Chapter 25: Were we always so close to the south?

Like this, a week passed without any problems.

Hai and Ari kept working at the government office and even managed to get a promotion due to their excellent work. (Hai helped Ari).

Now, Hai is relaxing in the couch back in his hideout while laying down on Hong Li-Wei's thighs.

Elena is on the side brewing tea for them.

Everything was normal.

*TRING~*

Hai opened his eyes and felt his pocket vibrating.

He put his hand on it and took out his phone.

He saw that the caller was no other than Stella.

Although he found it strange why she suddenly contacted him out of nowhere, he picked up the call.

"Hel-"

"The plan is doomed." She quickly said.

"…"

Hai blinked his eyes.

"And…. Why is that?" He questioned with a slight serious tone.

Stella took sometime to answer but after a few seconds she did.

"Someone leaked a part of our plan."

"And they died just for it?" Few people knew about their plan. And the few that did all signed a magical contract that they would pay a heft price for breaking it.

Well, not really if they had a way around it. Which Hai and Stella did have.

"No. This is not important now. Right now, I'm running away from some executives from Krakler Firm." She said the last part in a grave tone.

Hai lost his laid-back attitude and got up from his lap pillow.

"What did you do to get them involved?" Hai asked while quickly running to his desk and taking out a tablet from there.

"The next phase involved getting some local for us to work in them. It just happened that a contact of mine apparently cooperated with the traitors and two locals he passed to me were in truth, experimentation sites of the Krakler Firm."

"Oh, how marvelous."

<This woman managed to get us all with our necks on a damn guillotine this early…>

Elena and Hong Li-Wei instantly lost their previous confusion and their eyes sharpened.

They looked between themselves and nodded.

Hai tapped a few times on the tablet and an alarm went off on his whole hideout.

His staff stopped what they were doing and when they saw the alarm, all of them in a neatly organized manner ran towards their designed areas.

Hai then got up from his desk while still on the phone.

"And?"

"*BANG*"

Hai's eyes grew colder when he noticed the situation was grimmer than it already looked.

"Woman, you better have a good plan to get us out of this." He said while his neon blue eyes glowed a bit.

"…"

"I…. don't." Her voice came out rather helpless.

She didn't know what to do. It wasn't in her plans to mess with the Krakler Firm, one of the main branches of a division of Nirvana, the mega corporation of The Phoenix.

"…"

"Can you get out of there?" Hai inquired while he threw his clothes away and started to change in front of Elena and Hong Li-Wei.

"No." A short but straightforward reply.

Right now, it would be a miracle if Stella didn't die even before being captured.

"What about the others?" Hai was talking about Ari and the others from their reunion.

"Aside from your partner and the other one, the other two quitted when they learned that the Krakler Firm was involved. Your partner is unable to help as she seems like she was also discovered and I couldn't contact the other one." Her tone was grim and the news didn't help.

"So, I assume they will come for me too." Right when Hai said this, a hologram appeared at the center of his office showing dozens of people dressed in black from one of the security cameras.

Right after, one of them, who seemed to be the leader rose their head, pointed at the security camera and pulled the trigger of their pistol.

The image went out.

"Stella." For the first time since the call connected, Hai called her by her name.

"Wh-What? *HUFF*" She seemed to be starting to get tired.

"Keep me updated about your location." He said while walking towards the door of his office.

"…"

"Are you going to try to help me? If so, don't even try. I already-"

"Stella, shut up." His tone was colder than ever before.

"…"

"Since the first time we meet, I have noticed that you were prideful and arrogant, a b*tch so to say. Even so, I didn't say anything and let you be yourself, let you guide us and make us do your bidding."

"…"

"Now, you have shown yourself more incompetent than what I thought you were. Your greed and pride have bitten your ass and are chewing you right now."

"…"

"Then, shut up and do as I say. Help you? I will save you, but the price is going to be high, higher than what you can pay, dear."

Hai hung up the call and kicked the door open.

*FUUSH*

Immediately the squadron of black dressed people outside his office froze.

*SHATTER*

Hai made all of them shatter and without wasting anytime he made iron spikes and fired towards the end of the corridor.

"Elena, Hong Li-Wei."

Without saying anything, Elena started to release her purple mist through the whole hideout.

Hong Li-Wei meanwhile hacked into Hai's security system and started to control the whole hideout.

*TAP*

*TAP*

Hai started walking towards the end of the corridor where there was a crossroad between two paths, one to the left and one to the right.

Picking a cigarette from his pocket, Hai put it in his mouth and lit it up, then he looked ahead with a neutral gaze.

'I'm getting tired of all this shit.'

It would be an understatement to say that Hai is pissed off. He is starting to consider if he should simply forget his plans and brute force his way through.

Arriving at the crossroad, Hai didn't even bother in looking, he simply turned to the left and started walking.

*PUCHI*

*PUCHI*

*PUCHI*

"GAH!"

"AAARRGGGHHH!!!"

"UGH!"

With groans, screams and other forms of expressing pain, all the invaders who were waiting in both paths to ambush Hai were skewed alive by iron spikes that came from the walls, ceiling and floor.

"Elena, take the right side. Hong Li-Wei, go with her." He said but stopped and turned to them.

"Also, sorry about it. I'm a bit angry right now. Love you both." He turned around and walked away.

Elena and Hong Li-Wei looked at each other and smiled.

They didn't get offended nor angry by Hai's attitude but even so, he still apologized.

They felt sweet inside but turned around as they had a job to do.

"Let's get this over quickly." Hong Li-Wei said and Elena nodded.

They both sprinted away on the corridor.

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*THUD*

*THUD*

*THUD*

*FUUSH*

Looking expressionlessly at the frozen bodies on the ground, one with a shotgun with enough barrels to be confused with a hive if saw from front; one with dual pistols and the last one having an anti-magical assault rifle, Hai turned to look forwards.

There stood two figures, one with knives whose edge glowed neon red and the other with a simple pistol in hand.

"So, Regulus and Swordmancer, will you say why did you sold me off or you just want to die like that?" Hai said and tilted his head to the left.

*SWOOSH*

A knife passed through where his head was and was frozen not even a second later.

"…"

"…"

Swordmancer, the one with the knives looked at Regulus, the leader of the team which Hai had contracted sometime ago for his little operation.

Truth to be told, Hai quite liked the team and kept them close for when he needed something.

He even treated them very well and with respect.

Unfortunately, it seems that wasn't enough.

"I'm sorry." Regulus said for the first time.

Hai kept his expressionless look.

"I don't want an apologize, I want a reason." His tone came out a bit colder that even Regulus had to contain themself from shivering slightly.

"…" They didn't answer and assumed their battle stances.

Hai smiled coldly seeing this.

"I hope your reason is worth enough to have betrayed me. You should know what happens to those close to me when they betray me, don't you?" His smile stopped looking simply cold and turned into something sinister in the eyes of Regulus and Swordmancer.

When dealing with Hai, if you betray him, death is a mercy you aren't granted.

Even the "corpses" on the ground aren't dead. They were put into cryogenic sleep but with their minds awake.

They will watch the passage of time and civilization, yet they won't be able to do anything.

They wouldn't feel happy for when the new year arrives.

They won't feel sad by watching funerals.

They won't feel hungry when looking at the feastings present in parties.

They won't feel sleepy when looking at a comfortable bed.

They will watch every one and everything passing yet, they will stay.

They will stay still, unable to move their own bodies and control their destinies.

This is the terror of going against Hai.

He can be considered a good boss, but he is far from being soft.

Regulus and Swordmancer flinched and their auras burst forth.

They can't lose this battle.

Falling into Hai's hands after betraying him is probably the worst thing being just after get entangled with a mega corporation.

*CLANG*

*CLANG*

*CLANG*

With several "clang" sounds, dozens of knives flew towards Hai at high speed.

Regulus didn't stay idle and emptied their gun's magazine.

Looking at the barrage of knives and bullets coming towards him, Hai's expression didn't fluctuate in the slightest.

He opened his lips and with his cigarette still in his mouth, he blew a bit of air.

*FUU*

A simple blew, that is all he did.

*FUUSH*

The bullets froze and fell to the ground.

The knives turned into icicles and broke apart.

Both of Regulus' and Swordmancer's feet and legs were also frozen.

They noticed it and tried to break free from the ice, but the ice was harder than reinforced tungsten and as there was a thick layer of ice holding them, they couldn't exert enough force to break it all in one go.

Hai started to walk calmly towards them.

He arrived near them and looked at Regulus.

"Any last words?" He asked.

"…" Regulus stood silent for a moment, but then opened their mouth.

"I regret nothing." They said and looked directly into Hai's eyes.

Hai nodded.

"Then, that's good. Anyway, see ya."

*FUUSH*

And just like this, Regulus, one of the most feared mercenaries in the Euro-Asian area was finished along with their whole team.

Hai looked at them and slid the ice blocks containing their whole bodies to the walls.

He moved the five of them and then, the walls opened.

Some of his staff came out, bowed to him and took the ice blocks inside.

'I should give them a rise. They aren't paid enough for this.' He thought and tapped his phone a few times.

He decided to see this matter with Elena once he finishes this whole mess.

He opened his chat with Stella and saw that there wasn't any update for her location.

Then, he called Hong Li-Wei.

"Hai?"

"Yup, it's me. How are things on your side?" He started walking towards the exit of his hideout.

"We have already finished everything. Elena took care of all of them in a jiff. What do you need me for?"

"Smart as always, that is my girl." He said while pushing open the door to the outside.

Hong Li-Wei blushed a bit but said nothing.

"Well, I need you to track Stella down. That b*tch didn't do as I said and she is going to pay the price for this too."

When Hai stepped outside, he was welcomed by helicopters, tanks, cars and tons of armed personnel.

'A private army.' He concluded.

"Done! The location is in your phone." Hong Li-Wei said on the other side of the call. It doesn't take much time to track someone down f they don't have a ton of security measures with them, something which Stella definitively doesn't have right now.

"Ok thanks, sweet~" Hai teased her and received a hung up as a response.

He simply smiled at it.

The army meanwhile wasn't idle.

The helicopters, tanks and everyone with guns aimed at Hai.

Then, not even a second later, they all fired.

And it was hell descending on Earth.

The only thing that happened however, was that it didn't happen.

When everyone tried to shoot Hai, they couldn't.

The "soldiers" looked below and saw their whole guns turned into blades and pierced their hearts and necks.

The helicopters and tanks stopped working completely and turned into iron maidens which instantly killed the ones inside them.

The "soldiers" fell to the ground dead.

The helicopters fell from the sky and crashed against the tanks and cars, thus blowing both up.

Hai started to calmly walk amidst this destruction, unperturbed by all the blood and fire around him.

He picked his phone and looked at it.

He smiled seeing Stella's current location.

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"Time to pick an annoying b*tch."

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A/N: Hello there, I hope you are having a wonderful day!

So, what did you guys think about this chapter?

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Now, I think that was all I wanted to say.

That is all for today, thank you all for reading! 🍷😎