Chapter 26: The Night Stalker

Chapter 26: The Night Stalker

The bounty hunter burst out the back door just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of Gift’s retreating figure as he disappeared into the shadows.

A slow, cruel smile spread across his face. “Gotcha.....” He chuckled darkly to himself, watching the trail of disturbed roof tiles in the distance.

_Guess that silver was worth it after all.....the bastard was really here all along._

Just as the bounty hunter was about to follow after Gift, Jasmine came huffing and puffing around the corner, clearly out of breath. "W-wait up!." she panted, one hand braced against the side of the inn for support.

The bounty hunter, still grinning like a wolf who had just found fresh prey, looked down at her. “ Hahahaha....Don’t worry dear, Looks like I won’t need to rent a room after all.” He tipped his head toward her, a mocking gesture that dripped with smug confidence, then turned and sauntered off into the night.

Jasmine stood there, hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. “What the heck just happened?” she muttered. She stared after the bounty hunter, then at the broken flower pot.

" My tulips!!!, Darn it Gift that was one of my favorites!!!!." She winced.

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Gift shot across the rooftops, his figure leaping several tens of meters with each leap, leaving centimeter deep footprints on the wooden roofs as he moved at lightning speed, as if there was a serious spring in his step.

Every bound felt effortless, like the world below had lost its pull, letting him glide through the night air as if he owned it.

“ Pixel I must say again, This upgraded nano suit really does live up to my expectations.” he grinned to himself as he soared over another building, “I mean, I knew I had a great idea here, but this is next level. I bet I could take out, What, ten of my old selves without breaking a sweat?.”

Pixel chimed in with her signature deadpan tone. [Actually, My analysis states that you could roughly face twenty of your past selves and maintain a reasonable chance of survival.]

Gift’s grin frozen for a moment before growing a bit with exasperation. “Pixel, you’re telling me I can take on a small army of ‘old me’s?, And here I was being humble....” He thought with a wryly chuckle.

[It's all due to your genius ingenuity Sir, Although I was the one that developed the parasitic nano bots, you were essentially the one who plotted out the design.]

" Thanks for the flattery, but I have to admit, even I wasn't 100% sure this would work."

[ I see, If I may ask sir what was your rough estimate on the Parasitic N.bots success.]

" Getting curious are we now, Well if you must know I was only about.....40% positive. Biology was never my best subject I'm afraid, For a second there I thought there would be some sort of genetic anomaly or maybe something monstrous would've come about it but I guess there's really nothing to worry about lolz..." Gift felt as if a pressing weight had been lifted off his shoulders only for his chuckle to stop mid way when something came to mind.

" Wait, Kids still say lolz in this era right?." He asked pixel mid leap.

[ I think that's highly unlikely, considering our current location Sir...Moreover, Regarding the Nano Suit, I forgot to mention something.]

Pixel’s voice turned serious.

" Oh?, Well do tell, What is it?." Gift inquired before leaping off a buildings roof with even more power in his step, causing a partial shockwave that shook the roof a little as he flew through the air.

[Though the Nano suit provides a tremendous increase in power, There is still one potent draw back to it.]

[In exchange for a varied increase in overall power, The suit consumes energy at an exponential rate. Prolonged use at current output will eventually result in power depletion within the next twenty minutes]

Gift let out an amused sigh. “ Well it can't be helped then, There's always gotta be a catch, huh?."

" Alright, speed it is then, let’s go find our mark, seems like midnights approaching and i definitely don't want to turn into a pumpkin.”

[Pardon me sir?.] Pixel asked, a bit confused since she couldn't foresee that happening at all.

" Hahahaha, don't get confused, it's just a Disney reference." Gift snickered before he kicked up the pace, moving faster, rooftops blurring far quicker to the eye than one who was using a Bugatti Veyron as he sped towards his target.

---

Down below, two women stood at the street corner, deep in an animated conversation. The first woman, dressed in a vivid red shawl that clashed boldly against the evening gloom, leaned close to her friend, her voice low and scandalized.

“I’m telling you,” she hissed, her eyes filled with resentment. “I caught him. Red-handed. And he wasn’t just with her, oh no—they were in his office of all places, practically about to get on with it on his desk.”

Her friend, a shorter woman with bright eyes and a shock of frizzy hair, gasped. “Your kidding me, In broad daylight?”

“Yes, broad daylight,” she said, throwing her hands up. “Can you believe the gall?, And he just sat there, looking as guilty as a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. I wanted to smash that desk right then and there with that harlot.”

The frizzy-haired friend shook her head, her expression a mixture of pity and indignation. “I always thought he was such a good man. And here he is, messing around with some...some sl*t right under your nose.”

“Exactly,” the woman with the shawl muttered. “And when I asked him about it, he said it was ‘a work thing.’ A work thing. Can you even imagine."

The frizzy-haired friend snorted. “Oh, sure. Right up there with ‘it’s not what it looks like.

’ Next, he’ll be saying he was ‘working overtime.’ like my useless husband.”