sing Sing flexed his wrist. This guy was pretty strong.

Number One gave him no time to think.

He pushed off, cracking the floor beneath him, and was already right in front of Sing Sing.

Punches, elbow strikes, knee strikes, and finger thrusts.

Every one was a killing move.

Sing Sing flipped his Pig Butchering Knife, pressing the back against a fist and the edge against an elbow as he took three steps back across the living room.

Number One smashed into the TV cabinet, breaking it apart, and Sing Sing kicked the coffee table aside.

The tub of ice cream nearly went flying.

Soft Serve screamed, "My dinner!"

Sing Sing found a moment to hook his foot under the tub and kick the ice cream back into her arms.

"Hold it tight!"

Number One spread the five fingers of his right hand, and five short blades sprang from his fingertips.

There was no metallic response.

Lorna tried raising her hand, and the television flew over, but Number One tilted his head aside and punched straight through it.

"It's no use." Lorna gritted her teeth. "The material in all the vital parts of his body has been replaced. I can't control him."

Sing Sing cursed as he blocked.

"That bastard Stryker sure has some nerve."

"He's willing to shell out for anti-magnetic materials, so why isn't he this generous when it comes to paying his employees' social insurance?"

Number One suddenly ducked low and swept out his right leg.

Sing Sing jumped half a foot into the air and brought the Pig Butchering Knife down, smacking the back of the blade against Number One's lower leg joint.

"Crack!"

Number One's lower leg only twisted to one side before immediately coming back at him.

"Oh?"

Sing Sing landed and stepped back.

"His bones are reinforced too? Are you a person or a building material?"

Number One said nothing and kept charging forward, raising a hand to grab Sing Sing by the throat.

Sing Sing didn't retreat. He pressed his left index and middle fingers together and jabbed them against the inside of Number One's wrist.

"Freeze."

Number One's arm stopped for a fraction of a second.

Sing Sing's Pig Butchering Knife was already against it.

This time he wasn't testing him. The blade went straight for the elbow joint, and the tip bored into the connection between the materials and twisted.

"Crack!"

Number One's entire right arm came off below the elbow.

The break was clean, and the gray arm fell to the floor with a clatter.

Sing Sing picked up the severed arm and weighed it in his hand.

"Wow."

"It's heavy. There are composite muscle bundles inside, and, hmm... a neural transmission interface too. This arm isn't cheap."

Number One looked down at the severed arm.

There was no blood at the break.

Only black wires and dark red tissue were twitching.

His face still showed little change.

Sing Sing tucked the severed arm under his arm and looked cheerfully at Lorna. "This counts as a trophy. We'll have Da Vinci study it when we get back."

"If he can copy it, we've got to get a few mechanical arms for our construction site."

Despite losing an arm, Number One didn't panic and attacked again.

"Again? Does your company even provide employee training?"

"Your arm's already been laid off, and you're still working overtime?"

Number One didn't reply. He only carried out orders.

Kill the target and retrieve Polaris.

Sing Sing shifted his feet, his white suit brushing past Number One's fingernails, which cut a slit in its hem.

"Bastard! I still have to wear this suit to my performance review when I go back home!"

Lorna couldn't help shouting from the side.

"He's trying to kill you! And you're worried about your clothes?"

"What do you know!"

Sing Sing turned sideways to avoid Number One's knee strike and backhanded him across the chest with the flat of his knife.

"A person can bleed, but a suit can't come apart at the seams!! Stop the bleeding and the blood will dry, but if your clothes rip, you have to find a tailor!! Do you know how expensive tailors are in the United States? They dare charge you fifty US dollars to sew up one tear! Fifty!!"