novelraw Chapter 158 : Chapter 158
Chapter 158 : Chapter 158
Volume 2
Chapter 82 : You Too…
Cold sweat dripped from the tip of Lorenzo’s nose.
Even Schulz could not help cursing under his breath.
Within the shadows on the rooftop, alongside that dwarf-like figure, more than a dozen lean silhouettes appeared.
All of them were dressed in black, and their presence was extremely subdued.
In fact, they were even fewer in number than the Redfire Gang elites behind Lorenzo.
And yet, the moment they appeared, everyone in the alley—whether blood-soaked thugs or hardened elites who treated life and death as nothing—instinctively tensed like wild beasts being surrounded by hunters.
As they looked up, they saw bowstrings drawn taut by mechanical triggers in those shadows’ hands, ready to fire at any moment.
The sharp arrowheads, likely smeared with poison, gleamed with a deathly chill beneath the indifferent moonlight.
There were fifteen military repeating crossbows in total, and they even looked brand-new.
Their number was not large, but from such a commanding position, it was more than enough to turn everyone in the alley into pincushions within thirty seconds!
“The Rat Society? Sam Jed?”
Lorenzo stared fixedly at that dwarf-like figure, trembling with rage. “You people are sticking your noses into this too?”
Compared to a major gang like Redfire, or a mob like the Hyena Gang, the Rat Society did not seem especially famous among the common people of the Lower City.
But it was an organization that every faction in the entire Lower City feared deeply.
Because they were the black gloves of those noble lords, the ones specially used to carry out all the dirty work those noble lords did not want staining their own hands.
By all logic, they should not have gotten involved in something like this so casually.
And those repeating crossbows…
Without drawing attention to himself, Lorenzo glanced at his trusted subordinate.
The man swept his eyes over the serial numbers and bloodstains on those crossbows, his expression darkening before he silently nodded.
Damn it!
“Kh-kh, to be honest, I did not want to get involved either. But something like an ancient dragon heart’s blood is simply too tempting for people like us, who can only live off the crumbs we break from the masters’ bread.”
Sam Jed, barely four feet tall, leaned half his ugly face out from the shadows and bared his teeth in a grin.
“In the middle of the night, I do not particularly want to kill and fight either. Mr. Lorenzo, how about you sell me five drops as well, for twenty-five million?”
“In your dreams!”
Lorenzo was so furious he nearly burst a blood vessel on the spot.
You want five drops for twenty-five million.
And you want five drops for twenty-five million too.
In the end, I would not have a single drop left and would still be down fifty million!
That was the kind of ultimate, legendary fool who would become one of Belland’s urban legends!
“Is that so? What a pity.”
Sam smacked his lips, then turned to Schulz.
“In that case, Mr. Schulz, how about we join hands? We split the ancient dragon heart’s blood and we take fifty-fifty.”
“This…”
Schulz narrowed his eyes, clearly tempted.
If they could simply seize it, why bother buying it?
And with the current situation, Lorenzo was at an absolute disadvantage.
If he joined forces with the Rat Society, victory would be all but certain…
“Schulz, you dare trust these treacherous rats? Are you not afraid they will bite you in the back afterward and you will not even get those five drops?”
Lorenzo sneered.
He was not worried in the slightest that these scheming snakes could truly work together.
If they could join forces, then as his trusted subordinate had said, the odds would be even lower than Miss Seths turning respectable.
Sure enough, a cold glint flashed through Schulz’s eyes as he looked toward Sam.
“Mr. Sam, if you want an alliance, then you ought to show at least a little sincerity.”
“Sincerity? Is my sincerity not already plain enough?”
Sam stroked the repeating crossbow in his hands the way one might caress a lover’s skin.
“The fact that I did not turn you into a pincushion right away—is that not my greatest sincerity?”
“You—!”
Schulz gripped his cane so hard that veins bulged across the back of his hand.
Killing intent blazed on his aged face.
These damned rats really had no good intentions at all!
“Sam, do you think you have us cornered?” Lorenzo suddenly asked in a cold voice.
“Kh-kh, is that not obvious at a glance?”
Sam cast Lorenzo a mocking look, shaking the thing in his hand as he sneered,
“Or do you think you can escape my precious little darling?”
But Lorenzo’s expression suddenly turned calm, as though the rage and hysteria from before had all been nothing more than an illusion.
Without warning, he pulled open the front of his clothes, revealing a faint blue glow beneath, and sneered.
“Now that you have seen this, do you still have the confidence to say that?”
“That is—”
Sam’s pupils contracted violently as he cried out in alarm,
“Magitech armor?”
Beneath Lorenzo’s clothing was a layer of soft armor fitted tightly against his skin.
Blue light symbolizing magical circuits flowed across its surface.
Though it was soft armor, it radiated a fierce and vicious aura like drawn steel.
This was Lorenzo’s final trump card, and also the reason why, despite knowing time was pressing, he had only quickened his pace instead of breaking into a run.
Though the armor clinging to his body looked light, it was in fact astonishingly heavy and slowed his movements.
But once activated, it could boost his combat strength tremendously for a short time.
More importantly, it could defend against the attacks of those military repeating crossbows to a certain degree!
“Damn it, how do you have something like that?”
Realizing things had taken a bad turn, Sam’s face darkened.
He knew that the moment Lorenzo revealed the magitech armor, the advantage of his repeating crossbows had all but vanished.
If they fought head-on, he would still hold the upper hand.
After all, he still had the terrain advantage.
But there was also the Hyena Gang beside them, watching like a tiger eyeing its prey!
Sam could not help feeling lucky that, in order to conserve his precious magic bolts, he had not chosen to launch a sneak attack.
Otherwise, this fight would already have spiraled into something impossible to pull back from.
“Damn.”
“Shit.”
“Fuck.”
And so, in that atmosphere that had turned steadily stranger and stranger, the three Lower City gang leaders who had gathered because of the ancient dragon heart’s blood simply stood there, staring at one another.
The tension remained razor-sharp.
But no one dared make the first move.
Instead, they had fallen into an extremely awkward balance.
Ridiculous.
And laughable.
…
…
“Three factions? Besides the Redfire Gang, who are the other two?”
In the Lower City, standing atop a tower bridge by the Gulaien riverside, Muen used the open vantage point and the telescope in his hand to observe the developments in that alley.
Trying to remember from the original novel’s brief mention exactly who the other two factions were was honestly a bit difficult, but Muen did not care much.
Given his status, he did not need to concern himself with where this rabble of monsters and freaks had crawled out from.
He only needed to confirm their location and make sure the ancient dragon heart’s blood was still in their hands.
“Well then, next it is time to get to the real business.”
Muen turned to leave.
But just as he rose, he noticed that on another tower bridge not far from his own, there was also a figure in a black robe sprawled there, likewise using a telescope to watch the situation in the distance while muttering a string of incomprehensible complaints.
“Fight already! Hurry up and start fighting!”
“I already ran ahead to tip everyone off. If you do not fight, how am I supposed to fish in troubled waters?”
“Damn it, so you are not going to fight?”
“Then do not blame me for being ruthless!”
That figure viciously hurled the telescope to the ground and stood up in fury.
Only then did the figure seem to notice Muen nearby.
The person turned and stared at him for a long while, so long that Muen’s scalp began to prickle and he thought he had run into another dead gay creep, before the stranger finally spoke in a voice that had clearly been disguised, sounding unexpectedly amiable.
“You there, friend, are you also here to be the oriole?”