The underground parking lot was still echoing with the groans of the first set of thugs when the air itself seemed to tear. Mo Jue didn't run; he transgressed.
He ignited a sliver of his Primordial Demon Essence, a fuel so potent it sizzled through his mortal veins like molten lead. To the human eye, he simply vanished in a blur of black static. To the laws of physics, he became a violent anomaly.
At Apartment 4B, the hallway was a scene of chaos. The cheap wooden door, which Mo Jue had noted was flimsy, now lay in splinters across the entryway.
Mo Jue arrived. There was no sound of footsteps, only a sudden, suffocating pressure that made the oxygen in the hallway turn thin and cold. He saw a man—a mountain of meat in a leather jacket—standing over the threshold, laughing as he reached for something inside.
Mo Jue's hand shot out. It wasn't a grab; it was an execution of physics. He seized the man's throat and, with a casual flick of his wrist, thrust him aside. The 200-pound assailant didn't just fall; he became a projectile, hurtling across the hallway and embedding into the concrete wall with a sickening thud followed by a wail that ended in a wet rattle.
"Ge!" Xiao Ni's scream from the bedroom was a jagged blade in Mo Jue's heart.
Mo Jue stepped over the threshold. Three more men were inside, one holding a crowbar, two others pinning Xiao Ni's bedroom door shut.
"Who the hell—?" the man with the crowbar started.
He never finished. Mo Jue moved in a flicker of violet light.
Mo Jue's palm struck the crowbar. The reinforced steel didn't just bend; it shattered into iron shards that peppered the attacker's own chest, sending him spiraling into the kitchen counter.
He reached the two at the bedroom door. He grabbed their heads, slamming them together with the sound of two bowling balls colliding. They collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
The last man, the leader of this sub-unit, pulled a handgun. In this cramped space, it was a death sentence for a mortal.
Mo Jue didn't flinch. He walked into the line of fire. As the hammer clicked, Mo Jue's fingers closed around the barrel. With a scream of twisting metal, he peeled the steel back like an orange skin, rendering the weapon a useless lump of scrap.
He then delivered a singular, measured kick to the man's kneecap. The sound of the bone snapping was crisp, a final punctuation mark on the one-sided massacre.
The apartment was silent, save for the whimpering of the broken men and the heavy, ragged breathing of Xiao Ni behind the door. The thugs, who had spent their lives bullying the weak, now stared up at Mo Jue with eyes wide with a primal, soul-deep terror. This wasn't a man. It was a disaster clad in a business suit.
"Please..." the leader wheezed, dragging his shattered leg back. "We were just... we were just told to bring the girl... please, mercy..."
Mo Jue stood over him, his shadow stretching across the ceiling, warped and monstrous.
"Mercy is a currency you cannot afford," he whispered.
At that exact moment, a phone fell from the pocket of one of the unconscious thugs. It began to vibrate on the floor, the caller ID flashing: Brother Qiang.
The leader trembled, reaching for it with a shaking hand as Mo Jue gestured for him to answer.
"Is... is it done?" a gravelly, confident voice boomed from the speaker. "Did you get the girl? Tell me she's crying. I want to hear her before I call her brother to give him the news."
Mo Jue leaned down, his face inches from the phone. The violet fire in his eyes pulsed.
"She isn't crying," Mo Jue said into the speaker, his voice a calm, tectonic rumble. "But you should start. I'm coming for the rest of your nest, Qiang. Pray to whatever god you serve that I don't find you before you finish your last breath."
In a dim, smoke-filled office across the city, Brother Qiang felt the phone go dead in his hand. The silence that followed was louder than any shout.
He had spent twenty years in the underworld. He had faced rival gangs, police stings, and death threats. But the voice on the other end of that line hadn't sounded like a man. It sounded like the abyss itself calling to collect a debt.
His hands, usually steady enough to aim a pistol without a tremor, were shaking so violently he nearly knocked over his whiskey glass. A cold, oily sweat broke out across his forehead. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.
"What... what was that?" he whispered, his voice cracking.
His chest tightened—a sharp, stabbing pain born of pure, primal adrenaline. With a frantic, clumsy motion, he tore open his desk drawer, scattering papers everywhere until he found a small plastic bottle. He fumbled with the cap, his teeth chattering, and dumped three anxiety pills into his palm. He swallowed them dry, gasping for air as he slumped back into his chair.
Even as the medication began to work, the terror didn't leave. He looked at the shadows in the corners of his room, half-expecting a pair of violet eyes to emerge from the darkness. He had sent five of his best men to kidnap a girl, and in less than ten minutes, a "dead man" had turned them into scrap.
"Lock the doors!" Qiang screamed at the empty room, his voice rising in a panicked pitch. "Call everyone! Get the heavy hardware! Now!"