The moment Stanley saw the other person in the hallway, time slowed down for him while he felt a calmness wash over him. At a time when nothing but he alone could move, he had a while to think over everything.

The guard that had just arrived had shot at him previously, which he had seen coming. He had dodged it as a result, even putting the first guard in the crossfire killed him.

Now that he was back, he stared at the man that attacked him.

It was a guard with leaner features than the first one, as well as a cybernetic modification done to a part of his face.

Stanley recognized him. This was the guard that was known for kidnapping young girls, selling them, and forcing them into a life of prostitution.

Stanley cared not for this man enough to even waste a word on him.

He pulled out his gun even as the man in front of him was already close to pulling the trigger and shot.

He moved to the side and let the time flow back to normal.

He heard a spray of bullets hit everywhere, and when it stopped, Stanley finally walked back into the hallway to see the man dead with a hole in his head.

Stanley stepped over the man, walked deeper into the hallway, and arrived in a room with a single round table in the middle and a few screens on the top.

Stanley looked at the screens and saw himself. He realized that whoever was there had seen him fight. He looked down at the table that was still full of playing cards as well as cups of coffee, and a few other things that let him know that people were here just a minute earlier.

The two guards had come to attack him, which mean... the other two must’ve gone to protect their boss.

He looked up at the ceiling, searching for signs of guns that would point down at him, but none did. ’Hmm?’ Stanley was a little surprised.

He had expected more guns like those from the first hall. He had his hands on his gun, ready to change its mode, and yet... did he need to.

He walked into the hallway, and with the first step, he saw an explosion that would certainly kill him.

Stanley paused his leg midair and pulled it back as his future sight showed him what would happen if he took a single step forward.

He paused for a bit and looked at the hall. Reena hadn’t mentioned anything about this. Although, how could she find out something like this? It wasn’t like she could know such a thing if these people never probably talked about it.

He trusted her and knew it wasn’t a mistake on her part. It was something no one that didn’t have maybe some specific powers could figure out.

"So how do I get through this?" Stanley thought.

First, he needed to figure out if it was rigged to blow up for just him, humans, or everything.

He grabbed the corpse of the dead guard and tossed him forward where he would’ve stepped. He turned on his shield and... nothing happened.

"Hmm? Just living people then?" he wondered and walked over again. He stepped on the floor next to the dead guard and it exploded again.

Stanley paused in confusion and stepped back. Just what was happening? Did it only work on living humans then?

There was certainly a possibility, so he tried again.

Once again, it exploded... but, something was different about this explosion. It wasn’t that the explosion was different, but rather the timing.

It exploded a moment later than the first time. Since nothing had really changed, it shouldn’t have given him a different outcome.

Stanley tried again and noticed the same happening. Different timing. Was he placing his foot wrong?

He tried to do the same thing and it resulted in another different timing, a slightly delayed one this time.

He thought for a bit and looked up at the screens and saw himself in this once again. If there were screens here that showed him, then it must’ve followed him for a while.

In that case, the people who were here had watched him and now they had left this place and were probably watching him again.

’Not automatic then?’ Stanley wondered. ’Is this someone’s power?’

It wasn’t the three remaining members, then it was most likely a controlled explosion from elsewhere.

’They’re looking at me, and they’re waiting for me to enter,’ Stanley thought. Realizing that he smiled.

He took off his sword and shot it forward from one hallway to the next, crossing through the hall.

At the same moment, Time slowed down for Stanley and he rushed forward.

In the blink of an eye, he arrived at the other side of the hall. However, there was a shield in the hallway that he hadn’t been expecting at all.

The sword had struck it and made it visible now.

Stanley knew that if he stayed here for a second or two, the people would notice him and explode the place. The fact that he hadn’t seen a future as such meant that he still had some time.

Stanley grabbed the sword from midair and swung it at the side of the door.

He had been taught something very early on in his training with Gray.

A shield was designed to withstand attack and block anything. A normal shield could easily stop a force of upto 500, which was equal to something that 5 people could produce.

A stronger one, made for heavy artillery could block 100s of times the force that a normal human could produce. So, hitting something on the shield made no sense if one wasn’t stronger than that.

Stanley was strong, but he wasn’t that strong. So he did what any sane person in this scenario would do.

He hit the source of the shield than the actual shield. The tech that made the shield were embedded onto the walls. How deep there were he did not know, but he didn’t need to.

Just a single strike from his sword took out a chunk from the wall, exposing the inner parts. He hit twice more and he managed to see the end of the tech.

Stanley remained quiet as he did so. He held his breath as letting go of it meant he would have to stop his powers to be able to breathe. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Until he was finished, he wouldn’t breathe.

He struck the piece of tech that made the shield and suddenly the shield vanished. Stanley quickly went inside and stopped his powers.

He breathed, in and out loudly. The booming sound of his movement was still reverberating in the room from the many sounds he created when he arrived on the other side.

Nothing exploded at all and he sighed in relief before looking to his right. This was the last stretch of his mission, so he needed to be careful.

There was a door at the end of the hallway as well as two more doors on either side. The room at the end belonged to the David. As for the other two, it was the guards’ chamber.

Stanley placed back his sword and pulled out his gun. He looked toward the two doors on either side of him and got ready to fight if need be.

He took a deep breath and kicked the right door in. The door went flying open and he saw two empty beds as well as many furnitures in the room. He saw no sign of people in there and he felt no danger either.

He immediately kicked open the other door and pointed his gun in first before looking inside. He ripped the door out of its hinges and checked to make sure no one was truly hiding here.

Once that was settled, he finally looked toward the last door. His hands reached for a grenade to blow open the door from far away without getting hurt.

But when he remembered that there was a girl inside there, he worried that he might hurt her. The girl wasn’t part of the gang, so attacking without seeing his enemies might put her in danger.

He frowned for a moment and looked back through the hallway. He saw the screens on the other side, the ones that still showed him.

He pointed his gun in the air while watching the screen until it lined perfectly with the hidden camera in the ceiling. He shot the camera and turned it off, before shooting two more cameras that were in the hallway.

Then, he decided to enter directly.

On the other side of the door, David was sitting on the bed with a large gun in his hand, terrified out of his mind. Next to him on the floor was a blonde lady who clutched the bed sheet to cover herself.

The two giant guards stood next to the door, one holding a gun in his hand and the other a giant glowing red sword.

The cameras they had been using to keep track of him had been cut off, so they had no idea what was going to happen next.

"Make— make sure you guys get him," David shouted, his hands shaking.

"Don’t worry boss," the guard with the gun said. "I will shoot him the moment he comes in."

"Yeah," the other one said. "He is only just a kid. Sooner or later, he’ll make a mistake, and the moment he does that we will kill him."