Chapter 27: Handling the Assassins
THUD!
Suddenly a sound came from behind the assassins.
The two assassins at the front heard something and looked back, only to see the third guy lying in a pool of blood. The next thing they saw was a black wedge, which looked more like a phantom, approaching them at extreme speed.
Lucas was now so excited that he was determined to bring the vehicle back with him to research it. The gun in the vehicle worked on a different principle than traditional gunpowder or laser ammunition, as it created absolutely zero noise when fired. The only drawback was the huge reload time after each shot.
Lucas was now targeting the assassins. He wanted to make them his subordinates as they were strong, but he had mistakenly killed one of his prey, even though he aimed at that guy's legs, so he decided to slow down his shooting and instead approach them first.
The assassins were now sure that against the black phantom, they would be helpless. They first planned to hide somewhere under the rubble, but seeing that the black phantom would arrive towards them within seconds, they gave up and surrendered.
Their thoughts were simple, thinking that the earlier kill was just a warning shot and if they didn't surrender, they would be killed too.
Lucas, on the other hand, was disappointed after seeing their surrender.
"My chance to level up…sigh."
He stopped the car and stepped out. When the assassins saw Lucas after he came out of the wedge, they were shocked. Lucas was no doubt the most fearsome guy among the group, at least that's what the two assassins thought because he had given all the rest of the assassins a hellish experience by bombing them from time to time.
The two assassins gulped down their saliva and tried to negotiate with Lucas.
"Mister, we can discuss about..."
But what Lucas said next was totally out of their expectations.
"You two fight me. If you win, then you are free to go with the codex."
Lucas, when he got out of the wedge, had examined the two assassins carefully and came to the conclusion that they were around level 8 fighters, mid D ranks. But given their worn-out conditions, the fight would be easy. Lucas had three objectives behind his actions: the first was to collect the codex, second to increase his experience, and lastly to make the assassins his subordinates.
Others had to learn and then implement what they learned to gain experience and slowly level up, but Lucas was different. He had high battle prowess, so he could skip the learning part at least at the lower ranks.
The experience gained came from fighting constantly and not by killing something to obtain a collective amount directly. This was a real world; the only difference was with each move one made, the system would calculate the experience gained and keep track of it.
It was the body which would use this experience and hence achieve breakthroughs, which were categorized into levels analytically by humans, and not the other way round where the system, after gaining experience, would level up the body.
As for the two assassins, after hearing this strange command, they looked at each other, giving out a melancholic smile. Lucas was sure terrifying, but the assassins only feared if Lucas used the wedge to target them. If it was physical fighting, they were confident in themselves. After all, Lucas had used bombs and brains to deal with them, so they highly suspected his battle power to be lacking.
"You better not back away from your words."
Lucas, with an upright tone, started speaking, "Yours truly here is an honora—"
Slash! Slash! Bang!
Before Lucas could even complete his sentence, the assassins commenced their attack as soon as they saw an opening while Lucas was giving his speech. This was the real world. People didn't have time for theatrics, more so if those people were actually underworld assassins.
The assassin's strategy was simple but effective: one would go melee while the other one would give ranged support.
Lucas, relying on his instincts, had dodged the previous attacks but was quite annoyed with the surprise element of their attack.
"Nice tactics, but won't work on me."
Lucas didn't activate Nerves of Steel immediately as he wanted to figure out how good his actual strength was. Activating the skill would make the fight easier. He still had to grasp the way to increase his fighter experience, as for other occupations, he could directly harvest knowledge. But here, it all came down to actually doing combat and moving one's own muscles.
Lucas knew many battle techniques from his past, but from all his previous battles, he had noticed that he couldn't bring out the essence of those techniques. He knew getting stronger was the only way to know answers to these questions.
Lucas, with Bang Bang in one hand and a sword in the other, was handling the two efficiently. He would force the melee attacker into the line of sight of the ranger to disrupt their combination. The ranged assassin would try to change positions but was kept in check by Lucas's shooting. Thus, the ranged assassin wasn't even able to fire more than two bullets so far.
Lucas would always make sure that all three of them were in a straight line, with the two assassins before him. This way, he could not only grasp the overall situation but could also use the melee assassin as his meat shield.
Time passed by…
The assassins had now started shouting at each other due to what they thought was the poor coordination of their counterpart. But they knew this was all the fault of the man who had a smile plastered on his face, moving around like a monkey from here to there, giving them no chance to fight back.
Both of the assassins had burnt wounds on their bodies due to the lasers shot by Lucas. But the assassins were indeed experts. Even after being shot so many times, their vital organs were still intact.
An hour had passed since the battle began. The assassins were getting nervous. Finally, the ranged assassin got so frustrated that he gave up ranged attack and equipped his dagger to go into melee fight.
Lucas merely smiled, "Hehe, like I always say, the more the merrier."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone