Deathstroke chose to retreat without hesitation.
What had just happened certainly qualified as bizarre. Under that light, he had even smelled a peculiar fragrance, and a warm scene of his whole family sharing a meal had involuntarily surfaced in his mind.
But he had seen plenty of stranger things before. Before entering, he had thoroughly surveyed the restaurant's layout and the surrounding terrain and committed every detail to memory: every entrance and exit, the arrangement of furnishings and equipment, the target's location, the number of uninvolved bystanders, and the timing of the traffic lights outside. He was confident he could handle any unexpected developments.
Even after losing his sight, Deathstroke had considered relying on his combat skills to force a kill, but an unexpected detail interrupted that thought.
Li Jie was screaming too. Not just Li Jie-he could hear people outside the restaurant screaming, and even the owner he had silently knocked out earlier.
That did not fit the tactical logic of a targeted kill.
If this cop had cast the spell, he should have arranged some means of sparing his own vision beforehand. If he couldn't do that, he was an idiot burying himself in the same pit as his enemy. But neither Li Jie's file nor their brief exchange had given Deathstroke any impression that "idiot" was a fitting label.
That left only one possibility: a third person, or a third device, was indiscriminately affecting everyone in the area.
While he hunted his prey, someone else had been waiting to strike. Someone was trying to kill both him and the cop!
Deathstroke's left eye still couldn't see anything, but he could feel the blood vessels throbbing beneath his eyelid. His retina was probably temporarily overloaded. It might last hours, or days. He reached into the equipment pouch on