Martial Online.

Chapter 408 Howling Rage

?Phoenix switched the grip on the knife to the reverse grip and stabbed it towards Jesse's shoulder.

Jesse quickly grabbed his arm, and he groaned loudly with a desperate-sounding scream. If the knife stabbed him, he would most likely die of blood loss!

"Argh!" Phoenix gritted his teeth and screamed loudly as he tried to plunge the knife deep into the black-haired man's shoulder.

However, it didn't matter how much strength he used; his arm didn't budge even the slightest. It was shocking just how much stronger the black-haired man was than him!

'A security guard?!' Phoenix guessed. 'I thought we had already killed all the security, but I guess there was someone!'

"Aaaaah!" Emily backed closer to the wall, and screamed loudly, her vision blurring with her tears.

She was simply waiting for Jesse to finish his business in the bathroom, but then she started hearing loud screams and the sound of gunshots.

In the end, one of the armed individuals that had infiltrated the mansion found her and put her on the gunpoint. She thought she was going to die.

"Aaaargh!" Jesse grabbed Phoenix's vest, lifted him up from the ground, and threw him to the ceiling.

Slam!

Phoenix slammed to the ceiling and fell to the ground with a hard-sounding thud. He groaned loudly in pain and tried to stand up again.

But then Jesse grabbed him by his vest again and threw him to the wall.

Crack!

Smash!

Phoenix slammed to the wall with a resounding smash and coughed out all his air from his lungs. He felt like a truck had crashed into him.

However, he uttered the last remaining strength and reached out to his waist. There was a hidden pistol holstered!

He pulled out his pistol, pointed it at Jesse, and screamed. "Die!"

Jesse's eyes widened in shock, and he froze from the fear.

He had gotten used to fighting people who wielded sharp objects, but when it came to real-life guns, he still felt fear.

It was different with the Russian and the gun-like object he had. That happened inside the game, and Jesse didn't really care whether he died there in that moment.

However, this was real life!

In here, he was shackled by his Humanoid Imperfecta!

As Phoenix pulled the trigger, it created a hollow click sound, shocking him.

'Fuck, jammed!'

"Aaargh!"

The click sound sounded like heavenly bells to Jesse.

He immediately used Formlessness to cross the distance and shoved Phoenix to the wall.

It looked like an ordinary shove; however, Phoenix flew straight through the wall, and once his flight ended with him falling down to the ground, his eyes rolled backwards into his skull.

He had lost his consciousness.

"Haaah… haaah…" Jesse breathed heavily and looked at his trembling hands.

He had never been this close to death before. If the pistol had fired, he would've died.

'Fucking fear!' He clenched his hands into a fist and gritted his teeth hatefully. 'Because of the fear and hesitation, I would've died!'

"J-Jesse…" Emily whispered and tried to stand up, but her legs had gone numb. "I-I can't… I-I…"

"Are you all right?" Jesse shoke off his anger towards himself and approached the crying girl. "Are you hurt?"

"N-no…" Emily's lips trembled, and she asked sobbingly. "Are my mom and dad okay? Who was that?!"

"I don't know." Jesse sighed, but then his ears perked up.

There were several footsteps, sounding like they were running, coming straight towards them!

Jesse's eyes widened in shock. "People are coming!"

"Oh no…" Emily cried.

Jesse immediately opened the neighboring door and shoved Emily inside.

"Go hide under a bed; don't come out, no matter what!" Jesse shouted.

"W-what if they find me?" Emily kept the door open and asked urgently.

"Just stay hidden!"

"B-but what if they find me?!"

"Trust me, please hide!" Jesse shouted and slammed the door shut.

In the pitch-black room, Emily blindly found the bed and rolled under it. She covered her mouth and silently sobbed while she listened for any sound to come.

Outside the room, Jesse gulped and looked to the end of the hallway.

Then he started seeing silhouettes of armed men running towards him. They all had automatic rifles, and the same white eye sigil was on their masks and vests.

"Find Phoenix!" An armed man, named Hydra, shouted to one of the men and kept his gun pointed at Jesse. "Hands up, and don't move!"

Jesse listened and raised his arms. His back was drenched in cold sweat.

One of the armed men peeked through the broken wall and saw an unconscious Phoenix lying on the ground.

"He is here; he has been knocked out!" The armed man shouted and turned to Jesse angrily. "Was this done by you?"

Jesse gulped.

"Calm down, Goblin." Hydra said, and she looked over to Jesse. "State your name."

"Jesse Rothsmith." Jesse said with a deep frown.

"Rothsmith…" The few armed figures whispered, and their eyes brightened up as they saw that they had hit a jackpot.

"Who are you all, and what do you want?" Jesse asked.

"Well, Rothsmith." Hydra smiled. "Money, what else? This is the only time that all the young generation of High Society gathers in one place.

"Without their younger generation, none of the High Society families will survive. That's why we are keeping you all hostage until each family from High Society has gathered 100 million crowns, each."

'There are 30 families in High Society. So, they want 3 billion crowns…' Jesse gulped. 'What an insane sum.'

"Cuff him; we'll bring him to others." Hydra said to Goblin.

"That's my pleasure." Goblin pulled out cuffs from his back pocket, walked behind Jesse, and roughly cuffed his wrists. "By the way, Phoenix is my brother, bastard."

"Argh!" Jesse groaned loudly in pain as the cuffs tightly hugged his wrists.

"Not good with pain?" Hydra laughed. "There is no way you knocked out Phoenix; there must be someone else here. A security, maybe? Mind telling us?"

"I am alone here," Jesse replied.

"Hmm…" Hydra signaled Goblin to check the nearby rooms.

Goblin nodded, and with a gun in hand, he started checking out all the nearby rooms. Soon, he came across the room next to Jesse and opened it.

It was a very dark room.

He pressed on the lightswitch, and the light covered the room instantly.

Under the bed, Emily paled, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

Goblin narrowed his eyes as he scanned around the room and pointed the gun towards the bed. He put his finger on the trigger and was about to go approach it.

But then Jesse shouted. "I am the only one here. I am Rothsmith. You know what that means!"

"Hmm…" Hydra moved his tongue inside his mouth in a thoughtful manner and said, "Hey, Goblin. This Rothsmith is rather arrogant. Mind showing him some manners?"

"It's my pleasure." Goblin grinned and was about to slam the butt of his gun to Jesse's head.

However, before he could do so, Jesse broke through the cuffs with a loud scream, grabbed Goblin by his throat, and threw him through the ceiling with unimaginable strength.

Hydra and five other armed individuals immediately pointed their weapons at him.

"So, you indeed were the one." Hydra's face slightly paled, and he wondered whether Goblin was still alive from that. "Get on your knees!"

Jesse clenched his hands into a fist, and his expression turned angrier as he stared at them. He was pumping his mind with angry thoughts.

'Anna, Emily, and everyone… they must be still alive, but they dare to threaten my mother?'

"This bastard…" One of the armed men scoffed. "This fucker wants to die badly, huh?"

"He is Rothsmith, therefore valuable." Hydra said. "Just break his legs, and we'll drag him there. We can use him as an example."

Jesse inhaled loudly, and all the nearby air got sucked inside his mouth.

As Hydra and other armed individuals started to approach him, his eyes reddened slightly because of the anger he felt, and then…

He let out a single howl.

"Howling Rage!"

Howl—a maniac-sounding howl, as if it came from a primordial beast, resounded across the entire mansion. It even echoed outside the mansion, and all the wildlife that lived near the Saward Estate started running away.

"Ugh!" Hydra felt his body freeze in fear, and he couldn't even twitch his finger.

He managed to barely look left and right with his eyes and saw that his friends were in the same condition. They were all frozen in fear!

"Whoo…" Jesse exhaled loudly. "That hurts my throat, but one of my new skills seems to be success…"