The woman entered the room. After taking her seat, she tapped her wristwatch, and a translucent 3D projection screen materialized in the air.
Displayed on it was a photo of a young Eastern man. His pitch-black eyes were as deep as an uninhabited stretch of outer space, lending an ominous shade to what was otherwise a bright and handsome face.
Below the photo were the man's name and personal details. The woman only skimmed them briefly before looking away—not only because she had read them countless times already, but also because the person himself was sitting right in front of her.
"Kurosaki Rei, correct?"
The man seated opposite her was wrapped tightly in a restraint suit, bound from head to toe, with only his head exposed.
His face was covered in a wild beard, his hair filthy and matted, making it impossible to tell what he originally looked like.
"In the company's prison, am I the only one who gets this kind of treatment?" Kurosaki Rei smiled faintly, the expression hovering somewhere between mockery and self-deprecation.
The woman didn't get angry. She brushed aside her purple hair by her ear, her demeanor strictly professional. "You can call me Nefir. I'm responsible for taking your final statement. I hope you'll cooperate. If you do, I might even be able to get you a breakfast you like."
Kurosaki Rei fell silent for a moment, as if recalling something. After a short pause, he let out a soft sigh. "The breakfast I want probably doesn't exist anymore in this era."
Nefir didn't ask what kind of breakfast he had in mind. That wasn't her task today. She glanced at the time and began the formal questioning.
"Before the execution begins, there are still a few questions I need to ask."
She paused, then swiped through the projection. The image changed to a middle-aged man clad in an exoskeleton suit. The armor on his chest was shattered, a long spear impaling his heart as he lay in a pool of blood.
"Master Lin Zhengdong—did you kill him?"
Faced with Nefir's question, Kurosaki Rei lifted his head and glanced at the man in the image, then let out a snort. "Master?"
Nefir frowned. "Answer the question. You know, executions come in many forms."
Kurosaki Rei withdrew his gaze from the projection and stared directly at the woman before him. She was a textbook example of a 'New Era' human—her physical traits already differed somewhat from those of humans from the Old Era. For instance, her purple hair wasn't dyed; it was a manifestation of genetic modification.
Being stared at like that made Nefir inexplicably uneasy, though her expression remained calm. Her voice rose a few pitches. "I've read your previous statements. You admitted your crimes, but you never explained your method."
Kurosaki Rei leaned back slightly, twisting his neck as if stretching muscles stiff from long confinement. "I already told you how I did it. You just didn't believe me."
A flicker of something strange passed through Nefir's eyes. Indeed, the man before her had described his 'method.'
But what he described was far too absurd—something simply impossible.
Just as Nefir was considering how to pry his mouth open, Kurosaki Rei spoke again while staring at the ceiling, calmly reciting a series of names.
"Lin Zhengdong. Wang Luo. Ning Feige. Murong Gu. Liu Huabo. Hong Wu. Ma Huguo. Li Xiao. Tian Huahu. Cheng Lu."
With every name he uttered, Nefir's brow furrowed deeper. Every single one of those people was a renowned martial arts master.
Although she personally looked down on martial arts—an obsolete relic of the Old Era that she believed was nothing more than a scam, utterly powerless before technology—she had to admit that those people were physically exceptional. And once equipped with exoskeletons, they were formidable by any individual standard.
Yet the man in front of her, without using any technological assistance at all… had killed all ten martial arts grandmasters.
The weakness of the human body was common knowledge. Historically recorded strongmen could deadlift a few hundred kilograms at most. But with an exoskeleton, even a frail invalid could easily lift three or four hundred kilograms of stone.
As for martial arts grandmasters who were already strong to begin with, once they donned exoskeletons, their output could easily exceed a thousand kilograms.
"How did you do it?" Nefir couldn't help asking.
Uncovering Kurosaki Rei's secret was her mission—and at this point, her curiosity had genuinely been piqued.
"Is it that hard to believe?" Kurosaki Rei smiled. "I think killing them wasn't difficult at all."
"That's impossible," Nefir snapped. "Don't tell me your martial arts were superior to theirs. I've checked the records. Why were boxing matches in the Old Era divided into weight classes? You weren't even on the same level."
As she spoke, she leaned forward, locking eyes with him. "If you confess now—if you explain how you discovered and exploited the systems weak point—the company can consider rescinding your punishment and, depending on circumstances, even offer you a position."
Kurosaki Rei froze for a moment at her words. Then it dawned on him.
So that was the misunderstanding.
They believed he had found a flaw in the company's exoskeleton systems, using it to defeat those so-called martial arts grandmasters.
No wonder the company had kept him alive for so long instead of killing him outright—they wanted to determine whether their product had a vulnerability.
"Looks like I caused you quite a bit of financial loss," Kurosaki Rei said with a mocking smile.
"And your answer?" Nefir pressed.
Yes—this was what truly worried the company.
The incident had caused a huge stir. Even though the company could control the media, word still spread that ten martial arts grandmasters had been beaten to death barehanded. Public trust in the company's products plummeted, and even the military returned some of its orders.
Until the truth was uncovered and it was confirmed that the next-generation exoskeleton system had no flaws, the company didn't want to deal with Kurosaki Rei hastily.
"Have you ever read comics?" Kurosaki Rei suddenly asked.
"…What?"
Nefir hadn't expected such an answer. She knew what comics were—an entertainment medium from the previous century—but what did that have to do with this?
"When I was a kid, I read a comic called Baki. There was this thing about 'the strongest creature on Earth.' I thought his approach to fighting was pretty good."
Kurosaki Rei reminisced, while the woman across from him looked completely dumbfounded.
"Mr. Rei, please answer the question seriously," Nefir said coldly, convinced he was toying with her.
"Communicating with you is really difficult," Kurosaki Rei sighed. "Fine, I'll put it simply. Basically… when facing someone stronger than you, you should use technique. And when facing someone more skilled than you, you can still bulldoze through with greater strength."
He grinned. "Your exoskeletons might be great tools for boosting power, but those people? Their technique was too weak."
"You're saying that at just over twenty years old, you're far stronger than masters who spent half their lives immersed in martial arts?" Nefir looked incredulous. "Strong enough to bridge an absolute gap in power?"
Even if Kurosaki Rei had killed just one child wearing the company's exoskeleton, she would have found it unbelievable. The power of the human body was finite—and fragile.
"You can understand it that way," Kurosaki Rei said, then closed his eyes, clearly unwilling to continue the conversation.
Before the company sent this purple-haired beauty, more than a dozen interrogators, negotiators, and psychologists had already 'talked' to him. None of them got the answers they wanted.
Most of what he said was true—but no one believed him. People only believe what they want to believe. Even in this era, that hadn't changed.
The company believed he had discovered a system flaw in their product, or even accessed some kind of backdoor in their network, allowing him to defeat those ten martial arts grandmasters so easily.
They hoped to identify the flaw, and also to determine whether there was an anti-corporate organization backing him.
But in reality, he was alone. And he had long prepared himself for the end.
He knew Nefir was the company's 'final chance' for him. After more than half a year, the company's patience had run out. By now, their systems had likely been fully updated, and the social impact of what he'd done was fading.
Nefir was like a foot the company had stretched out in front of his face. If he just stuck out his tongue and licked it, he might live.
But he didn't want to lick.
"Then I'll ask a different question," Nefir said after taking a deep breath, continuing the formal process. "Why did you kill them?"
"Being the company's dogs. Betraying their stance. Getting my master killed," Kurosaki Rei yawned. "Too many reasons. You should already know."
He glanced at the time on the projection. "Can we start the execution now?"
Nefir frowned. She had seen people who weren't afraid of death—but this man was too calm. As if… he were bored with the world itself.
Like a peerless powerhouse standing alone at the peak of a mountain, chilled by solitude. It reminded her of an ancient Eastern phrase: lonely invincibility.
She stood up and dismissed the projection. "I'll take you to the execution ground."
The statement would be archived as an audio recording. And since Kurosaki Rei was a special death-row inmate of interest to the company, she was also required to record the entire execution process, which would be filed together with the death certificate.
Escorted by two guards in exoskeleton armor, Kurosaki Rei was quickly taken to an open-air execution site.
Under the glaring sunlight, he squinted, then swept his gaze around after adjusting to the brightness.
"What a nasty sense of humor," he said mockingly. "Sometimes I really wonder where your so-called progress actually went. Isn't this just moving history backward?"
He looked toward the execution platform—a motorized device.
Once the execution began, he would be secured to it, and several mechanical arms would pull his limbs apart until he was dismembered.
He remembered that in ancient Eastern history, this method was known as death by five horses. The company had many similar execution methods.
To prevent any accidents, the circular plaza was surrounded by soldiers with live ammunition, while several figures stood on elevated platforms along the walls, observing the proceedings below.
"For a violent criminal like you, severe punishment is only fitting—to serve as a warning," Nefir said beside him. "Any last words?"
Under the escort of the guards, Kurosaki Rei climbed the steps one by one. "I just remembered something my master praised me for when I was little…"
As he spoke, the restraint suit was removed. One guard used an exoskeleton arm to clamp his neck, a gun pressed to his head, before fixing him to the machine step by step.
Nefir didn't understand why he was saying this at death's door, but still asked out of curiosity, "He praised you for being a martial arts prodigy?"
Secured to the machine, Kurosaki Rei felt the power of the surrounding mechanical arms. He grinned and looked toward the figures on the high platform.
The execution arms were also company products. Whether intentionally or not, they were from the same series as the exoskeletons worn by the people he had killed.
Judging by the surrounding cameras, Kurosaki Rei guessed this was the company's attempt to restore its reputation—using the very models he had defeated to execute him.
This would prove their products were flawless, powerful enough to utterly tear apart a human body.
As for those defeated martial arts grandmasters? They were simply weak. It had nothing to do with the company's products.
And if Kurosaki Rei truly had mastered some system vulnerability, then when faced with death, he surely wouldn't miss the chance to exploit it to escape.
Of course, the company didn't believe Kurosaki Rei could interfere with their products without any electronic equipment. What they really wanted to see was whether the 'organization' behind him would intervene in the execution.
Kurosaki Rei couldn't help but admire how meticulously the company planned things. Under normal circumstances, no matter what happened, they would either restore their reputation or strike a blow against the resistance.
But today, the company had miscalculated.
He had gambled—and won.
On the high platform, an elderly man in a black robe and sunglasses looked down at Kurosaki Rei, an expression of relief spreading across his face.
Kurosaki Rei smiled back.
He bared his teeth in a wide, chilling grin and burst into laughter, loud and unrestrained, like the madness of a man on the brink of death.
If not for the mechanical arms holding him in place, he might have doubled over laughing.
The executioner pulled the switch.
Instantly, Kurosaki Rei felt immense force acting on his limbs. His neck was not restrained—this execution protocol was designed to make the prisoner suffer.
If the neck were crushed or torn off, death would come too easily. A prisoner whose limbs were ripped apart would scream for quite some time before finally dying.
As he marveled at the company's cruelty, Kurosaki Rei also felt grateful to whoever had designed today's execution. Laughing with exhilaration, he tensed every muscle in his body, resisting the pull of the mechanical arms as the onlookers stared in shock.
"My master didn't praise me for being a martial arts genius…"
At first his voice was slow and steady, but as he exerted more force, it grew strained and fierce. The muscles in his limbs bulged and knotted, swelling like mountains, as if volcanic power were erupting within them.
His words intertwined with the roar of the machinery, like whispers from hell itself.
"He said I… have a kind of numerical beauty."