Night Chase
Woof!
Woof!
A dog's sensitive nose, sharp ears, and excellent night vision leave humans completely in the dust.
Arthur Sterling had barely covered a few meters of the dark grounds when the aggressive snarls hit him.
The sound was incredibly hungry, sounding exactly as if they wanted to swallow him whole.
Steve's two massive bully breeds had flawlessly locked onto his scent and voice trail.
He absolutely couldn't slow down; the piercing alarm had already drawn the sprawling estate's heavily armed Security Personnel.
In the United States, illegal entry onto a private estate lets armed guards shoot first and ask questions later.
Even if they weren't Steve's personal men, they would fire their weapons the absolute instant they saw him.
"Get out, fast!" Arthur urged himself.
He pushed his superhuman legs harder, rocketing aggressively toward the dark cliff edge.
He had just successfully ripped off a staggering ton of pure gold; absolute confidence surged through his veins.
With his proficiency system, raw cash plus dedicated time could effortlessly level up almost any skill.
Once he successfully sold those heavy bricks, every single base stat he possessed, and even the size of his invisible private space, would massively spike again.
Intense heat flared in his chest with adrenaline.
Woof!
Woof!
The two well-fed bully breeds were incredibly faster and much meaner than he had initially guessed.
The absolute instant he reached the terrifying drop of the cliff, they burst violently into view, only mere meters away.
They were blindingly fast!
With his racing heart hammering against his ribs, he snatched the heavy abseil rope he had meticulously left on his ascent and quickly clipped it into his tactical harness.
Woof!
Growl!
They lunged aggressively right for his muscular legs.
He absolutely couldn't afford to take any bloody wounds; the local hospital records securely held his precise DNA and blood type.
One single, violent bite would leave damning flesh and blood evidence behind on the estate.
"Scram!" Arthur roared.
He shouted fiercely, one calloused hand still expertly threading the heavy rope, while the other flawlessly drew a sleek 9mm pistol directly from his inner dimensional world.
Bang!
At LV4 in his [Shooting] skill, firing thousands of practice rounds had successfully bought him terrifying, point-and-click accuracy anywhere inside a hundred meters.
Even firing from an awkward, off-angle position, the heavy 9mm round punched cleanly right through the first attacking dog's flank.
Whine!
The hollow-point bullet violently tore half its torso away upon impact.
At a close distance of ten meters, a standard pistol was more than plenty of firepower.
The second massive beast vaulted aggressively through the air, its jaws gaping wide to tear his throat.
Arthur smoothly swung the hot muzzle of the gun and fired again.
Bang!
It was a flawless head-shot at a mere two meters.
Completely neuro-wrecked, the dead dog cork-screwed violently past his body and tumbled straight over the edge into the dark void.
He exhaled a sharp breath, seamlessly holstered the hot piece back into his private space, and securely finished adjusting the rope harness.
"There, he is right on the cliff!"
Blinding tactical beams violently pinned his dark silhouette against the stone as the armed guards charged across the grass.
Steve aggressively rounded the corner of the house, roaring with pure fury.
"Grab him!"
Crack-crack-crack!
Heavy AK rounds viciously chewed the rock right where Arthur stood.
Arthur ducked sharply below the lethal spray of bullets, snapped the absolute final steel carabiner into place, offered a mocking, theatrical bow to the enraged Steve and his guards, and leapt backwards into the abyss.
Terrified screams rose loudly from the guards who knew the absolute, lethal drop of the cliff; they fully expected to find a shattered corpse at the bottom.
But the heavy rope held perfectly, and he bounded flawlessly down the sheer cliff-face, touching the muddy ground safely in mere seconds.
Steve didn't actually see the miraculous descent in the dark, yet his paranoid mind knew absolutely no professional thief would simply commit suicide.
He angrily tossed the heavy rifle to the side, jumped aggressively into the driver's seat of his parked Jeep Wrangler, and floored the gas pedal, tearing downhill to intercept.
Into the heavy tactical radio, he barked aggressively:
"There is an intruder at my villa, start closing all escape routes now!"
"GPS-track my exact position and converge on it, move!"
After violently betraying Charlie and the others, the ever-suspicious Steve also constantly worried his own newly hired men might greedily turn on him.
Especially since he was hoarding a full, staggering ton of pure gold bricks, which was more than enough of a massive temptation to successfully sway most people in the entire world.
So Steve specifically stationed his newly recruited, heavily armed men near the perimeter of the villa, but strictly kept them out of the main house.
He had arrogantly believed that the dense, overlapping network of cameras and lethal traps inside his villa, coupled perfectly with the fact that he himself spent nearly all his time inside, would make it almost entirely impossible for Charlie and his specialized crew to break in if they ever successfully found the place.
He absolutely never imagined that tonight, an entirely unknown, solitary enemy would actually manage to slip right in.
The two massive safes holding nearly a ton of gold, and the vast majority of Steve's personal fortune, had completely vanished when he went to check on them just moments ago.
He genuinely didn't know exactly how the intruder had miraculously managed to move both heavy safes out in such a short amount of time, but Steve was absolutely sure the thief and any potential accomplices couldn't have gone far.
"Charlie, is that you?" Steve hissed under his breath.
The familiar, hated face of his old partner Charlie Croker violently flashed through his paranoid mind.
Along directly with the faces of every single veteran crew member he had ever worked with.
His thick hands clenched aggressively on the steering wheel, Steve's chiseled expression was a mask of savage fury and absolute, murderous intent.
Whoever bravely dared lay a hand on his massive wealth today would absolutely end up buried in an unmarked grave.