The exhausted could only bow their heads in shame and fear there was nothing they could respond with as it was obvious that they had truly overestimated their abilities.
The evil men cocked their crossbows and reloaded their guns as they pushed forward ready to subdue their targets.
I had seen enough and had a feeling of what was going on.
A rookie adventurer group encountered a group of bandits that were stronger and more prepared and now had them cornered and weak to the point that the bandits felt comfortable enough to taunt them.
But in my eyes, they had broken one of the fundamentals of battle, it's not over until it's over so be ruthless.
I felt confident in my abilities so I decided to be a kind stranger and lend a helping hand.
I grabbed a group of my metal pellets and my slingshot and jumped down to the middle of the fray.
Immediately the people in the scuffle were startled with only the dangerous-looking guy responding appropriately and backing off.
I took advantage of my element of surprise and consecutively shot four of my metal pellets at four of the bandits aimed straight for their heads.
Immediately the men dropped down before they had a chance to do anything.
The remaining bandits became terrified and filled with rage as they didn’t know who the meddler in front of them was and why he had decided to attack them.
Suddenly I saw one take out a special-looking shotgun and started to shoot frantically in my direction.
It was an automatic shotgun, one of the best firearms for close range, as I had learned in my short military training.
Despite my new training, Inner Energy abilities, and yellow seal buffs, even though I was able to discern the trajectory of the bullets I still had a hard time dodging, and as a consequence I was hit by some of the spread shots.
I felt an impact as if I was hit by the fist of a tiny Inner Energy Practitioner on my upper body.
The impact pushed me backward and caused some pain but didn’t injure me in any serious way.
The quality of my Martial Robe and its bullet-resistant properties were starting to show.
The group of wounded adventurers looked at me with hope and amazement evident in their eyes.
Suddenly the bandit leader shouted in panic.
“Ikan it's a serious Expert watch my 6, follow my lead if you want to live!”
Suddenly the bandit made some acrobatic dodging maneuvers in which he threw a couple of balls at me, instantly I moved away from their trajectory as they exploded mid-air.
Explosives!
Probably some type of fragment grenade as I felt a couple of impacts hit me in my body and armor.
Those were negligible though, the only thing that caused true damage was the explosion Shockwave.
Luckily Royen had acted wisely and gotten himself and his companions out of the way.
Despite a slight concussion-like feeling I immediately alerted myself to the battle.
It was obvious that the man in front of me was not ordinary.
Suddenly a barrage of throwing knives was sent towards my direction after which I dodged, only to be met with the relentless barrage of Ikans automatic shotgun.
Even though the robe and armor held up I couldn't take him too lightly as I knew a shot to my head or one of my vitals could easily be the end of me.
I reached into my support and supply pouch and pulled out a couple of my venom and Magic blood clay pellets and flung them straight at Ikan.
Surprisingly the capable Ikan managed to dodge one of the clay pallets only to be hit by the other one in his arm; immediately a dangerous cloud of venom burst forth and covered Ikans face.
Ikan started shrieking in pain as King Culebra's venom started to take its toll.
Suddenly I felt a sense of danger, immediately I made evasive action.
Something hit me in my neck giving me a significant injury, fortunately my Inner Energy senses barely allowed me to dodge in time before I had my head blown off.
“Damn, it just missed it!” The furious bandit screamed.
The bullet wound in my neck was more serious than I thought.
Immediately I reached into my healing pouch and slathered ‘inner energy clerical salve’ on it just to prevent any future problems.
I took out my slingshot and reached for a couple of pebbles speedily but before I could even get off a shot the bandit dropped a smoke grenade and fogged up the surroundings.
The man in front of me was no pushover; he was a formidable expert despite not exhibiting any unnatural characteristics or powers.
It was obvious he was a seasoned and dangerous warrior since I could tell that not one of his movements was wasted.
Unfortunately for him, the buff the yellow seal provided me allowed me to see him move laterally away from my line of fire and move in to attack me with his spear and blade.
I aimed again and shot him three times square in the chest blowing him off his feet.
After some time the smoke cleared out and I saw the man laying on the ground motionless.
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Cautiously I moved forward ready to finish him off if necessary.
At first, as I got close he seemed like he was virtually dead, as even with my yellow seal inner sense’s buff I could tell his life signature was down to a minimum.
But as soon as I entered his striking range his heartbeat and energy came back out of nowhere and the man quickly pulled out a shotgun and shot me point blank.
I was startled and caught off guard and the shotgun managed to damage the armored arm I defended.
Thankfully the magical beast hide armor I had made had held up or else I felt like my arm would’ve been blown off.
I had an intuition that the bullets he was using weren’t normal, as they had managed to penetrate the martial robes' defenses.
Immediately the man lunged toward me and attempted to cut me with his blade.
Despite my compromised position I managed to deflect his attack with my magical blade even though I lost mine in the process.
But my deflection had broken his inferior blade in half due to the impact.
The Warrior bandit didn’t care he lunged at me again with his half-broken blade and took me down to the ground attempting to sever my neck.
But despite the danger I was confident in my ground Fighting abilities, I was now fighting in my element.
I managed to pull a reversal in our ground positions and pin him down to the ground after which I took out my magical military knife and proceeded to stab multiple times but to no effect.
Every single time it felt like I was hitting a mystical barrier preventing me from penetrating his skin.
Eventually, after my fourth attempt, it felt like something shattered but by then the man had time to counter.
He stabbed me in the arm with one of his knives which couldn’t penetrate my armor and robe but served its purpose in interrupting my attack motion.
Suddenly I had to back off since despite my superior position Ikan who was still screaming in pain had regained some of his composure and somehow gotten his hand on an automatic rifle and began to shoot it at me like crazy.
I had already lost my momentum because of the man's secret armor and now I was back on the defensive.
The battle had turned out more arduous than I had expected.
I couldn't take a breath either since Ikan kept shooting his rifle at me without end.
“ You bastard, I'll Kill you! I'll Kill you for what you did to me!”
It was obvious the man was in great pain because of the venom but despite that, he still managed to attempt to kill me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bandit leader stand up and walk over to one of his dead comrades to pick up their weapons including a crossbow.
I knew I couldn't afford to hold back anymore, the bandit leader was no joke.
He was as dangerous as anyone I had faced before, now I knew why the other adventurers were so afraid.
I had made a mistake and underestimated my enemy's capabilities using my normal ammo instead of more powerful ammo straight off the back thinking they weren’t much of a threat.
But that assumption was costing me now, as when I had had the chance to finish the leader off when I saw him through the smoke, I had failed and only managed to give him an opportunity for a counterattack.
As I dodged the bullets from the automatic rifle I pulled out two of the magical fangs I had found before back in my days in Bean’s Village.
I came to a better position, jumped up into a tree, aimed, and let both fangs go consecutively as fast as I could.
Immediately a hole was blown in Ikan and he was blown away.
The leader impressively had managed to slightly dodge despite the speed of the fang and had only gotten his arm severed. The magical fangs were no joke, as upon impact, I thought I managed to see the image of a beast ripping the men apart with their fangs for a moment.
It was obvious they had a special effect.
I cautiously walked up to the bandit leader this time not willing to repeat the same mistake.
As I had suspected he wasn’t ready to give up yet.
He slowly but dangerously raised his bloody head and arm and pointed one of the men's guns he had picked up straight at me, a look of rage and unwillingness apparent on his face.
I took out some of the magical metal pellets I had made previously and shot him three times straight on his neck, arm, and chest, finally and definitively sending him to the afterlife.
Immediately after killing him, I heard a message in my head.
“ Congratulations on Vanquishing the F Ranked Ruthless Super Warrior Tokir, your reputation will surely benefit!”
I was a bit surprised, but not by much, it was obvious the man known as Tokir was not a normal Warrior his actions and abilities were just too dangerous and precise.
I didn’t know what the Seeier meant by calling Tokir a Super Warrior but I knew it meant he was special in some way.
Even the items he carried weren’t simple.
In my attempts to act as a hero I had just managed to come out alive myself, in my mind I made a note to be more hesitant of such actions in the future.