Chapter 270: Interlude Istanbul

Chapter 270: Interlude Istanbul

There were certain things that always elicited certain reactions.

Otters holding hands? Aw, so cute.

Someone kicking a puppy? That guy’s gonna be limping in a few seconds.

And when a hardened veteran of the most elite military units on planet Earth sported cat ears, jokes were made.

And some people even tried to pet him, though they tended to only try that once. The only people allowed to touch Alexander Braun’s head were his wife and four-year-old daughter.

But as silly as he might look, both cats and humans were, in their own way, apex predators. Being a fusion of a race of deadly ambush predators wielding powerful claws and a devastating bite combined with endurance predators that could run after prey for hours until said prey literally dropped dead from exhaustion made him a member of the most dangerous species in the world.

... albeit one that more than a few jokes had been made about. However, that didn’t matter. His job was to deal with criminals, terrorists, and if, God forbid, Germany was invaded, he’d be fighting on those lines as well. Everything else was secondary.

If everything had gone well, he could have remained hidden, only seeing the light of day when he was really needed, but some politician had fucked up and as a result, people knew he existed and that he was an S-Ranker, but everything else about him was hidden. And he waited, only going out on occasion to act in the shadows.

And then, today had come around, with this mess. His [Skill]set was uniquely suitable for dealing with this encampment in the middle of Istanbul, where there were too many people around for most other approaches. All with the blessing of the local government, of course, he was too noticeable to do this under the table and anything else would have been liable to cause an international incident.

“Launch operation ‘Clean Swe- ...”

Alexander tuned out the orders as they were literally just “go do what we already discussed to death”.

A single kick hit the door of the apartment that contained the largest concentration of hostiles, reducing it to splinters as he charged inside, [Forest of Phantoms] already active, affecting every single one of the people he was here for. The longer these people remained within five hundred meters of him and the less they fought against the ability, the swifter they would be drawn into his domain. And anyone who tried to get completely outside of his range would die before they managed to attack.

[Instant Draw] pulled both of his long daggers straight into his hands without needing to cross the intervening space and he carved through the closest cultist with ease, fireball winking out like a tealight tossed out into a blizzard as its caster took a knife through both the heart and brain.

He briefly released one of his weapons, called a throwing knife into his hand and used [Flicker Throw] to nail a second mage through the eye. The [Skill] might not increase the actual kinetic energy of the hurled object, but its temporal manipulation meant that the target had vastly less time to react. And then his main weapon was right back in his hand.

The throwing knife was too far away for that to work, but he had hundreds of its kind hidden on his body, more than he could ever reasonably use.

The [System]-strength flashbangs he’d hurled through the walls into the neighboring units finally detonated, providing him the chance to [Blur] up to the final mage in the room and kill him.

That was his power, the ability to put his foes into the same kind of untenable position that Quinctilius Varus had found himself in and slaughter them.

One by one, his enemies fell beneath blades and claws, more or less mutilated depending on which and how many Aspects they held.

Until ...

“[Absolute, Enforced Surrender],” one of the last three survivors called out, his companions echoing a moment later.

Alexander sighed as he sheathed his blades, then detached the sheathss from his belt and dropped them onto the ground behind him.

That [Skill]. That damn [Skill]. They always felt so smug when they whipped it out like a kid on the playground doing the time-out sign or pulling out a UNO reverse card for laughs. It was less of a “get out of jail free” card and more of a “guaranteed to get into jail alive” card, but it worked.

On one hand, it put all [Skills] on cooldown, emptied the mana pool to the point where only vital [Skills] such as healing could still be powered, made it impossible to hold weapons, and weakened attacks for several hours.

On the other hand, it let the person you were surrendering to know that you were serious, and should they still attack, both their superiors and every journalist, blogger, and general nuisance within a hundred kilometers would learn of it.

It really was a slap in the face that that [Skill] even existed. Someone could have been shooting at you mere milliseconds before but once it was triggered, they expected to be treated with kid gloves.

Too bad for them that this space was beyond the reach of all those pansies who thought that literal terrorists who’d been working to murder them all should be treated like the last members of an endangered species just because they had a [Skill] that let them “convincingly” surrender.

They’d even done him the courtesy of seriously relaxing when he’d put away his weapons. As if he didn’t have a blade just as lethal, just a little shorter, at each fingertip.

And they were lined up so nicely ... by the time the first body hit the floor, he’d already torn the head off the last one.

A simple flick of the wrist sent all the blood flying off his fingers and sleeves, [Feline Cleanliness] making the post-fight cleanup a breeze. Contrary to its name, it did not require him to use his tongue to remove dirt.

The spectral recreation of the ancient Forest of Teutoburg faded around him along with all signs of battle, and the party interface returned.

“This Oberfähnrich Braun, the Istanbul group has been eliminated, you can call in the local LEOs and investigative teams. I need another target and transportation,” He reported.

And five minutes later, he was halfway around the world, ready for another battle.