As Elizabeth's depression peaked, she suddenly remembered Sun's appearance and the fact that he had actually managed to catch the enemy's strongest member's attack. She turned to face Sun with hopeful thought about his current level of strength, but… he didn't have one…
She looked at him for what seemed to be an eternity, but not a speck of Martial Qi emerged from his body. Forget Martial Qi, she couldn't even find trace amounts of Inner Strength floating around Sun's navel; the area where humans stored their energy. Now, a truly terrifying thought was beginning to gain more and more evidence as Elizabeth watched Sun.
However, her thoughts about Sun's circumstances would need to be put on hold as a real life or death situation was unfolding before her. She barely had time to consider Sun's current predicament, as the white-suited man called for her capture. He said "Don't concern yourself about me! Go for new girl!"
Hearing that, Elizabeth felt the world turn to black as she watched with fading sight, the image of Sun and the Level 10 man, fight. The last thing she recalled was their figures becoming smaller and smaller; as sign that she was being carried away, as she drifted into unconsciousness.
…
An hour earlier, Sun had left the dojo with the task of refilling the dojo's entire food stash. Normally, when one thought of a dojo, they wouldn't think of a restaurant-like establishment, but an area purely built for the purpose of fighting and training. However, for Atid, Jane, and some of the other residential members of the dojo, the dojo was also their literal homes. They needed to live within the dojo, which naturally meant doing grocery shopping. Additionally, selling some nutritional snacks and beverages to the dojo members would also provide a little side hustle for the business, so there was also that.
This week, it was Sun's turn to restock the dojo's stash, but it was always of impeccable annoyance for him to stop his training mid way. Thus, he would always go do his grocery shopping at the blasphemous hours of the night. The store he shopped at was pretty far from the dojo, but they gave him a ton of discounts for the sheer quantity of things he bought, so the pros and cons shifted more to the former and consequently resulted in him paying patronage to said store.
He never expected that on his way back from his trip to his favored local market, he would detect a spike in Martial Qi. Even less was the thought that his new little disciple would be cornered and pressure by some punks. Death even seemed to form a silhouette behind him as he watched in shocking malice as the strongest punk dared to launch a neck chop at Elizabeth.
Naturally, he wouldn't let one of his own suffer needlessly, so he abandoned his fully decked out shopping cart, interjected himself into the situation, and blocked the attack for Elizabeth. Then, all hell broke loose as the man shook off his grasp and called for Elizabeth to be kidnapped. That deathly silhouette behind Sun manifested a bit more clearly and he began to fight with all his power against the Martial Pawn leveled man before him.
Unfortunately, Sun was did not have Martial Qi; he didn't even have Inner Strength. Thus, from a objective standpoint he was heavily suppressed with no resources to counteract the strength of the man's Martial Qi. The only good news was the fact that his opponent was only a Martial Pawn and no ridiculous Martial abilities were thrown at Sun.
With just his perfectly trained body and boundless experience in training Muay Thai for over a dozen years, Sun managed to match the Martial Practitioner blow for blow. But, given that the enemy was driving his strength half from his Martial Qi and half from his physical body, while Sun was running purely on bodily strength, after the man exhausted some of his Martial Qi and his strength began to wane, Sun immediately went for a finishing blow and directly crushed the man's body in several key regions.
A flying knee kick decimated the previously handsome-looking gentleman's ribcage, with at least five ribs cracked if not totally shattered. Two more additional kicks landing on the man's legs effectively caused the man to loss his ability to walk. And the final elbow blow to the man's left arm left a deep gash that extended down all the way down to the man's bones.
Sun took off upon dealing these life threatening blows unto the man, aiming to track Elizabeth down with the traces of Martial Qi being used to propel those that captured her. Alas, the man he had just downed, was only down and not out. The man Sun had, for all intents and purposes, ruined, took out a handgun and shot Sun right in above his waist.
Sun jumped out to the side of a building to find cover in case more bullets would come flying his way, but as he threw himself, while still mid air, his sight landed on the body of the man he had downed and he confirmed the man had gone unconscious; presumably from all the pain and damage done to his body.
Sun lamented his mistake in not directly moving in to knock the man unconscious before leaving, but the current urgent situation didn't allow him any time to waste. He stripped off a layer of cloth from his shirt and proceeded to wrap the bullet wound he sustained, even as he was running through the streets in pursuit of Elizabeth.
His fight with the previous man had taken less than two minutes to end from start to finish, but that was more than enough time for the group to create a sizable distance. Luckily, after running in a maddened fashion, Sun caught up to Elizabeth's kidnappers, thankful that they had not separated.
The sounds of Sun's vengeful running, or rather, stomping as he move towards the group, instantly alerted them to his presence. At the moment, one of the remaining men in suits was carrying Elizabeth; the one Elizabeth determined to be Level 8. This man instantly understood the gravity of the situation and thus chose to act in the most logical manner he could think of.
The man carrying Elizabeth called out to sole woman of the group and tossed her Elizabeth's still unconscious body. He said "I'll try to stall for as much time as possible. You two take her and split off! Tomorrow morning we meet at "Nightcrawler" before reporting to Master..."
The other man and woman nodded, directly moving in accordance with the hatted man as he became the new leader. They all assumed their previous boss to have been beaten somehow by this non-practitioner, as inconceivable as it was, as he had been the one to come after them and the not their boss.
The new leader didn't have much hopes of coming out victorious against someone who beat his boss, but given that this was a mission from their Master, it wasn't like he had a choice; failure was not an option.
After tossing Elizabeth away, he flipped himself to face Sun as his body kept rushing backwards to keep his distance and after drawing two handguns from his suit's inner pockets, another round of bullets came at Sun like a storm of hail.
Unfortunately, even though Sun was directly facing his would-be shooter this time, the fact still remained that he had sustained a bullet would earlier. If he were in his peak state and had not just come out of a fight with someone who he called a worthy match, perhaps the current onslaught of bullets flying his way would be dealt with more gracefully.
Alas, that wasn't the case and Sun could only slow down and move less aggressively amidst the fatal threat before him. It was still rather absurd how he, a non practitioner of Martial Qi, looked to be effortlessly dodging dozens of bullets, but to the man in question, it was too slow…
Sun initially slowed down to control his body to a higher degree, not unlike Elizabeth who chose to do the same to not fall while sprinting in the rain. But, as he watched Elizabeth's two remaining kidnappers, disappear after turning at the end of the block, insanity seemed to spark in the death-like shadow that hovered ever-so-slightly behind his back…
Sun, chose to literally bite the bullet as he accelerated once more onto the incoming barrage, taking two more bullets, one to the chest, the other to his left leg, but in return he managed to catch up to the fleeing gun-wielding man almost instantly. Sun launched another kick and the man who had shot him twice flew at least three meters through the air before landing and tumbling a couple times.
Sun didn't need to double check whether or not the man would be able to keep firing at him, as he watched as the guns fly out of his hands while airborne. There was also no question as to whether the man would be able to get up and chase after Sun, as it was more a question of if he was even still alive. Looking at his body and the fact that his chest was not rising and falling as he lay paralyzed on the floor, his situation was not looking too hopeful…