Chapter 18: The Battle Beneath the Eiffel Tower
The Marquis's lieutenant — the Consul — led the first wave. Dozens of assassins with heavy automatic weapons opened fire simultaneously.
"Kill them! All of them!" The Marquis was already retreating toward his rear guard. "If everyone here dies, the High Table can't prove a thing. No witnesses, no problem."
BRRRRT—
Bullets tore through the air like a monsoon.
Ethan launched himself out of his chair and flipped the negotiation table with one hand. Rounds punched through the heavy wood instantly, leaving thumb-sized holes in a ragged line.
This time, he didn't use Chaos Magic to deflect the bullets. He wanted to test something new.
His right hand flared crimson, and a sword materialized in his grip — conjured from pure Chaos Magic. He swung it into the incoming fire.
Ting-ting-ting-ting!
Sparks erupted as blade met bullet. Then Ethan exploded forward, closing the distance to the gunmen in a blur. With inhuman reflexes and a swordsman's precision, he carved through them like a reaper through wheat.
Behind the Marquis's line, Caine listened to the rhythmic sound of steel cutting air and felt a jolt of recognition. That cadence — it sounds like my style. How?
The briefing said he used knives, not swords. Did he pick up my technique from that single exchange in Hell's Kitchen?
If there's a genius like this in the world... I really do want a proper match someday.
The High Table's courier, caught in the crossfire, took a round despite his bulletproof suit. Under that volume of fire, even Kevlar had its limits. He went down.
John Wick was already moving — up from his chair, pistol drawn from the small of his back, slide racked, body rolling into cover behind a pillar. One shot, one kill. A gunman dropped before John even stopped moving.
The Marquis watched his first wave crumble and turned on Caine. "It's your turn! Kill them both and I'll reunite you with your daughter!"
Caine rose slowly from his chair and drew the sword from his cane.
"The person I most want to kill," he said quietly, "is you."
He erupted into motion — left hand producing a pistol, firing in both directions simultaneously. Two of the Marquis's bodyguards dropped with bullets through their skulls. His right hand drove the cane-sword straight at the Marquis's throat.
The Marquis froze. The blade was an inch from his neck when the Consul threw himself between them, catching the sword on his raised forearm.
Caine disengaged instantly, sliding back to create distance.
The Marquis hadn't expected the betrayal. He still held Caine's daughter — or thought he did.
"Have you lost your mind, Caine?! Your daughter — do you want her dead?! You'll join her in the ground for this!" He screamed the order for his men to turn their guns on Caine.
Caine dodged through the barrage — deflecting rounds off his suit, parrying others with his blade — and smiled. "My daughter is no longer your concern. I'd worry about yourself."
The Marquis snapped. He snatched an RPG from the nearest subordinate and fired.
The rocket screamed toward Caine.
There was nowhere to go. The bullet storm had boxed him in, and now a missile was closing the gap. Caine heard it coming — the whistle growing louder, closer.
This is it. No regret, except that he wouldn't see his daughter one last time. But Ethan and John would look after her.
"Die, traitor!" The Marquis's face split into a manic grin.
The explosion never came.
A thread of red light caught the missile a foot from Caine's back and held it in place, spinning uselessly.
Ethan stood behind Caine, right hand extended, five fingers spread wide.
"Seriously — you're shooting at my people now? And did you already forget? Guns and rockets don't work on me. We covered this." He struck a pose, holding the frozen missile like a prop. Then he flicked his wrist.
The RPG round did a perfect one-eighty and streaked back toward the Marquis's position.
Ethan had just finished clearing the assassins around him and was heading for the Marquis when he'd spotted Caine a heartbeat from obliteration. No hesitation.
"That's two you owe me now, Master Ip," Ethan called over.
"Thank you." Caine stood, dusted off his suit, and straightened his glasses. Calm as ever.
「DING!」
「Congratulations! Caine's Friendship Level has been upgraded to ★★★★!」
「Attribute Gained: Wing Chun Lv.5!」
「Integrate immediately?」
Integrate.
Ethan stared at Caine. Wing Chun? So much for "my name isn't Ip Man." The man literally knew Wing Chun. Maybe Master Ip had emigrated, traded the changshan for a suit, and gone international.
The redirected missile struck.
Fire erupted skyward. Debris and worse rained down across the plaza.
"Handle the rest of the assassins," Ethan told Caine. "The Marquis is mine."
He walked into the smoke.
· · ·
The Marquis was no longer the picture of aristocratic composure. His white suit was soaked in blood and filth. His body was broken. He lay on the ground, gasping, barely conscious.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
An old-fashioned ringtone. The Marquis fumbled his phone from his pocket with trembling hands.
"Sir — our operations are under attack. Unknown assailants, hitting everything simultaneously. Casualties are catastrophic. Family members are being targeted — the losses are—" The voice on the other end was raw with despair. "Please, sir. You have to avenge us."
The Marquis listened, and something inside him ruptured. He coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"Ethan Cross!" His scream was guttural, animal.
"What?" Ethan crouched down to meet the Marquis's eyes. "You started this. If our positions were reversed right now, would you show mercy?"
Ethan wasn't the merciful type. He'd learned long ago that compassion toward your enemies was cruelty toward yourself. He didn't go looking for trouble — but when trouble found him, he pulled it out by the root.
He wasn't Batman. The no-kill rule was for people with more money than sense. Lock a villain up in Arkham, watch them train and level up behind bars, then deal with them again six months later — rinse and repeat, forever. Maybe Bruce Wayne enjoyed the cycle. Ethan didn't.
An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
"If I'm going down," the Marquis rasped, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth, "then everyone comes with me."
He produced a small black box from somewhere inside his ruined jacket and pressed the button.
Ethan's sixth sense screamed. His right eyelid twitched violently — Protagonist's Luck kicking in hard.
"What is that? What did you just do?" His voice went cold.
At Ethan's current power level, almost nothing in the conventional world could threaten him. Almost.
"Guess." The Marquis's broken laugh was the sound of a man with nothing left to lose. "You're all dead. The whole city. Paris dies with me."
Somewhere in an unmarked desert, a silo opened, and a warhead climbed into the sky. Destination: Paris.
"You lunatic. Where did you get a nuke?" The color drained from Ethan's face.
He hadn't imagined the Marquis's family had the connections to acquire a nuclear weapon. He lunged forward and ripped the black box from the Marquis's hand, slamming the button repeatedly.
"It's useless." The Marquis's grin was a red ruin. "Once it launches, nothing can stop it. Press all you want."
Ethan drew his pistol and put three rounds into the Marquis.
The grinning stopped.
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