After staying hidden for a minute, Jace decided it was time to move.
He silently opened the door and entered the room.
He walked in stealthily, and as he had foreseen, it was empty. Jace turned his head right; he saw a staircase that led to the floor above.
He stared at it, contemplating how he should proceed.
He wanted to be cautious and stealthy and finish it within moments.
But that didn't feel right. Well, that did feel right, but it didn't feel as though it was something a clown would do.
Then he finally understood what he must do.
Putting his hand into his pocket, he pulled out the knuckle and wore it on his hand.
Jace smiled widely as he walked to the staircase.
This time he didn't conceal himself; he walked out as his footsteps broke the silence of the night.
——
Francis sat in the chair at a table as he looked at the man before him.
Opposite of him sat a middle-aged man, who was counting money in his hands.
He had just made a run, where he picked up the hidden money and replaced it with a pack of drugs.
Francis had been told to watch over this job; after completion, he was going to receive the potion formulas for Sequence 7 Interrogator.
But the job was not going well this past month. Some clown was going around killing people who bought drugs.
He sighed.
He looked to his left where a thin man sat. He was told to work with the slim man.
The skinny man was a Beyonder, but Francis didn't know from which pathway; the guy was a man of few words.
He turned and looked again at the table before him.
There were a few packs of drugs and a few wads of cash; at least he was getting paid well.
But he suddenly got a feeling that something was off.
As a Sheriff, his intuition of things like this was not anything to ignore.
Francis slowly stood up and looked to the left, at the stairs that go down.
Seeing him alert, the skinny man got up as well.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Footsteps!
What's more was that Francis didn't recognize them to be those of his companions that were keeping watch below.
He pulled out the mystic revolver from his holster and pulled the trigger, pointing it at the stairs.
The skinny man, who was now alerted as well, walked near the stairway and concealed himself in the shadows of the wall nearby with a dagger in his hand.
The middle-aged man who was counting money looked at the caution of these men and got up and hid behind the table.
Francis was cautious but wasn't too worried; the skinny man was something of a silent killer and he himself was a Sequence 8 wielding a mystic artifact of Sequence 7 level—it was the gun in his hand!
Tap, tap.
The footsteps got louder. After a few more steps, a figure slowly emerged from the stairs.
He was dressed in a colorful, eye-catching jumpsuit, his hair was green, and his face was painted like a clown and his hands were bloody.
It didn't take much time for Francis to figure out that this was the murderous clown that was going around killing his buyers, and he was also a Beyonder.
The clown turned right, looking at Francis.
He had a wide, eerie smile and his eyes were crescent with amusement; he looked like he was having the time of his life.
Francis had his gun pointed at the clown.
But the clown chuckled.
"Hehe—"
The clown's face turned confused as his smile disappeared.
"Huh?"
He looked down only to see that there was a dagger deep in his left side.
But the clown made no sound of pain; the smile on his face returned even wider this time.
"Hehe, hehe."
———
Jace climbed the stairs slowly.
Just as he reached the last step, his Clown's Premonition flared.
He was going to get stabbed, but that was not a big problem. The artifact he wore would heal him; the only thing to worry about was the pain.
But he was surprised to see that someone was actually hidden there.
He turned to the man pointing a gun at him without breaking his act and chuckled.
But that was when he felt it—a cold sensation piercing his left side. He looked down and saw a dagger in him that he had anticipated.
It felt... uncomfortable, but not painful. At least not yet.
He smiled and chuckled.
Seeing Jace's reaction, the man with the gun prepared to pull the trigger and fired the gun.
But Jace had once again foreseen this.
He moved and grabbed the hand of the man who had stabbed him, and with great strength and speed, he pulled him before him to use him as a meat shield.
But the bullet that man fired was different; it was like a bright orange light straight out of a sci-fi movie, like a laser gun.
The bullet hit the meat shield in the right shoulder and exploded, and the body burst into flames.
The flames were wild and erratic. Just as they were about to reach Jace, he threw the body to the right as he himself, leaving an afterimage, moved left, escaping the flames.
Jace stopped two meters away from the burning body, but before the man with the sci-fi gun could aim and fire the gun again, Jace moved with incredible speed, leaving behind afterimages.
He reached the man and grabbed his wrist, disarming him of the gun.
His other arm shot out and grabbed his throat and lifted him up.
The man flailed his legs and tried to release himself from Jace's grip in struggle, but he only saw the clown smiling wide at him.
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A/N: leave some reviews and power stones