Before they turned the corner, Tristan glanced at his teammates.
"I go first, you cover."
He kept a gun in each hand. Normally, they would throw a tear gas grenade at enemies first, but if Pierce's tear gas grenades didn't help him, then these elites were protected from it, anyway.
Tristan turned the corner, ready to shoot.
The enemy elites were there, and one of them already had their guns aimed at Tristan's direction.
The time seemed to slow and become thick as molasses. Everything slowed down, from the enemy's movements to Tristan's own.
It was the bullet time.
A split second was stretched into ages, in which Tristan could examine everything in front of him in detail. The electric lights weren't shattered yet, and gave enough light.
Four people stood in a stairway landing: two closer to Tristan, two near where the hallway leading into the building, one more was barely visible deeper inside.
Each of the elites was covered in bulletproof armor from head to toe. Their faces were covered by goggles and respirator masks similar to ones Tristan's team was wearing, and they were wielding AK-47 rifles.
Not only they had better gear than anything in King Lion Gang, these people held themselves better-than-average grunts from Cuatro Angulos. Their tactics and bearing were clearly a level above, even if it was far from that of actual spec ops soldiers.
Besides the living people, there were three bodies lying on the ground in the room. Two of them belonged to Pierce's people and one wearing the same type of equipment as the other elite enemies.
In slow motion, Tristan saw the closest enemy slowly aim his gun at his head, and others gradually turned their heads toward Tristan as well.
While the enemy was still spending precious milliseconds to react, Tristan already was ever so slowly aiming at his head and pressing the gun's trigger.
At the same time, his left hand aimed at the second closest enemy.
The bullets flew out with a stretched-out bang, leaving visible ripples of air behind, like in movies.
Then the time returned to its normal state.
The feeling was like being on stage. Inspiration, but to fight and kill.
Tristan raised his gun and aimed at the flying flashbang. Thanks to the bullet time, even hitting a flying target like that under a precise angle was easy.
He pressed the trigger and closed his eyes shut. The time sped up.
The bullet hit the flashbang head-on, throwing it right back into the middle of the enemy team. And since they were turning away from Tristan's team, half of them were right at flashbang when it exploded.
The flash was blinding even through closed eyes.
The bang was loud enough to be physically painful, and leave behind nothing but ringing silence.
Even the sound of system notifications didn't pierce it, leaving them to wait their hour for who knows how long.
When Tristan opened his eyes again, through the black and white spots, he saw that all the enemies were stumbling on their feet, completely stunned—just like Tristan's teammates.
He was the only one who still had most of his senses!
Tristan grinned, then began shooting.
Without bullets forcing him to stay down, this was as easy as shooting beer cans.
In four presses of a trigger, all the remaining enemies were shot dead.
Tristan slowly walked forward, not lowering his gun, but feeling his heartbeat slowly decreasing its tempo. Then he glanced at his team.
They still looked wobbly on their feet. Some took off their goggles to rub their eyes. Tristan's treating injuries skill told him they will stay like that for at least a few minutes.
'This is the chance I needed,' Tristan thought. 'These people will be dead weight for just enough time that I can deal with Pierce!'
By Tristan's estimation, Pierce was just ahead.
Tristan reloaded and walked there.