Leonel's mind accelerated to the point he could almost see the movement of the bullets through the air on a frame by frame basis.
As old and dated as Double Shot's pistols looked, they shot with a speed beyond anything an old western movie could match. In fact, if those two shots were fired off in a Third Dimensional world, even space itself would be torn apart to carve a path out for them.
With that speed came a lack of responses Leonel could make. He was at most 50 meters from Double Shot and the speed of the bullets wouldn't allow him to tilt his head and neck out the way in time. Or… Rather it wouldn't have had Leonel reacted to the two shots as opposed to Manson's words.
Leonel's ability had been entirely focused on Manson, and more specifically the movement of her muscles, from the very beginning. The moment her throat prepped to speak, he had already picked up on it.
For a woman who hadn't spoken a word since she entered, what could she possibly be preparing to say? Obviously it wasn't for idle chitchat or smack talking, so she could only have been calling for her teammates to take action.
Assigning a probability of over 90% to this, Leonel had already been prepared.
The earth beneath one of Leonel's planted feet shot up at an angle, sending him flying to the side.
The upward swing of Manson's kick reached him long before the bullets would and even as the earth rocketed him to the left. One would have thought that Manson's toes would be fragile and delicate like most everyone else's, but just a slight graze against what was just Leonel's prepared defenses tore a bloody gash through his wrist.
Leonel's jaw clenched as he rolled out of the way, sending one of his minds to inspect his injury.
It was luckily only skin deep, but it had only been a small measure away from damaging his muscle and ligaments. Had that happened, he didn't know if it would still be possible to complete his Craft. His hands were too important.
Leonel thought he had accounted for the upward swing of Manson's kick. Yet she somehow managed to change her trajectory just enough that he was both nicked and was unable to react at the same time. To make matters worse, she actually tore through his Bronze Rune activated defenses so easily.
As surprised as Leonel was, Manson was even more so. She had been certain that she would at least lop Leonel's wrist off with that kick, but she found more resistance than she expected. How did he have such a strong body?
Manson made use of the momentum of her kick to flip herself back to her feet, her movements looking as agile as a cat's. If it wasn't for her drunkard appearance, she would definitely be capable of playing the role of feared assassin. But the light gasps that left her lips and the flush to her face ruined that entirely.
"Get in formation." Manson's words slurred again.
As much as Manson's previous words shocked her team, this was like a nuke going off in their minds. Even though they always set out as a team, the reality was that they rarely, if ever, actually used their formation. Usually, it would just be one of the three of them dealing with the target, as for Manson, she only participated if the mission was interesting enough… Like if there was a Spark involved.
But, the four of them all taking action at once…? That only happened if…
'How annoying.' Leonel's gaze grew colder.
It seemed that they truly wanted to take things seriously. He had yet to ask the dictionary what Manson's ability was because he hadn't gotten any breathing room to do so, but he could piece together most of it himself.
Manson had an Intuition Ability Type. This Ability Type was split into: Alert, Foreshadowing, Instinct, Prediction, and Foresight. Once again, the fifth, in this case Foresight, was reserved for Savants.
From what Leonel could tell, Manson was usually in the mid to high level of the second stage, Foreshadowing. She could gain an inkling of what was happening and react to it, but the image wasn't clear nor obvious. Often those at this stage had to rely on many decades of experience and training to make good use of Foreshadowing.
Manson, though, seemed to be quite unique. She had learned to dull her senses to an extreme to simulate a higher level of her Intuition Ability Type, crossing over into high levels of Instinct, bordering on Prediction.
The caveat, though, was that she had to be drunk off alcohol… or orgasms.
If Leonel wasn't so enraged with Manson encroaching on something she shouldn't have, he would have been impressed by her ingenuity.
In a Third Dimensional world, Manson would practically be an oracle, at least when it came to one on one combat. In a Fifth Dimensional world, though, her ability could almost be classified as useless to most, yet she managed to find a way to make it so powerful. It felt like the methods of the Dimensional Verse were endless.
But this was no time to be praising Manson. With her words, Shadow Rat, Double Shot and Panda came forward, encircling Leonel as though he was some sort of demon war lord.
One would have thought that with their personalities, they would crack a few jokes or tease Leonel a bit, but they seemed to have thrown all of that out of the window. It was either that they were consummate professionals—men who understood when it was time to play and when it was time to work—or… they had an almost blind confidence in Manson's Intuition.
If it was the former, Leonel would still have some wiggle room. Even as professionals, there was a chance they might still believe him to be beneath them.
But… If it was the latter, that would mean that right this moment, they saw him to be just as dangerous as Manson believed him to be… And that was a problem.
The blood from Leonel's nicked wrist rolled down his forearm and pooled at his elbow, culminating into a drop that fell toward the cracked stone floors.
As though a cue, the instant it rebounded against the ground, Panda's aura surged as the entire hollowed cave was plunged into darkness.
[Important announcement below 04/28/2022!!!!!!]