Manipulative Harem God-Chapter 528: Cornered?

Waterfront District!

The Waterfront District was engulfed in chaos.

Flames roared through the streets, turning the sky into a hellish red.

Blood pooled in the gutters, and the acrid smell of smoke and burning wood filled the air.

Scattered debris and the wreckage of what once were homes and shops bore the marks of violent explosions.

Zhang Wei's eyes narrowed as he took in the devastation.

This was far from what he had anticipated.

He had sent his men here to secure the area, not to find it in such disarray.

"Did they encounter unexpected resistance?" he muttered to himself.

As he moved deeper into the district, the path ahead was strewn with bodies—some unconscious, others lifeless.

People fled in every direction, their faces masks of terror.

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Those foolish enough to stand in his way were dealt with swiftly, a mere flick of his wrist sending them to the afterlife.

He continued his grim march until he spotted a familiar figure—Raven, her face pale with exhaustion.

"Raven!" he called out, "What the hell happened here?"

Raven stumbled forward, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "It's—It's bad! Brick and Rose... they reported back. The Red Scorpion gang had reinforcements! They took down Red Scorpion himself, but his right-hand man, Shu Xie, managed to escape. He used a cargo ship and—"

"And what?" Zhang Wei's asked, his patience fraying.

"The ship... it's already sailed!" Raven's voice trembled with panic. "Brick and Rose went after him, but they were too late!"

A cold fury settled in Zhang Wei's chest, his thoughts swirling like a dark vortex.

Could this all be a setup?

Was there someone manipulating events from the shadows?

The thought bit at him, sparking both anger and a sharp sense of betrayal.

Was he being outplayed by an unseen hand?

"Which direction did the ship go?" He asked quickly.

Raven opened her mouth to speak, but her words faltered.

She suddenly remembered something crucial.

With trembling hands, she pulled out her phone and thrust it toward Zhang Wei. "Here! Rose has a tracker on her phone. She set it up before the mission. You can track them with this!"

Splash!

Without waiting for her, Zhang Wei took the phone and leaped over the water.

The direction was northeast, and they were only a few kilometers away.

______

The morning sun bathed the cargo ship in a warm, golden light, but nothing about the scene felt comforting.

The deck was littered with bodies, a grim testament to Rose's deadly precision.

Standing amidst the carnage, Rose held a sleek handgun aimed steadily at Shu Xie, her once-mentor, now her target.

Shu Xie was a far cry from the elegant figure of power he once projected.

His unkempt hair was greasy and disheveled, sticking out in wild tufts.

His face, pale and puffy from years of indulgence, was marred by a twisted grin that revealed a set of yellow-gold teeth.

His belly, large and round, strained against the buttons of his once-expensive suit, which now hung awkwardly on his frame. Despite his disheveled appearance, his eyes were sharp and calculating.

"Rose," Shu Xie began, his voice oily, trying to maintain the confidence that once commanded armies. "You don't have to do this. You're making a mistake. What do you think you'll gain from this? Red Scorpion is already dead! You kill me, and you'll only unleash more chaos. There's no peace in this path."

"Ha-ha-ha..."A bitter laugh escaped Rose's lips, her grip on the gun tightening. "Peace? Don't lecture me about peace!" Her voice was cold, but underneath it lay a tremor of pent-up rage. "You made sure I'd never know what peace was when you handed me that gun all those years ago. You forced me down this path, showed me that survival meant killing, that power was the only thing that mattered."

Shu Xie's greasy hair fell into his eyes as he tilted his head, trying to appear remorseful, but the sinister gleam in his yellow-gold teeth betrayed him. "I took you in, Rose. I gave you everything. You were like a daughter to me. I made you strong."

"Like a daughter?" Rose repeated, her voice rising, trembling with fury. "You didn't raise me like a daughter, Shu Xie. You raised me like a weapon. You twisted my life to serve your own ends, forced me to become something I never wanted to be."

Shu Xie's pudgy fingers tightened around the golden Desert Eagle in his hand, his voice turning harsh. "And what are you now, Rose? Look at you—strong, feared, powerful!"

"You've built your own empire."

"Everything I did was to make sure you could survive in this world."

"Without me, you would have been nothing."

Rose's eyes narrowed, her finger hovering over the trigger. "No... Without you, I might have been something better. I might have been free. But you—" she sneered, "—you made me like you. And I hate you for it. Everything I've done, every life I've taken, has been to surpass you, to end the nightmare you created."

Shu Xie's grin faltered, revealing a flicker of desperation beneath the facade. "Rose, think about Zhang Wei. He wouldn't want this for you. He wouldn't want you to die for nothing."

"!"

Rose's eyes narrowed in slight surprise as Shu Xie mentioned Zhang Wei.

How did he know about her connection to him?

Had he researched her, anticipating this battle?

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The thought worried her, but she couldn't afford to be distracted now.

Instead, she pushed the unease aside and spoke with cold conviction, "Zhang Wei knows exactly what this means to me. He understands that some debts can only be paid in blood. He understands that this... was inevitable."

For a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath, the only sound the gentle lapping of waves against the ship's hull.

The morning sun continued to rise, casting a serene glow over the deck, a calm before the storm.

Then, just as Rose was about to pull the trigger, a series of loud footsteps echoed across the ship.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The massive cargo containers on the deck suddenly began to open one by one.

Rose's eyes widened as cold steel met her gaze—an array of machine guns, held by grinning pirates emerging from the shadows.

In mere seconds, more than twenty rifles were trained on her, the menacing muzzles all pointed directly at her head.