Deathstroke's rapidly healing wound closed around the Hidden Blade, his dense muscles gripping the blade as tightly as a fist.
Felix tried twice to pull the blade free, failing both times, and the more frantic he became, the more wildly Deathstroke laughed.
The remaining Talons swarmed forward to try to rescue Felix, but the Winchester on Deathstroke's back was no decoration.
"Hahahaha! Trash like you isn't worth using my blade on!"
The lever spun around his fingertip, the gun becoming a pen in Slade's hand, twirling so fast it left afterimages. Over his shoulder, beneath his armpit, raised level to fire.
Facing enemies attacking at close quarters, the elite mercenary fired six shots in just two seconds, every one a headshot.
By the time the smoking muzzle lowered in the rain, incapacitated Talons lay all around Deathstroke.
Slade's exquisite marksmanship stunned Felix. For an instant, he even forgot to breathe.
"It seems that battle twenty years ago really did cripple you. Sending half-trained rejects onto the battlefield-is the Court running out of people?"
Slade seized Felix's head and pinned him against the wall.
The bloody hole in his chest was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Compared with the Talons, Deathstroke's healing ability was considerably inferior, and without the immunity to pain granted by electrum, every injury to a vital spot subjected him to the immense agony of approaching death, over and over.
Yet those very hardships had made Slade who he was today.
Afraid of pain? Then keep climbing. Just become the strongest, right?
Slade had always lived by that belief. After losing to Deadshot on the rooftop, he had spent nearly half a year drilling his marksmanship, producing the display that stunned Felix today.
The Talons, by contrast, had lost their fear of pain and