Steve is Fooled, Breaking into the Villa
Whoosh!
Seizing the absolute perfect moment of distraction at the front gates, Arthur pulled the cold metal trigger of the heavy Sniper crossbow.
The massive, armor-piercing bolt whistled lethally through the thick night air, a nearly invisible streak of black death cutting through the darkness.
Not only did it accurately, flawlessly hit the massive electrical distribution box mounted on the side of Steve's fortified villa, but its specialized, alloy-forged arrowhead easily, violently pierced straight through the thick aluminum alloy casing, devastating the delicate high-voltage circuitry inside.
A violent shower of blue sparks erupted, illuminating the stone wall for a microsecond. After only a breathless heartbeat, the blazing floodlights illuminating Steve's sprawling villa flickered and died. The entire luxury estate was suddenly plunged into suffocating, pitch-black darkness.
"Success!"
Arthur felt a cold surge of predatory satisfaction. He quickly, seamlessly stored the heavy Sniper crossbow back into his invisible private space.
In the absolute next moment, he leaped aggressively down from the massive oak tree.
With his physical attributes already sitting at more than double that of an ordinary, healthy adult man, he easily and silently absorbed the heavy impact of dropping from a three-meter-high branch, landing in a perfect crouch.
Then, Arthur's raw physical speed violently exploded.
He ran at an absolute, full-out sprint, his heavy tactical boots tearing across the dry hillside exactly like a hunting leopard.
The tactical distance was roughly a hundred meters, and he was running rapidly, aggressively down the steep incline of the mountain.
Despite the treacherous twists, loose rocks, and sudden drops on the dark slope, it took absolutely only about ten frantic seconds for Arthur to reach the imposing perimeter wall on the dark side of the villa.
Looking up at the smooth concrete wall, which stood nearly three meters high and was topped with a lethal, high-voltage electric fence,
Arthur didn't hesitate for a single, microscopic second.
He leaped aggressively upward, his powerful leg muscles propelling him into the air, and easily grabbed the top edge of the concrete wall with both calloused hands.
He gripped the rough concrete firmly with one hand, suspending his muscular body weight effortlessly over the sheer drop.
With his free hand, he seamlessly pulled out a pair of heavy, pre-prepared industrial bolt cutters directly from his invisible private space.
The power was temporarily cut, meaning the lethal electric current was currently dead. In just about ten frantic seconds, the heavy steel jaws of the cutters snapped through the thick wire, completely opening a wide, jagged gap in the security fence.
After flawlessly putting away the heavy tool, he pushed off hard against the wall with his boots and vaulted his broad shoulders onto the top of the concrete.
Then, sliding smoothly through the jagged gap he had just cut, Arthur jumped silently down and easily entered the fortified perimeter of Steve's luxury villa.
***
"Quick!"
"Catch him!"
"Someone violently damaged the main distribution box! Go start the massive backup generator right now!"
"Catch him, absolutely do not let him get away!"
"Careful, check your fire! Do not shoot blindly into the dark!"
As the blinding lights of the villa completely went out, the entire front gate of the estate immediately, violently fell into absolute chaos.
Because the heavily armed mercenaries had been standing under blinding, high-intensity floodlights just a second before, the sudden, total loss of light, made Steve and his ruthless men feel temporarily, completely blind.
In a fit of panicked paranoia, Steve instinctively raised his heavy AK-47 and violently fired a deafening, full-auto burst directly toward the exact spot where Charlie Croker had just been standing.
A split second after pulling the trigger, Steve's racing mind remembered that Charlie allegedly had a highly volatile bomb strapped directly to his chest.
But the deafening shots Steve fired aggressively acted exactly like a lethal signal to his jumpy men.
His highly trained subordinates also instinctively raised their weapons and began firing a massive hail of lead toward Charlie's last known position.
In the suffocating darkness, it was completely inevitable that the panicked mercenaries would shoot wildly due to their temporary loss of night vision.
Steve was nearly hit by a richocheting stray bullet whining off the asphalt. He quickly ducked behind the armored SUV and shouted furiously for them to completely cease fire.
The violent, chaotic crossfire lasted for over a grueling minute. Only as everyone's dilated pupils gradually adjusted to the faint moonlight did the random, deafening shooting finally end.
"Charlie, !"
The absolute moment Steve's vision sufficiently recovered, he instinctively looked out from behind cover toward the parked Volkswagen sedan.
With the faint help of the silver moonlight cutting through the smoke, he immediately noticed that there was absolutely no one standing by the car Charlie had just driven in. The master thief had vanished into the shadows.
However, Steve's sharp, paranoid eyes also noticed something else on the cracked asphalt, a fresh, glistening trail of dark bloodstains on the ground, located exactly right in the area where Charlie had been aggressively standing just moments before.
It completely seemed that in the chaotic, blinding moment the lights went out, someone's blind fire had actually shot and violently wounded Charlie before he could escape.
Steve let out a raw, angry roar into the night air, feeling exactly as though he had been played and humiliated once again.
He instinctively moved to aggressively rush toward the dark villa, because he knew the beautiful Stella Bridger was securely locked up inside.
Steve knew perfectly well with absolute certainty that Charlie was there strictly to rescue her. But after running only two or three frantic steps, Steve suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
"You guys, get back to the main villa right now!"
He pointed a firm, authoritative finger at several of his heavily armed subordinates and violently issued the tactical command.
"Yes, sir!"
Several mercenaries immediately piled into an armored, bulletproof SUV and sped aggressively up the driveway toward the dark villa to secure the hostage.
Meanwhile, Steve quickly walked over to the abandoned Volkswagen sedan Charlie had aggressively driven to the gate.
"Open it!"
He ordered his remaining men to yank the car doors open, only to see that the dark interior was completely, utterly empty.
"The trunk! Pop the damn trunk!"
A subordinate hurriedly rushed to the back and aggressively pried the heavy trunk open. The absolute moment the lid sprang up,
Under the pale moonlight, the deep rear compartment of the heavy trunk was completely filled with a rich, metallic golden hue, appearing exceptionally dazzling to the greedy eyes looking down.
"Hiss!"
With just a single, quick glance at the massive pile of gleaming bars, Steve's breathing instantly became incredibly heavy and ragged.
The breathing of the heavily armed subordinates aggressively following him also grew noticeably thick with sudden, undeniable lust.
"Gold bars?"
Steve even heard one of the hardened mercenaries standing right beside him cry out in genuine, unfiltered surprise, completely unable to contain his raw greed.
Steve's paranoid heart immediately sank like a stone. Thinking violently back to the bloody betrayal of his own subordinates in Europe over a year ago, his handsome expression darkened into a mask of pure, lethal malice.
These people absolutely cannot be allowed to live, Steve thought, his grip tightening around his assault rifle.
Steve had always been an incredibly suspicious, ruthless man by nature.
He had previously experienced a tight-knit group of his own loyal subordinates who, exactly after learning he had violently kept a staggering ton of gold bars entirely for himself, aggressively wanted to split the massive fortune with him equally.
Back then, he had coldly spent a considerable amount of violent effort and ammunition to completely, ruthlessly clean out and execute that entire group of greedy subordinates.
Now, another dangerous group of heavily armed men knew Steve's absolute biggest, most lucrative secret.
In a single, terrifying instant, a cold, calculated murderous intent toward these current subordinates aggressively arose in his dark heart.
However, Steve also tactically knew perfectly well that right now, in the middle of a chaotic blackout with a wounded intruder loose, was absolutely not the time to violently turn on his own security force.
He aggressively slammed the heavy rear compartment shut, not even bothering to carefully, physically check the individual bars.
Otherwise, Steve's paranoid eyes would have definitely discovered something incredibly wrong.
Although the heavy 'gold bars' stacked in the rear compartment were the exact same shape and size as his lost gold, and even flawlessly featured the exact same Balinese dancer stamp stamped into the metal,
Because they absolutely weren't pure gold at all, there were massive, undeniable differences in their actual physical weight, metallic density, and superficial luster.
" YOU FEW!!, go check around the entire outer perimeter of the villa first to see if absolutely anyone took advantage of the sudden power outage to sneak in under the heavy cover of darkness."
"Then, immediately head back up to the main villa to regroup defensively with us."
He aggressively adjusted the heavy AK-47 in his hands, his dark eyes looking at the men with a fierce, lethal intensity that promised violence.
The hardened subordinates had been working with Steve for some time, and even they were momentarily startled and deeply unnerved by the pure, unfiltered murder in his cold look.
"Yes, sir!"
One of the mercenaries quickly responded, violently suppressing his own sudden, blinding greed for the massive pile of gold.
The remaining few heavily armed men finally snapped out of their gold-induced daze and hurriedly followed suit.
Immediately, they climbed into another armored, off-road vehicle and drove aggressively out to patrol the dark main gate and outer walls.
Steve let out a cold, arrogant snort once he saw them safely drive away into the dark.
With the massive pile of 'gold bars' apparently safely returned to him, his paranoid, violent mood improved significantly.
He walked smoothly over to the driver's seat of the Volkswagen sedan and saw the metal keys were still resting perfectly in the ignition.
Steve quickly got in, aggressively restarted the heavy vehicle, flipped on the bright headlights, and drove the heavy payload straight toward the dark villa.
He was completely, blissfully unaware that at this exact, lethal moment, Arthur Sterling was exactly like a predatory leopard moving flawlessly and silently through the surrounding darkness.
Arthur had already aggressively rushed to the front structure of Steve's sprawling villa under the heavy cover of night. He fluidly reached into his invisible private space and pulled out a heavy, industrial-grade Window Breaker Hammer.
Swinging the heavy steel tool with absolutely all his superhuman might, he smashed it aggressively toward a large, first-floor window of Steve's dark villa.
Bang!
Crash!
Under Arthur's terrifying physical strength, which was vastly more than twice that of a healthy, average man, the heavy Window Breaker Hammer easily, violently shattered the thick, large pane of custom Tempered Glass. Thousands of glass shards rained down onto the interior floor.
Arthur crossed his muscular arms defensively over his face and lunged aggressively through the jagged opening, instantly diving flawlessly inside the dark, opulent room.
He quickly, silently put away the heavy Window Breaker Hammer back into his void, his right hand trembling slightly from the massive kinetic feedback of the blow.
That paranoid guy is really incredibly ruthless, Arthur thought, massaging his wrist in the dark.
The heavy Tempered Glass in these custom windows is at least 15mm thick. Even with my enhanced physical strength, which is more than twice that of a normal man, I almost couldn't violently break it in one single go.
Arthur felt incredibly lucky and tactically vindicated that he had come absolutely fully prepared. When he had flawlessly sneaked into Steve's luxury villa the last time,
He clearly saw that there were countless, highly lethal traps meticulously placed in the villa and logically worried that the large windows might absolutely all be custom-made, bullet-resistant Tempered Glass.
Therefore, directly before coming tonight, Arthur had specifically, aggressively purchased a heavy-duty Window Breaker Hammer to securely carry with him in his private space.
Now, the meticulous tactical preparation had certainly, flawlessly proven its massive worth.