Chapter 894: Total suppression
Translator: Sean88888 Editor: TheAlliance
The sudden appearance of the heavy machine gun brought with it the breath of death. After murdering the passers-by without much effort, the intense shower of bullets continued without a break, like a raging storm. The Cadillac only lasted for about five seconds before it started smoking, slammed away, and exploded into pieces.
Sheyan, of course, did not stay in the same spot to let the bullets hit him. Instead, he broke into the store next door. The bullets followed in his wake, smashing the whole store into a smoky mess. In less than ten seconds, even the electrical wires in the store were reduced to pieces. Flames started rising within the store.
'It seems that his Perceptive Sense suppression on me was not as strong as I initially thought?' a bullet had torn off a part of Sheyan's face. The bloody wound was deep enough to reveal the white of the bone underneath. It was a scary sight.
'Although he can completely hide his killing intent and presence before he started attacking, it seems like he can't hide his presence when he did.'
As the thought flashed past Sheyan's mind, he realised another possibility:
'But if the opponent's Perceptive Sense is much higher than mine, then there is still the possibility of abilities like 'Mislead' or 'Misdirection' in effect. That is, he could pass on his killing intent onto another object. I might think that the killing intent came from the enemy, but it could be a motorcycle, a car, a passer-by!'
The building Sheyan was in shook. The metallic bullet storm sprayed by the heavy machine gun broke the support columns, and the building collapsed. Sheyan managed to flee before the collapse, but he immediately met with the persistent pursuit of the bullets.
But at that moment, his chest flashed; he awakened into a Reserve-duty Growth-Hunter. The opponent would be severely underestimating Sheyan if he thought that he could finish a monster who had more than 3,000 HP and possesed the 'Stronghold' ability with a single heavy machine gun. The metallic bullet storm of the heavy machine gun rained on Sheyan for at least 3 seconds while he was running, and it merely caused Sheyan to stumble a few times.
When Sheyan jumped into another building, he suddenly realised something:
'That's it! I kept feeling that there's something wrong! Under normal circumstances, I should still be at the scene where Agent G was murdered. Considering the efficiency of the Men in Black, they should arrive at the scene soon. So how can this Hakeem nonchalantly dilly-dally with me like this? There's no way he's a model citizen who's delaying me to gain favour with the Men in Black.'
As he thought of this, Sheyan's eyes showed a cold glint:
'If that's the case, by the process of elimination, the remaining answer must be the correct one regardless of how ridiculous it sounds!'
He bit into his tongue, hard. In the midst of the severe pain it caused, he lifted '+7 West' and stabbed it into the ground! Sure enough, the moment the long blade penetrated the earth, he could feel a vague sensation of having "pierced something"!
With a scream, Sheyan withdrew the blade, then stabbed down again. But it was merely a feint this time. When the blade was halfway down, he threw a curse-mix at the ground instead.
A shockwave swept through every direction. The surrounding scenery, under the action of the shockwave, shattered like a mirror, and finally revealed the real world !!
Sheyan found himself in a large and spacious school bus. The seats of the bus seemed to have been removed by force, so Sheyan had a lot of space to move and dodge around. The school bus was rapidly but steadily moving forward. It should have gone far away from the crime scene by now. This was why Hakeem could slowly deal with Sheyan.
The real reason the illusion shattered was because the one who produced the illusion was also hurt. However, Sheyan did not see him. Sheyan immediately looked up and suddenly saw a hole on the top of the compartment. A dagger glowing a dark golden light was quickly being withdrawn.
This time, the contest ended with Sheyan's complete victory. The first time he stabbed at the "ground", he was in fact attacking the bus. Hakeem's reaction was probably to block his attack. So, the second time that Sheyan stabbed down, he was only feinting to bait Hakeem into stopping him. His real killing move was the AoE attack of the curse-mix!
The deadly illusion was finally broken. Sheyan had conducted some research into illusions before this. The more powerful an illusion, the more difficult it was to cast, and the higher the price that the caster had to pay. Normally, when an illusionary environment was broken, it would be extremely difficult to cast a second one in the same battle.
Sheyan currently was back in the true world and could lock onto Hakeem's position effortlessly. The tendrils of the Stairway of the Sun in Sheyan's chest shuddered as they spread the disease. But suddenly, Hakeem broke through one of the bus windows and leapt into the bus. The cool night wind blew Sheyan's hair up. Before he could react, Hakeem had already cut across his throat with a counter-gripped shiny dagger!
Sheyan's HP started dropping fiercely!
Triple Strike, vital attack, true damage, explosive hit. These key words explained everything.
Strictly speaking, with Sheyan's equipments and abilities, his true strength was on par with peak Growth-Hunters. But once he faced the higher-leveled Awakeners, he would most probably come out worse in a fair fight. The outcome of the incident with Drubal was purely due to the combination of many coincidental factors acting in his favour.
The strength of the person called Hakeem that Sheyan was facing right now was on par with Aziz's. Even among the Awakeners, they were strong in solo fights, they had a lot of experience, and they had a strong mastery of their own abilities and advantages. In addition, their main attributes were far superior to Sheyan's. In terms of equipments and abilities, they were not far off from Sheyan either. Naturally, the advantage was overwhelmingly in Hakeem's favour!
"Damn," Sheyan's face distorted. He gnashed his teeth hard. "I can't keep up with his speed at all!"
Hakim, with a sinister look on his face, said:
"I hate guys who don't follow the rules. You think that everything will be fine now that you've broken my illusion? You fool! You will only fall into a deeper despair... Huh? What happened?!! *cough**cough**cough*"
Taking advantage of Hakeem's coughing episode, Sheyan, whose face was drenched in blood, immediately rushed forward and smashed '+7 West' down. Sheyan had never been bluffed like this before. Of course he had to get some hits in to make himself feel better.
Illusions of zerglings kept appearing on his body. In fact, because he had just been swept by a machine gun, he couldn't not activate 'Zergling Rush' even if he wanted to!
Hakeem's expression changed dramatically amidst the severe coughing. He apparently did not expect Sheyan to be so insane. A few flashes of light shined on his body in an instant as Hakeem tried to take various measures to dispel the disease on his body. Unfortunately, the might of the 'Pestilence Monarch' ability derived from the 'Stairway of the Sun' was so domineering that it rendered Hakeem's efforts futile!
Alas, even though Sheyan's equipments were luxurious, and even though Sheyan's abilities were powerful, the large difference between their ranks was a huge gap he could not overcome!
The strongest caterpillar was still a caterpillar, but the weakest butterfly could still fly. Without going through the process of breaking through the cocoon to obtain a new life, it was impossible for reserve duty Growth-Hunters to compete with powerful Awakeners under normal circumstances.
The dark blue blade flashed as it broke into Hakeem's body, but it slipped past as if it was cutting air and could not cause any damage. This was the high-level dodging ability of melee agile-type Awakeners - 'Absolute Dodge'.
Its calculation formula was a base 15% dodge rate + additional floating value. The floating value was determined by the difference in Agility between the two parties. If the difference in Agility between both sides exceeded 15 points, the additional floating value is 5%. If the difference in Agility between both sides exceeded 30 points, the additional floating value is 15%. In short, the bigger the difference, the higher the additional floating value.
Two out of Sheyan's three consecutive slashes were actually dodged by Hakeem's passive ability! The third slash landed on Hakeem's shoulder but it couldn't do any significant damage by itself. Hakeem nonchalantly took the blow. He didn't even touch the wound afterwards. Instead, he looked at Sheyan with a fierce and malicious gaze. The gaze looked so wrong on a teenager with a healthy image like him.
In the face of such situation, Sheyan already deeply understood that he simply had no chance of winning this battle. Even with the support of 'Pestilence Monarch', he wouldn't outlast Hakeem. Sheyan pulled out 'Ambition' without hesitation and fired 'Rum and Songs' at him. However, it was also dodged!
The furious Hakeem still remained calm. He held the dark gold dagger level with his eyes. He closed his eyes, then slowly walked toward Sheyan. When he took a step forward, it was as if there was nothing in the world that could stop him.
Sheyan had made up his mind to stick to defending himself and never attack. He knew that his only advantage today was the infectiousness and crowd control ability of 'Pestilence Monarch'.
Hakeem made a sudden move. Sheyan's eyes could not keep up with his speed. When Hakeem returned to his original position, Sheyan's had already shot two spurts of blood out from his body onto the bus.
"You're still resisting? How many attacks of mine can you withstand?" sneered Hakeem. "The pharmacist and curse mage ability was pretty good, and so is your equipment, but how much blood can you still lose? How far can you run?