'Why does this keep happening around me?'

Max sighed with closed eyes and took a moment before he opened them back with an extremely calm look.

'It is not a good situation….' Max thought in his mind.

The situation was indeed bad. It wasn't that Max was afraid of these guys. With his Master on board, what did he have to fear?

A Supreme?

Yeah, like in hell would a supreme come to hijack this thing!!

Then why was the situation worse?

Well, the express cars ran through underground tunnels. The speed at which they traveled was unbelievable. Due to several safety issues and convenience, underground tunnels were developed for the express cars.

This was Max's source of trouble. If an explosion strong enough to shake the land occurred, then forget it..... His Master might be the only one to leave alive and he wasn't even 100% sure of it.

After all, if the tunnel caved in. They would be technically crushed to death by the pressure. It would be an instant death

"Yeah! I will be leaving. It's time to take control of the passengers," the man said as he pulled out a mask from his pocket and assembled a handgun from some pieces of metal.

What surprised Max was how this man managed to get this stuff onto the express car.

As the man was about to leave, a noise came out from one of the toilet cabins.

The man halted his steps and turned towards the direction of the sound. It came from the 3rd cabin.

He took out a small crystal ball from his pouch. But it didn't react.

He loaded his gun and carefully began to walk towards the door.

"Knock!"

"Knock!"

"Come out...I won't kill you if you quietly surrender," the man said with a calm voice.

"..."

Hearing no response, he spoke once again, "Don't blame me. I gave you a chance."

"Bang!"

He kicked the door open and pointed his gun at Max.

Max immediately raised his hand and shouted with a fearful expression, "Please don't kill me!!"

"Hmph! Why didn't you open the door then?" the man asked.

"P-Please I don't want to die." Max asked with snot and tears in his mouth.

"Well you won't die if the Association chose not to abandon you people," the man replied with a laugh.

"Why are you doing this? What have I done to you?" Max asked as his body trembled.

"You haven't. But this is life, kid. We had enough of it. Vienna and now Arcane. Besides, this is not the only thing, we poor and lower class people have been the one to suffer the most in every situation. We need some laws for our protections. This is our way of fighting…." the man replied.

"Oh! Then what do you want from the association? What kind of laws?" Max asked.

There was no way he was believing this man. He could see this guy was not poor from top to bottom.

"Something for our protection….f-for the betterment of people…" the man said with a frown.

"Sigh! I see you are an idiot. I had enough of this." Max said as he got up on his feet.

"Y-You.." the man felt shocked at the sudden change in Max's behavior.

"You don't even know what you want...you are not even clear about your own goal. What can I expect from a fool who is being manipulated? I won't waste time asking you stuff which you don't know about? Just tell me the location of the bomb." Max said with a calm look and a sweet smile on his face.

The man raised his gun and pointed at Max.

"Don't try to act smart kid. This thing hurts bad."

"Let me tell you something. It doesn't matter whether you tell me where the bomb is or not because I am still gonna find it. It will only take more of my time though."

"But here is the click. If you tell me, you will be handed over to the Association after everything is over. If not, I will kill you right now." Max said with a smile.

"Hahaha...I don't know where your confidence is coming from. But a weakling like you will be dead if I pull this trigger," the man said with a laugh.

"Do it then, go ahead."

The man frowned at Max's calm behavior.

"You sure kid?"

"Try me…" Max replied as he gave him a carefree look.

The man put his fingers on the trigger. But, suddenly his body froze. He realised that the crystal ball which he had kept in the pocket of his shirt was glowing.

"M-Mage!" His eyes widened and he looked ahead but Max had already appeared in front of him and grabbed a hold of his hand.

"Crack!"

His wrist broke at a slight twist and before he could scream Max already had one of his feet on his mouth.

"Don't shout or I will kill your right now…." Max warned and the guy immediately shut his squeaking sound enduring the pain.

Max lifted his feet off of his mouth and the guy immediately began to threaten him, " You will die if you continue fighting back...if the explosion occurs, no one will survive…"

"So what? Weren't you here prepared to die? Die then…. I will follow you after the explosion." Max said with a smile as he pointed the gun at the man's forehead.

"N-No! I will talk….I have hidden the bomb beneath the sink outside the washroom. I don't know about others…." the man immediately replied in fear.

"Good then...stay here until everything is over and try not to do anything funny, ok…." Max said with a smile before he left the washroom.

The man saw Max leaving for real and sighed. He then immediately took out his communication device not noticing the purple-colored figure of a snake right beside him staring at him.

….

Max opened the covering beneath the sink outside the washroom and indeed found a wired bomb. The light continued to flicker and the timer continued to tick. Max could clearly see the amount of time left before his death.

2 Days 0 hours 30 seconds.

"These guys...they want to cause a scene in the capital…."

The express car would be in the capital after 2 days. It would explode and indeed it would be a slap on the Association and Unions face.

Max quietly left the bomb beneath the sink and covered it again. He didn't have any idea what to do with it.

Cutting the wires?

Well that sounded risky? What would happen if it exploded? That's how it happened in movies at least.

Throwing it into his spirit world?

No...never…. He didn't even want to imagine what the consequences possibly could be if it exploded in there….

Throwing it out of the express car.

Well that sounded good. But what would happen if another express car was passing by when it exploded.

Max could only leave it there for now as he continued to plan his next step.

At this moment, the purple colored spirit snake returned. It had blood on the corner of its mouth. The snake hissed in front of Max as if it had fulfilled a command.

Max nodded before summoning it back. The figure of the snake vanished into Max's hand.

"Non living things are not so easy to sense. Not to mention it doesn't even release any kind of noise…" Max mumbled when he suddenly thought of something and summoned twice.

The black-colored shadow leopard appeared beside Max. It rubbed his head gently on Max's knees.

"It's not the time to play twice….I want you to smell this…..try if you can find any other things like this.."

Twice took a sniff and two more. It then turned around and shook its head indicating that there were none nearby.

'This express car is big. There are several cabins. It seems that I have to go along finding these bombs now.'

Max felt a headache. It was not like these guys would allow him to just roam around for no reason.

At this moment a light sound enters Max's ear. Even though it was light, how could it escape his ears? He was sure it was a gunshot. The person must have used a silencer to cancel the noise.

Max immediately turned his head around to look at the direction where the sound came from.

Max's eyes turned grim and his face turned ugly.

It was the Women's washroom

That lady and her daughter…