Chapter 9: Slaying the Newt

With that, Gambling Snake raised his gun and emptied the magazine, sending four shots toward the balding man's head, heart, abdomen and knee.

The man stood his ground, blood blossoming as though every shot had struck home. But the gunfire was only a prelude. The instant the last bullet left the barrel, Gambling Snake discarded the gun and drew a sleeve blade. He darted forward so fast he seemed to leave an afterimage, sweeping the blade toward the man's throat.

Seconds later, the balding man actually caught the sleeve blade in one hand, stopping Gambling Snake's attack. Blood ran from his palm, but he seemed utterly unconcerned. With a bullet lodged just above the space between his eyebrows, he grinned viciously through a face covered in blood. “Good moves. Good shooting, too. Shame...” With his other hand, he picked the bullet out of his forehead. Beneath a layer of flesh, dark metallic scales showed through. “You can't hurt me.”

Gambling Snake immediately abandoned the blade and leaped back several yards to avoid being caught in the grip of this bulletproof, bladeproof monster. Seeing him retreat, the man grew bolder and strode forward with broad, forceful steps.

Just as the balding man was about to attack, Gambling Snake stepped lightly against the wall beside him and flipped up to the hotel's second floor. Before disappearing from view, he dropped something black like a hen laying an egg. It landed right where he had been standing.

Then the grenade exploded...

In just ten seconds, Gambling Snake reached the roof of a house fifty meters away. As the smoke from the explosion cleared, he saw a humanoid monster standing there, its body covered in tough, ironlike scales. The middle-aged man's flesh had merely been an outer covering. The blast had stripped most of it away, revealing his true form.

Experience suggested that mutants were usually very difficult to deal with. Those whose abilities manifested directly in their bodies were seldom weaker than Normal rank. Generally, even without any specialized training, they grew stronger simply by growing older. In combat, they also tended to control their bodies more easily than ability users of the same rank whose powers were more complex.

“You've got quite a few tricks.” He had already located Gambling Snake. Tearing off the artificial skin shredded by the explosion, he picked up speed as he approached.

“I haven't had the pleasure of your name...”

“Roda Rich. Or Iron Newt.” As Iron Newt spoke, he leaped into the air. “Don't worry. The count wants you alive.”

Gambling Snake immediately turned and jumped toward the roof of another nearby building. Three or four meters posed no difficulty. But Iron Newt's jumping ability was far beyond that of an ordinary man. Once he reached the roof, he immediately leaped again, coiling his body and springing upward. In midair, he passed over Gambling Snake's head, his iron-clawed hand bearing down with the force of his descent.

The blow came down with the weight of the sky. No body of flesh and blood could withstand it. Gambling Snake's response remained calm and swift. He drew a flexible sword from his belt and gave it a shake, straightening the blade. His movements combined lightness and agility with weight and ferocity. He raised the sword to meet the attack, once again aiming for his opponent's face.

With this weapon in hand, Gambling Snake naturally had several feet of reach on Iron Newt. Suspended in the air with no footing, Iron Newt could not freely alter the direction of his fall. He had to grab the blade. This time, his grip drew no blood. Of course, the earlier blood had only come from the artificial skin. Metal scraped against his scales with a ringing clang, doing him no harm at all.

Gambling Snake abandoned his weapon again. Using the few seconds he had gained, he ducked low and slid down the sloping roof, caught the gutter with one hand, then dropped along the wall. He rolled on landing to absorb the impact and used the remaining momentum to launch himself into a run. Once moving, he was at least as fast as a middle- or long-distance runner.

Iron Newt shouted after him, “Let's see how many weapons you've got hidden on you!”

He had no need to go to all that trouble. He jumped straight off the three-story roof and landed on both feet, cracking the concrete beneath them. But just as Iron Newt landed, before he could steady himself, three throwing knives came whistling toward him. One was aimed at his left eye, another at his throat, and the last at his ankle.

This time he really was caught a little off guard. He quickly stepped back twice, covering his face with one hand. Two of the three knives struck the back of his hand; the low one missed.

Gambling Snake had kept running even as he threw the knives. The attack let him put considerably more distance between them.

Iron Newt's humiliation was turning to anger. Here was someone he could crush with one hand, yet the man was like a mosquito, biting and fleeing. He had slapped until his palm hurt without drawing so much as half a drop of the other man's blood.

With a roar, Iron Newt charged like a derailed locomotive. At that moment, even a sports car hurtling into his path from the side would surely have been knocked over by the collision.

But Gambling Snake stopped running. He turned back, another sleeve blade appearing in his left hand, and stood waiting for Iron Newt to approach. For a moment, he seemed once more a proud, solitary swordsman, determined to wait until his enemy's killing move was almost upon him before he acted.

Iron Newt had expected the collision to shatter Gambling Snake's bones and tear his tendons, leaving him utterly incapable of resistance. But the instant they made contact, alarm seized him. The man who had been right before his eyes vanished. In those two brief seconds, Iron Newt's extraordinary ability to track movement caught nothing at all. His charge stopped, too. He staggered a few steps, then collapsed, unable to support himself.

Only then did the blood spray out. Nearly ten wounds appeared on Iron Newt's body. His terrified expression showed that he had no idea what had just happened.

Gambling Snake walked into Iron Newt's field of vision, crouched and aimed the sleeve blade at his throat. Before his opponent could get out even the beginnings of a plea for mercy, he drove it in, ending the life of a Strong-rank ability user.

After killing Iron Newt, Gambling Snake did not relax. He stood and surveyed his surroundings. Farther down the street, quite a few pedestrians were watching the scene in terror. That meant the police would be here soon.

It had grown dark, making this a good time to leave. Gambling Snake returned to his hotel room to collect a few things before leaving, but the moment he entered, he knew someone had been inside. Apparently, besides the two men in the car, Iron Newt had brought other companions. They had kept out of sight, presumably because they had no wish to fight him directly and meet an untimely end.

In any case, Gambling Snake would not be taking a single thing from the room. He had neither the equipment nor the time to check all his belongings for listening or tracking devices. Fortunately, he had not left the book titled Gilson II in the room. Otherwise, there was no telling whose hands it would be in now.

When he left the room, the wailing sirens were already very close. The police were probably gathered around Iron Newt's corpse by now. If he didn't get moving, he might find himself trapped inside the hotel.

Gambling Snake put on his sunglasses and climbed over the wall at one side of the hotel parking lot. He jogged three blocks, stopped at a traffic light, waved to a group of trendily dressed young people in a convertible and walked straight over. They were stopped before the crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn green. Seeing a middle-aged man in such a retro getup approaching, they casually let fly a few curses, paid their respects to his entire family and laughed for no particular reason. Their only remotely constructive remark was, “Looking for trouble, you hick?”

Gambling Snake really did seem to carry a lot of weapons. He pulled another handgun from the inside pocket of his suit and calmly pointed it at the four people in the car. “Get out.”

“Hahaha! Playing hitman in your funeral suit? Who're you trying to scare with that fake gun? Hahaha!” one of them laughed. The other three soon joined in, though their expressions were a little stiff. Apparently, they weren't entirely sure about the situation either. But once you'd taken showing off that far, you had to brazen it out...

Gambling Snake spent four seconds fitting a suppressor to the gun. He watched the four of them from behind his sunglasses, his face expressionless, then raised his arm without even aiming and shot out the traffic light at his three o'clock. After firing, he pointed the gun back at the four people in the car. “I know you're tempted to hit the gas. But from a standing start, this car would take more than ten seconds to get out of my sight, even accelerating as fast as it can. So... get out.”

They raised their hands and climbed sheepishly out of the car. Gambling Snake sat down behind the wheel, turned toward the young driver and waved him over with the gun.

Drenched in cold sweat, the young man edged a few steps closer. “Is... is there something else... sir?”

Gambling Snake held the gun at an angle that would blow the young man's head off if it went off accidentally. “Remember this, kid. Anytime, anywhere, when you see someone in a funeral suit pointing a gun at you, you'd better take him seriously.”

“Yes, sir. I'll remember.” His expression really was quite serious now.

Gambling Snake hit the gas and drove off, leaving the four of them rooted to the spot. It took them quite a while even to think of calling the police.