From Bullets To Billions novel Chapter 623

Chapter 623: The Cost of a Billion

In the center of the main arena hall, the air was thick with the scent of dust and the heavy vibration of combat. Max was embroiled in a fight of his own, but this wasn’t like the brawls happening elsewhere in the facility. He wasn’t trading blows with the rank-and-file members of the Gilt Rats, nor was he facing off against a soldier encased in a mechanical exoskeleton.

Instead, he was locked in a high-stakes confrontation with the leader of the Black Hounds himself: a man named Darius. The two of them stood atop the stage, a raised platform that now felt like a lonely island in the middle of a war zone. They were ready to tear each other apart, and Darius was the first to break the tension.

Darius lunged forward, throwing a powerful overhand fist aimed squarely at Max’s jaw. Max reacted instantly, moving to block by parrying the arm away with a practiced sweep of his hand. But as his palm cut through the air, he hit nothing. There was no resistance, no impact, just empty space where a limb should have been.

Darius had anticipated the reaction. Seeing the opening created by the missed block, he pivoted his weight and transitioned into a sharp kick. However, Max didn’t panic. He allowed the momentum of his failed parry to carry him through, spinning his body in a fluid, tight circle. Using that centrifugal force, Max delivered a devastating spinning kick that caught Darius flush on the side of the head.

The impact was heavy, a dull thud that echoed through the hall. Darius stumbled back, his vision swimming, but he kept his guard clamped high, bracing himself in case another strike followed.

"I told you already that your stuff won’t work on me anymore," Max claimed, his voice steady and devoid of the fear that had once defined their interactions. "I still can’t figure out how to stop that trick of yours, or why my body keeps reacting to those phantoms, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll just move faster. I’ll strike stronger. I’ll brute force my way through whatever illusions you try to throw at me."

Darius didn’t offer a verbal response. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and moved in again, this time with much more caution than his initial burst. He began to pepper the air with a flurry of fists, his hands moving in a blurring rhythm.

None of the fists being thrown were real; they were feints designed to trigger Max’s reflexes and leave him vulnerable. But Max did exactly as he said he would. He reacted to every single one, parrying the ghost-strikes away with blinding speed, but retracting his hands back into his defensive stance at the perfect moment. He was reset and ready before the next "fist" could even land.

Darius began to feel a cold sweat breaking out. Even though he thought he would have seen a dozen openings by now, he couldn’t find a gap to slip a real strike through. He was forced to keep throwing his intent out, hoping to catch Max in a rhythm he couldn’t break.

’I can’t believe what is happening,’ Darius thought, the side of his head still feeling numb and throbbing from the earlier kick. ’He really is blocking all the strikes at a speed so fast that even when I mix in the fake ones, he can still punish me.’

As they traded shadows and steel, Darius’s internal panic grew. ’It’s not just the speed, either. In some cases, he’s simply brute-forcing his way through the exchange. Even if I managed to land a clean strike, he looks willing to take the hit just so he can hit me back even harder.’

The Black Hound leader struggled to reconcile this version of Max with the one from his memory. ’What I don’t understand is how it’s even possible for him to improve in such a short amount of time. What is his secret? Was he just faking his incompetence the last time the two of us fought?’

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