Sairi heard the masked man whispering to someone as if conductingsaid,ommunication with another person. Sairi leaned forward, carefully bracing himself against the roof parapet, and listened intently to the stranger.
The person speaking through the phone said in a firm tone, "Are you still watching the target?"
The second replied confidently,
"Yes, he’s right in front of me, only a few meters away."
His companion on the phone responded with even greater firmness, "Good, but be careful not to get too close to him. This person isn’t normal at all. He achieved second rank. and everyone seemed to fear him. but what I mean is he might sense you if you’re not careful. There’s no room for failure as you know. otherwise you know the consequences."
The masked man replied with greater confidence, "Yes, I know. Don’t worry, I know my mission well. No room for error."
The other said, "We must bring down Gaia, and the samples play a role in this dilemma."
"Gaia, that stubborn wretch. I don’t know how much time remains until we stop him."
"Not much longer, but we must be patient a little while longer, before the great collision."
The masked man was silent briefly, then said, "Anyway, it seems Keno made a grave mistake and now we’re cleaning up after him. True, he got first rank and he’s extremely intelligent, but that doesn’t excuse what happened. He made us leave what we were doing to clean up his mess."
The other sighed, saying, "This has cost us many units and delayed the plan. but it doesn’t matter, the plan proceeds as it is anyway. but we must be careful now. If we hadn’t come, everything would have already ended."
"Yes, we saved the day. Anyway, I’ve purged my area and not much remains. I’ll take care of monitoring the sample now, while you cleanse what remains of the city. We must destroy all robots here or else -."
"When you finish your mission, join the rest of the Enix as we have another mission. We shouldn’t keep Lord Gladious waiting too long." Fınd the newest release on 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹·𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾·𝗇𝖾𝗍
"I’ll do that. The world will change soon, and we must prepare for this. I’ll hang up now to continue surveillance."
The speaker on the phone said, "Proceed then. As for the samples, they don’t know what they’re getting into. All this is just the beginning, the beginning of the new world."
The second man said while pressing some buttons on the wristwatch he wore on his left wrist,
"Everything will be fine in the end, I’m sure of this, but it will take some time until things return to how they were."
The stranger ended the call. Sairi began to ponder what he’d heard. Robots! Keno! New world! Gladious! The Enix! His mind started raising more questions when the masked man interrupted his thoughts by moving from his position to head to the next house.
Sairi drew his sword, took a step back, then launched himself to jump high in the air, descending upon the masked man. The masked man sensed him and rolled to the side. Sairi fell to the ground from this great height and also rolled to soften the impact of the fall.
He leapt to his feet swiftly, raising his sword in a samurai-ready stance, and prepared to force the masked stranger to surrender. He needed answers, and this stranger seemed to know much.
The stranger pulled a small rectangular tool from within his robes and pressed a button, releasing a strange light sword—yellow, intensely glowing, similar to Sairi’s katana but luminous, as if its heat could effortlessly slice through anything.
Sairi had never seen such a weapon, despite his secret study of technology unknown to his temple companions. Though he deeply loved nature, this hadn’t prevented him from witnessing the terrifying progress the world had achieved in this era.
The stranger said with some surprise, "I hid myself well. it seems you’re not such an easy opponent as they claim!"
Sairi stared in wonder at the strange glowing yellow sword, noting its construction seemed far stronger and sharper than his own razor-edged katana—a weapon capable of cutting trees and human bodies in half with a single strike. He decided to test the sharpness of this weapon and lunged at the masked figure, swinging his sword horizontally.
The stranger blocked the strike gracefully, then delivered his own horizontal blow which Sairi skillfully deflected, but his sword split in two from the impact of the stranger’s blade and nearly cut him as well. He jumped backward quickly and looked at his broken sword, feeling overwhelming rage surge through him.
He hadn’t expected his sword to break so easily; it had been among the strongest blades, and more importantly, the most precious gift from his deceased brother, given to him ten years ago on his birthday. His brother was killed shortly after, and since then, Sairi had carefully maintained the sword, never letting it out of his possession. He glared at the masked figure with fury, like a volcano about to erupt, and suddenly thrust his hand forward.
The masked man was propelled backward by an unknown force, flying through the air until he crashed against the wall of the house behind him. The sword fell beyond his reach several meters away, and he collapsed to the ground, staggering and writhing in pain, disbelieving what had happened. In that moment, he remembered his friend’s warning that this person was completely unnatural—keep your distance—but it was too late. The masked man felt some ribs had broken from the impact and sensed this might be his end.
Sairi approached the light sword lying on the ground, bent to pick it up, then moved slowly toward the masked figure, consumed by rage over the destruction of the last memento of his beloved brother. Standing near the writhing, pain-stricken masked man, he placed the sword against his neck and said in an angry tone, "Tell me everything now, or you leave me no choice but to behead you."
The masked man smiled mockingly while trying to bear his pain, "Cut off my head then, for I won’t utter a word."
Sairi glared at him with intense contempt, then said more firmly, his voice gradually rising, "I’ll give you one last chance—don’t waste it. Tell me everything now and I swear I’ll let you go as if nothing happened. Tell me now, why am I here? Where has everyone in the village gone?"
The masked man, struggling and drawing his final breaths—Sairi noticed he had begun bleeding from his head—said, "My lips are sealed and I will not speak a word."