Two flaming vehicles, the scorching blaze of the sun, and the thick killing intent of the 10 agents are all enough pressures to render someone frozen in place and panicked.
But not me.
Since a very young age, I have been fighting against a whole squad alone.
And one of my best record was defeating the whole first generation, which was the strongest batch of agents, all on my own.
So dealing with these guys would be a cinch for me.
But something seemed off about them.
I'm fairly sure that they're all aware of the disparity of our skills, but they all seemed awfully calm and confident.
'These conniving bastards. What are they hiding up their asses? Well, there's only one way to find out.' I thought to myself as I prepared myself and raised my dominant arm on head level for my battle stance.
I activated all of my ESP's and decided to take out the most dangerous one first, which was agent XXVII, who had the most confident aura among them.
All of us were just standing on full alert, waiting for the other side to make a move that may be used against oneself.
Then agent XXVII talked loudly
"Do you still remember the common phrase used by the all the agents? You've only been gone for a short while so I'm sure you still do."
She paused and smiled as she said that before crouching like a tiger and continuing
"Hear thou fear, feel thy hell, see thy future without thou. What a shitty phrase. But it does reflect the powers we have and all that ESP thingies. Ironically enoughthough, they would have to add another line for that phrase now."
She stopped talking and smiled widely while she cut her palms, then a slimey ant-like substance appeared from the blood of her palms.
It then slowly thickened and solidified before turning into a handful of thumb sized balls.
She then threw it above me and all of it turned to needles that started raining down on me. I dodged most of it but I still got hit on some parts of my upper body.
I've never seen or heard anything about an agent having these kinds of abilities back when I was still an agent of NOVUS. So I practically got swept off my feet out of surprise. But I soon recomposed myself and focused back on the enemies in front of me.
All the agents rushed at me at once with full synchronization, while agent XXVII again started accumulating the blood attack thing she did.
If there was a downside to that ability of hers, it's that it needed an ample amount of time to prepare before being used.
I was currently parrying the attacks of all the agents coming from every direction.
If I had enough time and space then I could finish them off as soon as I found the opportunity. But I do not know if I could survive another batch of blood-needles coming at me together with the attacks of the other agents.
If even one single blood needle struck me on one of my eyes, then I could kiss my sorry ass goodbye.
Another noteworthy thing that I realized while fighting these agents, is that all of their irises are slightly redder than normal.
I was thinking of ways and strategies on how to handle this situation as I defended and countered the attacks of the agents.
'Any second now and agent XXVII would finish her preparations and attacked me again.'
I was starting to lose hope, and was contemplating if I should actually just surrender to them or kill myself.
But then everyone of us suddenly stopped our actions as we all heard something from a distance.
One of the agents exclaimed
"We were too late! They're already here. We need to pull back for now."
All the agents attacking me, stopped and distanced themselves from me and started going back to their vehicles one by one while still attacking me with throwing knives.
Agent XXVII was the last one to pull back. She made a last ditch attack and threw the 2nd batch of blood needles that she prepared earlier.
But since I now had more space, I easily predicted the trajectories of the blood needles as soon as all of it turned into needles.
I received no severe damage just like the first one, and I could see the frustration in agent XXVII's expression clearly.
She was about to flee too, along with her team mates, but before she went back she left one more statement
"I'll come back for you agent VIII. And when I do, I'll wear my favorite heels, just to make sure that the sound of my stilettos would be the last thing your enhanced ears will hear."
After leaving that remark she joined the others and drove off, successfully fleeing.
I did not expect this outcome at all. That ability of hers was an unpredictable variable for me.
I was planning on finishing all off them first before the reinforcements of Kim Bok Do arrived.
I purposely made sure that Kim Bok Do survives the car crash so he could send a distress signal to the AlPen gang, who apparently works as the hired muscles for the Manchusa corporation.
The thing we heard earlier that made the agents pull back are the sounds of numerous motorbikes slowly approaching.
The reason why I had Kim Bok Do call them here was to lure out Sai Pong, who was an executive member of the central city branch of AlPen gang.
With an issue such as losing a major business partner's core member on their teritorry, it would be obvious that an executive member would be present to assess the situation first hand.
And in this case, it should be Sai Pong, because according to Ichika other executives of central city are currently busy dealing with the issue on Nostradamus city.
I could've killed 2 of my targets at the same time as well as the agents pursuing me.
But one single variable led me to not only let the agents escape completely, but also forced to make additional actions to kill the other target.
After a few more second, the squad of AlPen gang was finally visible from afar.
They were all riding motorbikes and was leaving a large trail of dust as they sped towards my location.
'It doesn't seem that they're aware of my presence yet. But with the visible smokes coming from the burning cars, they should be all fully alert by now.'
I quickly thought to myself as I readied Kim Bok Do's gun.
Once I felt that I was within the effective range of the transparent gun, I fired at one of the drivers and had him roll down on the ground as he disengaged from his bike.
I then started running towards the cliff and hid myself by using the protruding land on the edge, while I propped myself where no one would see me if ever they looked down at the cliff.
I am now literally on edge.
I was only using my grip strength to support my whole body, and one wrong move will have me rolling down this rocky terrain.
But I simply dangled there until the AlPen gang reached the location of the burning cars and Bok Do's corpses along with his men.
They checked the surroundings for the culprit of Bok Do's death, as well as the one earlier who suddenly got shot in the head while driving his bike.
After waiting for what felt like an eternity, they finally left the scene while carrying a bunch of body bags and drove away.
I got back up on the edge of the cliff and went to look for the bike of the one I just shot earlier.
Fortunately, since there were no one to drive the dead man's bike and take it back with them, they just left it here for the time being, maybe to get it back later after dealing with the emergency issue that transpired here first.
I approached the bike and checked if it was still working. I chose this bike solely because it can be kickstarted so even without the keys it was still usable.
As I drove through the long deserted road, I thought about my next course of actions and how I'll deal with Sai Pong.
'I don't like being flashy, but I have no choice but to finish this as early as I can. Then I'll deal with the agents.'
I'm now heading towards one of the AlPen gang's storage facilities.
This will be the last chance for me to lure Sai Pong out so I have to make sure I get it right this time.
My plan is very simple and direct.
I'll attack the facility and possibly kill everyone there after having them call for backups and luring Sai Pong out. That's when I'll take out my target.
I estimate that there will only be 65% percent chance for Sai Pong to actually show up, but this is all or nothing for me.
Dozens of lives our about to perish today, and all of that are all because of a single deal I had with Ms. Melton.
But if it means that I could have intel regarding Director Dante, then I'll gladly do it. Even if a hundred men spills their blood.