Assassination Team

Zak engaged with the fat guy, probably he wanted to compare his spear prowess thus he chose the one with the spear. Since he went towards them, the axe guy focused on him too and tried to flank him. I had to reveal myself and take the shot before he managed to engage him.

The bullet was deflected by his skin. It was like if it was covered by rocks. There was a little dent in the place the bullet hit, so at least it wasn't an absolute defense, and I probably can break through it with perfect accuracy or the tomahawk.

The guy noticed me and changed his target to me. I used the pistol to shot a quick burst, but my control was weak, and I couldn't hit the same place more than once and not even mention about hitting a weak-point.

The guy was almost next to me, so I changed weapons to my kukri and the tomahawk.

Even with his stone skin, the guy speed was average, and from the way, he swung his axe it didn't seem like he could enhance his strength either. His absurd defense was the only power I have seen thus far. The kukri was a normal weapon, so I planned to use it to trick him and deflect his attacks, while the tomahawk would be used to damage him.

On the other side of the battle, I noticed that Zak quickly got the upper hand. Zak also had light wounds, but the fat guy kept trading hits instead of defending, and Zak superior strength let him gain the upper hand.

The axe guy arrived in front of me and was swung his axe from above his head slashing at me. Even if the axe wasn't big, the movement he did was so wide that I didn't need to use time distortion and calmly moved to the side. I was ready to counter with the tomahawk when I noticed the aura moving and appearing on the floor near me, and an earth spike appeared aiming at my head.

I used time distortion to avoid it and jumped back. I noticed that a part of his skin wasn't covered by stone anymore, but the stone appeared again while the earth spike fell apart and only remained a little pile of soil in its place.

I took a look at the other battle and found that all the wounds on the fat guy have healed. The axe guy didn't let me think too much about it, and he had already charged again and made the same movement to attack, but this time the earth spike never came and what came at me was one of his feet.

The way his aura moved reminded me of G, generally he was reinforcing his defenses, but when he attacks the aura creates a new attack like the earth spike or reinforces the part he is using to attack. He was slow, but the appearance of the earth spike was difficult to predict.

I had just avoided another kick. I used time distortion again and rolled to his back. Since the aura was now focused on his foot, I hit his support leg on the knee with the tomahawk.

After observing the way the aura moved for a while, I noticed that it couldn't reinforce the joints too much because it would hinder the mobility even more, so the all the joints could be considered a weak point. Even if the stone layer was thinner, it was not enough to cut with the kukri, but it was enough to do some damage with the tomahawk.

My theory was correct. I strike the knee, and it bends right away. The tomahawk went through his defenses and blood appeared for the first time in our fight. When I pulled the tomahawk out, he fell to one knee. I was about to hit his neck when my sixth sense tingled, I tilted my head the moment a spear passed next to my ear.

The fat guy was coming this way. At a distance, I could see Zak following him covered in wounds.

I was about to attack again, but I could feel the killing intent, and a new earth spike appeared at my feet.

I had to move to the side to dodge it. Unfortunately, this cleared the way for the guy to arrive at the axe guy and I also lost my chance to finish him off.

After that first spike, more started to appear near my feet, and I had to keep dodging. The rock layer that was on the guy before was non-existent right now, he was focusing all his power on attacking me.

I was going to change weapons. But at that moment a second spear flew and got stuck in the guy chest. Without the improved protection of the stone skin, his defenses were average, so he had no way to prevent the spear from going through his shoulder.

Since the spikes attack stopped, I could attack the fat guy.

He was even slower than the guy I was fighting before, the problem was that the wounds I made on him were being healed almost instantly. With the layers of fat around him, it was difficult to hurt him severely. I used another time distortion. But this was to throw the tomahawk at the guy with the spear on his shoulder.

He was going to die soon anyway, but I wanted the points.

To hit a bigger and static target was easier when compared to hit rats so the tomahawk, got stuck on him. He was slowly being covered by the stone skin again, but the tomahawk was harder than his skin. The guy fell and probably was bleeding out already.

The fat guy wanted to punch me, so I tilted my head for it to pass by and tried to cut him with the kukri. The time around me came back to normal.

Zak arrived and threw a punch to the guy's jaw. He turned around and fought with Zak, probably I was too fast for him, and since he was going to die anyway he thinks that he has more probabilities of killing Zak than me. I took advantage of it and moved to leave his sight and attack from a blind spot.

I swung the kukri towards his neck and blood spurted from it. Any other person would have died shortly, but he turned around to fight me. And the wound was being healed.

On my left hand, I had a push dagger, I dodged to get near him, and with a fast hook, I pierced his throat. He was drowning, but this guy was tough to kill. I noticed that he wasn't as fast as before. I twisted the dagger and pulled out.

The guy is in a weakened state, so I kicked him, and he fell flat on his back. While on the floor I could see his neck wound healing at visible speed. I took out my Five-seveN (5-7) and burst his head, only at the second round of bullets I received the notification of his death.

[Congratulation for killing a D-Rank Human Esper, 30 system points and 1 skill point rewarded]

The skill point was unexpected, but I was going to ask about it later.

I went to see the other guy but found that he was already dead. I took the tomahawk and noticed that I didn't hit a vital point, so the reason for his death was that blood loss from the spear wound… therefore it wasn't my kill.

I stood there and touched his body with my hand.

Like before, all I could see was black. Someone took him out of a blood pool. Just like the other guy he had seen only 3 people. A mission partner, that was the other guy we killed, a young man about 15 years that was the one that brought him food, and a pale skinny guy that gave the orders.

I thought about it for a second. Unlike the other guy that had the mission to kidnap, this group was in charge of killing people in this area. Their objective wasn't Dr. Harting as I thought, but anyone that passes through here. I noticed that they had killed about 4 people and moved around this area from time to time, with the time lapses it was impossible to be sure about the amount of time that they had been here.

After finishing with him, I checked the other guy, but I didn't find anything new.

The things about the third party were escalating. I need to discover what was that blood pool. Right now I feel like there is some kind of brainwash or something like that, but it should be more than that.

Also, I already seen to teams with different objectives. The kidnappers that probably was related to the people that get brainwashed on the blood pool. The assassins that are sent here to weaken other groups.

It was a new piece of the puzzle, but I had to figure out how does the blood pool works, but killing these people is not going to give me answers, I need to get one of the guys giving orders.