From Bullets To Billions novel Chapter 498

Chapter 498: Stephens Special Power (Part 1)

For a brief moment, Keke genuinely wondered if the sunglasses Stephen held were even his. His brain rejected the possibility outright. Maybe they were just a prop, something to distract him, trick him into lowering his guard.

But when Keke lifted both hands to touch his face, his fingertips met bare skin.

No frames.

No lenses.

Nothing.

They were gone.

He looked down at the floor, half expecting the glasses to have slipped off during one of his spinning kicks. But there was nothing there either.

"Come on," Stephen said casually, flicking the sunglasses in his hand. "Do you really think anyone else is stupid enough to wear sunglasses at night during a fight?"

His tone was dry, teasing, but there was a sharpness underneath. The comment alone shouldn’t have stung, but it did.

Stephen himself could think of one exception.

Chad.

The idiot wore sunglasses at nearly every event. Maybe that was why Keke irritated him so much; he was a living reminder of the sort of nonsense Stephen thought he had escaped.

Keke didn’t respond. He didn’t taunt. He didn’t shout back.

He just stood there, mind racing.

’That’s impossible... If he really took the sunglasses off my face, his hand would’ve had to reach out, come inches from me, and I didn’t see even a blur. Not a shadow. Nothing.’

A cold shiver slithered down his spine.

If Stephen could remove his glasses without him noticing... then Stephen could have punched him in that moment. He could have crushed his nose, shattered his jaw, knocked him out cold.

And Keke wouldn’t have been able to react.

"It has to be some kind of trick," Keke whispered to himself. "A stage trick. Sleight of hand... something like that." His breathing grew shaky. "I see magic on TV all the time. Just because I don’t understand how it works doesn’t mean magic isn’t real!"

Desperate to restore his confidence, Keke threw himself back into the fight.

He attacked, fast, sharp, unpredictable.

But this time, every punch missed.

Every kick whiffed through empty space.

It wasn’t that Stephen was blocking, Stephen wasn’t even bothering. He simply avoided everything with small, controlled movements, as if he knew exactly where Keke would strike before the attacks even formed.

"Did you see that?" Jett asked, leaning forward.

"That movement, did you see it?"

"I did," Darius replied. The amusement was gone from his voice. His eyes sharpened so much that he finally set aside his whiskey.

"I thought you said he wasn’t someone we needed to worry about?"

"Well, I did say that," Jett answered, though his expression twisted. "Based on the old him. I didn’t expect... whatever this is. People his age don’t just improve. Not like this."

He clenched his jaw.

"Did they really improve this much? Impossible. Were they hiding something before? No, that can’t be it either. I saw the desperation in their eyes earlier. If they thought they had a chance to win, Stephen never would’ve paid me."

Jett turned his gaze toward the masked individual, Max.

He knew what Max actually looked like under the mask.

Now he wondered just what kind of training Max had forced Stephen through before the event. What kind of hell had sharpened the old man this far?

’And what about the guard?’ Jett wondered. ’If Stephen changed this much... did the guard change too? If so, this might not be as simple as we thought.’

Back in the ring, Keke was practically unraveling.

His strikes lost precision.

His rhythm deteriorated.

Every step he took was hesitant.

It was instantaneous domination, a reversal so abrupt and spectacular that no one fully understood what they had witnessed.

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