Feng Xue slammed his fist down on the table with a dull thud. As for Old Jiang’s death, though he wanted revenge, in truth there was not much he found impossible to let go of.
Just as Xie Miao had said, this was simply what the Rust Zone was like. No one knew which would arrive first: tomorrow, or death.
The law of the jungle was the rule here. You could not obey it only when you were the strong one.
In fact, let alone a gang—if even some vagrant had failed in a robbery and blown the old man away, Feng Xue would at most have called it outrageous, then killed the man and been done with it. But this person had done it purely for entertainment. That changed the nature of the matter.
Killing intent swelled up from the depths of his heart. The thought he had originally held, to punish only the ringleader, suddenly shattered. From this moment on, Feng Xue’s objective had already changed—
Every backer that supported that gaming mentality of his had to die!
“Huu…”
Feng Xue took several deep breaths, forcing that killing intent back down. Only then did he look toward Xie Miao, who seemed to have no reaction at all, and said,
“Talk. What kind of figure is he, exactly? How big is his backing?”
Xie Miao secretly let out a breath of relief and replied as though nothing had happened.
“The Ironbone Society. Unlike those small-time trash in the garbage district, they’re a real block-district gang—casinos, smuggling, loan-sharking, and the distribution of several specific psychotropic drugs. Under them, they keep at least thirty fully armed core enforcers fitted with proper combat cyberware—four-star models. They have even more peripheral members. And he isn’t just an ordinary gang member. You get what I mean, right?”
At this point, Xie Miao raised a hand and pointed upward. Feng Xue understood instantly.
“A black glove for someone in the Building District, or even the Tower District?”
“The Tower District.” Xie Miao gave an extremely precise answer. “I don’t know who specifically, and I don’t dare investigate, but it’s certain they have support from the Tower District. Of course, the big shots in the Tower District most likely don’t care whether they live or die, but if you interfere with that big shot’s affairs, there’s no guarantee the other party won’t reach out and pinch to death an ant that displeases him.”
Understanding that Xie Miao was warning him that revenge was fine, but not to make too big a disturbance, Feng Xue merely said noncommittally,
“Then this Theodore—what position does he hold, exactly? How strong is he personally?”
“The only son of the Ironbone Society’s president. A typical second-generation gang heir. Arrogant, cruel, thrill-seeking, and very well protected by his old man. There are no reliable records of his actual strength, but the bodyguards around him are all elite enforcers of the Ironbone Society. They definitely won’t be lacking four-star cyberware.”
At this point, Xie Miao paused. Seeing that Feng Xue had no objections, he continued,
“His father, Carlos, started out as an illegal boxer in the Lawless Zone. His best record was six consecutive wins in the upper-tier matches. Don’t look down on him just because he has no record in the Masters. The fact that he managed to retire in one piece without entering the Masters is already abnormal in itself. It’s also because of this that I judge he was taken in by some big shot from the Tower District. Otherwise, the Lawless Zone wouldn’t have let him go so easily. Just based on that alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a piece of five-star cyberware on him.
“Carlos dotes on this son of his very much. If you really plan to make a move, you’d best get a fake identity—the faker, the better. Strike fast, finish fast, and throw it away after using it. As long as Carlos can’t find you, this matter will end there. These days, having children is easy. It’s impossible, and he doesn’t have the guts, to ask his master for help over that bit of ‘sentiment’ and ‘face.’”
At this point, Xie Miao suddenly closed his mouth and took out a storage card, placing it on the table.
“This is information on the Ironbone Society and Theodore’s previous habits of movement. There’s also evidence locking him in as the culprit, including video and audio of him discussing Old Jiang’s murder with his lackeys, as well as records of his movements in the garbage district during the days around the incident. They’re all originals. You can verify their authenticity yourself.”
Feng Xue took the materials and merely nodded.
“Understood. If there are other jobs later, I’ll come find you…”
As he spoke, he suddenly seemed to remember something and pulled out a small chip worth twenty credit points.
“Get me an identity for going to the block district. Mm, the kind that’s there to ‘see the world.’”
“…” Xie Miao glanced at Feng Xue and said nothing. He simply took out a standard identity card and handed it to Feng Xue. This thing had been obtained by the block-district factories for the “consumables” from the garbage district to use when going to work. But with the death rate in the garbage district what it was, workers went missing every day. There was no way to register them one by one, and naturally no way to trace them either.
Controlling the Demon Sword to return, Feng Xue’s true body had already changed to another face. Carrying the two suitcases containing the portable operating table and the iron man stake, he walked out of the clinic.
One could never be too wary of others. Feng Xue would not entrust his life and fortune to Xie Miao, a stranger he had only met a few times. For now, this clinic would be taken over by the Demon Sword using his face. Once the Demon Sword brought the identity back, Kong Wu would also head to the block district. Even if Xie Miao sold him out, only an avatar would die.
Or rather, Feng Xue actually rather hoped to be sold out. After all, only then could he completely shake off attention.
However, this feigned death could not be too deliberate. Otherwise, it would be the same as exposing himself.
Having switched to the Demon Sword’s face, Feng Xue carried the suitcases into the elevator, but his mind was still on Theodore.
Although the five-star cyberware might be an exaggeration, as someone who had fought several mid-tier matches, Feng Xue would not underestimate the other party’s combat strength. And even leaving Carlos aside, those high-level enforcers fitted with four-star combat cyberware alone were an insurmountable wall for the current Feng Xue, who only had a single Second Son Arm worth looking at.
As a cyberware doctor, he understood very well that the gap between them was already laughably wide.
The output after flesh-and-blood source energy assimilation was already lower than cyberware to begin with. Even with the Benevolent Chest, Talented Shoulders, Virtuous Back Body-Tempering Art and Sword of Hell letting him overtake on a curve, the gap in baseline performance was still extremely difficult to make up for.
If it was only a matter of ambushing and killing one or two, he could still gamble on catching them off guard. But if he wanted to wipe out the entire Ironbone Society, that was more than a little like a fool’s dream.
As for piling on incarnations…
At present, his consciousness could control at most four bodies at the same time. If he had to engage in high-intensity combat, that number had to be halved again. Trying to rely on creating one character per day to wage a human-wave battle was rather underestimating the lethality of firearms.
“I have to get four-star cyberware and more affixes!”
Feng Xue’s first reaction was to buy them. But putting aside the fact that four-star cyberware cost hundreds of thousands at the drop of a hat, the key issue was that cyberware of this level already involved a considerable amount of specialized craftsmanship. Previously, even for the Ya Zi artificial eye, whose function was rather singular, he had spent no small effort before barely managing to produce an overbuilt version. He truly had no confidence in reverse-engineering four-star blueprints through surveying and mapping. And if he could not manufacture them himself, then his greatest advantage—affixes—would have no room to be used.
As for the black market, it was not that blueprints could not be bought, but the amount of money required would absolutely be astronomical. And if he dared to continue reselling contraband, he feared even Saint Lothan’s black market would end up being destroyed by him.
“Can I only try this?”
Inside the dim elevator, Feng Xue’s vision focused on the battlefield called “Automated Factory.” According to the knowledge Old Jiang had passed down to him, the reason those factories in the block district used workers from the garbage district was because such simple, low-confidentiality processes were cheaper when done by humans. Only when the manufacturing process exceeded four-star would the training cost of skilled workers surpass the cost of manufacturing, maintaining, and securing automated machinery.
In other words, an automated factory was definitely producing cyberware above four-star!