Chapter 1 Gunner

Magg is a Gunner, a branch of the Mechanic class, and a firearms expert with high attack power. The stronger the weapon, the greater the advantage. This was Han Xiao's first encounter with a high-level enemy of the same class.

The enemy was on the roof, while he was on the ground. Every meter of distance was a chasm created by the Gunner.

In the blink of an eye, Han Xiao completed an analysis of the enemy and his own situation, modeled the surrounding terrain in his mind, and quickly planned a retreat route.

"A level 56 Gunner, with fierce attack power, but his health is very fragile. I have a chance to burst out and severely damage the enemy, but it won't be easy to kill him. If I get held up, the enemy reinforcements will arrive immediately. I have no supplies. A human wave tactic is not in my favor. I need to take advantage of the opportunity when I injure the enemy and quickly retreat."

Han Xiao's shoes flashed blue, and with a whoosh, he slid away into the distance.

"Trying to escape?" Magg said expressionlessly. He had long noticed that Han Xiao's movement ability came from his roller shoes. He raised his RX-108 assault rifle and fired, each bullet accurately aimed at Han Xiao's shoes. As long as he destroyed the shoes, the enemy wouldn't be able to run.

However, a layer of magnetic-controlled armor quickly covered the roller shoes, sparks flew, and the bullets clanged as they bounced off.

"That was close." Han Xiao was slightly startled. Fortunately, he had been prepared and reacted in time, blocking Magg's attack. Otherwise, if the shoes had been destroyed, the difficulty of escaping would have increased several times. It wasn't Han Xiao's style to be beaten without retaliating. While strategically retreating, he raised his dual guns and fired back. His accuracy was no less than Magg's, and three large-caliber steel-core bullets hit Magg's bulletproof vest. Magg's whole body shook. He wasn't known for his physical strength and barely withstood the kinetic energy of the bullets, enduring the muffled pain. He used a grappling hook to move between buildings, closely following Han Xiao.

Magg had the advantage of moving on the rooftops, high above. He raised his Tiger Claw shotgun, used explosive shots, and bombarded Han Xiao again. The explosive force blasted Han Xiao back into a wall.

Before Han Xiao could pull himself out of the wall, he suddenly sensed a trace of danger and unhesitatingly fully covered himself in armor.

On the rooftop, Magg had a cold expression. One hand held an assault rifle, and he used a sliding step to fire a continuous barrage, with a double bonus to his rate of fire. The storm of bullets pinned Han Xiao to the wall. The pit in the wall spewed out a cloud of lime, and cracks continued to widen.

"He's probably dead." Magg fired hundreds of rounds in a few seconds, each one hitting its target. He had also mixed in skills. This round was a burst attack. Even if the target didn't die, he would at least be half-crippled.

Lime dust fluttered, obscuring the scene inside the hole.

Buzz—

A strange sound.

Suddenly, an invisible force field erupted from the wall, pushing away the rain and forming an empty area. The bullets were also deflected and scattered in all directions.

Repulsive field driver!

Using the repulsive force as a counter-thrust, Han Xiao jumped out of the hole in the wall, briefly suspended in the air, and held the Ghost Gauss sniper rifle in one hand, aiming it at Magg from afar. The slender gun barrel was like a spear, locked on Magg's direction.

Time seemed to slow down.

Magg felt a chill run down his spine, an icy coldness. He intuitively felt that the gun was extremely deadly and hurriedly tried to dodge. He had only completed half of his movement when Han Xiao fired.

A flash of blue light disappeared in an instant. Magg only felt an irresistible force erupt in his chest. His whole body was blasted away, rolling in the puddles and falling off the other side of the platform. He hurriedly grabbed the eaves to avoid falling. His chest throbbed with pain. He looked down and saw a bloody hole through his right chest spraying blood. His bulletproof vest had been penetrated. He couldn't help but spit out a mouthful of bloody foam.

"My lung has been pierced..." Magg had difficulty breathing. Each breath felt like a steel knife scraping back and forth in his lung. The pain made him sweat profusely. The power of this shot was even stronger than his best performance. Shock filled his heart.

The other party's explosive power was actually no less than his, an Odifenna ace. Where did this expert come from? He had never seen him before!

If he hadn't avoided the vital point, this shot would have hit him in the eye.

Even with a bulletproof vest, he had been blasted like this. If he had been half a second slower to dodge, the consequences...

Magg shuddered with lingering fear, and his apprehension toward Han Xiao increased to the extreme.

[You have damaged Magg's {Synthetic Ceramic Bulletproof Vest}]

[You have dealt 772 damage to Magg!]

[Magg has entered a moderate bleeding state, losing 5 health points per second for 60 seconds]

[Magg has entered a lung perforation state, Agility -10%, Movement Speed -15%]

This explosive shot was amplified by [Will Burning] and [Overload], making the damage terrifying.

Han Xiao gasped for breath. Magg's burst fire had reduced the durability of his magnetic-controlled armor to the warning line of one hundred points, the closest it had ever been to being damaged. If the armor hadn't been strengthened several times, it would have been blown apart with its original version's defense and durability.

Gunners were known for their firepower. If Magg had a more powerful gun, his attack power would be even more terrifying.

Having taken a full round of barrage, Han Xiao was still unscathed, which had already shocked Magg beyond compare.

If they continued to fight, Han Xiao would almost certainly win. However, he had already heard the sound of engines in the distance. Enemy reinforcements were coming.

"This is Odifenna's territory, with an endless supply of manpower. Magg knows my explosive power, so he will definitely focus on entanglement next. The most urgent thing is to run. I already have the item, so there's no need for me to fight at all."

The thought flashed through his mind. Han Xiao didn't hesitate and turned to retreat.

Magg didn't dare to recklessly pursue and fire like before. He endured the pain and hung back in the distance, firing a few shots and then finding cover, looking cautious as if he were a different person. He was really frightened by Han Xiao's earth-shattering shot.

Han Xiao felt much less pressure. Taking advantage of Magg's apprehension, he used [Overload] to boost his roller shoes, and his speed soared, disappearing from Magg's sight in the blink of an eye.

Magg couldn't catch up. The city streets and alleys were intricate and complex, and he disappeared without a trace. He hurriedly called his colleagues to check the city's surveillance, but the other party seemed to have evaporated from the world.

The target of the operation was the seller. Being reminded by this buyer, the seller, who had been tracked for so many years, was extremely experienced in escaping. This one small oversight had caused the agents to lose track. Magg could only track the buyer, but not only did the final target escape, but he, an ace agent, was also injured... Annoyance, frustration, and resentment churned in his heart. The mission failure was like a slap, hitting him, an ace agent, hard in the face.

The Odifenna agents launched a search, but the result was naturally fruitless. They could only hand over the only combat recording to the intelligence department for analysis. They hadn't had much hope, but they unexpectedly found an object that matched the combat mode.

Black Phantom!

"The appearance doesn't match. The other party may have worn a human skin mask."

"That explains it. Disappearing like a ghost, only Black Phantom can do that!"

In the operations command room, Magg was having a doctor bandage his wound, his face gloomy. He had heard of Black Phantom's reputation before. As an ace of the intelligence agency, he didn't think much of this kind of lone assassin. He didn't expect that this accidental encounter would result in him, the pursuer with all the advantages, being seriously injured by Black Phantom and losing track of the target. Magg felt very embarrassed and resentful.

"The legend lives up to its name." The operations commander didn't blame Magg. If the opponent was Black Phantom, failure wasn't unacceptable. The problem was, why had Black Phantom come to the Western Continent, and why was he trading with the wanted criminal they were tracking?

The higher-ups of the Odifenna intelligence agency took Black Phantom's appearance very seriously. They held a meeting and had the hacker team play the source of the intelligence, which was Han Xiao's brief phone call with the seller and the text message of the meeting location:

"Hello."

"How do we hand over the goods?"

"Three days later, I'll send you the coordinates. Cash on delivery."

"Okay, I'll send a subordinate to handle the handover."

The last sentence was the key point. The subordinate sent by the trading party was actually Black Phantom, so the identity of the trading party was obvious!

ps: (Wow, I thought the previous chapter was okay. I haven't written data for so long, so I wrote a little to adjust my mood. By the way, I've been very busy recently, and I don't even have time to write cliffhangers...)