BXBX NOVEL Chapter 68: Another cultivator
"What… happened here?" One of the mercenaries in black said. He was covered from head to toe in black tight clothes, with a black mask covering his face only revealing his eyes. A simple balaclava. There were thirteen others in similar attires but there was one in different uniform. His face was uncovered and he wore a long black overcoat.
The man in the overcoat was also confused. He had received a phone call from one of their contacts telling him to move the location of the ambush by a few kilometers. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary since such plans needed to be changed depending on the situation of the job.
So that wasn't what confused him. What confused him was the fact that the scale of destruction was in just two minutes. Unless it was a cultivator and even that of a higher rank, such a thing was impossible and when he talked on the phone two minutes ago, everything sounded normal so the current scene didn't make any sense.
Even if it was done by a high-rank cultivator, there would have been signs of destruction like high pitch sounds of explosions and Qi signatures but there was nothing. As if everything just happened before the others could react.
"Search the bodies for the target, if he is among them, then our work is done." The mercenary leader ordered and everyone got to work. They scoured the bodies but they didn't find their target.
"Sir, a driver along with the target is missing. We don't see any signs in the surroundings of anyone going anywhere. Should we search the woods?" One of the mercenaries returned and reported and asked for instructions on their next move.
The mercenary leader couldn't understand what to do. Even his gut feeling was silent so he didn't even have a hunch of what to do next. His plans were blank at the moment and he didn't even know whether entering the woods would be a smart move or not. The only thing he knew would be best at the moment would be to report the incident so it didn't end up being his mistake.
He took out the phone and dialed a phone number and the caller ID read 'Client 3'.
"What?" The voice from the other end asked.
"The operation has no target." The mercenary simply replied.
"What?! What's that supposed to mean?" The voice once again asked, a little confused and flabbergasted.
"It means that someone already attacked the envoy and retrieved the target. The target is not here." The mercenary elaborated the situation which caused the person on the other end to remain silent.
After a little while, a curse from the end followed, "FUUCC**KK!!" The mercenary remained quiet because he knew how many resources the person on the other had used for this operation but it ended up in failure from the looks of it.
"Whatever. Just abort and be on your way." The person said tiredly and ended the call. The mercenary also put his phone back and said, "All right. Move it, the operation has been aborted."
The other mercenaries heeded the others and headed back to their cars. As they were going to their cars, they felt something clink at their feet. The mercenary was the first one to look down and what he saw made him curse.
"Fuck." He calmly said before the belt of grenades on his feet exploded and a loud and deafening explosion followed. The other mercenaries were all blown away and the smokescreen covered the area of the explosion. The dust settled and the head mercenary was revealed, unscathed completely.
He calmly turned around to see a young handsome man with a rifle pointed at him. He looked around and found that all of his men were dead and their cars were also destroyed due to the massive explosion.
The man returned his attention back to the young man to gauge him only to be surprised that the young man had no Qi. If he didn't, then there might be someone else in the surroundings but even then he found no one with any Qi nor were there any Qi signatures. He now regretted not using his Qi to scan the area for life signals because the young man wouldn't have been hiding that far.
"I take it you are my target." The man calmly said before he stepped forward. Wei Jun didn't reply and began to shoot at the man but unfortunately, the Qi around the man protected him from the bullets.
"That won't help you." The man said. Wei Jun still didn't reply and continued shooting until his magazine was empty. He reloaded in less than four seconds and continued.
"Ho. The way you handle a weapon resembles that of a veteran soldier. Definitely not what I expected from the waste of the Ruan family." The man kept going forward while Wei Jun kept moving backward.
He soon ran out of ammo from the police automatic rifles but that still left him with shotguns. He threw the gun on the road, pulled out the shotgun from his inventory, and began to shoot again at the man. The police-issued shotgun was not as efficient as the guns he had in his inventory but he couldn't use them if he didn't want to leave a trace of a third party.
The man was astonished at the ability the young man had just shown. "So you seem to have an artifact on you. It would be a good reward." But his rationality convinced him to think that Wei Jun had used some sort of treasure artifact to pull the trick he pulled earlier.
Meanwhile, Wei Jun checked the status of the man in front of him to make sure he wouldn't be dying today, not that he had any intention to but he was sure that gauging the opponent would be a good safety step to plan the fight ahead.
[Qi gathering realm]
[Strength 61]
[Stamina 72]
[Agility 67]
[Qi 79]
[He seems to be at the final stage of Qi gathering realm host]
[He is also agility based and from the looks of it, he can use the Qi enhancement more efficiently given that his stats pass that of the Qi gathering realm]
The system was a big help in explaining the situation of his opponent to Wei Jun which only worried him more. The stats of his opponent were almost three times more than his and that was not all, he was agility-based which made him a tricky opponent to deal with. Strength-based fighters mostly fight head on but speed-based fighters have different maneuvers to make up for their lack of strength.
Not that his opponent lacked the strength to fight him anyway.
But that wasn't Wei Jun's goal. From his previous encounter, he figured that although Qi armament and enhancement take a set amount of Qi but that was not all. The Qi would reduce if the user received damage and it was blocked by the user. So if Wei Jun kept shooting at the man, he was sure that the man's Qi would be used to stop the damage from the bullets.
[Although you are correct in this approach]
[Please know that your opponent has a greater amount of Qi from the previous one and his seems stable which means he would use less Qi for everything]
'Thanks for the input.' Wei Jun replied as he had finally backed into the police van and came to a halt. The man smirked and shot at him. In time Wei Jun moved out of the way along with dropping a grenade. Just as the man punched the van, his fist passing through the bulletproof and even explosion-proof metal, he noticed another grenade at his feet.
He stepped back but not in time and another explosion engulfed him.
The man stopped and turned to look at his opponent who was already prepared with another gun. Then he checked his surroundings and he noticed that the cars were currently surrounding him, limiting his movements. He realized that his opponent, Wei Jun wasn't as simple as he seemed.
He had sufficient knowledge of guerilla warfare given that he had trapped a speed-based cultivator like him and limited his movements by a lot.
"You sure know how to move and survive like a rodent." The man commented.
"Well, the characteristics that you just mentioned match more of that of a roach." Wei Jun corrected him.
"And now you talk." The man said and then added, "Go ahead. Say what you have to say."
Wei Jun nodded as he replied, "It's fortunate to come across a smart man." Wei Jun praised him a little to make a good impression before he got to the point, "I want you to abandon your current job. I will pay you three times of whatever Yao Tian is paying you."
The man flinched as he once again analyzed the situation. He now saw Wei Jun in a different light because he was sure that he didn't have any spies on his team and the fact that Wei Jun was aware of his employer meant he had more than enough intellect to deduce the current state of events. "Very well, let's talk then."