79

79
Jackson's POV

I fell asleep after a while. Now, there was nobody to question me or make me feel bad about what had happened. No one was going to question me at all, and it was almost as if everything was well, but I knew that it was not the case.

Even though nobody was going to challenge me, it wasn't right for me to go about things like this because it would affect the soldiers' method of dealing with things, even if they didn't want it to. I couldn't ask them to do something when I couldn't leave myself because that would be hypocritical. I would have to do what I said, not just tell them to do what I said so that everything would be balanced.

I stood up, making up my mind, and coming out of the tank to stand watch with them all. A couple of them entered the tank again, and I would have sent them out, saying that they should watch like I was doing, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. After entering the tank to rest myself, there was no way I could stop anyone now. If not, I would feel more like a hypocrite than I already felt like.

That was another reason why I shouldn't have gone to this university, but of course, I've gone through it, so I had to live with the consequences. I decided to relax, knowing that this wasn't going to be all that bad in the end. I was getting more and more used to the waiting as the hours went by, and just as I was settling into it, I heard the rustle of the bushes ahead of me.

I raised my sword to my chest, getting ready for whatever might be attacking us right now. I wasn't sure if it was a man or an animal, but I was definitely going to do everything I could to defend us, especially if it was the people that we were here to target in the first place. I stayed steady, waiting for the signal that it was one of them.

I glanced at the river, wondering whether he would be alert and ready for fighting, unlike the last time when it had been a mere animal. I noticed from the look in his eyes and from his stance that he was ready for fighting. It made me a little apprehensive because somehow, I knew that for him to actually be alert this time, it had to be the real deal.

Of course, there was no rationale to that reasoning, and there was no way he could possibly know whether or not it was the real deal without actually seeing it, but I just trusted him and his instincts since he was a veteran. We waited there in silence, our breaths very low when suddenly, there was a huge crash.

I raised my sword up in defense and ducked down as bullets started raining down on all of us. I looked to see that a couple of men were here. Their faces were marked, and they were pretty agile. Each of them had two guns, and they were shooting at all of us without any kind of restraint, obviously with the aim of killing us.

Without a doubt, I knew that they were the ones that had been attacking the civilians of the villages, the parks that we had allied with. There was no other reason why they would show up at such a time and why they would be so aggressive in their show when we hadn't actually done anything to provoke them yet.

I managed to keep low and keep myself from getting injured by any of the bullets while I analyzed the situation. With one fierce roar, I jumped out from my hiding place and slashed my sword across the neck of one of them quickly. The next one was about to shoot me, but my gun was already ahead of me, and I pulled the trigger with deadly accuracy to his forehead.

I wasn't going for petty injuries because I was pretty sure that one of them would be enough for us to extract all the information we needed. I was going to destroy all these people because they were my enemies, because they had the goal of destroying innocent lives themselves. It was enough reason for me to harm them and wipe them off the face of the earth.

Just like that, I ended about six of them in just a couple of minutes. I glanced at my side, finally able to see past the blood loss in my eyes and saw that a couple of my men had fallen already. From the ten or so that we were, there were now eight, but more of the enemy had died at the same time.

About twenty men that had come here to raid the place had fallen, and much more were falling. I saw Robert slashing and shooting in a similar fashion as me. He was obviously not going to let himself be cut out of the advantage that came with using guns, but at the same time, he was honoring the old traditions.

His speed and his confidence in the battle were completely out of this world for me because I couldn't see myself doing what he was doing, not even in the next one year. Of course, I was doing my best too, and I was also decapitating a number of people, but he was more than twice as fast as I was, and he had a lot more creative ideas on how to deal with his enemies, especially when they gathered him around and it seemed impossible for him to find any space to do anything at all.

I wanted to call to him, maybe wave or call out some encouragement after I got his attention, but decided against it. I couldn't want him worrying himself right now over something that really didn't matter. As long as I was doing fine on my own here, there was no need for me to interrupt him because he seemed to be at the peak height of concentration.

I continued dealing with my opponents steadily, but the more I defeated, the more people seemed to come and continue attacking so that I wouldn't be able to do much. I was honestly very frustrated when I noticed that more than 10 of them that hadn't been here before were now here fighting against us like they had resurrected or like they were clones of some people.

Of course, I hadn't seen them before, and they hadn't died, which meant that they were not resurrected. In addition, I was also pretty sure that there was nothing supernatural about this case and that they weren't cloning themselves, so it left only the option that they were actually able to come from a source, and there were very many right now, and they kept on pouring in.

I should have taken more than 10 men, I said, looking at one of my men get injured right before my eyes. I knew that it would be long now before our forces were able to hold down to just the three of us, me, Damien, and Robert, and who knew what would become of us when that happened.

I was pretty sure that if it came down to that and everything became as bad as that, then it would be almost impossible for me to do anything at all in this situation. It was pretty much impossible for me to actually fight against so many of them by myself, so I needed to start thinking of a problem first.

If my men were struck down, maybe I would be able to survive for a while. Yes, maybe I would be free for some time, but I was pretty sure that I would be next. If my men were actually killed, it wouldn't be too long before I followed, and I was definitely not ready to lose my life in this full encounter. It wasn't in the plan at all, and I hadn't anticipated anything of this sort.

I took in a deep breath, feeling pressure mounting on me, a lot of pressure. My mind was going at full capacity as I tried to think of a solution, but nothing was coming to me no matter how much I tried. It was as if I was struck by something at that moment because my mind was completely unproductive, and I was starting to feel more and more helpless, even more helpless than I was feeling already.

Why did I not take more men? I asked myself suddenly, wondering how I had thought to defeat an entire gang of people with just 10 men. Oh yes, I remember. It was so that I could be able to impress my people. By accomplishing the mission easily with just a couple of people, I thought to myself, shaking my head at the very vain reason.

With a reason like that, it was no wonder that it didn't work out for me in this situation. Clearly, it was not made out of actual statistics, but just because of my own personal thoughts, and that was pretty much not a valid enough reason for me to take only 10 men.

It's done already, I told myself before coming closer to Damien and Robert, wondering whether you could have a quick brainstorming session since nothing was coming to me. It's done already. The only thing I can do now is to find out a suitable solution.