Exposed

As if the gunshot had triggered something, the short man didn't stop but instead sped up. Speeding up to an unbelievable speed, he reached in front of Adrian in an instant, but he seemed to have not been flustered by the speed. He deftly parried the initial attack with a knife from his left hand and stabbed the one in right towards the heart.

It was an extremely vicious move, completely meant to kill disregarding the rules of trip and university. That was because he had sensed a threat, a deadly threat from the man in front of him. He couldn't risk anyone's life here, not when he could possibly be capable of handling it, the only one capable.

The gun shot had deterred the rest of the students who had surrounded the group and were simply stuck in their positions, hesitant about what to do since they were new to this entire thing, with no loyalty whatsoever for the short man.

As soon as he had felt something wrong, with quick reflexes, Maximus immediately focused his senses on the short man. In an instant, his ability allowed him to grasp the underlying laws of the body, making it known to him that the physical capability of the short man had increased tremendously.

Closely following the fight, he swiftly extracted the 'toughness' of the area around the heart of the short man just as Adrian stabbed his knife. A wave of dizziness hit him but he managed to not show anything as he focused on the fight.

The knife missed. But the short man's eyes widened as the knife had still somehow managed to stab him despite him reinforcing the body. Clenching his teeth, he attempted to swing his knife at Adrian but another shot rang as a bullet accurately pierced through his palm.

*ARGH*

Two more bullets rained down on him, accurately hitting his legs as he buckled up. Maximus and everyone looked ahead as a familiar headed their way, his gait hurried as another blue clothed person walked beside him.

It was Sebastian, their principal. He looked to the side at the man who had accompanied him who in turn nodded imperceptibly. Sebastian waved his hand in the air, likely a form of signal, and indeed, a shot rang out as a wide expanse of net blanketed over the groaning man.

A soldier walked out from behind the trees and just as he was about to round up the net to carry it on his back, Maximus's eyes twitched, controlling hard to keep his emotions under control.

The souls he ate always resided within the bodies, even when he intended to eat them, they only came out as gray swirling masses of clouds heading towards his mouth. Never had he seen a soul — judging from how no one else except Maximus and the blue clothed man saw it, of which the latter's attention was on the soul as he tightly clenched his hands — so… conscious. A blood red figure had escaped the short man's body, and had already begun running.

The blue clothed man seems to have charged up as he drew the clenched hand backwards, quickly making a motion of throwing a spear. Instantly, Maximus saw a blood red spear form in the man's hand as it flew through the air and impaled the blood red figure.

Maximus suddenly remembered and applied back the 'toughness' on the area around the short man's heart before anyone could notice it. This time he noticed that it hadn't taken him that much 'fuel' to complete the task.

No one else had any inkling of what was going on, with everyone blankly staring at the funny idiotic motions the blue clothed man was doing. Sebastian looked at the now pale man and asked,

"How is it Robin?", the blue clothed man, as it turned out his name was Robin, replied while taking short breaths. "It has been injured but I can't make another attack. It might run away."

Sebastian quickly turned around and shouted at the top of his lungs,

"EVACUATE!!! MOVE! MOVE! SOLDIERS! Make sure no animal or human stays in the area, quickly evacuate.", turning towards another soldier, he ordered, "Go bring a few M1 boxes we brought along. Take other soldiers along but be quick."

Maximus resisted his intense hunger which had flared up as soon as he had set his eyes upon the red figure, which increased even more as the spear critically injured it, he didn't want to take the risk now as he was pretty sure Robin could see, or at least sense the soul.

Sebastian looked to the side at Maximus and others who were packing up their stuff and hollered, "Leave the fucking things and run towards base camp you idiots. No ones going to cut your damn points over this. Soldiers! Keep watch over the kids, don't let them run around or mix with others."

*****

The next few minutes were absolute chaos as Maximus ran alongside several of his teammates. He slightly shifted over to Seraphina's side and whispered,

"We seem to have witnessed something we shouldn't have, something weird and strange. Do you think they'll silence us? Should we make an escape? We won't have any chance later on."

Seraphina instead her rolled eyes as she looked at him with an amused expression, she replied,

"I don't think so. Didn't you see how the principal only intended to catch the man after all that and not kill him? The implications of a student dying are far greater than you think for our university in particular.

"A lot of people are after Sir Sebastian, our university is one of the more prestigious ones in the city or even in the country so a lot of people are after his position because he also happens to be the one who owns the university.

"Because he built it up from the scratch, practically from nothing, he owns a huge percentage of its shares. People can't wait to get their hands on this piece of cake. I don't think he would risk anything such as this.

"Besides that, why are you jumping to such strange conclusions? Why would we be silenced for witnessing a student lose control and witnessing another man who made weird actions? Do you know something I don't?"

"Nope, I was just too scared I guess. Sorry for that."

Maximus heaved a mental sigh as he continued running. He was quite anxious just now, contemplating if he should use his powers to run away, although it would have been doubtful if he could amidst literally an army of soldiers.

'Wasn't that a supernatural being beside the principal? So they indeed aren't as secretive as I thought. So does that mean that people at the top already have an idea about them? With some even starting to use them for themselves? No, it couldn't be.

'That person from the organization I joined had said that not many people knew about them yet, with their organization being among the first few. Could it be that the principal belongs to that organization? Probably at a high post too since it didn't seem like he was below the soul-spear supernatural being. Is he one himself? Shit I still don't have much information.'

His initial decision to run was partly due to the fact that he didn't yet know how supernatural beings were treated. If he knew that Sebastian was the recruiter of the organization he had joined as a peripheral member or even how he was still searching for them to join his organization, he wouldn't have thought this way.

They had come to a stop, Maximus noticed that this base was far better than the one they had. It was likely made by the army for the different headmasters.

Maximus took a seat on the log and began contemplating his future course of actions if everything indeed went well like Seraphina had said. The next few hours were pretty much a blur as Maximus ate with his teammates and went to sleep.

The soldiers had informed them that the principal was still busy and would come tomorrow to have a talk with them. They also didn't need to rotate to keep watch as they would be doing it for the entire camp anyway.

"Aren't you one of the 'weird and strange' ones too?"