RETIRED WAR GOD'S EVERYDAY LIFE

6

Ashland Avenue was roughly four blocks away from Wicker Park. By running straight through the narrow alleys, a former Task Force Obsidian commander could reach it in one hundred and eighty seconds.

Mason took off his brown apron, folded it calmly, and placed it on the counter.

Toby had just pushed open the cafe's front door, his breath ragged from running from the train station. "Mr. Mason! Mr. Mason! There are so many police sirens outside—" "Toby," Mason cut in, his voice as cold as the thickest ice. "Watch the cafe. If anyone asks for me, tell them I'm out buying coffee bean supplies."

Before Toby could ask anything, Mason had already vaulted over the bar counter with an agility no ordinary human possessed. His footsteps seized the back door, and in the blink of an eye, his sturdy body vanished into the darkness of the narrow alley, blending into the sweeping Chicago chill.

Ashland Avenue abruptly turned into a street hell.

Thick smoke lingered in the air, smelling of pungent gunpowder and burning plastic. Civilian cars collided in panic, their drivers abandoning them to flee into nearby stores. The sound of automatic AK-103 gunfire pierced the morning silence like a string of giant firecrackers.

TAK-TAK-TAK-TAK-TAK!

"Open the door! Fast!" shouted one of the skull-masked attackers with a heavy Eastern European accent. He slapped a strip-shaped plastic explosive onto the hinge of the Lincoln Navigator's door. "We only have two minutes before police backup arrives!"

Inside the vehicle, Claire Montgomery clutched her knees tightly beneath the back seat. Her ears rang loudly from the sound of gunfire battering the car's steel plating. Blood from her bodyguard's head dripped across the leather seat, soaking her school uniform dress.

"Please... anyone... help me..." Claire sobbed, closing her eyes tightly as she heard the explosive's timer on the door begin to beep repeatedly.

Beep... Beep... Beep...

"Three seconds left! Fall back!" the attacker shouted.

However, before the explosive timer reached zero, a black shadow dropped from the two-story rooftop above them.

THUD!

Mason landed with both feet right on the hood of the attackers' sedan. The impact of his body was so powerful that the car's hood crumpled inward, instantly triggering the airbags inside the cabin!

The skull-masked attacker holding the detonator jolted in surprise, instinctively whipping the barrel of his AK-103 upward. "What—?!"

Mason did not give him time to think.

Before the rifle barrel could level at his chest, Mason's left hand grabbed the end of the barrel, twisting it sideways with destructive force. CRACK! The attacker's wrist snapped instantly. Without breaking momentum, Mason's right hand grabbed the strip explosive on the door of Claire's car, ripping it off just half a second before it detonated!

Mason tossed the small explosive into the jacket pocket of the second attacker who had just stepped out of the vehicle.

BOOM!

A small-scale directional explosion went off inside the second attacker's pocket, flinging his body three meters backward, collapsing unconscious onto the asphalt with his clothes on fire.

The third attacker—the group's leader—was struck with horror. He pulled a tactical knife from his armor vest and slashed straight at Mason's neck with a lethal thrust.

Mason stepped half an inch to the side. His movement was as smooth as dancing. The knife thrust met only empty air beside his ear. With his middle and index fingers pressed together, Mason struck the brachial plexus nerve point on the side of the attacker's neck.

The skull-masked man instantly collapsed like a felled tree, his eyes rolling upward before losing consciousness completely.

The entire fight was over in less than twelve seconds.

The explosion smoke slowly thinned. Mason stood tall in the middle of the chaotic Ashland Avenue. He grabbed the damaged hinge of the Lincoln Navigator's door, ripping it wide open with physical strength that transcended human limits.

Claire Montgomery looked up with tear-stained cheeks and overwhelming fear.

Through the drifting gunpowder smoke, she saw a sturdy man in a wet black t-shirt standing and staring at her. The man's eyes were black, deep, and possessed an aura so dominant it caught Claire's breath in her throat.

"Are you alright, Miss?" Mason asked, his voice friendly yet firm, extending his muscular right hand.

Claire stared at that hand, trembling. "W-who are you?"

Mason was just about to pull Claire out when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sirens of Detective Valerie Vance's Ford Explorer cruiser swing sharply around the corner of the street, just fifty meters from their position!

Valerie slammed on the brakes, stepping out of her vehicle while drawing her Glock 19. "POLICE! DON'T MOVE! PUT YOUR HANDS UP!"

Valerie wide-eyed recognized the posture of the man standing beside the wrecked car. "Hayes?!" Valerie screamed in disbelief.

Mason looked at Valerie for a fraction of a second, flashed a faint smile, and in the blink of an eye, grabbed Claire's waist, lifted the girl as if she weighed nothing, and vaulted over a two-meter-high barrier beside the alley.