Chapter 493

Arthur wondered what it said about him, that his third date in seven months was trying to kill him. 

A hand held back the pushing knife, a light nick on his arm being combatted by his Advanced Healing immediately, thankful that he had upgraded his poison resistance in the last Tower run. Of course, he had cursed the Burmese Tower back and forth for having an entire Tower dedicated to nothing but poisonous and venomous plants and animals, but it had seen a significant  - and the first major - bump in his Advanced Healing technique in a while. 

Shifting to the side, Arthur tossed the woman with his other hand. She tumbled aside, sprawled and rose moments later. Her movements were smooth, graceful and trained and all too slow. Not a surprise, since he was significantly faster than even most Climbers, never mind a normal human.

His speed was of no use when the bullet slammed into him, the crashing glass and the sound of the gunshot coming all too late. Most bullets fired by sniper rifles never gave you the warning you needed, not before the bullet arrived. Arthur cursed as his body jerked, his left side a numbed mess as he threw himself to the ground.

Mighty Climber or not, a high powered sniper rifle could still kill him. Good for him that their fighting and his own movements had made a headshot too hard for the sniper to take. Too bad they hadn't tried for one anyway. Instead, they'd gone for a safer body shot, which left a gaping wound the size of a toddler’s fist in his back from the impact. The only reason it wasn't bigger was because his Climber body was tougher than most mortals.

Pushing the pain aside, he kept moving, scrambling sideways, knowing that such a weapon was going to tear holes through anything he chose to hide behind. Unlike in the movies, most snipers knew to shoot through obstacles. At least, those who had any sense of their weapon.

The door to the hotel room – a big, luxurious suite near the top of the building he had been brought back to – was thrown open. Jan popped her head in, a knife in hand, head turning to scan.

“OUT!” he roared.

Instinctively, his bodyguard moved to his orders. Too many floors, too many battles fought together meant that she reacted instinctively, which was for the best. The crack of another bullet passing through the air where her had most recently occupied was loud, and her subdued curse and the thump of her body falling to the floor to get cover followed soon after.

Arthur scanned the window as he kept running, right for the adjoining wall between rooms. Brick walls between rooms meant he couldn’t exactly tear his way through like the Kool-Aid man, but he had a way around that. Outside, he thought he caught a glimpse of something sparkling, the glint of the sniper rifle scope in another building, a few hundred feet away in an office tower.

No way for him to get there, not even with Cloud Steps. Forming clouds across space to run across was great, but he could only manage four at a time, not enough to cover the whole distance. At least not without risking plunging to his death. Knowing that, his best bet was to get out, which meant…

Refined Exploding Energy Dart – two, spinning together, tightly synchronized – struck the hotel room walls and exploded. The brick walls shattered, sending bricks everywhere and adding to the smoke and dust in the room. He ducked, threw himself through the wall as he flooded his body with his defensive technique.

Wouldn’t do a lot against a sniper rifle, but against the remnant bricks and masonry, it protected him well enough. The screams – from the first assassin, from Jan who was asking useless questions, from the residents of the next room – were ignored, as he kept running.

Pain from his wound was cresting with each footstep and he switched one of his flows to speeding up the healing process. He needed to at least stop bleeding as he slid across the ground, heading for the door. Couldn’t go through it unless…

Another exploding crack, portions of the door breaking, sounds of another glass window breaking and continuing screams. Wind – released into the rooms and gusting around the tall towers of the building – howled, much like the pair of men caught in flagrante delicto. A part of Arthur catalogued their faces, especially the famous Malay singer’s but kept moving.

Not as though he intended to use it to blackmail the man, not unless he chose to be an ass to Arthur. What a man did, whether it was illegal or not in the country, was none of Arthur’s business.

Arthur was through the door in moments, sliding along the ground and then on instinct, doing a flip and forming a cloud beneath him, to keep running near the roof on all fours, grimacing at the pain. Moments later, the first bullet tore through at leg height, meant to hit him if he had kept crawling or running, for example.

Arthur cursed, wondering how many more would die, but kept moving. Once the sniper realised he could not see, could not hit him, he would give up. One advantage of the brick walls, even thermal imaging scopes would have great difficulty.

Landing near the exit, Arthur paused, stayed away from going through the doors as he extended his senses, dropping as his clouds dispersed. He checked the surroundings, his senses extended to the maximum. Hated that he was right, as three figures, running up the stairs emerged from the doors moments later.

He was expecting them, and armed or not, they were no match for a Climber. Breaking arms and legs, concussing – maybe killing another – with a blow to the head, Arthur powered his way through. Breaking one arm, two legs and a head was more than sufficient to take care of this group, and the sounds of a far off scuffle, the bark of another gun at the other emergency exit spoke of another group being dealt with by Jan.

All of which meant that the sniper was the only one who would escape.

Well, that and his date.

Panting over the bodies, waiting for hotel security and the polis to arrive as he dragged them a floor and a half lower, Arthur was certainly not going into the room again to make sure his date didn’t just leave via the elevators. Not while he was still trying to stem the bleeding in his shoulder, not when he had three other attackers to safeguard.

Not when they needed his date to lead them to his enemies.

Though, really, it wasn’t as though they didn’t know who was trying to kill him.

It just sucked, that he hadn’t actually had a good date in months.