Moto-tsune looked at the man in chains, his face somewhat disfigured and missing a few teeth courtesy of a barely adolescent a.s.sa.s.sin girl who left before the j.a.panese man could arrive.

"Heh, au contraire young man, I am intent on giving you a lot of benefits," Bartram spoke with a slight lisp that came with his partially torn and swollen lips. "You're the one who's acting too self righteous to receive them."

"If you'd taken my deal previously, you'd have this whole land all to yourself and some choice men under you." He said with a smirk. "Even this time I took care of a monster for you, and what a monster he is."

*Thump!*

A fist landed cleanly on his face, threatening to flatten his nose into his skull.

"You should be prudent with your choice of words, even now I'm holding back some very scary people from getting to you." Moto-tsune said as he took off his gloves that were stained in Bartrams blood. "Friends of the 'monster' you speak of."

He wasn't even threatening the man. The thing he loathed the most about the situation right now the most was having to give any kind of report to that lady named Grendolyn.

Previously it was easy enough to approach her, but when Zhao Wei was in a critical condition, suddenly it was near impossible to stand 10 feet away from her without losing the ability to breath.

It felt like standing next to an active volcano that was ready to blow that was being held down by a pot lid.

"And what would you have me call it."

"His name is..."

"Don't tell me to treat 'it' like a human." Bartram spat. "Everyone out there only knows that I shot him, but they don't know with what, but you should."

Indeed.

It was a weapon that was supplied by Central, but it was designed not to kill humans or beasts but monsters.

To most, the term beast or monster could very well be exchangeable, but central engineers and leaders made it a point to differentiate the two.

This was because anything that wasn't human or intelligent could be cla.s.sified as a beast. Those could be cla.s.sified into danger levels 1-10 which meant that they could still be killed by their standard weaponry and men.

But monster was a special t.i.tle given to those that surpa.s.sed the ceiling of what normal men were capable of killing.

Hence Central needed weapons that were able to even out the playing field somewhat. This formed a new division in modern weaponry known as MHE or Monster hunting equipment.

These equipment allowed them to deal with monsters up to the 15th level. What Bartram used was a rifle

If Moto-tsune or any of the men were hit with one of those, it would probably pierce through ten of them before stopping. Bartram had shot at his heart...

"And yet he's still alive, what else can I call him but a monster." Bartram spoke.

For a moment there Moto-tsune couldn't refute those words.

It wasn't as if the feat of surviving such an attack was impossible for humans. There were 'monsters' even among humans.

If one had reached a certain level and cla.s.s while specializing in defense, they would certainly be able to take such an attack while only losing the top layer of their flesh. Zhao Wei's was just short of that, while the shot was on point with where his heart should have been, the toughness of his muscles and flesh had rerouted the bullets original course.

The question now was how far?

The fact hat he was alive right now meant that his heart wasn't blown to bits, but that was the only silver lining here, as much as his toughness had saved him, it also stopped the military doctors from doing anything beyond this.

They would take time to consider doing such delicate work on a normal patient, much less one whose body you had to cut open with a chainsaw instead of a scalpel.

If it were any other person, Moto-tsune would've already considered it a lost cause.

However, backing out here wasn't an option.

One, because there were some new faces he met in these two days who weren't people he thought he could survive getting on the bad side of. One of which had a pet ape that made King-Kong look like it's younger sibling.

Two, because he was a monster amongst monsters.

Sure his defense wasn't the highest one as far as Central's standard was concerned. But having gone through some tough battles with the man, he'd seen him use Strength beyond that of a doped up berserker, Dexterity that probably surpa.s.sed his own cla.s.s and an area of effect skill whose scale could only be toped by less than a handful of top mage cla.s.ses in Central.

He was a master of none, but he couldn't be called a Jack of all trades.

If there was a position between the Queen and the King, that's where he'd be.