When the door opened, I was met with a guns pointed in my direction. Almost all the soldiers inside the train had their weapons trained on me. I knew I was in a difficult situation, but my goal was to distract rather than win the battle. So I took a deep breath and calmly waited for them to speak.
As I expected, two elite soldiers appeared among the ranks of those pointing guns at me. One of them was Tag and the other was Lena. They approached me confidently, passing through the wagon door and moving in front of the other soldiers. Lena continued to play her role flawlessly, biding her time until the moment was right to attack Tag and the others.
With that in mind, I kept Lena's true intentions hidden and continued to play my role as a wanted man. Tag took a step forward and began speaking to me with a hint of amusement in his voice.
"Well, well, well. Look who we have here. If it isn't our wanted man, Hiroshi," he said with a smirk.
I maintained my silence and continued to listen to his speech.
"I suppose you're here for your lineage," he continued. "You have a lot of courage for an ordinary man."
"Unfortunately, you're not the first person to say that," I replied coolly.
Tag chuckled. "You're quite the joker, Hiroshi. But you should know that this is not like the previous kingdoms. The boss is in charge here."
It was clear that by "boss," Tag meant the third epic. But he seemed to trust him more than the other elite soldiers I had fought. It made sense for evil to trust evil, so I continued to talk, buying time and telling him what I knew.
"Your boss is no different from the others," I said.
"I wish it were so," Tag replied, his voice tinged with awe. "He has an endless slaughter with slyness in his eyes. Neither destruction nor rule is what he wants."
He knew the epic well enough to fear him.
"You speak as if you're afraid of him," I observed.
"The man who carries uncertainty is always feared."Tag continued his speech."Aren't you afraid of a man with ears everywhere? or who he's working for?" Tag countered.
"I can't say until I see it for myself," I replied.
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"You'll see," Tag said darkly. "But you won't be afraid. You'll want to die before the tortures are over. And I'll listen to your screams with pleasure."
"Who laughs last, laughs best," I said calmly.
I could have continued the conversation for a while longer, but as usual, something had gone wrong. The prisoner who had stolen the keys had caught Tag's attention as he passed above us and drew attention to himself. Tag was about to order the soldiers to fire when, without thinking, I pulled the trigger and shot him.
The bullet hit him in the shoulder and although he wasn't knocked down, he stumbled. In that moment of distraction, Lena sprang into action and began attacking the soldiers.
Caught off guard, the soldiers were momentarily at our mercy. We fought back with ease, but our advantage was short-lived as Tag unexpectedly regained his footing. He shouted to his men, "Stop that man! He's freeing the prisoners!"
Following Tag's orders, the majority of the soldiers charged towards the carriage, pursuing the recently liberated prisoner alongside the other captives. Despite my desire to assist the prisoner, it proved challenging to fend off Tag's men and hold onto him simultaneously. Suddenly, I shouted at Lena with all my might: "Help the man, I'll handle Tag."As I pivoted towards Tag, I observed him rising to his feet, his head held high, as if observing me from below. Astonishingly, the bullet wound he sustained appeared to be healing on its own.
"You must be a descendant of Cronus," I spoke, my tone of voice mixed with surprise.
"You're smarter than I thought. Or did Lena ask for your help because of your intelligence?" Tag retorted.
"She's just doing what needs to be done," I responded, gritting my teeth.
"I thought you were tough, but it seems you're naive enough to protect a traitor." Tag sneered. "And if there's one thing I've learned from my lineage, it's that a traitor will always be a traitor. People like him only care about themselves. But don't worry, once I'm finished with you, I'll take care of him too."
"We'll see," I retorted, my eyes never leaving Tag's.
Tag's wound was concealed, and as he readied himself to attack, I aimed my gun towards him. However, in a quick motion, he lunged towards me, and I fired off a shot that grazed his shoulder. Despite this, Tag pressed on, attacking me with an unrelenting ferocity that suggested he was unaffected by the wound. In a swift motion, he grabbed my gun, pulled my arm towards him, twisted my back, and tossed me to the ground with ease.
I struggled to comprehend what had just occurred as I hit the ground, but Tag did not relent. Seizing the opportunity, he delivered a crushing kick towards me, but I managed to dodge it by sliding to the left. Once I regained my footing, I continued firing at Tag, but he deftly shielded himself with his hands, rendering my bullets useless.
However, in a moment of quick thinking, I spotted a chain on the ground and quickly snatched it up with my left hand. I hurled it towards Tag and managed to grab hold of his arm when he instinctively reached out to block it. Pulling him towards me, I aimed at his exposed face and fired, but he quickly spun around and wrapped the chain around his hand before retaliating with a brutal knee to my side.
Disoriented, I received two powerful punches to my stomach before Tag delivered a devastating blow to my face using the chain wrapped around his hand. I released my grip on the chain and crumpled to the ground, realizing that Tag was an even more formidable opponent than I had anticipated, a true elite soldier of the third epic.