Consecutive powerful strikes were delivered on Alec's stomach and he was launched backward with his body still in the locked position. Blood leaked from his mouth as he landed on the ground, barely being able to breathe.
The time for the paralysis ended soon after and all the guards converged towards Mako's location as they heard striking sounds before the paralysis wore off.
The first guard made it through the smoke and quickly saw Alec on the floor which prompted him to attack Mako from behind thinking he would be too focused on Alec.
With his motion sense boosting his perception, Mako was able to sense the coming assault as he turned at the perfect moment and extended his hand outwards to grab the guard's neck.
The guard dropped his weapon as he tried to resist Mako's strength, who had started to choke him.
*Cough!* *Cough!*
"You think this is the end? While staying busy here, the rest of my men would go on to take weapons from the armory and cut off any chance of escape for those scum that you tried so hard to save." Alec said as he tried to quickly stand back on his feet having recovered a bit from the initial strike.
Mako continued to choke the guard in his hand until he passed out. Making sure, that Mako didn't overdo it and kill him, he then threw his body to the side and turned to face Alec again.
Alec still had a smile on his face, thinking he had outsmarted Mako and that there was no way he could save himself and all those prisoners at the same time, and if they managed to hold them until El Diablo showed up then it would have been "Game Over" for Mako.
"We'll just see about that," Mako replied in his demon voice and charged toward Alec once again.
"Oh no, you don't!" Alec shouted as he summoned all of his strength into his hands and performed a clap with his hands.
The clap was strong and paired with the Wind Ability, powerful enough to blow away all of the smoke. The smoke quickly disappeared, and now Mako was surrounded by ten guards including Alec.
"Get him, Boys!" Alec shouted.
'I shouldn't become to dependant on this skill considering its side effects but this is a prime opportunity for it.' Mako said as took a defensive stance against all ten guards that were attacking from all directions.
The fight began, with Mako blocking any critical or strong moves while allowing the weaker and inaccurate ones to hit him. He made it his priority to deal with any elemental attacks because those could cause some serious damage.
The guards slowly started to pile on with more and more hits getting through. Mako could not fight back otherwise the cooldown for the skill activation would reset. After a couple more hits, a notification sound resounded in Mako's head.
[PERSEVERANCE has been activated]
With Perseverance now active, Mako could actively fight back and fill up his rage meter as well. He took out his blade from his inventory and did a 360 spin while holding the blade outwards.
[Flame Wheel has been activated]
A ring of fire erupted outwards with Mako being the center, and it hit almost every guard that was within the range of the attack dealing decent damage to them. Mako didn't want to waste much energy because he learned that the 'Exhausted' status effect had different levels of effectiveness depending on how much energy he had.
In the previous times when Mako had to use Rage mode, the 'Exhausted' Status effect had made where Mako collapse from exhaustion, but now with a stronger body and bigger energy pool, he wanted to make sure that he didn't pass out.
For the next few minutes, Mako fought ten guards simultaneously while refraining to use many skills or abilities. This led to him getting hit and injured quite a bit but he powered through the pain and continued to fight all the whilst the rage meter slowly filled up.
Up till now, Mako had never filled the rage meter up to a 100% and he wanted to see how much more effective that would be.
During the fight, when engaging with the guard he would try to deal with him quickly but in such a way that they would take some time to get back up, and this was mostly achieved by stabbing them in non-lethal areas.
The Phantom moves, Dash, and Motion Sense were all coming in the real clutch as they allowed Mako to avoid many dangerous attacks and produce decent counterattacks.
After almost five minutes of fighting, Mako used the Flame Wheel skill again to push away all his enemies and allow him to have some breathing room before he executed his ace card.
By this time, Mako's clothes were ripped and torn all over and he had several cuts and bruises all over his body. The same could also be said for Alec and the guards who were in the same condition with one or two cuts and several bruises.
As there was a pause in the fight due to the Flame Wheel, Mako prepared to enter Rage mode and brought up the prompt in front of his eyes.
[Rage meter 100% full]
[Does the user want to enter rage mode?]
[YES/NO]
Just as Mako was about to hit 'YES', out of nowhere another twenty or so guards started rushing towards him from the direction of the armory. This even prompted an expression of confusion from Alec who wasn't expecting backup of any sort.
He quickly realized that these were the guys he instructed to get weapons from the armory and try to cut off the fleeing prisoners.
"WHAT THE IN HELL ARE YOU NITWITS DOING HERE!?" Alec shouted towards the men.
One of them quickly came forward and replied to Alec," Sir, the armory was forcefully locked and it took us some time to break down the reinforced door. Once we made it inside, there were no weapons to speak of. We informed the stronger ones to go after the prisoners while we came back to assist you."
Alec's expression changed very quickly after hearing what the guard had to say. H slowly turned back toward Mako who was standing still with his head slightly facing the ground. It was a terrifying pose as none of the guards felt the courage to continue the fight.
Even though Mkao was wearing the mask, Alec could envision his smile underneath the mask that appeared as soon as the shocking news was given to Alec.
All of sudden Mako started to lightly chuckle as it was now his turn to ridicule Alec.
"Did you honestly believe that I came to attack your base of operation with the looming threat of 'HIM' showing up, and not being prepared?" Mako asked Alec.
Sweat rolled down Alec's forehead as he realized that his force won't be enough to stop them from escaping. The picture of his boss kept appearing in his mind as with each iteration he could envision his boss torturing him in a new brutal and gruesome way.
"What did you do?!" Alec shouted with anger.
"What me? I just leveled the playing field for once, so this time you guys can feel what it's like to have to fight with your life on the line." Mako said while shrugging his shoulders.
Veins started popping on Alec's forehead as he was angrier and more desperate by the minute until something finally clicked in his head.
"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!" Alec burst out laughing like a madman.
The entire area fell quiet as Alec's insane laughter echoed multiple times. He held his sides with his arms as he couldn't hold down his laughter, all the while the rest of the guards started to feel uneasy thinking that maybe Alec had lost it.
Alec pointed out toward Mako as he showed his sadistic grin," I have to admit that you were pretty smart with this plan of yours and we are all in some serious shit, but... YOU! You forgot about yourself while trying to be a hero!"
"You are now stuck here surrounded by 30 men and we hold you here until 'HE' arrives. He had grown quite interested in you after you pulled that stunt at the Emerald Tree Fountain. I am sure if we manage to secure you for 'HIM', he might end up sparing us." Alec said as he now looked towards Mako with an intense hungry look as if Mako was the most precious thing on the planet.
"What are you waiting for? An Invitation!? ATTACK!!!!" Alec yelled at the top of his lungs as the guards finally started to move toward Mako.
Mako quickly took a stance as he pulled up the same prompt from before in front of his eyes.
[Rage meter 100% full]
[Does the user want to enter rage mode?]
[YES/NO]
"Yes!" Mako answered the system.
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