Chapter 12It was a swift charge, almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

  It took full advantage of the blistering speed of a bee and the sheer mass of a human body.

  Even something small can become devastating at high velocity—a bullet is proof of that. A thrown bullet is harmless; a fired bullet is lethal. Speed changes everything.

  If a human were to collide head-on with the bee-man’s high-speed charge, they’d be reduced to pulp.

  Trying to resist such force with one's body alone would be foolish.

  Seeing this, Pixie shot forward, hands outstretched, releasing a bolt of yellow-white lightning. It struck dead-on—

  But before the electricity could make contact, the sheer wind pressure from the bee-man’s velocity blew it away.

  “Jin! Run!”

  Kasumi screamed, panicked. She threw out her hands, trying to shove Jin out of harm’s way—

  But he didn’t move. He stood still.

  “Oh… be at ease… I am well, very well, inexpressibly happy.”

  His eyes widened, pupils contracting. His lips curled into a strange grin. He muttered to himself, “Ah, yes… that’s it… I remember it all.”

  He pressed his hand against his forehead—and suddenly, blue fmes erupted across his entire face, quickly spreading.

  Then, just as suddenly, the fire extinguished.

  What remained was a mask. White, bnk except for the exposed space around his eyes, covering his entire face.

  “【Call my name loudly—decre war on all injustice!】”

  The voice inside him roared, infectious and exhirating. Jin, caught in the fever of the moment, seized the mask and yanked it from his face. It clung as if fused to his skin—

  And when it tore away, so did his face.

  Dark red blood sprayed through the air. Agonizing pain followed. But Jin…

  Jin felt pure, unfiltered joy.

  A rush of euphoria flooded through him, as if every hardship, every humiliation he had endured in Japan had been wiped clean.

  “【I will never forget you again—Persona! Xiang Yao!】”

  And then, as if driven by instinct, a melody surfaced in his mind. He couldn’t stop himself.

  Softly, he sang in Chinese: “My strength is as great as the mountains, my courage as vast as the world… The time is not right, and my horse will not move… What can I do, if my horse will not move…”

  Boom!

  The impact obliterated the floor beneath them. Dust spiraled into the air, mixing with dark green fmes, swallowing the battlefield in an eerie glow.

  “See! This is the price you pay for defying the collective consciousness…”

  “[Yu Xi, Yu Xi, what can I do…]”

  The dust cloud obscured everything, but from the powerful timbre of Beijing opera cutting through the chaos, it was clear—

  Jin wasn’t dead.

  And he wasn’t injured, either.

  As the dust settled, a figure emerged.

  A towering giant, metallic and imposing, cd in scale armor and a yellow robe. Its face was featureless—no mouth, no eyes, no nose—only bck ink, painted in thick strokes to mimic exaggerated eyeliner, swirling patterns, and a false beard. A majestic crown adorned its bald head.

  It was like a faceless mannequin, dressed in the regalia of a Peking Opera warrior.

  And behind this monstrous figure stood Jin.

  He now wore a bck robe, an eight-treasure jade belt cinching his waist, a sword hanging diagonally at his side. Four triangur fgs were pnted behind his back. His pin white mask had been altered, now outlined with bck pigment, forming a frowning, sorrowful expression with downcast eyes.

  Anyone familiar with Peking Opera would recognize it instantly—

  The mask of the Overlord, Xiang Yu.

  Jin stood straight, unwavering.

  And where was the bee-man?

  The dust fully cleared, revealing the answer.

  The bee-man was crushed into the floor, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. The impact had fractured the ground, sending spiderweb cracks sprawling across the room, stretching all the way to the walls.

  Jin exhaled, his voice calm but charged with intensity. “Thanks to you, I remember everything…”

  Because this wasn’t the first time he had fought alongside this giant.

  It had been there before.

  The day he first arrived in Japan.

  Back then, his family had gone on a trip. His father, seemingly fine one moment, had suddenly lost control the next. He bcked out at the wheel. The car crashed through the guardrail and plummeted into the river.

  If you understand physics, you’ll know this—

  When a car is submerged, the water pressure outside is vastly stronger than the pressure inside. The doors don’t open. Not easily. Not with human strength alone. A woman wouldn’t be able to force it open. A child? Impossible.

  So how did they escape?

  There’s a term in Japanese: 火事場の馬鹿力 (kajiba no bakajikara). It means the superhuman strength people dispy in life-or-death situations.

  Jin had forgotten. He truly had.

  But back then, in a frenzy of panic, fear, and desperate need to protect his family—

  He had summoned this metal giant for the first time.

  It was this colossus that had torn open the car door.

  Jin had repressed the memory, likely from the sheer terror and mental exhaustion of that first summoning. His mind had erased everything but two fragments: plunging into the sea—

  And waking up in a hospital.

  But now, hearing his family insulted, something had snapped. His fury had unlocked the door to those buried memories.

  This power…

  No one had ever told him what it was.

  But he knew the word for it anyway.

  “This is my… Persona.”

  Kasumi, who had been frozen in shock, suddenly came back to life. “Jin, that was—Incredible!”

  Before, she had felt useless. She wasn’t a warrior, a champion, or a magician. She was just an ordinary ghost, powerless in battle.

  But now, seeing Jin stand tall, seeing this monstrous force beside him, she felt something stir.

  “You dare rebel against me, the queen bee?” the bloated store manager spat. “As expected, your nature is rotten! You’re nothing but a zy cog in society, and now you seek to destroy it?!”

  His words dripped with self-righteousness, crafted to pce himself on a moral pedestal while looking down on Jin.

  Jin felt his temper rise—but only for a moment.

  Like ripples in a pond, the anger fred… then faded into nothing.

  It seemed Persona had a calming effect. Thanks to it, he had never felt this composed.

  “So this space amplifies emotions…” Jin murmured. “And yet, it also let me remember ‘myself.’ It’s been a long time since I felt this way.”

  Persona.

  A mask. A concept deeply rooted in Jungian psychology.

  Jin didn’t fully understand it. But did he need to?

  There are plenty of things humans don’t understand. They call them ‘natural ws’ and brush off questions with a simple ‘that’s just how the world works.’

  You don’t need to understand the science behind breast milk to drink it and grow.

  “What… Impossible! That’s a Persona?!”

  A sharp voice cut through the tension.

  Jin knew that voice. Too well.

  He turned toward the staircase.

  There, at the base of the steps, stood a masked man in bck with curly hair. A small, cat-shaped mascot lingered at his side.

  “…Reinforcements?” Jin mused. “Or… have you come to help me?”

  He smirked, cracking his knuckles.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter.”

  His eyes darkened, focused solely on the enemy before him.

  “Go forth, my other self—[Xiang Yao]!”

  “Crush these racist bastards’ so-called [social order] into dust!”

  Xiang Yao, also known as Xiang Liu, was a monstrous serpent in Chinese legend, a subordinate of the water god Gong Gong. A nine-headed beast, it spewed poison and floods, ying waste to everything in its path.

  Some occult researchers believe that Japan’s famed Yamata no Orochi is merely a reinterpretation of Xiang Yao. The simirities are undeniable—both towering serpents of destruction, both harbingers of camity.

  Persona, to some extent, is the manifestation of the user’s spirit. A person’s nature can often be inferred from their Persona—direct, reckless individuals tend to summon warriors built for brute force, while cunning strategists often wield magic-infused Personas brimming with deception.

  But something about Jin’s Persona didn’t quite add up. By name alone, Xiang Yao should have commanded poison, water—something serpentine, something fluid. Yet here stood a hulking metal colossus, a warrior who fought with his fists, his strength like rolling thunder.

  And there was another oddity.

  Jin’s mask had changed.

  As he sang in the cadence of Peking Opera, the once-pin white mask had morphed, patterns etching themselves across its surface, transforming into the battle-stained visage of a warlord.

  His Persona roared to life, fists clenched, a titan prepared for war.

  With fury surging in Jin’s chest, the metal giant leapt skyward, his massive iron fist swinging toward the two bee-men hovering in the air!

  Bees—agile, quick, near impossible to catch by hand.

  Naturally, the punch missed. The two bee-men split apart, fnking Jin from either side. The bloated queen sneered from above. "How dare you attack me, the king?! Are you trying to defy the entire system?!”

  “Don’t ftter yourself, asshole.”

  Jin spat the words without hesitation. He wasn’t rattled. His first attack was a feint.

  Pixie, flitting beside him, raised her hands. A bolt of lightning crackled to life, sharp and searing, slicing through the air like a golden bde. Its target? The exact spot where the earring-cd bee-man had dodged moments before.

  Anyone who’s pyed mech combat games or watched giant robot anime knows this principle—

  A blocking shot.

  The goal isn’t just to hit the target—though that would be ideal—it’s to restrict their movement, to dictate their next action. Highly mobile enemies like this one needed to be cornered.

  The bee-man reacted on instinct, twisting mid-air to avoid the lightning. His movement was fluid, calcuted—

  And pyed directly into Jin’s hands.

  “Thanks for flying right into my fist.”

  The metal giant swung—

  A devastating, earth-shaking blow to the bee-man’s skull.

  A sickening crack filled the air as a shadow plummeted, smming into the ground with an explosion of dust and debris.

  “—Yasen!”

  A sharp, urgent cry cut through the battlefield.

  “Jin! Move!”

  Kasumi’s warning came just in time.

  Jin’s muscles tensed, his instincts screaming at him. He pressed his feet against the cracked floor, hunched low, arms shielding his face—

  And slid sideways, a clean, controlled dodge straight out of a boxing match.

  Some people assume all Chinese fighters practice traditional martial arts. The truth is, Jin had never trained in kung fu. There wasn’t even a proper wushu school in his city. Instead, his childhood options had been boxing, taekwondo, karate, and judo—

  So his parents signed him up for boxing.

  They figured it would strengthen his body. More importantly, they knew that in a world where bullying thrived unchecked, where schools and police turned blind eyes, the best defense wasn’t justice—it was strength.

  (I never thought the skill I learned back then would save my life today...)

  Jin steadied himself and turned—

  Hovering in the air was a figure cd in a crimson cloak and a matching red top hat. A phantom thief straight out of legend. From his back sprouted massive, bat-like wings, and in his gloved hand, he wielded a cane—its tip still burning with bck fire from the spell he had just cast.

  It wasn’t hard to deduce who this Persona belonged to.

  “So, you two are my enemies.”

  Jin smirked. “Fine. Let’s take him down together.”

  Oppression is like water—it pools, it builds, and when the dam cracks, it floods.

  No one suffers in silence forever. Some people explode all at once. Others let their rage simmer until it consumes them. That’s why the world has seen so many so-called ‘lunatics’ rise up against society. They were never mad to begin with. They were just broken by a system that never let them breathe.

  “Hey! Kid! Listen to me!”

  The voice belonged to the cat—a small, half-human-height creature with sharp eyes and an air of authority. “You can’t just kill the owner of a pace! It’ll cause massive consequences!”

  Jin ignored him.

  The metal giant returned to his side, towering and steadfast. Pixie perched on its shoulder. Kasumi moved in close, standing at Jin’s back. Together, they formed a unified front against the two figures on the opposite end of the battlefield.

  The masked man in bck ascended the short stairs, coming to stand opposite Jin.

  “…You’re Amamiya Ren.”

  Jin studied him for a moment before concluding it was true.

  Before, he hadn’t looked too closely. But now, standing face to face, the sharpness of his features, the familiarity of his stance—it was obvious.

  “And that bck cat over there... must be the same one you carry in your backpack.”

  Ren flinched. His mind processed Jin’s words before he slowly nodded. “Yes.”

  Jin grinned. “Good. I appreciate the honesty.”

  He extended a hand.

  The fight had been fierce, but now, suddenly, Jin had stopped. It was strange. Suspicious, even.

  Ren hesitated. But if Jin had recognized him—if he had deduced that he wasn’t an enemy—then perhaps this was a truce.

  “You’re... Jin?” Ren asked cautiously.

  Jin nodded. No need for pretenses.

  Ren wasn’t surprised. Unlike Westerners, who often struggled to differentiate between East Asians, Chinese and Japanese people could usually recognize each other with a gnce.

  There weren’t many foreigners Ren knew. So once he saw Jin’s face, there was only one logical conclusion.

  Relieved, the cat rexed. Ren took Jin’s outstretched hand—

  But was it really that simple?

  There had been three bee-men.

  One had been obliterated.

  The second had been knocked out of the sky.

  And the third—the queen?

  “You should all die!”

  The queen bee reared back, legs lifting—

  But the stinger she aimed at them wasn’t a stinger at all.

  It was a massive, pitch-bck machine gun.

  In this cognitive space, distorted self-perception shaped reality. The fact that this boss saw a machine gun as her ultimate weapon spoke volumes.

  “Hm?!”

  Ren tried to move—but Jin’s grip tightened.

  Like iron shackles.

  Ren’s eyes widened as he tried to yank his hand free. It didn’t budge. The difference in grip strength was overwhelming.

  Jin grinned under his mask, smug and ruthless.

  “Don’t get in my way.”

  He turned his head slightly, voice sharp as steel.

  “Xiang Yao—crush it.”

  At his command, the metal giant lunged, fist raised high, an executioner poised to strike. Its massive iron knuckles swung straight for the queen bee’s machine gun—

  And at the same time, Jin clenched his free hand into a fist.

  And drove it straight into Ren’s temple.

  This wasn’t a handshake.

  It was a trap.