The lethal tactical blade tore through the air with a sharp whistle, driving straight for Leon's throat.
HUNK's speed had completely shattered the limits of the human body. Golden light surged through the muscles beneath his tactical suit.
There was no feinting in this strike. Nothing wasted. Only the purest, most refined killing efficiency.
But Leon's neural reflexes had already been pushed to inhuman heights by Star Fire's enhancement serums.
In the instant the blade tip was half an inch from his carotid, Leon snapped his head sideways. The cold edge scraped past his jawbone by a hair.
In almost the same second, Leon's right-hand hatchet swept upward in a vicious arc aimed at HUNK's chest.
The two weapons collided with a sharp ring of steel. HUNK's left-hand hatchet cut in with pinpoint precision, catching Leon's heavy counterstrike dead.
Blinding sparks burst from the impact of two heavy melee weapons at full kinetic force. The recoil numbed both their hands.
"Good reflexes. But you're lacking in power." HUNK let out a cold grunt, his voice carrying the weight of a death sentence.
He used the momentum of the locked weapons to wrench his body into an impossible midair twist.
A heavy high roundhouse whipped toward Leon's temple like a steel cable. The leg was faintly traced with dark gold keratin, and the air itself cracked with a sharp concussive pop.
Leon couldn't dodge in time. He threw up his left forearm to block.
The impact kicked him sliding backward, his tactical boots gouging two deep scorch marks into the floor.
"Not bad for an old man. Still got some kick in you." Leon shook out his tingling left arm. The cocky edge in his expression was gone now.
He launched his own charge, just as fast, just as blurred. The twin hatchets in his hands became a silver storm of death.
Chop, slash, sweep, smash. No flashy combinations. Every strike was the most direct, most lethal military killing technique there was.
HUNK gave no ground. Blade and hatchet worked in flawless tandem in his hands, a precision killing machine.
The two of them tore through the equipment-packed laboratory in a vicious high-speed brawl.
Sparks flared constantly as edges scraped across metal housings. Every second, both men pushed each other's reaction limits at the razor edge of death.
Leon brought a heavy overhead chop down on empty air. The hatchet buried itself in a scrapped centrifuge, splitting the metal surface clean open.
HUNK seized the split-second opening. His tactical blade darted for Leon's exposed ribs like a fang.
But Leon didn't try to wrench the stuck hatchet free. He let go and threw himself into an impossible backward lean.
The blade scraped past Leon's tactical vest by a thread, slicing a deep gash through the fabric.
Mid-lean, Leon redirected his momentum into a brutal front kick that slammed into HUNK's chest.
HUNK grunted and staggered back, but his mutated body absorbed the organ-rupturing force through sheer toughness.
The instant Leon regained his footing and reached for the backup knife at his hip, a savage gleam flashed through HUNK's eyes.
He threw away every weapon in his hands.
He lunged at Leon like a rabid bear, both hands trailing golden light, and clamped down on Leon's shoulders.
Close-quarters grapple. HUNK's proudest finishing technique.
His hands locked on like hydraulic vises, sliding from Leon's shoulders to his neck, and wrenched into a brutally violent twist.
The Grim Reaper's chokehold. This move had snapped the necks of countless elite mercenaries and bioweapons alike.
Boosted by the golden spores, the force behind this twist was enough to corkscrew a load-bearing steel rebar in an instant.
Behind the mask, the corner of HUNK's mouth was already curling into a cold smile. He was ready to hear the crisp snap of cervical vertebrae.
The next second, his smile froze solid.
No clean crack of breaking bone.
Only the deep, grinding sound of straining muscle fibers under extreme friction.
Veins bulged across Leon's neck. His neck muscles swelled until they were like a block of solid tungsten steel.
Leon was resisting HUNK's killing twist with nothing but raw neck muscle and reinforced bone, holding firm against force that should have been fatal.
"What?!" For the first time, genuine shock flashed behind HUNK's red lenses.
His virus-enhanced strength, enough to tear a tiger apart bare-handed, couldn't turn this young agent's neck.
In the tenth-of-a-second that shock locked HUNK's body rigid, Leon's eyes went ice cold.
"You wanna snap my neck? Hit the gym first, old man."
Leon's right hand, hanging at his side, had already closed around the hatchet that had been jammed in the countertop.
At point-blank range, bodies pressed together, killing intent exploding behind his eyes, Leon whipped the hatchet in a savage horizontal backhand.
A cold silver arc flashed through the gap between them, too fast for the eye to follow.
The wet, heavy sound of the blade shearing through gas mask and thick flesh rang out with sickening clarity above the noise of the lab.
HUNK's body seized. The hands clamped on Leon's neck lost all their strength at once, sliding away limp.
Leon kicked HUNK off and stepped back two paces. The hatchet in his hand dripped with thick blood laced with golden flecks.
HUNK clutched his own throat with both hands. Behind the red lenses, his eyes stared at Leon in disbelief.
The hatchet had precisely and deeply split open his trachea and carotid artery in a single cut, severing half the cervical spine along with them.
Even with the golden spores' monstrous regeneration, a wound that directly severed the blood supply between brain and body couldn't heal instantly.
Blood poured between HUNK's fingers in violent gushes, spattering across the floor.
The Grim Reaper, who had terrorized the bioweapons world for decades, swayed uncontrollably.
His knees buckled. With defiance and deep disbelief still written across him, he collapsed heavily to his knees before Leon, then pitched forward onto the ground.
Leon slowly lowered the arm holding the hatchet. His chest rose and fell slightly as he exhaled a breath that tasted of blood.
In the far corner, Chris had just finished grinding his combat knife through the last operative's heart. He flicked the blood from his hand and walked over.
The two of them looked down at the bodies on the floor. Neither spoke. They turned in silence and walked out through the wrecked corridor.
[This novel is now COMPLETE. Read the entire series right now on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]