Super Destructive Fist! Double Boost!

(Readers, please leave some comments. I don't even know how my writing is—whether it's good or terrible. There's no positive feedback at all; it feels so empty. At least give me some idea of where I stand... Thank you.)

Several sharp whistles cut through the air. The four Voldek thugs guarding the entrance to the unfinished building fell at once.

Stones had embedded themselves precisely in their foreheads or throats, leaving them no time even to scream.

Their bodies hit the ground with dull thuds, especially piercing in the silent night.

The tattoo on the back of his hand continued to radiate faint warmth, but Leo ignored it.

Mizai Istom watched Leo casually pick up a stone, throw it, then pick up another. His movements flowed as naturally as breathing.

The two-star Crime Hunter asked calmly, "You're an Enhancer, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Leo brushed the dust from his hands.

"You're quite capable."

Mizai Istom fell into step behind him as the two entered the building.

"Any interest in joining the Association and becoming a Hunter? The Hunter Exam will be held next January. Hunters have plenty of privileges—though, naturally, they also have corresponding obligations."

Mizai Istom had investigated Leo's background, only to find a complete blank.

A Nen user this powerful yet of unknown origin was a potential danger to society if left entirely unchecked. If he could be brought into the Association, he could at least be placed within its oversight system.

"A Hunter?"

Leo stepped into the building's darkness, his footsteps echoing through the empty concrete space.

"I'll take it." He said nothing more, but his tone was resolute.

Mizai Istom nodded and did not press further.

The first floor was piled with construction waste and garbage, but the footprints on the ground were clear—chaotic tracks leading deep toward the stairwell.

Following the trail, the two soon discovered a concealed basement entrance.

The heavy iron door was left ajar. Beyond it lay concrete stairs descending into darkness, where the faint hum of machinery could be heard.

They exchanged a glance. Leo went in first, with Mizai Istom close behind.

The stairs were long, descending at least the height of three floors.

The air grew damper and damper, mixed with the smell of disinfectant and an indescribable sweet, fishy stench.

At the bottom was a narrow corridor, rough concrete walls on either side and dim yellow emergency lamps hanging every few meters overhead.

At the corridor's end stood a heavy airtight door with an observation window.

It was slightly open, brighter white light spilling from within.

The instant Leo pushed open the door, his brow furrowed. Beyond it was an equipment room, and not a small one.

Various surveillance monitors hung on the walls—most had gone black, while only a few still displayed empty corridor feeds.

Several centrifuge-like machines stood in the center of the room, spinning idly with a low hum.

Metal crates were piled in one corner, their lids open and their interiors empty.

"Something's wrong." Leo stopped, lowering his voice.

"They know we're here."

Mizai Istom nodded. "The surveillance system was remotely cut off. It seems the Doctor really is cunning."

The moment he finished speaking, a dense chorus of squeaking came from behind another door ahead.

The sound was faint at first, but it quickly grew louder, surging toward them like a tide.

The next second, the door burst open—an ocean of black rats flooded into the equipment room like a breached dam!

Their eyes were blood-red, their fur filthy, and their teeth unnaturally sharp.

There were so many that they instantly covered half the room's floor, charging madly at the pair.

Nen rose around Mizai Istom as he prepared to act, but Leo reached out and stopped him.

"Relax." Leo grinned, excitement flashing in his eyes.

"Leave it to me." He took a step forward and drove his right foot into the ground, cracking the concrete beneath him.

The Nen around his entire body erupted. Pale white aura rose and swirled like flames before converging wildly into his right fist.

The aura around his fist compressed and condensed, emitting a blinding white radiance as if he were holding a tiny sun.

A shockwave spread outward from Leo, sending papers in the equipment room flying and making the instruments shake.

Leo took a deep breath, his smile turning savage and wild. "Super—Destruction—Punch!"

That was right—Uvogin's signature move.

At its core, it was simply a straight punch infused with a massive amount of Nen. In theory, any Enhancer could use it—provided they possessed enough aura and physical strength to support it.

And Leo lacked neither.

His right fist swung out. There was no flashy technique, no complex trajectory. Just the purest, most violent straight punch.

"BOOM—!!!!!"

A blinding fan-shaped burst of light exploded forward.

The air compressed and ruptured with a deafening blast.

The leading rats were instantly crushed into pulp. Those behind them were hurled away, smashing into walls and machinery as the crack of breaking bones rang out like beans popping in a pan.

Several seconds later, the dust settled. The front half of the equipment room was a complete mess.

Blood and flesh splattered the walls, while the ground was layered thick with rat corpses and remains. Only a few surviving rats remained, fleeing in terror back through the door.

Mizai Istom fell silent for two seconds before speaking slowly.

"...Enhancers truly are suited for frontal assaults. If it had been me, clearing out those rats would have taken some effort."

Leo shook his right hand, and the blood staining his fist was blasted away by Nen.

"Let's go. Time to meet the real targets."

The two stepped over the heap of rat corpses and pushed open the door. Beyond it was a laboratory—the real laboratory.

The first thing that hit them was the thick stench of blood, formalin, and the cloying sweetness of rotting flesh.

The lighting was ghastly white, making everything look cold and harsh. The laboratory was enormous, roughly the size of two basketball courts.

Several operating tables stood in the central area, each with a person lying on it—men and women of varying ages. Their common trait was that they were all skeletal and deathly pale, with IV tubes and electrodes inserted all over their bodies.

Most were unconscious. A few had their eyes open, but their pupils were unfocused and showed no reaction to the light.

Along the right wall stood a row of transparent cultivation tanks containing various organs—hearts, livers, brains... Some still twitched faintly.

On shelves beside the tanks, dozens of glass jars had been neatly arranged, each holding even more human tissue specimens preserved in formalin.

Most horrifying of all was the corner on the laboratory's left side. A mountain of corpses was piled there. At least twenty or thirty human bodies had been stacked together like garbage.

Some had decayed so badly that white bones were exposed. Others were still relatively "fresh," but their bodies were covered in surgical incisions and stitch marks.

Blood had spread from beneath the pile, congealing into a thick, dark-red crust across the floor.

Leo's breathing stopped abruptly. He had seen death before.

He had hunted beasts in secret realms, killed gunmen at the manor, and had even slaughtered plenty of rats just moments ago—but none of that could compare to what lay before him.

This was systematic, industrialized cruelty that reduced human beings into mere objects. A true hell on earth.

Mizai Istom's expression was also exceedingly grim.

This seasoned Crime Hunter's fingers had turned white from the force of his clenched fist, while icy fury burned in his eyes behind his glasses.

"I didn't expect Theodore and the others to have fallen to you."

A woman's voice came from above, full of mockery and contempt.

"You do have some skill. But... this is as far as you go."

Leo looked up. A suspended metal platform stood on the laboratory's second level, connected to the floor by a staircase.

Two people stood on the platform. On the left was a short-haired woman with a silver ring through her nostril, with more than a dozen larger black rats crouched at her feet. On the right was a burly man covered in dark bluish-green striped tattoos, his muscles bulging and his gaze fierce.

"So you're the Rat King and Iron Wall." Leo's voice was terrifyingly calm.

Mizai Istom asked in a low voice, "Only the two of you? It seems the Doctor has already run."

"Run?" The woman with the nose ring sneered.

"The Doctor never 'runs.' He merely went to conduct great research. And you... will die here and become new experimental material."

Leo did not reply. He reached into his clothes and took out the two dice—[Fate's Madman].

"I can't wait to crush every bone in your bodies."

He murmured as he tossed the dice onto the floor at his feet.

The dice rolled, then stopped.

Number Die: 2. Risk Die: Great Fortune.

In an instant, Leo felt something being drawn from his body—one day of his lifespan.

Then, violent power erupted like a volcano!

His aura doubled, his muscle density rose sharply, and his senses became keen enough to hear the heartbeat of rats in the distance.

His strength had doubled.

"What?!" Both people on the platform changed expression at once.

Leo gave them no time to react. He drove off with both legs, blasting apart the concrete beneath his feet as his body shot toward the platform like a cannonball!

"Stop him!" the woman screamed, waving both hands as the black rats at her feet swarmed down.

At the same time, even more rats poured from the ventilation ducts in the laboratory's corners—this time grayish-white, slightly smaller but astonishingly numerous.

Leo was still in midair when Nen gathered around his right fist once again.

"Super Destruction Punch—" After one explosion, the rat swarm fell like wheat cut down by a scythe.

Amid flying blood and flesh, Leo had already landed on the edge of the platform. The Rat King staggered back in terror, trying to control the rats again, but Leo was too fast.

With his body strengthened twofold, the speed he unleashed exceeded the limit of her dynamic vision.

One hand pressed down on the top of her head. The hand was steady, its five fingers slowly closing.

The Rat King's expression froze.

She saw Leo's face right before her eyes—there was no anger on it, only pure, icy killing intent.

"No..." She managed only half a syllable.

"Splurt."

Her head exploded like an overripe watermelon.

Something warm splashed across Leo's face and body, but he did not even blink.

Warmth radiated from the tattoo on the back of his hand. [Level: 27 (61%)]

"Still too easy on you." Leo released his hand, and the headless corpse collapsed limply to the ground.

He turned toward the other side. Mizai Istom had already subdued Iron Wall.

The pale yellow barrier of Closed-Room Judgment enveloped the burly man.

"Where did the Doctor go?"

Mizai Istom asked, his voice as cold and hard as iron.

Though restrained, Iron Wall showed no fear. Instead, he bared his teeth in a fanatical grin.

"You're too late! The Doctor left long ago! You'll never catch him! His research... his great work... you don't understand any of it!"

Leo walked to the edge of the platform and looked down at the test subjects below, still alive but suffering worse than death, then at the mountain of corpses in the corner.

"A brainwashed lunatic," he concluded.

"We won't get anything out of him."

Mizai Istom pressed his lips together unwillingly, but finally nodded.

"I've notified the Association branch's logistics team. They'll arrive tonight. These survivors need emergency treatment, and those corpses... need to be properly dealt with as well."

Leo bent down, picked up the dice from the floor, and put them back into his clothes.

The effect of the double enhancement began to fade, and a wave of weakness washed over him, though it remained bearable.

"I'll leave this place to you." He turned and walked toward the stairs.

"I'm going outside for some air."

"Leo." Mizai Istom called after him.

"This time... thank you."

Leo waved without looking back, descending the platform alone, passing through the bloody laboratory, and leaving by the way they had come.

Mizai Istom watched Leo's retreating figure, shocked by the strength Leo had just unleashed.

But he did not rashly ask questions. He knew full well that the fewer people who knew about one's abilities, the better.

When Leo walked out of the unfinished building and breathed in the cool night air again, he murmured to himself.

"I still can't turn a blind eye to it. Maybe becoming a Crime Hunter wouldn't be so bad."

"Doctor, I'll remember you..."

In the distance, the lights of Toth City Airport stretched into a ribbon of light through the night.

Inside the VIP lounge, a middle-aged woman in a white lab coat and gold-rimmed glasses put down her phone.

A cup of coffee that had long gone cold sat before her.

Her phone screen displayed the record of a call that had just ended, the contact marked "Rat King."

The woman adjusted her glasses and dialed another number.

"The Hunter Association has found us again."

Her voice was calm, devoid of emotion.

"I destroyed all the materials and data. The experimental data has been backed up to the cloud."

The other end was silent for several seconds before an electronic voice altered by a voice changer answered.

"Mm. You handled things well this time. What were the losses?"

"Theodore, Terrence, and Gabri are confirmed dead. The Rat King and Iron Wall... most likely aren't coming back either."

The woman's tone remained perfectly flat, as if she were reporting the loss of laboratory supplies.

"But the core data and samples have been transferred. The Toth City base was scheduled to be abandoned next month anyway. It's only a few weeks early."

"I'll send someone to escort you to the new base."

The electronic voice continued.

"The next phase of the project can begin. This time... I'll provide you with higher-quality 'samples.'"

"Understood." The woman hung up, snapped the phone in half, and tossed it into the trash.

She picked up her suitcase and headed toward the boarding gate.

Outside the window, an airship shot into the sky and vanished into the night.