?268 Chapter 268 – House
As soon as Nick came to the surface again, he saw someone.
There was a tall man standing on top of the eastern wall of Nick's backyard.
Luckily, the guy was looking towards the west, which meant his back was turned to Nick.
With narrowed eyes, Nick could see a throwing spear in the guy's right hand and a couple more on his back.
It seemed like this was one of the few people who chose throwing spears, just like Nick.
Nick quickly thought about how to take him down without being noticed.
A bit later, Nick grabbed three of his spears and carefully and silently stabbed them through the ground behind him.
Then, he ran forward and jumped with all of his power.
With his ability active, Nick jumped with incredible power at the person on the wall, his right arm extended.
BANG!
The orange Barrier appeared and broke apart before Nick's blade entered the back of the guy's head.
For just an instant, Nick's ability deactivated, but it quickly reactivated again.
The next moment, the three Ghost Wires became taut as the sides of the three spears pushed against the ground.
Nick's body stopped in the air behind the guy.
Nick pulled his blade out of the guy's head and grabbed him with his hands before pulling himself back.
The corpse and Nick sunk behind the eastern wall of Nick's backyard.
Thanks to his ability, Nick could tell that nobody had seen this. Probably because everyone was busy running and looking toward the west.
Nick would have loved to look at the corpse and find out who was attacking him, but he didn't really have the time.
Someone might have already noticed the hole he had made in the west, and remaining in the same spot for too long was extremely dangerous in his situation.
Nick quickly smashed the corpse into a random ruin of a house and ran towards the south.
He knew that his biggest strength in this situation was his incredible speed.
With his ability, Nick could run as fast as a Late Veteran!
In barely a second, Nick reached the northeastern corner of his house, which was also the southeastern corner of his backyard.
Nick turned into fog, climbed the corner, and peeped over the wall.
He didn't like what he saw.
There were five people at the western wall of his backyard, and two of them were in the process of jumping over it.
'The sniper is not among them. That means there are at least ten people in total in this ambush, and as far as I can tell, all of them are Mid Johns at least!' Nick thought with gritted teeth.
That was a huge number of people just to get rid of Nick!
"He's not in the west! Fan out and defend!"
The next moment, Nick heard someone shouting from beyond the wall.
'Based on the fact that he's shouting with such authority and ordering everyone around, he's probably the leader,' Nick thought.
Nick remembered the person who had jumped over the northern wall when the guy in the west had shouted earlier.
He hadn't seen that person among the five currently in the backyard.
'The guy that guarded the north is most likely the leader, and he's currently to the west of my backyard.'
The next moment, Nick turned corporeal, grabbed something from his toolbelt, and threw it into the backyard.
BOOOOM!
The smoke bomb Nick had thrown at the northwestern corner of the backyard exploded, putting nearly everyone in the backyard in a cloud of smoke.
"He's here!" someone inside the backyard shouted.
However, Nick had not entered the backyard.
He had just thrown the smoke bomb in there to make them think that he was in there.
Instead, Nick jumped towards the eastern wall of his house and turned into fog.
Naturally, since this was Nick's house, it had a couple of nice additions.
Normal people wouldn't really notice the true purpose of these things.
Every house in the Outer City had light holes. After all, the people didn't want to get attacked by the Nightmare.
However, Nick's house had bigger light holes.
The light holes in Nick's house were over ten centimeters wide, but there were fewer of them.
Normal people would just think that this was a stylistic choice.
But in truth, these light holes made it very easy and convenient for Nick to move from one room to the other in his fog-state.
Moving through a slit or small holes cost a lot of Zephyx and took a while, but it was barely an issue to move through such big holes.
Nick easily entered through one of the light holes and slithered across the ceiling of the first floor.
He rapidly moved from room to room, passing through big light holes near the ceiling.
Some seconds later, Nick finally found his target.
In one of the rooms on the second floor, Nick saw a grey-haired young woman with a humongous rifle.
She was currently looking at the backyard.
Nick materialized behind her, pulled his arm back, and punched her with a hook.
The blade of Nick's arm hit her orange barrier, which immediately broke into pieces.
BANG!
Her head separated from her shoulders and shattered against the steel wall.
Naturally, that made a lot of noise, and Nick was sure that everyone had noticed what was going on.
However, before they could turn to look at the house, Nick and the corpse had already vanished from the window.
The headless corpse was lying below the window, and Nick was slithering through the light holes near the ground.
BANG!
The front door shot open as someone kicked it, and Nick saw the entering person with shock.
'Wait, isn't that the guy that ran out of Zephyx after I punched him in the west?!' Nick thought.
Yes, it was the guy that Nick had thrown against his house.
Yet, here he was, storming into the house with a lot of energy!
It was almost like he hadn't lost any Zephyx whatsoever!
Nick decided against engaging the guy since that might take too long.
After all, everyone else was probably already running towards the house, and Nick had to leave.
So, Nick just slithered out of his house.
Luckily, the guy was too busy charging towards the second floor to notice the small cloud of fog in the room.