"System, track mission target."
[Target: Yinsen — marked.]
A golden light flashed on the minimap, showing Yinsen's position far ahead, already a good distance from the cave.
"Well, well… four-eyes has some legs on him," Darren muttered, raising a brow.
He hadn't expected that frail-looking NPC to be this capable. Maybe Yinsen was secretly a hidden boss-level powerhouse?
[Warning! Target's vital signs rapidly deteriorating — critical condition!]
[If target dies, mission will fail!]
"…Okay, never mind."
Under Tony's wide-eyed stare, the diamond pickaxe in Darren's hand vanished, replaced by a cold, sleek Beretta 93R pistol.
"You—what are you doing?"
"Waiting for good news."
Before Tony could say another word, Darren was already gone, sprinting toward the golden marker.
...
He burst out of the tunnel and rounded the first corner—only to come face-to-face with a squad of armed militants.
For a split second, everyone froze. Then, as they registered the intruder, the gunmen raised their rifles, shouting commands in a mix of languages.
"Hands up!"
"Drop your weapon!"
"Down! Down on the ground!"
"Don't move!"
It was a linguistic buffet of Arabic, Pashto, Russian, and half a dozen dialects—but thanks to Darren's in-game settings, everything translated cleanly into English.
He even had a setting named 'Let's all speak English' checked at the start. The system auto-converted every foreign language, both ways.
Darren sighed. "So… am I supposed to move or not? You guys gotta make up your minds."
The terrorists exchanged confused looks, struggling to coordinate.
Then, as if reaching the same conclusion—
They decided to just kill the problem.
RATATATAT!
Bullets poured toward him in a roaring torrent.
But Darren's expression didn't even twitch.
"Reaper's Eye."
Instantly, the world shifted.
Time thickened, slowed, dragged like honey. The scream of bullets dropped to a whisper. The air shimmered with warped velocity as each round's trajectory became visible, like streaks of silver crawling lazily through space.
Within that frozen moment, only Darren moved freely.
His gaze locked onto each gunman—one, two, three, four—every head now marked with a sharp crimson crosshair.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Four muffled shots rang almost as one.
By the time sound caught up, all four militants were already collapsing, scarlet mist blooming from their foreheads.
[Skill: Reaper's Eye]
[Effect: Slows the flow of time. Allows manual target marking and rapid execution of marked enemies. Includes bullet tracking, weak point highlighting, infinite ammo, and short-term x-ray vision.]
[Evaluation: I have a plan. A stupid, brilliant plan.]
"Tch. Trash mobs. Don't even drop XP."
Holstering his pistol, Darren stepped over the bodies and advanced toward Yinsen's marker.
The noise, of course, had drawn more hostiles. Footsteps echoed around him, a whole squad rushing down the tunnel.
Bang!
A militant peeked from around the corner—and had his skull vaporized before he could aim.
"Johnny! I'll avenge—"
Bang!
"Johnny's" friend dropped mid-sentence, a neat hole right between his eyes.
Then came another burst—Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!—each shot surgical, precise, final.
They never stood a chance.
The remaining men panicked, voices shaking. Wherever they ran, the bullets followed, tracing through walls, slicing through cover.
It felt as if one man—one unstoppable predator—had surrounded them all.
"Demon! He's a demon!" someone screamed before a bullet silenced him too.
The last few tried to flee. They didn't make it far.
When the echoes faded, Darren stepped out from behind cover, the tunnel floor littered with corpses. His face was calm, his eyes flat and cold.
A butcher's composure. A gamer's detachment.
He'd killed too many pixels to care.
...
"Don't move! Or I'll blow his head off!"
The shout snapped through the silence.
Darren turned his head. A bearded man stood in the shadows, arm locked around Yinsen's neck, pistol pressed to his temple.
Yinsen's face was pale, streaked with blood. "D-don't… worry about me…" he gasped weakly.
Darren didn't reply.
Honestly, if not for the mission's failure condition, he might've shot Yinsen himself—just to clear the field.
The bearded man mistook Darren's silence for hesitation. "Drop your gun! Now!" he barked, pressing the barrel harder against Yinsen's skull.
"Alright, alright."
To his surprise, Darren obeyed, dropping his Beretta with an easy shrug.
The terrorist grinned triumphantly, shifting the muzzle toward Darren. "Hahaha! You idiot! Die like—"
Bang!
The smile froze on his lips. His body crumpled.
A second 93R gleamed in Darren's hand, still smoking.
He glanced at the corpse and said lightly, "You said 'drop the gun in my hand.' Didn't say anything about the one in my inventory."