His steps had just left the gate of Sanitation Headquarters when three shadows cut across the path ahead.

  Ethan stopped.

  The neon light above the exit flickered with the same rhythm since he had first worked here, two quick flickers, then darkness for one second, then lighting up again with an agonized electrical hum. That pale white light created the illusion of movement in the dark corners of the alley, making shadows that were actually still seem to sway like seaweed at the bottom of a river. The night air felt heavy, a mixture of vapor from the dungeon openings in the distance that continuously exhaled damp breath, the smell of garbage rotting in drainage ditches that were never cleared, and the aroma of hot metal from unlicensed repair workshops operating behind the slum buildings.

  And among all of that, three men he already recognized stood forming a semicircle.

  The bald man with the snake tattoo on his neck smiled. The same smile as yesterday, friendly on the surface, threatening beneath it, like a market trader offering goods at twice the price with a knife hidden at his waist. His two companions stood behind him: the thin woman with red hair who had shone a flashlight at his face last night, and the second man who had tried to cut him off in the dark corridor. In their hands, long objects that didn't need to be illuminated to be recognized: a rusted iron pipe with a flat tip, a wooden club wrapped in black rubber, a folding knife with a wooden handle already gleaming from frequent use.

  "Cleaner," the bald man greeted, his hoarse voice full of satisfaction like someone who had just found a dropped wallet on the road. "We meet again."

  Ethan didn't answer. He felt [Danger Sense] in his chest, a slow pulse, alert, but not panicking. His heartbeat was steady. His breathing regular. His body had already passed the shock phase and entered calculation mode: three against one, three meters of distance, blunt weapons in two hands, a sharp weapon in one hand, gang corner at thirty degrees, escape route behind blocked, ahead blocked, to the side.

  Left wall. Three and a half meters high. Above it was an iron railing of the balcony divider of the adjacent building. If he could climb.

  No. They would pull him down before he reached the top.

  The bald man stepped forward one step. The heel of his boot struck the wet asphalt with a wet thud. "Yesterday you ran. Fast. I'll admit that." He flicked his club against his own palm with a lazy motion, like someone tapping dust off clothes. The sound broke the night's silence, pak, pak, pak, echoing between the brick walls covered in graffiti and faded advertising posters. "But the corridors here are small. People talk. We know you live in the dead-end alley at the east end."

  He paused a moment, giving his words time to sink in. Behind him, the red-haired woman grinned, thin lips pulled wide, revealing yellowed teeth from too much chewing of cheap leaves.

  "So we thought," the bald man continued, "it's better to just wait here. The only exit."

  Ethan looked at them one by one. Bald man: leader, confident, probably with more fighting experience than his two companions. Red-haired woman: the type who enjoyed watching others in pain, her smile appeared too often. Second man: quiet, focused, his eyes never left Ethan's hands, a former street fighter who knew that the real weapon wasn't in the opponent's hands, but in the opponent's movements.

  Three against one. Three meters of distance. Behind them, the Sanitation Headquarters gate was still open, and several night shift cleaners passed back and forth with pushcarts and large garbage bags, but no one turned to look. No one stopped. No one asked why a coworker was being blocked by three thugs at the exit.

  Not their business. In the dungeon, people died because of monsters. In The Grime, people died because of thugs. The only difference was who buried them, and who was left to rot in the drainage ditch.

  But Ethan had no intention of dying today.

  "Yesterday," he said, his voice flat like reading a cleanup report for the third floor, "I said I don't like sharing."

  The bald man raised an eyebrow, a single thick eyebrow that grew together at the bridge of his nose. "Oh?"

  "Now I'm saying: get out of the way."

  The silence thickened for two seconds. Above them, the neon light flickered once, off, on, and in that half second of darkness, Ethan saw the red-haired woman's face change. Her smile widened. Then the light came back on, and she laughed, a shrill laugh that echoed off the walls of the narrow alley, bouncing back and forth like the sound of a disturbed night bird.

  "He's so funny."

  The bald man didn't laugh. His eyes narrowed, examining Ethan in a new way, the way a predator did when prey showed strange behavior. Prey was supposed to run. Prey was supposed to tremble. Prey was supposed to offer money, or at least groan and beg for mercy.

  This thin cleaner in a shabby gray uniform just stood. Staring back at them. No fear in his eyes. No panic. Only calculation.

  "You think this is a joke, cleaner?" the bald man hissed.

  [Danger Sense] — Early warning: Attack in 3, 2.

  The second man moved first.

  His club shot toward Ethan's head from the side, a fast, trained swing, certainly used many times before to "persuade" people who didn't want to cooperate with other thugs in this district. The tip of the club cut through the air with a soft hiss, aimed precisely at the left temple, the point where a blow could knock someone unconscious without leaving too many marks.

  But Ethan was already not there.

  [Quick Step] — Active.

  The world slowed.

  That club swing moved like molasses in the air, slow, too slow, every wood fiber on its surface visible clearly under the flickering neon light. The second man's face stiffened as his target suddenly vanished, his eyes widening with an expression of confusion that hadn't yet had time to turn into shock. The bald man had begun opening his mouth to issue some command, his lips moving, forming a first word not yet heard. The red-haired woman had only half raised her knife, her index finger and thumb still pinching the handle, the remaining fingers not yet having managed to grip tightly.

  Ethan shot to the side.

  His legs, legs that for six months had only been used for walking back and forth in dungeon corridors, lifting garbage, pushing carts, now moved at a speed he had never felt before. Three hundred percent. The muscles of his thighs contracted in perfect rhythm, launching his body three meters to the right in one second. The wet asphalt beneath his boots felt slippery, but he didn't fall. [Quick Step] gave him an unnatural balance, as though his body knew exactly where the center of gravity had to be at every moment.

  He reached the alley wall. His left hand touched the cold damp brick, thin moss between the bricks, rough texture clearly felt at his fingertips. He pushed. His right foot struck the ground, turning direction. His body turned like a billiard ball hitting the side of a table, shooting in a new direction.

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  Not running. Not escaping. Repositioning.

  He was now standing behind the red-haired woman, outside their direct range, in their blind spot.

  Five seconds.

  Four.

  The bald man spun, his eyes widening, not shocked, but disbelieving. He had just seen a thin cleaner move as fast as a Tier 3 Ranker. His mouth opened, his lungs expanded to shout a command.

  "QUICK—"

  Three.

  Ethan didn't attack. He only moved again, shooting past the left side of the woman, too fast to be caught. The red-haired woman's hair was swept aside by the wind he created. Her eyes, and Ethan had a moment to see her eyes from half a meter's distance, were black, empty, like a fish's eyes at the market.

  Two.

  He shot toward a pile of wooden crates in the corner of the alley. Leftover shipping crates, cheap plywood, several already broken, their contents scattered: plastic sacks, wet cardboard, glass bottles left from cleaning fluid. His hand reached.

  One.

  [Quick Step] ended.

  The world returned to normal speed with a jolt that made Ethan's head throb. The difference between three hundred percent movement and one hundred percent felt like falling off a cliff. For a fraction of a second, his body wasn't in sync with his brain. He thought he was still moving fast, but in reality he was only staggering, almost falling, his knees bending to absorb excess momentum.

  But his hand had already gripped something.

  A glass bottle. Leftover type-B cleaning fluid, a mild mana solvent, that he had forgotten to discard after yesterday's shift. Still a quarter full. The thick green liquid inside sloshed back and forth, creating a small whirlpool. The label on the bottle had already peeled off, leaving only the letters "B-" and a skull-and-crossbones image below it, the standard warning for all chemical materials at Sanitation Headquarters.

  Not an ideal weapon. But sufficient.

  The bald man growled, his face flushed red like raw meat at the market. The blood vessels at his temple protruded. "CATCH HIM! DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE AGAIN!"

  They rushed.

  The second man advanced with his club raised, this time more carefully, not reckless like his first attack. He maintained his distance, the club swung not to strike, but to threaten, forcing Ethan to retreat into the corner. The red-haired woman moved to the side, the knife in her hand now reversed, handle at the thumb, blade pointing downward, ready to stab from an unexpected direction. The bald man himself stood in the middle, not attacking, only directing, a foreman watching his workers.

  [Danger Sense] — Warning: Double attack in 2, 1.

  The second man's club came down.

  This swing was shorter, more controlled, and not avoidable simply by tilting the head. Target: left shoulder. Not a killing blow, but enough to render that arm unable to move.

  Ethan didn't dodge.

  He raised his left arm.

  [Iron Skin] — Active.

  The skin on his arm hardened in an instant. Not a dramatic visual change, no metallic gleam, no scales growing, but a sensation inside his body itself: as though millions of fine fibers tightened under the skin, creating a protective layer above the muscle, above the bone, above every blood vessel. The feeling was like wearing armor that had fused with flesh.

  The club struck his arm with a dull thudding sound, not the sound of breaking bone, but the sound of wood hitting a solid material.

  Pain spread. Certainly. But pain that could be withstood, not the bone-breaking pain that made one nauseous and see spots. The wood struck the [Iron Skin] layer and transferred its impact to the muscle below, but the impact had already been reduced by at least sixty percent. Ethan didn't flinch. His feet didn't retreat half an inch.

  But his arm felt numb. Dead from shoulder to fingertips. A strange sensation. He could still move his fingers, but couldn't feel what they were touching.

  The second man stared.

  His club should have been enough to make a normal person scream in pain. Enough to make an ordinary person kneel, groan, surrender. But this thin cleaner just stood, looking at him with cold eyes, the same eyes as from the beginning, unchanged, unflinching.

  Ethan didn't give him time to think. The glass bottle in his right hand shot forward, not a throw, but a thrust. The sharp tip of the bottle, sharp glass shards at the mouth of the bottle, directed at the man's face. Not an attempt to kill. Not an attempt to seriously wound. Only an attempt to create distance.

  Human reflex: when a sharp object comes toward the face, the hands will automatically rise to protect.

  The second man staggered backward, both hands rising, his club swinging uncontrolled to the side. His eyes half-closed, waiting for pain that wouldn't come.

  But that was a feint.

  Ethan didn't thrust it at his face. At the last moment, he slammed the bottle against the brick wall beside the man.

  Glass shattered with an ear-splitting sound in the narrow alley, CRAAASH, echoing back and forth between the walls, creating a cascade of disorienting sound. Fragments flew in every direction like small bullet shards. Some pierced Ethan's jacket, some floated past the second man's face. The green liquid inside it splattered, not a harsh acid that could hole through skin, but enough to make the skin feel stinging like being hit by chili a thousand times over.

  The second man shrieked.

  Not because of severe pain, but because of shock. His hands rubbed at his face hit by splatter, rubbing eyes that suddenly burned, wiping cheeks that felt on fire. He retreated further, his club falling to the asphalt with a splashing sound in the black puddle.

  The red-haired woman was forced to close her eyes, stepping back one step, one hand holding the knife, the other hand rubbing eyelids hit by the splatter. "BASTARD!" she shrieked, her voice rising half an octave.

  Only the bald man kept advancing.

  His eyes blazed with pure fury, not cold fury, but hot fury that made people forget fear, forget pain, forget everything except destroying the source of their rage. The muscles in his neck tensed, the snake tattoo on his neck seeming to move following the racing pulse.

  "YOU—"

  His club came down with full force.

  This swing was different from before. This was not a warning blow. Not a crippling blow. This was a killing blow. Aimed at the crown of the head, with the full weight of that large man behind it, with all the frustration from last night when his prey had escaped, with all the rage at being humiliated by a cleaner.

  Ethan saw the swing coming.

  [Danger Sense] screamed in his chest, not a warning, but a certainty: if this blow connected, [Iron Skin] would not be enough. His skull would crack. His brain would bruise. He would die in this alley, in the black puddle, with his cleaner's uniform still clinging to his body.

  He didn't dodge.

  He stepped into the swing.

  Risky. Insanely risky. A downward swing had a particular arc, from top to bottom, with the greatest momentum at the furthest point. If he could enter the effective range, enter too close, the blow would miss because it had no room to swing.

  But his calculation had to be precise. Too fast, and he would walk directly into the path of the club still at the top. Too slow, and the club would already have hit his head before he reached the safe position.

  [Danger Sense] gave him confidence: this swing was too wide, its momentum too great. The bald man swung like a farmer chopping wood, full force, no reserve. If it failed, he would lose his balance.

  Ethan stepped.

  His right foot advanced. His body lowered. His left shoulder almost touched the bald man's chest. He could smell the man, sweat, cheap alcohol, cigarette smoke from however many cigarettes today. He could see the pores on the man's nose, the fine hairs on his ears, the red veins in his eyes.

  The club shot past his right ear.

  So close that he felt its wind, a gust strong enough to make the hair at his temple sway. So close that he heard the sound of the wood slicing the air like a striking snake.

  And missed.

  The bald man staggered.

  A full-force swing that didn't connect was a disaster for balance. His large body was carried by momentum, spinning half a circle, his feet tangling, his hands swinging uncontrolled forward. For half a second, half a second that felt like forever, he stood with his back exposed, without defense, without balance.

  Half a second was enough.

  Ethan thrust forward with the bottle shard in his hand.

  Not at the throat. Not at the eyes. Not at the killing points that would make him a murderer.

  At the arm.

  At the right bicep muscle that a moment ago had been swinging the club.

  The largest shard of glass still remaining at the neck of the bottle, a sharp triangle five centimeters long, pierced through the man's leather jacket. Pierced through the shabby shirt beneath it. Pierced through the skin.

  Blood splattered.

  Warm. Red. Too red under the flickering neon light. The blood flowed not like a fountain, as no large artery had been cut, but strongly enough to wet Ethan's hand, to make the bottle neck in his hand slippery, to make the bald man scream.

  Not a startled shriek like the second man earlier. A deep pain shriek, from the chest, from the stomach, from the most primitive place in the human brain that knew its body had just been wounded.

  "AAAAAAARGH—"

  The bald man fell to his knees. His left hand reached for his blood-soaked right arm, pressing the wound, trying to stop something. His eyes were no longer angry. His eyes were afraid. His eyes were like the eyes of a deer that had just realized the hunter before it was no ordinary hunter.

  The red-haired woman froze in place. The knife in her hand was still reversed, but her hand was trembling. Her eyes moved back and forth from Ethan, with the bloody bottle shard in his hand, with the flat expression unchanged from the beginning, to the bald man kneeling in the black puddle now mixed with red.