His arm was still bleeding, letting the redness slowly descend as it stained the rest of his shirt and made him grunt slightly still feeling the stinging pain.

Oliver, with his bow in hand, leaned against the dumpster and prepared an arrow, leaving it ready to be fired while he tensed his arm thinking.

‘That damn thing grazed me and still causes this pain.’ Oliver clenched his teeth as he slightly turned his face into a tight smile. ‘I have to hope it doesn’t get in the way of my shots, but I don’t have much of a choice.’

He looked back at the shadow at the entrance of the alley with the same nervous smile, seeing that the gunman was still standing in front of the alley.

From the shadows it wasn't possible to see if he still had the gun pointed, but his arms were nowhere to be seen, making Oliver frown as he thought.

‘He’s waiting for me to get up, it’s obvious since at this distance I’ll definitely lose.’

The moments seemed to pass more slowly while Oliver was still breathing heavily from the surprise of the shot, the silence seemed to make everything louder to the point where he could hear his own heartbeat, but without any steps from the gunman.

That disconcerting pause made Oliver look around trying to think of a plan, but soon a deep voice was heard at the end of the alley.

“It’s the first time I’ve missed a shot like that.”

From the tone of his voice, he seemed to be an adult much older than Oliver, he seemed surprised and when he listened, Oliver continued to smile, still nervous, and continued to search the surroundings while thinking.

‘Good for me, but I still won’t answer easily.’

Oliver knew that the police would arrive soon and again focused on trying to hear the approaching sirens.

From the sounds of the gunshots, he knew the pistol didn't have any silencer, so he knew someone had heard the shots.

But soon he heard a sigh as if it were the beginning of a laugh coming from the gunman who continued to speak.

‘Why don’t we play a game? The police will soon find us in this place, so why don't we have an interesting duel, or rather, a real duel where no one can interfere?'

Oliver once again smiled nervously and thought.

'He knows he can run away at any minute, as soon as I come into his sight, he'll kill me.' Again Oliver turned his face towards the shadow and frowned as he thought. ‘Why doesn’t he just run away?’

The gunman insisted.

“I'm still sightseeing around town, but I think you should know that there's a lake to the south of here. It's a great place and it's also full of trees, but the main thing is that it's far enough from the city. No one will stop us when we start.”

‘Yeah, it must be really good.’

Oliver quickly dropped his cell phone from his pocket, quickly placing it on the front camera while positioning the device on his foot, trying to turn the camera towards the gunman who continued.

“Well, I expected some excitement on your part, it's a shame. But in the end, you decide whether to show up there.” The gunman took a step, appearing to turn around while Oliver saw the camera pointed at the gunman's feet, who paused briefly, but then spoke. “But I think you better go, because... if you don't go, I'm going to keep shooting around and before I leave I'm going to make sure to leave an arrow in the target, I wonder what the media will think.”

The tone of voice seemed to contain a certain excitement as Oliver squinted when he saw on his camera the same figure standing with a smile on his face while pointing the gun in his direction, making him clench his teeth and once again take cover in the dumpster. , hearing another shot much lower hit the wall, passing close once again.

He soon realized that the sound of the gunshot had only served as a distraction, making him get up when he realized that the gunman was no longer there, leaving only distant footsteps to be heard, along with the sound of sirens that gradually approached the location.

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Even though he clenched his teeth in irritation while he still felt the wound on his arm hurt, with his foot, Oliver threw the cell phone towards him and grabbed it quickly, getting up and jumping towards the roof while running away from the sounds of the sirens.

Little time passed and the sirens quickly approached the crime scene, soon three vehicles surrounded the alley.

The police officers' footsteps echoed through the alley along with a shrill scream that said.

"DO NOT MOVE!"

The entire place was filled with silence with the exception of the siren which left the environment chaotic and at the same time with an atmosphere of tension.

However, at the end of the alley there were only the messy trash bags along with the five lifeless bodies on the floor, there was no one else there.

When they noticed that the criminal had escaped again, a slightly older officer with dark skin grumbled.

“He’s fast, but he should still be in the area, let’s look.”

“Yes, again he attacked our brothers in arms.”

This time the footsteps calmed down and moved away from the alley, until it was possible to hear the sounds of doors slamming after the police entered and turned on the siren again while others were heard in the distance.

Soon the sound of tires screeching on the asphalt could be heard and little by little the police cars moved away from the alley, leaving only Oliver who was invisible and sitting at the back of the alley while he heard everything, still panting while in a cold sweat, still clutching his arm. with a pained smile.

‘Brothers in arms, huh? Finally a damn tip.’

Little by little more sirens approached the place and he jumped to another roof, starting his journey towards his house with hurried steps while he thought.

‘I fell straight, I let my guard down.’

With a few more jumps around the buildings, Oliver reached the top of his building and took off his shirt, using the sleeves to tie it to his injured arm and stop the bleeding.

He sat and hid behind the building's ventilation machines and sat still panting but irritated as he thought.

'I couldn't see the face or the model of the weapon properly, if I had at least gotten a decent photo I would have been able to see the face...' Little by little his breathing normalized, but he still clicked his tongue as he looked up. 'He knew I was looking for him, there was no way he could see me on top of that building using the cloak's invisibility, in the end he just planned how to catch me and I was careless enough to fall for it.'

With some effort he managed to get up, picking up the backpack he had left hidden and putting away his relics while remembering what the gunman had said.

If he could hold it for a few more minutes in the alley, he knew the police would come, but more deaths could happen.

Remembering the duel again, he saw the city map on his cell phone and saw the location of the forest.

It was a dense forest outside the city, even if he fired there, he would hardly be heard in the police area.

‘I know he will appear, maybe as soon as I enter the forest it will be worth it. Maybe he'll spend the whole day there just to get used to it while he hides to ambush me, it could be a duel like in the wild west or just another move to kill me and make the scene perfect for him.'

Soon after, he got up and entered the building heading towards his room.

Upon arrival, he placed the shirt in a bucket and filled it with water while looking at the wound in the mirror.

There was an apparent reddish streak on his skin along with the bleeding marks, causing Oliver to wash the wound while he thought.

‘He killed 5 people and shot me, maybe I don’t have clear information, but I can guide myself by that.’

Little by little the blood ran into the shower water, making Oliver groan as he felt the wound burn and made him lower his head, still clearly angry and thoughtful.

Leaving the bathroom, he took an old shirt with sleeves, rubbed it with some alcohol and tied it tighter around his arm again.

Once again he felt the burning, but he still clenched his teeth and squeezed harder, leaving the cloth stuck to the bleeding.

Oliver sat on his bed and put his hand up to his chin, still thinking.

‘The chances of it being a trap are greater, I don’t know what the relic is or the descendant to try to get an idea of the targets or objectives, but he is different from Lirana and me.’

Again he frowned while still wandering in thoughts.

Even if it was a trap made just to kill him, in the end, as soon as the deadline expired, the deaths would happen again and tied to him through arrows.

Just as Oliver was looking for the gunman, the gunman was also looking for him, which explained the delay in finding him and even when his activities slowed down.

He had not found any weapons at the targets and all the reports about the gunman were too vague, probably because they were still under investigation by the police, making Oliver scratch his chin.

In the end, the attitude of killing people was much worse than Oliver's, which caused greater damage to criminals, but which still led to questioning what the gunman wanted with all of that.

A duel was perhaps an excuse to get away quickly or even a desire of its own.

There were many questions to ask and Oliver clenched his fist tightly as he thought to himself.

‘Okay, I have a week.’