At a gunpoint

"Authority this, authority that..." The policeman shook his head, his face showing the first hints of him getting annoyed by how lightly Leo threw this word around. "Are you one of those sovereign citizens or something?"

The man was still smiling... But his smile lacked the usual warmth. In a sense, it was nothing more than a professional mask men in his line of duty had to perfect for the sake of the public relations of... well, their job.

"It's my first time hearing the term, so I cannot really answer that," Leo countered while helplessly shrugging his shoulders. "Don't we all live in a sovereign country? Wouldn't that mean we are all sovereign citizens?"

This time, it wasn't the leader of the police or any of his underlings that came to answer.

"Sovereign citizens are a movement of people who claim authorities are unlawful and thus lack the authority to use force against them," Rob explained before shrugging his shoulders. "Basically, anarchists who think the law doesn't apply to them because they denounce the very idea of the state itself."

"You heard the boy," the police leader interjected, his smile regaining a tiny bit of emotion behind it for a moment, only for the man to then shake his head. "Well, it's not exactly that, but the gist is pretty much on the point."

Rob looked over at the police officer and nodded his head... Only to then take another step and lightly tap Leo against his waist.

"Their body cameras..." he whispered while acting as if he was trying to explain the raised term in greater detail, "they are all turned off."

'Body cameras?' Leo squinted his eyes.

It didn't take a genius to figure out the meaning of the term and thus, the meaning behind Rob's silent warning.

'So they don't want there to be any record of what happened here?' Leo thought, his face still as relaxed as ever despite the turmoil going on in his soul and mind alike. 'Does that mean...'

His guess so far was that those policemen were simply the enforcing arm of whoever was in charge of the city and, by extension, the country's peacekeeping force as a whole.

But their attempt at leaving no indisputable records of what happened within the portal went against that guess.

And since they wanted there to be no records of the insides of the portal left...

What else could be their goal here?

'So that's how it is...' Leo thought, fighting off the desire to smack himself in the face. 'And if that's the case...'

"Sovereign citizens aside, let's summarise our situation here. We are here to grow stronger with the help of this alien circuit. You guys are here..." Leo pretended to hesitate for a while only to then lean his head over his shoulder and cast the police leader an inquisitive glance. "What exactly are you guys here for?"

"Huh?"

For the very first time, the police leader jumped... No, he didn't make it THAT obvious. Rather than jumping in response to Leo's question, his face twitched a little.

But to Leo's eyes, a mental tick like this was no harder to spot than the man suddenly jumping up in surprise.

"To make sure this place is of no danger to the civilians back in the city, isn't it obvious?"

"Then..." Leo spoke out, only to cut his sentence short and shake his head before taking a step back and dropping his hand down on Rob's shoulder.

"I'm sorry. You were the one to notice, so how could I take the credit for it?" he asked before tapping his brother's shoulder a few more times. "Go on."

At first, Rob turned his head and looked at Leo as if he didn't understand what his older brother meant. Then, the look on his face changed, as the realization washed over him.

Finally, a look of fear flashed in his eyes as he glanced over at the police, only to gulp down his saliva before he turned to face the cops and took a step forward.

"If what you are saying is true..." Rob's fear gradually disappeared from his face as he spoke, replaced with the determination stemming from the mental momentum, "Then why are your body cams all off?"

The instant Rob's words left his mouth, the air within the portal tensed up. The smile of the leader of the police unit vanished, replaced with a perfectly empty, emotionless mask.

The rest of the cops all looked up to their leader, not sure whether it was the right time to raise their weapons or not just yet. And, quite surprisingly, only two of them appeared to have some issues with raising their guns back up to aim them at civilians, regardless of how uncooperative they might be.

On the other hand, not only Rob but now also Millie, and then, as reluctant as he was, Mark stepped closer to Leo, ready for whatever the police unit could bring to bear upon them. Even the two youths that Leo has long since marked as dead-to-be understood their assignment, with the mage hiding behind everyone's back while the swashbuckler took a stance at the very front of the entire group.

Still...

As defiant as Leo's group was to the policemen's demands... Not even the recent power-up from the alien circuit they received was enough to quell the innate fear of openly going against armed police.

Mark's hands were trembling. Millie's entire body was twitching, as if she wasn't sure whether to get down on her knees and raise her hands while begging for mercy or to lunge at those gun-bearing men to claw their eyes out.

When it came to Leo's youngest brother, though...

'Is it fear, I see in him, or anticipation for the fight?'

Leo heaved a short sigh.

"Okay, let's stop it before we all start killing each other. It's not yet time for my folks to see what it is like to rip a human apart," he claimed before raising his hands and putting a small smirk on his face only to then...

Only to back out a single step, forcing the rest of his group to follow his example.

"Since you guys are so confident to be here, let's make a fair deal, what do you say?"

For a few, unbearably long seconds, the leader of the police group continued to stare Leo down, only to then move his eyes and carefully inspect the rest of his group.

"What kind of deal do you have in mind?" The man asked; his pistol half-way out of its holster on the man's hip.

"We've dealt with the first three waves. It's going to take some time, but I have no doubt there's a fourth wave coming."

Rather than getting directly to the deal he had in mind, Leo started with a short introduction.

"So, how about we have one of your men stand back with the rest of us and his body camera turned on, while the rest of you will face the fourth wave on your own?"

For the second time, mere words managed to bring out an interesting reaction in the leading officer's face.

"So that you can get a hostage for free?" The man asked, squinting his eyes in suspicion.

"No, not at all. If so I desired, I could slaughter you all before you could as much as raise your guns again," Leo confidently claimed while shrugging his shoulder to indicate just how easy of a task it would be for him to turn his fleeting words into action. "I just need at least one witness with proper evidence to prove we had nothing to do with your deaths."

Once again, the leading officer squinted his eyes, the gun moving one further inch out of its holster. By now, only the very tip of its barrel was still sheathed, with the officer ready to properly pull it out at a moment's notice.

"You are bluffing."

Ultimately, that was the conclusion the leading cop came to.

"If you could really kill us all as easily as you claim to be able to, why didn't you do it already?"

The policeman rolled his eyes only to push his gun back into the holster before bringing his arms up and crossing them over his chest, standing defiantly right in Leo's face.

"If that's what you choose to believe in, then so be it," Leo shrugged his shoulders.

'It's taking too long,' Leo thought, already putting this weird cop into the back of his mind, opting to focus on the situation on the plain instead.

And just like his gut feeling told him... Something fishy was going on.

Their standoff with the police, as tense as it might be, took a considerable amount of time. And even if each consecutive wave of the portal fiends took longer to assemble and attack...

By now, it should already be charging their group down from a distant corner of this open field.

Contrary to this prediction, though, no matter how much Leo looked around, no matter how much he spread his senses... Save for some occasional fiend, there wasn't a single sign of the next wave coming.

'Oh boy, doesn't that mean the next wave will be a boss wave?' Leo thought, only to then fight a great battle with his own mimicry not to let out a huge, knowing smile.

"What I'm offering you is the right to claim all the experience and loot from the biggest wave thus far. And if you still can't help but worry about a bunch of youths putting your armed group in danger, then..."

Before anyone could react, Leo rushed ahead.

By the time the first of the cops managed to raise their weapon up and aim it in Leo's general direction, he was already by the side of the second nearest cop.

With the help of his telekinesis, Leo forced their arms to go up long before he could even reach their side, all for the sake of having them put the barrel of their pistol directly against his forehead the moment he drew near enough for that to happen.

Another whisk of Leo's mana coiled around the gun's insides, blocking the firing pin from moving, just in case the cop would overreact or got any funny ideas.

"I'm willing to stay back with a gun to my head while you guys go and monopolize the next wave," Leo claimed while staring down right into the eyes of the cop who he kind of forced to put him in the extremely uncomfortable spot they were both in.

Then and only then did Leo turn his head, ignoring the terrified looks of his brothers and Millie, only to give the leading officer a small, relaxed smile.

"Is that enough, or are you still pissing your pants at the thought of a bunch of kids stopping you from stealing this portal from your greedy hands?"

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