The night sky above the suburban industrial district finally fractured completely. The pitch-black clouds that had hung low all evening suddenly dumped millions of gallons of water in a ferocious rainstorm accompanied by howling winds. The rain lashed down with blinding intensity, pounding the open concrete rooftop of the old chemical plant like thousands of icy needles piercing flesh without mercy.

Across the sprawling, slippery concrete rooftop slicked with a thin sheet of standing rainwater, two figures stood facing one another.

Jason panted heavily, his body completely soaked. The black shirt and tactical jacket he wore clung tightly to his skin. The gunshot wound on his right shoulder continuously pumped fresh blood, but the torrential rain immediately swept it away, dissolving the vivid red into the puddles beneath their boots. Jason's face was deathly pale, streaked with a mixture of sweat, rainwater, and soot from the earlier explosion.

Before him, the elite hit squad leader—the scar-faced man with the mark over his left temple—stood tall, grinning savagely. Rainwater streamed down his forehead and the harsh lines of his cold features. In his hands, his massive combat knife was gone, discarded without a second thought; he wanted to finish the legendary operative barehanded, proving who truly held supremacy in a brutal, no-holds-barred brawl.

"Your show is over, Agent!" the commander's voice bellowed out loud, punching through the howling fury of the midnight storm and the echoing thunder overhead. "Out here in this rain, there's nowhere left to run. No more cheap tricks!"

Jason didn't reply in words. He sank his center of gravity, dropping into a combat stance balanced on his left leg while his right arm hung uselessly, enduring the excruciating agony scorching his shoulder. His eyes locked razor-sharp, tracking every micro-movement of his enemy amid the violent gusts of wind.

"Prove you can take my life," Jason hissed coldly, his voice raspy yet radiating an absolute challenge.

"With pleasure!" the commander snarled.

In a single heartbeat, combat erupted in a brutal, epic choreography of hand-to-hand combat.

The commander surged forward, eating up the distance with terrifying speed. He unleashed a heavy punch aimed straight for Jason's face. Jason tilted his head by a millimeter, letting the fist whistle past through the air, then countered with a devastating left elbow strike that smashed squarely into his enemy's solar plexus.

Thud!

"Ugh!" the commander choked out, staggering half a step back from the impact. Yet, the man's physical conditioning remained fresh and prime. Giving Jason zero breathing room, he whipped his body around, unleashing a horse-powered side-kick that slammed dead into Jason's left ribs.

Crash!

"Argh!" a stifled scream escaped Jason's lips. His body pitched hard, sliding several yards across the rain-slicked rooftop floor.

"Get up, Agent! I thought you were a legend?!" the commander mocked, stepping closer with a slow, psychologically oppressive stride, rainwater splashing off every boot heel. "You're nothing more than an old carcass refusing to die!"

Jason locked his teeth tight, enduring the agonizing torment hammering his ribs and shoulder simultaneously. With the remnants of his consciousness and an ironclad will refusing to surrender, he forced his body up slowly from the puddles, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his left hand.

"Legends... don't die that easily," Jason growled, his voice trembling under a mix of rage and pain.

"Then let's see how long those bones of yours can hold out!" the commander shouted.

The man lunged again, unleashing a flurry of punishing strikes—a blend of rapid jabs, hooks, and lethal knee drives. Across the slick, storm-swept deck, the fight degraded into a grueling, modern gladiator spectacle. Jason parried and evaded most of the strikes with the last flickers of his instinctive reflexes, but several heavy blows still landed, draining his stamina at an alarming rate.

Every time Jason channeled force to strike or block, the gunshot wound on his right shoulder tore wider. Fresh blood gushed unstoppably, mingling with the rain drenching his frame, blurring his vision into doubling, hazy smears.

"You're slowing down, Jason! You're bleeding out!" the commander barked over the roaring gale.

The man leaped, unleashing a devastating spinning back-kick. The impact struck Jason squarely in the chest, entirely stripping the operative of his balance. Jason's body hurled backward, skidding across the wet deck until it came to a jarring, sudden halt right at the precipice of the rooftop drop-off.

Crash!

Jason coughed violently, hacking up water mixed with fresh blood. He lifted his head with agonizing effort, finding himself stranded on the very edge of the abyss—the brink of a ten-meter-tall rooftop structure whose concrete perimeter had cracked and crumbled from the earlier gas explosion. Down below, residual flames from the blast still licked among the wreckage of the plant courtyard, illuminated by lightning lashing across the dark skies.

The commander stepped forward slowly, coming to a halt directly before Jason, who now sat helpless at the edge of the drop-off. The scar-faced man adjusted his heaving breath, grinning broadly in absolute triumph.

"Finally... this is the end of the line for you, Jason," the commander spoke coldly, raising his right hand high, clenching his fist tight, preparing to deliver the knockout blow that would plunge Jason from the rooftop heights. "Say goodbye to your world."

At the far corner of the roof, Leo—who had been hiding behind a vent chimney all this while, clutching the data laptop tight—watched the horrific scene with eyes blown wide and tears streaming freely amid the pouring rain.

"No... JASON!" Leo screamed hysterically, his voice swallowed by the roaring thunder and the raging storm.

On the brink of the fall, battered to pieces with a numbed, bleeding shoulder and a barrage of heavy blows waiting to land across his face, Jason looked up to face his enemy. Amid the stormy darkness, Jason's eyes held not a shred of fear; only the cold, calculating glare of an operative who knew precisely how to turn defeat into his enemy's graveyard.