Wenide looked at Kisho and slowly spoke: "You… what do you want?"
"Solzt is dead." Kisho shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked the stone on the ground with his foot, his voice low, enunciating each word: "I want 'raw liquid,' lots and lots of it, and 'raw liquid' that costs no money."
Wenide finally relaxed and nodded.
A ferocious beast with a weakness, no matter how vicious, is still a trapped animal with a collar around its neck.
Even though he couldn't get his hands on 'raw liquid' right now, he could dangle this thing in front of the kid. If the kid was strong enough…
A dark gleam named ambition flashed through Wenide's eyes.
"Fine, but you know it too—before, I wasn't qualified to touch that. Only the hall master has that kind of thing." Wenide said. He stared at Kisho's face and probed, "Only if I truly become the hall master can I help you get that stuff."
"Then let me first see whether you have the ability to sit in the hall master's seat." Kisho clicked his tongue lightly and said indifferently,
"I've already given you Coren's intelligence. What to do next is up to you."
He paused slightly and lowered his voice: "Relax. I'll be watching you."
Before the words had even fallen, Kisho leaped upward. In the span of a single breath, his figure vanished over the wall of the narrow alley.
Wenide stood there, his expression complicated.
That sentence of the kid's—"watching you"—was both a "temptation" and a "threat."
He thought for a long time, but in the end still headed toward the area where Coren was stationed.
...
Meteor City was only this big. The good places had all been taken by the four elders. The remaining resources were pitifully few, and you had to risk your life to scrape for them. So even just to survive, people in the outer districts would fight until their heads split open over supplies.
Large and small gangs in the outer districts were too numerous to count. Every day, countless gangs were founded, and countless gangs were destroyed.
From the day the White Eagle Association was founded, Wenide and Coren had been mortal enemies. So when he walked into Coren's hiding place, Coren—slumped in the corner with an ashen face—didn't even change his gaze.
He sat dejectedly on the ground, dark circles around his eyes, lifting his head to meet Wenide's stare.
The wound on his arm had nearly stripped him of all fighting ability. In a place like Meteor City, someone who had been severely injured and crippled was almost without any chance of surviving.
His body was ruined, he had no usable manpower left. These past few days, he hadn't even dared to close his eyes, already on the verge of collapse.
And at this moment, Wenide's arrival was the last straw that crushed him.
Wenide looked at him and smiled. "Where are your people?"
A cold sneer hung at the corner of Coren's mouth. His gaze, like a venomous snake, fixed on Wenide.
"Don't you already know?"
Hearing Coren's words, Wenide narrowed his eyes.
"Just asking. Safer that way."
Coren let out a mocking laugh—no one knew whether he was mocking Wenide or laughing at himself.
Wenide's expression shifted slightly. The smug triumph in his eyes faded in an instant, replaced by something complicated.
In the corner, where Coren sat, blood flowed along his body, slowly pooling on the ground into a puddle.
He plunged a blade-worn dagger into his own heart.
"I… won't… fall into your hands…" Coren's face changed from dark red to ghastly pale, his voice gradually sinking lower.
"Let you… watch me make a fool of myself…"
His breath faded away together with his voice.
Wenide stood there, silently watching the dead rival sitting on the ground. For some reason, a chill suddenly ran through his entire body.
He stood for a long time before finally stepping forward, slowly approaching Coren. Only when he reached out and touched Coren's carotid artery did his tensed body finally relax.
He raised his head and called toward outside the house, "Hey, what you wanted me to do, I've finished it."
Kisho appeared, standing in the doorway.
He, too, stared at the person sitting in the pool of blood—the "teacher" who had taught him the very first "rule of survival in Meteor City." He found it hard to describe how he felt at this moment.
This person had indirectly died by his hand, allowing him to complete a counter-kill as the "prey" against the "hunter."
He could be considered to have graduated.
Kisho turned around. "Bury him."
Wenide: "…"
The child who had followed him all along without a sound, the child who appeared without warning, made him feel an unprecedented fear—and an unprecedented longing for the future.
...
Kisho stood on the roof of the dilapidated house, hands in his pants pockets, silently watching Wenide dig a hole and bury the body.
Wenide filled in the last shovelful of dirt, tossed the shovel aside, and looked up to meet Kisho's gaze.
Seeing that he was done, Kisho leaped down and landed in front of him, then asked:
"Do you have any subordinates who won't obey you? I can help you deal with them first, so they don't all run off before you officially take the position."
Wenide froze, staring fixedly at Kisho, looking at him with an incredulous gaze as he repeated his words: "Help me deal with them first?"
"Yeah." Kisho seemed not to hear the doubt in Wenide's tone and continued on his own, "Call them all over to your place. Those who don't run, we can look for later. Otherwise, chasing them one by one is a pain."
Wenide fell silent, then nodded slowly but firmly, full of determination.
After returning to his own turf, he called several of his men and told them to go summon those who had still been on equal footing with him just hours earlier—his former "subordinates."
Kisho stood behind him. After standing for a while, he got tired and sat down on the ground carelessly, with no elegance whatsoever.
"How should I address you?" Even though he was using an honorific for a child, there was not the slightest hint of awkwardness or hesitation on Wenide's face.
"Noah," Kisho replied. "Just treat me as your subordinate."
Wenide nodded.
He knew the kid wanted to place himself out front, but he also badly needed the kid's fighting power.
In that case, there was nothing to hesitate about. A pleasant cooperation.
Before long, his men returned bruised and battered, bringing several other minor bosses with them. And behind those minor bosses, there were likewise three to five of their own people.
More than twenty people crowded into Wenide's territory. No one spoke; the pressure sank to freezing point.
Wenide swept his gaze over the crowd. His expression didn't change, but beneath the darkness in his eyes, surging fury roiled.
Their willingness to come was those minor bosses "obeying orders"; bringing people along was seemingly showing face but actually applying pressure; and beating up his men was a blatant act of "rebellion," openly pointing fingers at him.
Wenide took a light breath, forcing his voice to remain calm and cold.
"There are still people who haven't arrived. Let's wait a bit."
"Who the hell do you think you are, making me wait here with you!"
"Say what you've got to say, you—"
Before the minor bosses could finish their curses, pressure like mountains and tsunamis smashed down on them.
Clearly nothing had happened, but… the fear in their hearts was tearing their souls apart. They couldn't move at all, not even—
"Who… is it? Who is it?!"
Cold sweat poured out, yet at the same time refused to come.
With great difficulty, the crowd shifted their gaze. Their eyes fell on the calm-faced Wenide—and behind him, equally calm, hands in his pockets, the white-haired child.
No one knew when the child had stood up. There was even a faint smile on his face as he kicked the ground lightly, over and over. Feeling their gazes, he lifted his head and met their eyes one by one.
One gray-blue eye, one silver-blue eye—only monsters that had crawled out of hell, out of darkness, would have eyes like that.
Stared at by such a gaze, no one in the entire room dared make a sound. No one could withstand that pressure and terror and still find the courage to speak.
Wenide looked at the crowd that had fallen suddenly silent in an instant. When he noticed where their gazes were directed, his breathing slowed by a beat, and his heart skipped one as well.
Using a voice filled with a confidence he had never felt before, suppressing the barely containable frenzy and exhilaration, he said forcefully:
"I said, wait until everyone's here. Any objections?"
Because he was too excited, his voice even cracked a little.
The crowd acted as if they hadn't heard that crack. They stood silently and obediently in place, like tamed beasts.
Wenide smiled in satisfaction and raised his hand lightly in a gesture.
The next moment, the mountains and tsunamis pressing down on everyone vanished abruptly—dispersing like a gust of wind, as if they had never existed at all.
The minor bosses: "…"
Only then did they realize their backs were already soaked through with cold sweat.
The child standing behind Wenide—whom they had never taken seriously—had his silver-blue eye return to gray-blue. He seemed a bit tired. He plopped down onto the ground, propping his head on his elbow, and looked at them with utter boredom, his gaze roaming over their bodies.
Those who were looked at all subconsciously held their breath—that feeling was like being targeted by a wild beast. The only thing one could do was hope the beast would eat someone else first.
No one dared move even a little. Any rash movement would once again be engulfed by that terrifying pressure like mountains and tsunamis.
And so they stood there, like that, until the sun was slowly swallowed by the horizon.