Inside the estate, the explosion from the villa immediately drew most of the security team toward that side.
But not all of them.
Woof.
Woof.
Woof.
The guards could not hear Hunter moving, but the estate's awakened attack dogs certainly could.
The animals immediately erupted in furious barking in the direction Hunter was fleeing.
Some even fought against their leashes, straining so hard they nearly dragged the handlers with them.
The guards quickly realized something was wrong.
After a brief exchange with one another, several of them followed the dogs and gave chase.
The estate had wide stretches of short grass, and it did not take long before someone spotted a figure racing across the moonlit grounds toward the outer wall.
"D4 sector, D4 sector, possible intruder sighted."
"One target, moving toward the perimeter wall."
"Move, move, move!"
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.
Gunfire cracked through the night.
Hunter kept running without even slowing down to return fire.
The barking behind him grew louder and closer.
At that point, he stopped holding back.
His body, already nearly five times stronger than an ordinary adult male's, burst into full acceleration.
His speed jumped again, then kept climbing.
A moment later, he reached the wall.
Hunter sprang upward, planted a foot against the stone, and vaulted cleanly over the top.
Beyond the wall stretched what looked like an endless sea of sand.
The road was only a few hundred meters away, but Hunter knew that if the guards drove out the main gate to pursue him, he would never escape cleanly.
And there was still a helicopter inside the estate.
Fortunately, he had prepared for that.
He quickly pulled a remote control from inside his jacket.
Without hesitation, he pressed the button.
Behind him came a violent explosion.
Hunter did not stop. He kept sprinting toward the road.
Blowing the helicopter would only buy him a little time. The guards would figure it out soon enough.
Sure enough, just as Hunter was nearing the road, with only a few dozen meters left to go, the estate gate slowly opened and two off-road vehicles rolled out.
Hunter knew he could not wait any longer.
If he reached the road first and then pulled out the motorcycle, they would see through the trick immediately.
So, while still well away from the gate, he reached into his private space and produced the bike.
A motorcycle was slow on sand, not even as fast as he had just been on foot.
By the time he finally reached the road, the two SUVs were less than twenty meters behind him.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat.
Two guards leaned halfway out of the side windows, and another stood up through the sunroof.
Three guns pointed at Hunter, spraying bullets at him as if ammunition were free.
Hunter was not a many-armed monster. He could not shoot back.
Fortunately, the bike had made it onto the pavement.
He twisted the throttle hard.
The second-hand machine, heavily modified by Hunter himself, roared to life with terrifying force.
In just a few seconds, the road beast surged past one hundred miles per hour.
Bang.
Pain stabbed through his back, and one shoulder seemed to take a round too.
Hunter knew that without the body armor, he would have been finished right there.
But even injured, he had no intention of turning around to fight back. There was no point.
Vroooom.
The motorcycle, now fully unleashed, kept accelerating.
One hundred fifty miles per hour.
Then one hundred eighty.
Then climbing toward two hundred.
It had started as an ordinary used bike, bought only so it would not draw attention. But after Hunter paid far more than the price of a new one to rebuild it, it had become a true monster.
If he wanted to, this machine could even hit more than three hundred fifty miles per hour at top speed.
It just could not hold that pace for long.
The curses and gunfire behind him kept going, but with every second Hunter's speed increased, they grew fainter and farther away.
Barely ten minutes after getting on the road, Hunter had already pushed the bike past two hundred forty miles per hour.
He had long since left the desert estate's guards behind.
He rode out dozens of kilometers beyond Las Vegas, then used the road map he had memorized before the mission to take another route.
That detour added nearly another hundred kilometers before he finally came back toward the city from a different direction.
Along the way, he took care of his clothes and wounds.
The armor on his back had absorbed most of it, leaving only bruises where the bullets struck.
The real wounds were on his shoulder and arm, where the armor had not covered him. Three shots had left several cuts there.
Fortunately, the bullets were from automatic weapons. They had not gone deep, had not broken bone, and none had lodged inside.
Using the emergency medicine skill he had just learned, Hunter cleaned and bandaged himself quickly.
He changed into fresh clothes and made it back to the safehouse before dawn.
Because he had been wounded, and because his body could not compare to Hunter's, Perkins did not wake until nearly eight the next morning.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Hunter sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper, with bandages wrapped around parts of his own body.
Seeing that he was injured too, Perkins frowned.
"How did you get hurt?"
"Got careless last night. Took a graze in the fight. Nothing serious."
"I noticed some blood later. I was worried someone might see it and cause trouble, so I wrapped it up."
Hunter gave a vague explanation and handed her the paper.
"Congratulations. Your job is done."
"But we made too much noise. We will probably have to lie low in Las Vegas for a few days before leaving."
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