The morning sun shone through the large windows of the presidential suite, illuminating the piles of bills and casino chips scattered across the glass table. Gael woke up peacefully, without a trace of nightmares. Upon getting up, he immediately noticed something strange. He didn't feel the usual creaking in his knees or the heaviness in his back. His vision was millimeter-perfect.
While showering, he had a revelation. Absolute luck wasn't just changing the outside world; it was also upgrading his own "hardware." His mind processed information like a quantum computer. He calculated distances, weights, and probabilities in fractions of a second. His body felt light, elastic, and charged with a latent strength he had never possessed before. The universe wasn't just protecting him; it was upgrading him to match his own fortune.
As he tied his silk tie, he mapped out his strategy. Nemesis had threatened him with lethal forces. If the cosmos sent assassins after him, he needed to learn. He had to use the new synergy between his enhanced body and the collateral damage. He needed to become a precision weapon.
He stepped out onto the street. The financial district buzzed with midday energy. He walked, letting his hyper-developed senses scan the surroundings, waiting for the perfect target.
Three blocks from the hotel, the crash of collapsing metal brought traffic to a halt. A black, unmarked van slammed into an armored truck, pinning it against a bank. Four mercenaries stepped out with precision. They wore ski masks, tactical vests, and automatic assault rifles.
"Everybody on the ground, now!" roared the leader, firing into the air.
Panic erupted. Frightened pedestrians scattered. Two mercenaries aimed at the armored truck guards, taking them by surprise.
Gael stopped twenty meters away. His brain evaluated the scene instantly. Hostile variables: four. Crossfire trajectories: multiple. To save the guards without civilian casualties, I must be the one to generate the friction.
Instead of backing away, Gael launched himself forward. He was no longer walking. He glided across the asphalt with agility, closing the distance in seconds.
The perimeter mercenary saw him coming. "Get down, you idiot!" he yelled, aiming straight at Gael's chest and pulling the trigger.
Gael's body reacted before the bullet even left the chamber. With a fluid, supernatural movement, he twisted his torso millimeters to the left. The burst of gunfire ripped through the air exactly where he had been a fraction of a second prior. Suddenly, luck turned against the shooter. A hairline fracture in the mercenary's rifle chamber couldn't withstand the pressure of the misfired rounds. The weapon exploded in his hands. The flash blew off the criminal's fingers. The shockwave knocked over a heavy traffic sign, which crashed down and crushed the engine of the black van.
Gael didn't stop to look. He used the momentum from his evasion to lunge at the second mercenary. The criminal tried to backpedal to aim, but Gael was faster. He pivoted on his axis and delivered a brutal, calculated kick straight to the assailant's knee. The crunch of bone echoed. The force of the blow lifted the man and launched him three meters backward, right into the building's blind spot.
At that exact moment, the shrapnel from the explosion dislodged a marble block from the third floor. The massive stone plummeted and crushed the legs of the mercenary lying under a cloud of dust.
Only two left. The leader tossed his useless rifle, drew a heavy pistol from his thigh holster, and fired at point-blank range.
Striker failure. Hang fire. The bullets jammed due to sheer probability. Filled with panic at seeing this suited demon approaching without a scratch, the leader hurled the heavy steel pistol at his head.
Gael's reflexes flared. Instead of dodging it, he raised his left hand. He caught the weapon in mid-air, absorbing the impact without flinching. Then, with a fluid spin and his full weight behind it, he hurled it back at the leader. The metal slammed against the mercenary's skull with the force of a projectile, knocking him out instantly.
The driver, the last man standing, let out a shriek of terror and sprinted down the avenue.
Gael stopped, his breathing not even slightly elevated. He looked at the fugitive, then down at the ground. He spotted a thick steel nut that had snapped off during the initial crash. He picked it up, calculated the angle, the wind speed, and friction, and threw it with beastly force.
The nut bounced off a lamppost, struck the tire of a moving purified water delivery truck, and blew its pressure valve. The truck skidded violently, launching dozens of heavy, five-gallon jugs. One of them traced a perfect parabola and struck the fleeing driver in the back of the neck, leaving him sprawled on the asphalt.
Absolute silence. In less than a minute, Gael had taken down an elite squad. He had used lethal choreography, superhuman strength, cunning tactics, and unexpected surprises.
He walked over to the armored truck. He snatched a wad of hundred-dollar bills from a spilled bag. Then, he tossed it to the terrified security guard through the broken glass. "Buy yourself a strong coffee," Gael said.
He walked away with his hands in his pockets, victorious. Now he knew he was the most dangerous weapon on the planet.
But in the nearest alleyway, the temperature plummeted. An invisible presence detached itself from the wall. It exhaled a cold that withered the asphalt and left a thin layer of black frost. It was the first Hound.
At first, it was just a distortion in the air. But when the creature sensed Gael's anomaly, it began to materialize. Dark threads wove together to form the shape of a massive wolf. It had strange angles and empty eye sockets, from which a black mist spilled.
The few people still hiding on the street looked up. Upon seeing the physical monstrosity violating all laws of nature, real panic gripped the city. Screams of pure terror echoed, shattering the peace Gael had just imposed. The divine hunt had begun.