Samuel didn't move. The humiliation was a cold weight in his gut, but the predatory aura still radiating from the man kept his boots glued to the concrete. He had come to the station as a king of the streets; he was leaving as a witness to a monster.
The words stung Samuel, cutting deeper than any physical blow. His blood began to boil. Watching the crew he had painstakingly forged and polished over the years get dismantled right before his eyes had already left him seething. To make matters worse, the old man's deliberate mockery was pushing him to the absolute breaking point.
With a roar that ripped through his throat, Samuel screamed, "Hey, old man! Those insects you were just crushing? They were nothing. Now you're talking to the real predator! I am the Boss of the Iron Shadows—the crew that makes this entire area tremble at the mere mention of their name!"
The giant's words were a cold blade to Samuel's ego. In just three months, he had clawed his way to the top of these rails, and to have his legacy dismissed as "weak" was more than he could bear. The air around him seemed to thicken, charged with a sudden, suffocating intensity.
Samuel's transformation was visceral. His skin began to flush a deep, unnatural crimson, the surface tension pulled taut as if his internal pressure were about to rupture. Thick, knotted veins began to rise and coil along his temples and neck, pulsing with a life of their own. Even his heavy-duty shirt began to strain at the seams, the fabric screaming under the sudden, rapid expansion of his forearms.
He didn't just gnash his teeth; he clamped his upper jaw onto his lower lip with such savage, mindless force that the metallic tang of blood began to coat his mouth. Yet, his eyes remained glazed—devoid of pain, replaced by a terrifying, hollow fervor.
He broke into a run. Each step, a heavy, shouting impact against the concrete platform that echoed through the station like a war drum.
The old man barely stirred. He watched the boy approach with the same dismissive amusement, convinced that this was merely the final, desperate flare of a flickering candle. To the giant, Samuel's physical alteration was just a parlor trick—the boiling over of a pathetic rage that would inevitably end with him face-down in the dirt, just like his crew.
As Samuel reached the striking range, the giant shifted his weight and unleashed a punch aimed with enough velocity to shatter concrete. It was a practiced, lethal motion, designed to end the fight in a single kinetic burst.
But he had closed his eyes.
The air hissed as the giant's heavy fist tore through the gap, the raw momentum carrying the strike directly toward Samuel's face. At the very last millisecond, the world slowed to a crawl. Samuel, lost in a haze of pure, unadulterated fury, locked his gaze onto the man's shut eyelids. In that moment of near-blind madness, Samuel saw the arrogance in the giant's posture—the belief that the fight was already won.
Samuel didn't slow down. Instead, he leaned into the incoming arc of the punch, his own momentum surging, ready to turn the giant's confidence into his biggest mistake.
Samuel had spent every waking moment of those three months learning the brutal physics of survival. He knew that a straight punch didn't have to be dodged—it could be broken. The human skull is a fortress, and its crown is the thickest, hardest point of the body. If timed perfectly, meeting a fist with the top of the head doesn't just blunt the impact; it shatters the attacker's knuckles against the bone.
The giant's closed eyes were the ultimate insult, a sign that he considered Samuel nothing more than a mindless target.
"You son of a bitch!" Samuel roared.
Instead of reeling back, Samuel dug his heels into the concrete and lunged forward, dipping his chin to present the hardest part of his skull to the oncoming fist. The giant's eyes snapped open, his pupils dilating as he realized Samuel wasn't just charging blindly—he was using a calculated, suicidal defensive technique.
In the same heartbeat, Samuel didn't just defend. He coiled his entire crimson-flushed frame and unleashed a desperate, thunderous right hook, aiming directly for the giant's exposed jaw.
In that split second, the giant saw the flash of Samuel's crimson-knuckled fist hurtling toward his face. But the physical disparity was undeniable. Before Samuel's strike could connect, the giant's massive fist hammered into Samuel's skull, the impact vibrating through his entire frame and turning his legs to lead.
Samuel's fist grazed the giant's cheek, missing the mark, and he began to collapse toward the concrete. But rage acted as a tether, pulling him back to consciousness just before he hit the ground. The humiliation burned hotter than the physical pain. With a primal surge, Samuel planted his feet and drove an explosive uppercut into the giant's chin.
The force was immense; the giant's upper body jerked violently backward. "What power!" the man wheezed, momentarily stunned.
As the giant straightened up, he saw another straight punch incoming. This time, however, he reacted with veteran instinct. He stepped nimbly to the side, grabbed Samuel by the collar, and hurled him away with terrifying ease. Samuel slammed sideways into a support pillar, his body sliding to the floor in a heap.
The giant touched his chin, feeling the sting of the blow, and his expression shifted from casual mockery to something sharper, something dangerous.
Meanwhile, Samuel was already pulling himself up. He rose, his body contorting as he arched his back and cracked his spine, assuming his stance once more. He wasn't broken—he was just beginning. A low, guttural roar erupted from his chest, shaking the stagnant air of the station as he prepared to launch himself back into the fray.
The giant lowered his hand from his bruised chin, his fingers lingering on the slight swelling before he let out a sharp, resonant whistle. A dark, jagged grin spread across his face.
"Well now," he rumbled, his voice echoing off the station walls, "you're a different breed than the rest of those weaklings."
They stood five feet apart, frozen in a silent, high-stakes standoff. The intensity in the giant's eyes had shifted; the dismissive mockery was gone, replaced by a glint of genuine curiosity. He had clearly underestimated Samuel, and now, he seemed to find that realization deeply entertaining.
Without breaking his piercing stare, the giant extended his right hand, palm open, in a traditional gesture of greeting—a handshake.
"Iron Shadows Boss," he said, his tone heavy with newfound respect and a hint of something more sinister.
"Come with me."
The fires within Samuel had not yet cooled; instead, they raged, leaving him on the brink of an explosive outburst. His head felt heavy, his thoughts a blurry, chaotic mess. Yet, his survival instincts—his primal intuition—screamed a warning: this man was weaving a trap, a calculated scheme designed to ensnare him.
Clamping his teeth down hard on his lip, his breath coming in jagged, ragged gasps, Samuel let out a low, guttural roar:
"You destroyed my underlings, and now you have the nerve to come to me with an offer? My situation isn't so desperate, and I haven't fallen so far that I would stoop to working in a damn 'old age home' for someone like you!"
The giant ignored Samuel's outburst, lowering his hand calmly.
"I'm not taking you to a old age home," he said. "I'm taking you somewhere much better—a place where boys like you are forged and tempered. I'm going to draw out the power you've been hiding inside."
A heavy silence stretched between them for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, Samuel's composure snapped—not into anger, but into a loud, jarring burst of laughter.
The giant watched him from across the distance, unmoved and silent.
After a few moments, Samuel stopped, spat to the side, and growled, "A king of the jungle stays at the peak of his power in the wild. If you lock a lion in a zoo, there's no difference between it and a leashed dog, you pig."
The giant reached down, brushed the dirt off his hat, and placed it back on his head. With a voice as cold as ice, he replied, "But you haven't reached that level yet. You don't become the king of the jungle just by being a fox and gathering a pack of five other foxes. That is why I am telling you: come with me."
That was the final straw; Samuel's dam of patience broke completely. He lunged forward at blinding speed, screaming, "I'll show you who's the fox and who's the rat, you old bastard!"
Samuel lunged, launching himself at the man with every ounce of his remaining strength. But the giant, with terrifying precision, met him mid-air with a brutal, crushing blow to the face, sending him flying five paces back. This time, there were no mistakes—no mercy.
The man pulled his fist back and looked down at the crumpled, defeated figure of Samuel on the ground.
"I was watching," he said, his voice cold. "The moment you started laughing, the crimson flush on your skin began to fade."
Samuel struggled, his muscles straining as he fought to pull himself up. His heart was overflowing with a fierce, suffocating rage. But the force of the impact had been too great; his vision blurred, unable to focus on anything clearly. His fury, once his greatest weapon, was now unable to pull him back to his feet.
His body had betrayed him, stripped of its last reserves of strength. He had nothing left.
He could only watch as the giant slowly, methodically walked toward him. There was nothing left for Samuel to do but stare. The man reached out a hand, offering a gesture of help—and just as he did, the world went black before Samuel's eyes.