Chapter 9 : Ability

A man about thirty years old, with black hair, slit eyes, a closely shaved beard, wearing a black suit and a silver watch was hidden on the roof of the third building opposite James' apartment.

He looked at his watch calmly and seeing that it was 5 p.m. opened a black briefcase that was 30 cm away from him.

He took several pieces of metal from the case and assembled them for about ten minutes, forming a lightweight sniper rifle with urban camouflage and a silencer.

He lay flat on the ground, then put his right eye in the scope and aimed at the window of an apartment 14m away.

He lowered his breathing rate and waited patiently.

Time passed and his target still did not appear, but he remained calm and kept waiting, perhaps it was his meticulous vigilance or his sharpened senses but he suddenly sensed an impending danger, so he dropped his weapon, and without hesitation rolled to his left, narrowly avoiding a knife thrown with an inhuman force.

Then a slight whitish aura escaped from his body and his gaze turned to his assailant and he was actually his target.

James, who had just missed his surprise attack, was at first astonished by the aura emanating from the man in front of him, then he also let his aura escape from his body before rushing towards the man.

"A Seiki Master, how is that possible!"

Then, without hesitation, the man jumped off the roof and grabbed a window sill, then gradually descended, James seeing this took his knife from the floor and jumped as well, then channeled his aura into the knife which he then used to pierce the wall, sliding down using the knife to slow his fall.

The man then went down, but as soon as his foot touched the ground he disappeared.

James, who had also just come down when he saw this, was at first surprised, but he quickly took up a defensive position and scanned the surroundings.

"What is this ability? Stealth?" He thought as he held his knife tightly.

He had just walked down in a narrow and empty alleyway, it was about 5:24 p.m., the noise of the crowd and cars in the nearby street disturbed his concentration.

But suddenly he remembered one of his accessories and quickly removed his glasses from his inventory and wore it.

Then he saw the man leave the alley.

He then began to chase him, left the alley and saw the man heading towards his apartment building.

He then continued his pursuit but when he entered the building he lost track of the man, so he took a second knife from his belt and began to climb the stairs leading up to his floor.

"Who is this person? Before he fled I saw that he possessed an energy similar to my aura, but in smaller quantities than me."

"But why is he heading to my apartment? Wait a minute! Now that I think about it when I confronted the monster and killed it why my neighbors reacted, normally with the thickness of the walls no sound should escape my apartment."

Thinking about it he continued walking down the corridor leading to his apartment, but at the same time the monster with the floating head came out of the wall and attacked him at an extremely fast speed.

James then leaned to his left as a reflex, narrowly dodging the monster, but when he tried to counterattack, the monster entered the wall and disappeared.

He then took up a defensive position, while maintaining his vigilance.

"What's going on? Wait...maybe the sound heard by the neighbors wasn't from my fight, it must have been another enemy, he must have some ability like my flames or invisibility of the man I was chasing."

"When the invisible man entered the building he disappeared, but if it was because of his invisibility my glasses would surely have spotted him."

"Noise in the wall, invisible man disappeared once he enter in building, the attack of the floating head monster that can disappear into the wall, no doubt there must be two or three assailants and one of them has the ability to sneak into the wall and bring whoever he or she wants with him/her."

Then James ran down the hallway holding his knife firmly as he walked towards the door of his apartment.

"But in order to attack me they are forced to leave the wall, I need only discover their location and then launch a quick attack against the person with the ability."

Then he put his key in the lock and opened the door, but without even bothering to check the room, he moved backwards, at the same time the headless monster launched a new offensive, this time coming out of the floor.

Blue flames covered his fists and without thinking he hit the floating head with all his power then monster screaming with pain and roar as was reduced to ashes.

At the same time a woman dressed completely in black with blue hair and the invisible man came out of the wall slowly and fell into the hallway about 20 feet from James as if they pushed away by an invisible force.

Then the two looked at James with surprise and tried to get up again, but before they had time, James threw two of his knives at them.