Chapter 134: Another Interruption

Chapter 134: Chapter 134: Another Interruption

Derrick pulled Beth closer to himself, his hands pressing into her back. He could feel her heavy breath against his face as the kiss deepened.

Beth parted her lips, melting entirely into his embrace.

But then... soon after they started, Derrick paused.

A frown appeared on his face and his tongue stopped moving.

Beth felt the sudden change instantly because she was connected to him by touch. She leaned her forehead against his and took a deep breath.

"Derrick?" she asked, her chest rising and falling fast. "What... what happened?"

"Give me a second," Derrick whispered softly. He turned his head toward the shadowy railings of the Terrace.

"Silly B," Derrick spoke out loud into the quiet night. "Did you leave any trace while booking this place?"

A soft, synthetic voice chimed from his phone’s speaker.

"No, sir. The transaction was completely masked and wiped," Silly Bot answered smoothly.

"What are you sensing, sir?"

Whir.

Along the outer stone walls of the terrace, several turned-off security cameras suddenly jolted to life.

Small red indicator lights flickered on. The lenses rotated back and forth, scanning the surrounding dark trees.

Silly Bot had instantly hacked straight into the villa’s security servers.

Derrick kept his eyes locked on the darkness past the terrace wall.

"I hope I’m overthinking," Derrick said low. "But I feel we are not alone here."

Ever since they had arrived on the terrace, a nagging feeling of being watched has been annoying him at the back of his head.

But now, the feeling only increased the level of dangers he was feeling.

Beth stiffened instantly in his hold, all the cloudy feeling she was feeling from his touch vanished without a trace.

Her hands gripped his shirt tight.

Derrick stepped forward, moving Beth carefully behind his solid frame.

He closed his eyes for a quiet beat and blinked.

Glow.

When his eyelids opened, a faint, barely noticeable golden hue lit up his dark eyes.

Instantly, the world around him shifted.

The warm yellow lantern light, the red wine, and the glowing gold city below vanished.

Everything in his view turned completely black and white.

The first thing he checked was the villa and after a thorough examination, he found nothing.

Then, Derrick looked away from the villa and toward the dark forest surrounding the property.

His golden eyes slowly scanned the dense pine trees clinging to the mountain slope.

"Derrick... what is it?" Beth asked, her voice trembling as she gripped his shirt tight. "You’re scaring me."

"Stay right behind me," Derrick said quietly, his voice dead steady. "Don’t move."

Far up in the canopy, nearly two hundred yards away, a dark silhouette was balancing on the very tip of a thin tree branch.

The guy was clad head-to-toe in tactical black gear, a heavy, dark aura rippling off his body like thick smoke.

Seriously? Derrick thought, his jaw tightening as he watched the figure. Who stands on a pine branch in the middle of the night just to flex his energy like that?

Sadly, your disguise means nothing before these eyes. Derrick pushed his eyes even further and he could see past the mask the man was wearing. It’s him!

Derrick instantly recognized the man. It was the same man who had ambushed Cassie to get to him. He had the same W symbol etched on the back of his hand. But why does something feel odd about him.

"Sir! Massive energy signature detected at two hundred meters!" Silly Bot’s voice crackled sharply through Derrick’s phone speaker.

The assassin casually raised his head, his face hidden behind a dark, featureless mask.

Or so he believed.

Derrick knew the man had been watching them for a long time but why did he only prepared to attack him only now.

The assassin raised his right hand, pointing two fingers straight at the terrace like a child playing with a toy gun.

Hum.

A dark, violent knot of raw energy began gathering at his fingertips.

"Silly B. I will get you his face and the tattoo on his hand, once you have them. Dig every database, I need to know everything about him."

Derrick felt a sense of forbidding creep up when he watched as the guy forcibly squeezed all that raw power down.

He crushed the overflowing energy tighter and tighter until it shrank to the size of a tiny, polished pebble.

That’s insane control, Derrick realized, his pulse quickening. He’s squeezing a bucket’s worth of Enhanced energy into a makeshift bullet instantly.

The assassin wasn’t done showing off.

Whoosh!

A howling spiral of compressed wind wrapped around the pebble-sized shot, locking it in a vacuum.

Fzzzt!

A second later, white-hot fire flared up at the tip of the bullet before it got sucked straight into the wind layer and packed tightly inside the tiny projectile.

Dual attributes.

Compressed fire and wild wind, sealed under terrifying pressure inside a shot no bigger than a pea.

"Oh no."

Derrick could feel it.

If that tiny thing touched landed, the pressure release alone would blow the entire terrace off the cliff.

"Warning," Silly Bot chimed urgently. "High-density thermal energy incoming! Trajectory locked on your position!"

The assassin’s lips curled beneath his mask.

"Bang," he silently mouthed from the tree top.

Fwip!

He flicked his finger, releasing the tiny bullet into the night.

It cut through the air in total silence, slicing straight toward Derrick and Beth at terrifying speed.

Woosh!

Derrick didn’t hesitate for a single microsecond.

He could feel the world slow down in his vision, allowing him to follow the movements of the compressed bullet.

He grabbed Beth around the waist with his left arm, yanking her hard against his chest.

Grab.

He twisted his shoulders and threw his weight sideways, spinning her completely out of the line of fire.

Fwhoosh!

The pebble-sized shot streaked past his ribcage at blinding speed.

"Ugh!" It missed a direct hit, but the sheer thermal pressure grazing the side of his waist was staggering.

Sizzle!

Fortunately the clothes he was wearing were made from no ordinary fabric. The attack did not even damage his clothes let alone his body.

The force of the blast tore through the entire terrace.

BOOM!

The impact was so devastating that it blew out half the floor.

Thick slab concrete cracked open, crumbling into the darkness of the cliff below.

The villa’s heavy glass doors exploded inward, showering the room with thousands of tiny, razor-sharp shards.

CRASH!

Their dining table splintered into pieces, sending warm food, broken glass, and dark wine flying across the stone.

Derrick kept his body pressed over Beth, taking the brunt of the flying stone and hot ash on his back.

"Derrick!" Beth gasped, she channeled her Enhanced energy to protect herself but she noticed that her body was already covered in a layer of Derrick’s energy.

"I’ve got you," Derrick growled low. "Stay low. Another attack could be coming."

He shoved a heavy piece of fallen shed aside and moved Beth into a sheltered corner near the surviving stone wall.

"I will look for the attacker, you have to be ready to move. Wait for my signal."

He turned his eyes back toward the mountain trees.

The pine branch where the assassin had been standing was empty, snapped in half by the sheer force of his jump.

The man was gone...