The moment Bloodstain turned, he spotted a figure standing within the darkness with glowing blue-white eyes, long glowing fangs.

Two massive storage chests rested across its shoulders as though they weighed nothing.

For a brief second neither moved... until the figure suddenly tilted its head.

"Oh," the voice sounded distorted. "You’re here."

Bloodstain exploded forward with pure rage erupting inside him. "Who the hell are you?!"

The floor shattered beneath his feet as his hand shot forward.

He moved with such a speed that most awakened wouldn’t be able to evade before they even realized they were under attack.

However, the figure simply smiled. "Too late."

Blue light encapsulated the figure and they vanished.

Only glowing footprints remained where it had stood.

Bloodstain eyes widened in shock as be stopped.

"Spatial movement?" His head swerved toward the empty storage area.

And now he finally noticed that the storage room was empty.

The storage compartments all had nothing within them anymore.

Loot, resources, materials... everything that was kept within this particular storage space was gone.

Bloodstain felt something inside him crack. "What..."

"...the hell?"

Without wasting another second, Bloodstain shot out of the building, leaving shockwaves in his wake.

Windows shattered nearby as he rushed toward another storage sector that contained recently acquired resources.

He arrived there and the doors were already open.

Bloodstain entered and just as he feared, empty shelves, crates and containers greeted him.

Nothing remained in here as well.

His face twisted in unbridled rage and anguish.

Usually Iron Vultures didn’t keep their true wealth inside headquarters.

That would’ve been foolish.

Their most valuable assets remained within heavily secured facilities elsewhere... same places he had doubled and even tripled manpower.

However, the same couldn’t be said for recently returned ruin loot and newly acquired materials awaiting transfer...

Usually when gang members returned from ruins, they’d get to the headquarters first so new stuff tend to be stored here before they get moved to the secure storage facilities.

And now... someone had scooped everything that was stored here.

Bloodstain let out a roar causing the entire building to shake.

Nearby walls cracked and several windows exploded.

He unleashed his senses wildly and felt the spatial energy ripple.

Bloodstain instantly turned. "There!"

He launched himself forward and the ground exploded.

BOOM!

He ascended across the air, scaling over multiple buildings in an instant.

Fwwwhoomsshh~

From there on he proceeded to cross rooftops at terrifying speed, leaping from one to the other.

His senses strained as he scaled through multiple streets before finally seeing glowing blue footprints in the distance.

Bloodstain used the footprints as an anchor, following a certain direction for one kilometer till he spotted another pair of glowing footprints.

He continued on and on till he kept spotting them one after the other but no matter how fast he moved, he didn’t catch a glimpse of that figure from the storage space.

At some point, it started to seem as though the footprints were mocking him.

Every time he arrived at the location where the spatial ripple were more prominent, he would find only another glowing footprint and this only fueled his rage.

The chase stretched for kilometers across district, neighborhoods and multiple sections of the city until the trail suddenly ended.

Bloodstain stopped atop a rooftop and could no longer sense any spatial ripple.

There were no more footprints or presence or any sight of the figure he once spotted at the base.

No matter how much he combed the surroundings, he found nothing.

The realization hit him that he had just been played... they had made him go on a wild goose chase.

Bloodstain roared in anguish before slamming his fist into the side of a nearby building.

BOOM!

Concrete exploded as the structure visibly cracked.

Pedestrians below screamed while rushing away as the side of a wall crumbled.

"I WILL FIND YOU!" his voice echoed throughout the area. "AND WHEN I DO... I WILL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF!"

For several moments he simply stood there breathing heavily.

All of a sudden, his communicator rang.

Bloodstain nearly crushed it. "What?!"

The voice on the other end immediately sounded nervous. "U-uh..."

Bloodstain’s eye twitched. "What?"

"Boss..." the voice swallowed. "We have a problem."

Bloodstain laughed dangerously nearly on the brink. "A problem?"

The employee immediately sounded terrified.

"O-or rather..." they paused briefly.

"...problems."

Bloodstain closed his eyes and for a moment he seriously considered throwing himself off the building.

Instead he pinched the bridge of his nose. "What happened now?"

The answer came hesitantly. "You need to hurry back to headquarters."

Bloodstain’s eyes narrowed because he knew that tone... It was the same tone people used whenever things had gone catastrophically wrong.

And judging from how tonight had been going...

He had a very bad feeling that whatever awaited him back at Iron Vultures headquarters...

Was somehow even worse than what he’d already discovered.

Without another word, Bloodstain launched himself into the night sky and began racing back toward the base.

For the first time in years... the mighty leader of Iron Vultures felt genuinely uneasy.

...

Minutes later, Bloodstain arrived back at Iron Vultures headquarters like a meteor.

The reinforced gates shook from the force of his landing as cracks spread across the pavement beneath his boots.

His expression was terrifying.

He had just discovered that somebody had somehow infiltrated his headquarters, looted enormous quantities of resources, humiliated his security personnel, and escaped right under his nose.

Now the call had implied things were somehow even worse.

The moment he entered the operations building, he met absolute chaos.

Operators were shouting over one another, communication officers were desperately switching channels while several screens displayed flashing warnings.

Others showed maps with multiple highlighted locations spread across several cities and regions.

Somewhere in the room, a communications terminal was continuously emitting static alongside screams.

Bloodstain immediately grabbed the nearest operator by the collar.

"What is happening?"

The operator nearly pissed himself.

"B-Boss!"

"Talk!"

The man pointed toward the screens.

"Teams are being attacked!"