A sting mission with multiple targets wasn’t exactly common.

  I wouldn’t have ever even been told about one if Isabella weren’t out of commission. But she was, and so Takezo and I were speeding through Philadelphia.

  Takezo sat shotgun, sprawled over the seat, katanas braced by his side. He stared out the window at the nuclear wasteland of Frankford Avenue, his stubble rougher than usual, his black hair tied into a ponytail.

  He wore his usual suit, black and red, designed to be bled on. His swords clanked together every time I hit a pothole, which, in Philly, meant we sounded like a cutlery drawer in an earthquake.

  “You drive like a poor imitation of Isabella,” he said, not looking at me. “Just about fast enough to constantly break the rules, but not fast enough for it to be exciting.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Unlike her, I don’t have an endless supply of cars to replace whatever I wreck one.” I tossed a smile that didn’t touch my eyes. “Plus, I’m not taking criticism from a man who never broke the speed limit in his life.”

  “Rules exist for a reason, and breaking them attracts unnecessary attention. We work for Secret Societies, remember?”

  Yeah, but nah. I didn’t know why, but our company cars weren’t getting stopped by anyone, ever. And I drove a company Mercedes, so I could probably run over a police officer without getting stopped by his partner. “Have you seen how many targets we are to expect?”

  “No.” He opened the glove box and pulled out a file. We got this as the mission brief. Takezo flipped through it a few times. “This file is a mockery of a brief. It is printed as designated for Isabella Maria di Castilla, and optionally Peter O’Connor, and those are the only names there. We are to find and remove everyone we find at an address, and there are to be no witnesses. Then there’s the satellite picture of the location, as if we had any use for it, and then seven pages of legalese about I don’t care what.”

  Well, I did work for Lucielle Legal, so legalese had to be in every document. The weirdest part was my name being present in the document. That never happened before.

  I slowed down a bit, trying to see the house. In this neighborhood, half the homes looked like set dressing for a post-apocalyptic miniseries, so the one with lights on after ten PM was a dead giveaway.

  Right now, at three in the morning, only one house had the lights on in the entire block, our target. For a squat, they sure weren’t trying to be stealthy.

  The house looked even more abandoned than most others, the plywood bent and hanging half-loosely in dozens of spots. The lawn looked like it grew syringes instead of grass.

  Nobody stood guard, so I killed the car behind the house. “Showtime.”

  Takezo rolled his eyes and slid out of the car. I got out, walked around it, and popped open the trunk. While I had my steel gloves on, I kept the rest of the weaponry away.

  The assault rifle felt like overkill, but I did take the short-barreled shotgun and the two pistols.

  All company weapons had the fun property of having no branding, no serial number, and no marks. Neither did the magazines nor bullet casings, so I couldn’t even tell if the pistols were nine- or ten-millimeter caliber. “You want the left or the right hand side?”

  “Whatever. More importantly, want me to leave something up for you, or should I just clean it up?” He smiled, and for a second, I saw the demon in him. A polite face, a whole lot of teeth hidden underneath.

  I loaded the guns and tucked them behind my belt, just a bit away from the shotgun. “I run in through the main back door, you do what you want.”

  Takezo frowned. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I stepped beside the car, putting on my gauntlets. The wind was sharp enough to peel paint. “You did. You just forgot to put a filter on your mouth.” I bolted forward.

  Yeah, I was the weakest person around. No need to remind me of that.

  I ran in through the door, the hinges blowing up as I rammed in with my shoulder.

  Trash and mess filled the hallway, but someone yelped by the door. I spun, seeing a man who was drawing a large, silver gun.

  I turned a spin into a dash, landed next to him, and swung at his head with a wide hook.

  He raised his arm to block.

  My steel-covered fist hit his forearm, knocked it aside, and buried into his face. His head jerked sideways, and he fell to the floor, teeth and blood spilling from his mouth.

  Hah, all the points I’ve spent on strength weren’t useless.

  Shouting echoed through the house, and something fast and hard hit me in the back. Pain burst through me, but I held upright.

  I turned, seeing another man with his hands raised, various steel objects floating around him. He wore torn jeans and a tank top, hair gelled up into a mohawk. A crowbar clung to the floor next to me, clearly the thing that had hit me in the back earlier.

  I focused on the System, activating the level scanner. An information window popped up next to the guy:

  ‘Name: “Mohawk” Jared Sanders

  Age:27

  Level: 19’

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  A vicious smirk spread over my face. This was the first time I have ever scanned someone that had a lower level than me.

  “The fuck you want?” he shouted.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but stopped myself. We had nothing to talk about. But I couldn’t help myself. “You’ve pissed off the wrong people.”

  “They can fuck right off. This is our place.”

  I shrugged and then raised my hands to defend my face. “Not for long.” I bolted forward.

  Mohawk motioned with his hand at me. A steel pipe flew at me, together with a knife and a pan.

  I didn’t try to dodge.

  The steel pipe hit my gauntlets and bounced off. The knife stabbed itself into my side, and the pan hit my knee.

  With a grunt of pain, I reached him and swung at his face. He raised one hand, and an invisible force stopped my hand. With the other hand, he caught another steel pipe and smashed it into my side.

  The jolt of pain burst through me, but I pivoted my body and punched with the other hand from up close. He caught my fist with an open palm, an invisible force stopping me, again. It got my face straight to his though.

  I rammed my forehead into his face.

  Shields sparked above his skin, holding me off. He still stumbled. I hooked his leg with mine, and we fell down. We rolled over. I almost planted my elbow into his face, but it slid off his shield.

  He landed on top, immediately swinging the steel pipe at my face. I didn’t bother with blocking. I jerked up my whole body instead.

  The pipe him me in the cheek. But my move threw him off over my head. We scrambled on the floor. He tried to get up, but I pulled his leg to me and got on top.

  I pressed my chest against his to flatten out his back, anchored my hips over his, and as he tried to grab my head, I postured up.

  Mohawk hit my side with the steel pipe and grabbed the knife, stabbing into my side with his other hand.

  I punched him in the face. His shields sparked, blocking the strike, but the back of his head still hit the floor. I punched again.

  He stabbed my thigh.

  Nice try, but I kept punching. Three hits in, his shields popped. He tried to block with his hands.

  One punch, and the forearm snapped. My next blow landed square in the face, shattering the nose and breaking the jaw.

  I withheld the next strike. His body went limp, anyway.

  I exhaled and took the dagger out from my thigh. Blood splashed out.

  With a grunt, I threw the knife away and rose. Given I was an endurance-focused build, I had about six different passives against bleeding and damage over time.

  A few stabs weren’t going to do much to me, at least unless they hit major organs.

  Then again, if I had willpower instead of endurance, I would have had enough shields to never get stabbed in the first place.

  But that ship had sailed, so I looked around, focusing on reality rather than on what might have been.

  More mess filled the hallways, and the air stank of wet dog and something chemical. The mess, especially a stack of empty pizza boxes, attracted my attention. That was a whole lot of takeouts. They sure weren’t starving in here.

  A knock echoed from a wall. I turned and only then noticed Takezo, as he stood a few yards away from me, drawn sword in hand, the other still in its sheath by his waist. The man I knocked out by the entrance lay in a pool of blood, clearly executed by Takezo.

  Well, thanks. I haven’t gotten used to the whole killing part of this profession, and I wasn’t sure I ever would. “Have you seen more of them?” I asked.

  “A few. I sense one more in the cellars, but so far, Mohawk was the only real mage.”

  I nodded and moved on.

  In the next room, two men sat hunched over a folding table, cutting coke lines on a mirror with a city credit card. They looked like the standard local muscle, with veiny arms, cheap track suits, all drenched in blood. Judging by their heads being bent forward unnaturally, I read that as Takezo having cut their throats before they noticed he was in the room with them.

  Show off.

  I scanned at the table. The drugs looked real, a fluffy white powder, iridescent in the glow of the single naked bulb. The drug bags were stamped with a brand of a cartoon devil with a big, stupid smile.

  Hmm… I pushed power into my eyes.

  World’s colors inverted before my gaze, revealing remnants of magic like stains of spilled color of a mad artist. The drugs shimmered with embedded magic.

  Okay, I haven’t seen magic-laced drugs before.

  I used the gaze to find another bag of it, and then a box filled with magic-laced Molly.

  I pocketed all of that.

  This was all going to be potentially useful. The fifteen seconds of the magical sight use already exhausted my magical power reserve.

  That thing didn’t get bigger, did it?

  At least Takezo spared me the comment.

  We continued. A short hallway with a man nearly cut in two awaited us. We walked over it and descended the stairs.

  The air changed here, much more filled with foul magic than the stench of mess and piss. An actual steel door blocked the cellars.

  I kicked it open, the door blowing up the lock from the frame.

  “Subtle,” Takezo remarked.

  “Comes with the profession.” I entered the cellars.

  The foul magic in the air made my throat itch. I had a big chunk of living metal embedded into it, replacing a part of the aorta, the trachea, and quite a bit of skin and muscle. I scratched it, as if that would help.

  This was the first time it reacted to anything though. I had almost forgotten I had it since I got it a few days ago.

  By the itch, the energy came from the steel door at the far end.

  I stretched.

  Takezo snorted. “I see you care greatly about traps.”

  “Yeah.” I bolted forward and ran through the door with my shoulder. The lock blew apart, and I burst into a room with another punk standing by a large cauldron.

  He looked like Mohawk, except with no hair, but with a thick beard to make up for the baldness. I followed through, stepping by the cauldron.

  The man raised his hands towards me, laughed, and flames burst from his fingertips. I raised my left arm to shield my eyes while charging straight into him.

  The fire burned, heat and pain blinding me for a split second. But I ran straight into him, body clashing into his. Shields flashed around him, and he spun, throwing me off.

  My hands slipped on his shields, so I flew with my back against the wall. He spun after me, raising his hands again.

  But Takezo’s blade flashed in the air behind him. The man’s shields popped in a spark, blood sprayed out of his back, and he screamed.

  He turned after Takezo, forming two globes of fire in his hands.

  Takezo stepped aside and slashed horizontally. His blade sliced the man’s throat. Blood flooded out, and Takezo stepped past him, finishing the move.

  The man stumbled forward and fell into the cauldron, the fireballs still in his hands.

  The cauldron exploded, the very steel that formed it tearing apart. Steel shards, gore, and burning drugs blasted through the room. I barely managed to cover my face.

  Some steel shards dug into my body. The explosion deafened me, the created vacuum tearing at my lungs. Dust filled the air.

  I breathed out and pulled a chunk of steel from my thigh. Then another one from my shoulder, and one more from my ribs. That one got a grunt from me.

  Takezo lay on the floor next to me, a dozen steel shards piercing his back.

  I knelt above him. “You alive?”

  He grunted, spitting blood.

  Yeah, that was the problem of the shields-focused build. Once something got past the shields, the damage could be devastating.

  I started pulling the steel shards from his back. With him being a demon, he would eventually regenerate, but that still went a lot faster without an embedded shrapnel.

  I grabbed the largest chunk of steel struck into his back, and pulled it out, trying to not tear out too much of his flesh in the process. The irony of him getting his back blown up because he wanted to act cool made me smirk. Though the no-look kill while walking past the opponent indeed looked Hell impressive.

  Now, I wasn’t gentle while removing the smaller pieces from his back to make up for it. I didn’t have any cool or flashy-looking techniques.

  But I was the last man standing. “You’re getting better at bleeding.”

  “He is indeed,” a melodic voice said next to me.

  I turned slightly and froze.

  Next to me stood Kallisto.