บท 15: Chapter 15: Mission (II)

I arrived after two hours in the SeACPC main base of operations for the UN, in Vietnam.

Ok, game face time. I got to act serious, I guess for this mission. Ugh, I wish I could unlock the supporting skills for space above [Blink]. It would be so easy to travel then.

Putting my serious face on, I changed my aura, face and soul emission once again before appearing in the bustling streets of Hanoi.

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Paolo headed towards the building where the coordinates in the spiritual bird mentioned. The building looked quite grand, almost comparable to a villa.

He headed to the entrance and presented the spiritual mark provided by the spiritual bird messenger on the back of his hand, causing the guarding espers to back to the side and allow him to enter the residence.

Upon entering, he was surprised to see that there were already a lot of people present.

Upon looking around and giving a few nods at the people who looked at him and greeted him, he found a seat in the main atrium and waited for the meeting to commence.

Paolo closed his eyes and looked like he was dozing off in front of the other espers, some of which were a bit amused by his actions.

They began to whisper in their small groups while looking at him.

"My, what gall! Leaving himself defenseless in a room full of espers." one of them whispered, chuckling afterwards.

"Hmm, who is he? Maybe he has a strong background. Or probably a hidden expert perhaps?" A female esper asked softly, wondering about Paolo. Little did she know she was quite right.

"Hah, an expert? Really? With his looks and health points? I've seen others with more than a hundred thousand health points and they don't seem to brand themselves as expert espers! Probably someone who just struck it rich and was invited by the UN."

"Shh, you can't underestimate those diviners. They can seriously dig up your past and no one wants that."

"Ugh. Those bitches better behave when they see me, or else I'll make sure they suffer. I was relaxing in my house when a bird came in and started to blackmail me in attending, damn it."

"Eh, blackmail? Mine was worded quite nice though. Probably they saw what you did in your past so they decided to blackmail you, haha!"

"Hmph, you wanna fight?" the man who was being mocked said in response obviously annoyed that his past was brought up.

In fact, Paolo wasn't sleeping at all. However, he didn't care much about their discussions. All he did was doing his own thing, his own way.

Opinions of others didn't really matter to him, but if he got annoyed he'll probably kill them for annoying him too much.

After a few more minutes of small group discussions, their attention was caught by a man who arrived by the staircase near the atrium. Judging by his look, he seemed to be the leader of the mission.

A few of the espers came closer to the man to greet him, but they stopped a few meters from the man, seemingly held in place.

Paolo at this point in time opened his eyes and looked at the man, but retained his sitting position. Several others did the same. For Paolo it was merely child's play to manipulate air and freezing it to stop the enemies.

It would be much more interesting if the man manipulated space around him so that no one would be able to reach him.

Paolo yawned loudly, causing some of the esper to shoot him a look. Even the esper who just arrived saw it as a curiosity.

"Aren't we starting yet? Let's hurry this up so we could go back to our respective businesses." Paolo said, obviously bold enough to rush the pleasantries and get down to business.

"How audacious!" a loud voice sounded, and everyone couldn't help but look at the source of the voice.

It was a man in his early 20s, wearing prestigious attire as if attending a formal gala. Compared to Paolo's denim pants and casual T-shirt, he looked more dignified.

Before he managed to say anything else at Paolo, something stopped him. It was as if every single cell in his body slowed down and continued to do so.

The felt a sense of terror when he looked down to see that his body was already rigid and some cracking sounds were appearing.

He wanted to speak but his vocal cords had been frozen, causing his eyes and facial expression express a type of primal fear: the fear of death.

A few seconds later, even with the help of other espers, they still couldn't undo what happened to the man.

They could see the health points of the esper rapidly falling from 250000 points to merely 125000 in a matter of seconds, showing the potency of the attack.

"I hate nuisances. If you're not powerful enough, shut up." Paolo muttered, as he continued to sit comfortably in his seat. He snapped his finger and instantly, the man could finally move again, however his health points had already dropped to 26000 points. Everyone in the atrium couldn't help but suck in a cold breath.

How strong must you be to actually cause such a damage? Everyone had this thought in their minds.

A small cough resounded, and instantly, everyone refocused at the task at hand. In their minds however, they couldn't help but pity the person who offended an expert. Who knows what his real rank was.

"cough, cough. Now that you all gathered here today for the underwater mission, I will be brief."

"I am Commander Sia Jong and will be leading this operation. We will all be boarding a submarine to head deeper into the Marianas trench due to an abnormal signal detected deep into the trench."

"Sia Jong? Isn't that the man responsible for clearing out the rebels in the Middle East? I heard the royal family paid quite a hefty sum to the UN to send him."

"Eh of course, that man was a rank S esper. The cost of hiring him would be astronomical for some countries, but not for the royal family of Saudi Arabia."

Numerous whispers among small groups in the atrium sounded, informing Paolo of the identity of the man in front of him.

When he looked at Sia, the man also looked back at him and their gazes met.

Paolo could feel the man attempting to exert mental pressure but he just laughed it off in his mind.

After all, how could he easily be affected by mental pressure? He decided to exert his own mental pressure back, just to see Sia's reaction.

However, he couldn't help be shocked with the results. Everyone that was in the path of their gazes spouted a mouthful of blood before retreating, and looking at their previous location with fear.

At the same time, Sia Jong's face was quite unsightly due to the mental pressure exerted to him was 5x stronger!

He couldn't help but avert his gaze from Paolo and instantly, the pressure receded. However, the damage still had been done. His health points were reduced by 1/10th of his max HP in that small clash, but swiftly recovered. Paolo looked away as well. There was no need to fight against someone with life as their element. Their small clash didn't go unnoticed.

Several espers truly knew that Paolo wasn't just any rank C or B or even A. With the little capabilities he had shown, he had a power surpassing even rank S!