Chapter 33: I Wrecked Enough Bases for Crimson Hollow to Send Me a Job Application

On the other side of the city, a black car pulled up outside the wrecked warehouse.

Two men stepped out first and scanned the area before opening the back door.

A tall man in a long coat climbed out, adjusting his sleeves as he looked at the mess in front of him.

His name was Harlan.

One of the Captains of the White Tiger Union and the one in charge of the drug business.

The metal door of the warehouse was bent inward like someone had kicked it off its hinges. Crates were smashed, chairs were flipped, and the floor was covered in groaning bodies that looked like they had been through a meat grinder.

A few of his men were already on scene, patching up the wounded and dragging the unconscious ones out of the way.

One of them spotted Harlan and limped over, his face swollen and one eye completely shut.

"Captain Harlan! Thank god you’re here!" The man looked like he was about to cry.

"What happened?" Harlan asked, stepping over a body without looking down.

"Three of them. Just three." The man held up his fingers like he still couldn’t believe it himself. "Two men and a woman."

Harlan stopped walking. "Three people did all of this?"

"They weren’t normal, Captain! The big one let Cooper punch him right in the face and didn’t even flinch. Cooper’s knuckles shattered on contact!" The man was shaking just talking about it. "And the woman was so fast none of us even saw her move. By the time anyone swung, we were already on the floor."

"What about the other one?" Harlan asked, his eyes narrowing.

The man hesitated. "He just sat there the whole time watching the other two fight. But when the lieutenant snuck up behind him and shot him in the back, the bullet just bounced off."

"After that, he beat Harris with a stick and then..." He swallowed hard, his voice dropping. "He... he... killed him."

Harlan was quiet for a moment.

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, the flame briefly lighting up his face. His expression hadn’t changed once since he arrived.

"It’s the work of the awakeners." He said, blowing out the smoke.

"That’s what we think too, Captain." The man nodded desperately. "They were at least as strong as you and the other captains—"

The guy immediately shut his mouth after seeing Harlan’s face turn cold.

’But he’s not wrong.’ Harlan thought, his eyes scanning the damage around him.

’This kind of force, and bullets bouncing off like toys. These are Mana Awakening Mid Stage Awakeners at the very least.’

He could tell because he was one himself. Mana Awakening Peak Stage, to be precise.

He turned back to the guy and asked with a thin smile. "You seem to know a lot about how the fights went. Did you actually fight, or did you just hide somewhere and watch the whole thing?"

"Haha, Captain..." The guy rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish grin after being called out.

He had been the last one to go up against Felix. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

After watching him return every punch with the same force, the guy threw the weakest hit he could manage and pretended to pass out the second Felix hit him back.

"Well, you’re smart. I’ll give you that." Harlan said, and to the guy’s surprise, there was no scolding.

Just a small nod of approval for not running away immediately after seeing an awakener.

Harlan took another drag and looked around the warehouse one more time. His eyes landed on a wall where someone had scratched something into the surface with a blade.

Three words.

"See you soon."

Harlan stared at it for a long moment before a dry laugh left his mouth.

"Find out who they are." He said, flicking the cigarette away and turning back toward the car.

"And find out why they’re picking a fight with us."

****

Over the next two days, the trio wrecked another one of White Tiger’s bases. Even though they were on high alert after the first attack, it didn’t take more than thirty minutes.

Dante took the chance to get some fighting experience as well.

In the remaining time, he cultivated diligently and absorbed two more mythic grade mana stones with the help of the 2x speed boost.

The expected breakthrough didn’t come.

But that was kind of expected too.

If just pumping mana into your body was enough to break through realms, there would be as many Transcendents as there were simps in a female streamer’s chat.

In reality, there wasn’t a single Transcendent awakener in the entire world.

Dante could tell he was on the verge of a breakthrough. His body just needed time to digest all the mana he had absorbed.

But the bigger problem was something else entirely.

He didn’t have a mana cultivation technique.

****

On the fourth night, the three of them were on their way to the next target when a motorcycle shot out from a side street and skidded to a stop right in front of their car.

Felix slammed the brakes immediately. The tires screeched against the asphalt.

A man climbed off the bike and pulled his helmet off, tucking it under his arm.

He was young, mid-twenties, with a scar running through his left eyebrow and the kind of grin that said he wasn’t worried about the three people he had just cut off.

He walked toward the car with both hands raised.

"Before the big guy gets out and breaks my spine, I want you to know I come in peace." He said, stopping a few feet from the hood.

Dante rolled his window down. "You’ve got ten seconds."

"That’s more than enough." The man reached for his collar and pulled it to the side.

There was a tattoo on the side of his neck.

A hollow red circle with blood dripping down from the bottom.

Dante’s eyes locked onto it, and behind his mask, a grin spread across his face.

’Finally...!’

Crimson Hollow had come to them.

____________

A/N: Here’s some special illustration! I tried to replicate the scene :)