John Wick - Chapter 180: A Knife Fight? (Patreon)

Gunfire erupted from both sides at once.

The six surviving enemy clones opened fire, and 47 answered in kind.

Nate's spinning storm of throwing knives had startled even him, looking almost like a god descending onto the battlefield. Yet 47's hands lost none of their speed.

“Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping!”

Four flashes burst from the muzzles of his twin Silverballer 1911s, the shots landing squarely on two clones.

Each took two rounds to the chest. They flew backward as if struck by gigantic hammers, spun once in midair, then crashed down and rolled several meters.

Their weapons were ripped from their grips, both pistols skidding away across the ground.

This time, 47 saw what happened after they landed. Their chests still rose and fell faintly. The titanium armor beneath their skin had prevented fatal penetration, and within seconds they would be standing again.

Six enemy clones remained. Two were down for the moment, while another pair trained their pistols on Nate and pulled their triggers.

The last two caught the instant 47 leaned out from behind the car. Their muzzles swung toward him and a dense storm of bullets forced him back into cover.

Those clones were fast, too.

“Ding! Ding!”

Two specially made .45-caliber armor-piercing rounds struck Nate in the back without getting through.

After their impact had been absorbed by his Level 6 armor set and bulletproof suit, all Nate felt was a pair of faint thumps against his back.

He reached up with his right hand and caught a throwing knife dropping through the air.

Then he activated [Intimidation], directing his killing intent at the two clones firing on him. Their once-accurate shots immediately began to veer wildly off target.

With a throwing knife in each hand, Nate twisted his waist, spun, and flung both arms outward together.

Two nearly invisible streaks struck the foreheads of the clones laying down suppressive fire against 47.

The blades punched through their skulls and emerged on the far side. For an instant, the clones remained frozen with their fingers on the triggers. Then they collapsed sideways like marionettes whose strings had been cut.

A few more knives were still falling, but they'd dropped so low that Nate would have had to lie on the ground to catch them. He decided not to bother.

The blades clattered against the concrete, bounced, and rolled away.

47 seized his opening. He leaned out, leveled his pistols, and fired twice, then twice more. The two clones shooting erratically at Nate were hurled two or three meters backward, losing their weapons when they struck the ground.

The slides of both Silverballer 1911s locked open, revealing empty chambers. 47 instinctively reached for fresh magazines, then froze when his hand reached his belt. He had used every round he was carrying.

Across the battlefield, the two clones who had been knocked down earlier were already back on their feet.

They glanced at their empty hands. Their guns were gone, but each still had a short knife hanging behind his waist.

Without a moment's hesitation, they drew their blades and charged. Their bodies shot forward like projectiles, kicking up two bursts of dust as they sprinted silently toward Nate.

Fourth-and-a-half-generation enhanced clones were considerably faster than ordinary people.

Their gazes stayed fixed on him. They leaned into the charge, blades trailing behind their hips, bearing down with a brutal determination to crush anything in their path.

Every footfall drove them faster, as if two cannon shells had just been fired.

Nate still had roughly eight seconds of [Adrenaline Rush] remaining.

He sized up the approaching pair and felt an urge he hadn't experienced in a long while: he wanted to fight knife against knife. With a turn of his right hand, his short black blade appeared.

The very next instant, he moved.

He charged low and straight ahead, just as decisively as they did, but his feet moved faster and he covered the ground even more quickly. His silhouette flickered twice in the shifting light, erasing the thirty-odd meters between them in a heartbeat.

All three figures collided in the center of the open ground.

The clones split to either side, one striking high and the other low. The man on the left aimed for Nate's neck while the one on the right slashed toward his waist.

Their blades crossed, cutting off his escape routes above and below. Nate had only one knife. If he blocked either attack, the other would land.

For a normal fighter armed with a blade of similar length, that was almost an impossible two-on-one predicament.

But Nate's lips curved into a small smile.

A knife fight? Now that was something he loved!

[Iron Severing (Lv. 6): Blade damage increased by 340%. Damage against metal objects doubled. (47/35 blades)]

[All-Rounder: Weapon effectiveness increased by 70%.]

Against two ordinary alloy knives, Nate didn't even need to consciously use a special technique.

He simply brought his black blade down in a powerful stroke. All three weapons met with a clear metallic clang. The clones' knives were cut cleanly in half, their broken tips spinning away.

He didn't give either clone time to react. His movements flowed straight into an upward cut along the shattered blade on his left. His knife slid across the man's neck as easily as slicing through a sheet of paper.

To Nate, titanium armor beneath the skin might as well have been tofu.

The clone's head slipped from his shoulders. His body remained posed mid-swing for a brief moment before collapsing to its knees.

The second man took a half-step back, trying to retreat and reset his attack.

He barely got that far. A flick of Nate's wrist sent the black knife spinning from his hand, a dark streak that buried itself directly between the clone's eyebrows.

The blade plunged through bone. The clone gave a muffled grunt through his nose and fell onto his back.

The entire exchange had lasted less than three seconds.

Nate stood empty-handed for a moment, taking a couple of breaths to settle his racing pulse. Even his body felt the strain of that much intense movement in so little time.

He beckoned with one hand, unequipping and then re-equipping the dagger in his Loadout. The short black blade appeared in his grip once again.

A dozen meters ahead, the last two clones 47 had knocked away were only just pushing themselves upright, swaying as they stood.

Seeing that their guns were gone, both reached to their waists, drew their knives, and fixed their eyes on Nate.

But before they could take a single step, their fate was already sealed.

BOOM!

A thunderous report rang out. Before one clone could even begin his charge, a powerful .50 BMG round blew his head apart.

The other turned at the sound, only for the black dagger Nate had thrown to bury itself in his forehead. He toppled backward.

The fight was over.

Nate called the black blade back into his hand and looked over his shoulder. Behind the car, 47 had set up the Barrett rifle using the vehicle as cover. The bald assassin lifted his eye from the scope and, to Nate's surprise, slowly raised a thumb in approval.

Nate smiled. Then he turned back, drew his 2011 Combat Master, and walked toward the man with shattered legs and an expression of utter disbelief, putting finishing shots into the fallen clones along the way.

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Was that even a question?