BXBX NOVEL Chapter 128 The Fight Began
Eadweard welcomed the challenge gladly. With as much bravado as he could muster in the moment. Unable to hide his excitement, he replied Xzavier in an optimistic tone;
"I\'d love to."
To Xzavier, it seemed like what happened next happened in slow motion.
Like a boss in a movie, Eadweard took two steps back with a smile on his face and his two arms spread out. Immediately, several black clad men emerged from the shadows as if they had gotten the signal they were waiting for. Quicker than the regular eye can follow, they poured out from their respective hiding places water on the ground and scattered in what seem like an irregular random pattern. Until finally, they closed in on Xzavier and surrounded him in a circle.
It was like a planned or practiced move. The whole thing felt familiar to Xzavier. He quickly realized that they were Eadweard\'s servants, and it turned out that they had trailed him out of the brothel and followed at a distance while keeping their presence hidden. Xzavier was a bit impressed. They had blended in neatly in the background, and only appeared when they sensed that their master was in trouble. No wonder Eadweard had been so confident all this while.
Evidently, Eadweard had been busy after his last humiliation at the hand of Xzavier. Obviously he had taken the humiliation personally and swore that it would never repeat itself. Reminded every day of the way his dignity had been tarnished, Eadweard had worked really hard to upgrade his hatchet team from a basic level to a much advanced version of their previous selves. All so he could successfully capture Xzavier alive. Apparently there was no need for them to hatch any plan, Xzavier had taken off their table the task of luring him out.
Clearly, Xzavier hadn\'t been the only one working and training these past few weeks.
With the way this new and improved team worked, it is was glaring that they had a new leader. The previous team\'s leader was only a level three mage, and the rest of the servants under him were ordinary people whose only talent was looking mean. This was because Eadweard hadn\'t any powerful enemies that would warrant him bringing out the big guns. Also, everyone knew him. They knew his family\'s connections, they knew his social standing, so, people generally steered clear of any kind of altercation with the playboy prince. No one in the entire Victoria City dared him.
However, this time, because of Xzavier, Eadweard had personally taken it upon himself to scout for and recruit a level five mage to be the leader of his own personal guards. This new leader made the former look like a boy scout compared to him. The other members of the new squad were also upgraded, they were all level three mages now unlike the previous ones who had only been ordinary folks. This new squad reflected just how serious Eadweard had taken the security threat to his life.
This was an A-team. A group of stunningly skillful mages. In Eadweard\'s mind, even a high-level mage such as Laddie would have serious problems with dealing with such a power packed team.
Xzavier on the other hand wasn\'t foolish enough to miss out the new details. Purely from a military perspective, Xzavier could tell that they were definitely not ordinary people. Their stealth was commendable. Their coordinated movements and the way encircled him showed that they were highly trained individuals. However, if he was magic savvy, he wouldn\'t have had to see things from a tactical point of view. He would have read their mana and immediately discerned that these were indeed some dangerous folks.
But, the battle ready Xzavier wasn\'t fazed. If anything, he was driven. The stakes were higher now, and it got his blood boiling.
In this era where the harsh coldness of blades were everything, closing in on an enemy in packs was a good thing. Numbers were good in this case. It provided the strength and anonymity that was needed for the successful take out. But unfortunately for Xzavier\'s enemies, they were yet to meet the wonder of modern weapons which completely negated the best thing about numerical superiority. Xzavier actually had a plethora of weapons to choose from. Especially now that he had an abundance of bodies to drop.
The gatling would have been perfect for exterminating a large group of enemies like this. It was fast, effective and guaranteed. The grenade was also an option. There was no escaping or hiding from it. Both of these options were ideal for the situation at hand, especially since they weren\'t regular people. Also, there was the time factor. He could save more time by killing them all at once and go on to pursue Adalia\'s rescue. All these were solid reasons to wipe them all out.
But alas, Xzavier had other plans. He re-examined the scope of the situation, as well as the enemies at hand. He wasn\'t facing mindless orcs or goblins, he was facing humans. This didn\'t in anyway underplay the seriousness of the matter at hand. He knew very well that they were out for blood. His last altercation with their previous leader had taught him that. These mages definitely do not play around when it came to duels.
Nonetheless, it didn\'t change the fact they were still humans and were nothing like the mindless, bloodthirsty creatures that needed to be put down. These were regular people who were simply following orders. As a military man himself, Xzavier could sympathize with them. But that didn\'t mean he was going to spare them either. So, he suppressed his impulse to waste them completely and decided to go with a less harsh measure that would give him something close to the desired effect.
"System, replace the lead bullets with the rubber bullets from earlier on."
Now Xzavier wasn\'t superstitious or anything, but he could have sworn that he sensed a little bit of hesitation on the part of the military system. It was almost as if the system was disappointed in Xzavier\'s choice. Maybe it had been looking forward to some action. Xzavier shook those thoughts out of his head, and ruled them as his own subconscious expressing its dissatisfaction with his choice not to spill blood.
The servants of the playboy prince had surrounded Xzavier like a pack of wolves. Expertly, they remained in formation and began to close in on Xzavier. As they tightened the circle around him, they began to whip out their weapons, expressing their eagerness to waste him. Xzavier needed to take only one look at them to know that they had been training for this.
Unfortunately for them, Xzavier hadn\'t been sitting around lazily for the past few weeks. Unfortunately for them, he had also been training, and the unlucky fellows were about be the testing dummies for Xzavier\'s new energy. Totally on guard, and watching all visible areas around him, he whipped out several smoke bombs. The enemies around him didn\'t know what he was doing, but they had been thoroughly briefed on Xzavier\'s penchant for unconventional surprise attacks. So, they guarded themselves.
But because they were limited in knowledge and understanding, there was no way they could be prepared enough for what was to come.
Xzavier crouched low like a jaguar about to pounce and threw scattered the smoke bombs in all directions. The sizzling smoke rose up and quickly filled the entire space. His enemies hadn\'t enough time to react. They paused for a minute when the smoke started to saturate the area around Xzavier, and looked on suspiciously thinking Xzavier had just unleashed some mysterious lethal weapon that they knew nothing about.
They were kind of right in that regard. But that brief moment of hesitation proved to be seriously detrimental- to them. Much sooner than they could recover or react, Xzavier\'s form got lost behind the thick cloud of smoke that pervaded the surrounding. Visibility became their primary concern. Their case wasn\'t helped by the fact that it was night time already, and the moon did little or nothing to illuminate the surrounding area.
Hidden behind a wall of thick smoke that totally kept him obscured from all eyes, Xzavier put on his trusty gas mask and turned on the infra-red imager. His sinister transformation was now complete. And now, yet again, completely clad in black, Xzavier was about to take on the role of the angel of retribution. This time, he was more equipped. This time, he was invulnerable.
Xzavier\'s unfortunate contenders weren\'t prepared for this at all. Their first obstacle was locating Xzavier. At this rate, they were likely to end up attacking each other like a bunch of disoriented drunks just because they couldn\'t see. But their inability to see was just one of their many problems. Their next difficulty was breathing. The smoke soon began to attack their lungs, and they soon found themselves gasping for fresh air.
Of course, all this was to Xzavier\'s advantage. The army trained, Special Forces major wasted no time. Itching for action, and trigger happy, his twitching fingers squeezed the trigger and began to spray his enemies with a fresh wave of rubber bullets. Xzavier wasn\'t just shooting randomly, his infra-red imager honed in on their heat signatures gave him a clear picture of where everyone was. He could see them, but they couldn\'t see him.
Just because his bullets were rubber didn\'t mean they were any less painful. At close range, Xzavier knew that the impact of his bullets could do some real damage. So, in order not to do too much harm to his unsuspecting enemies, he deliberately avoided hitting their vital points, and instead shot them in places they wouldn\'t sustain lethal damage.