165 Got the Full Experience

The instant Aguilar finished speaking, he activated the Sandevistan.

The whine of his cyberware overclocking vibrated inside his skull. Neural currents swept through his body like a storm, and the world abruptly slowed.

Every Aguilar had a different pistol-based fighting style. As the finest Aguilar, arguably the strongest of them all, his specialty was—absolute speed.

He stepped forward. Kicked-up dust hung in the air, every tiny particle clearly visible in the light. Sparks bursting from the muzzle froze into orange-red points, like fireworks paused mid-bloom.

In Aguilar's accelerated perception, even the curve lifting at KK's lips became slow and clear. The twitching of muscle fibers looked like film stripped apart frame by frame.

Aguilar's cybernetic eyes flashed with cold light. His crosshairs precisely locked onto four lethal points across Carl's body—her temples, heart, throat, and spine. The nanomuscle fibers beneath her Subdermal Armor had long been stretched to their limit, while her mechanical joints gave off a faint hum.

But just as he was about to pull the trigger of Death Apple, Carl's pupils suddenly turned toward him.

In that near-frozen instant, Carl's gaze cut toward him like a blade. She not only saw the first bullet Aguilar fired, but met his eyes directly.

She can see me?!

Shock raced up his spine like electricity. The thought had barely exploded in Aguilar's mind before Carl's figure twisted and blurred, becoming an afterimage.

Impossible. Aguilar's mind raced wildly. I clearly activated the Sandevistan first. Even if the intel showed KK might have both Kerenzikov and a Sandevistan, that millisecond difference should have been enough to establish an advantage. When exactly did she activate her cyberware?

Shock spread through him in ripples, but the muscle memory of a legendary assassin overwhelmed all hesitation. Aguilar's forward stride did not pause in the slightest.