Hayate looked at the two bodies, his expression turning grim. The first one was simple enough to dispose of, but the second one was a different story. It was like a slushy. Hayate looked away, he couldn’t even bear to look at it, it was a disgusting sight to behold.
Hayate was feeling a bit guilty for killing the man so brutally. He had used a high level attack spell on him out of anger, and the result was a mess of flesh and bones.
This man had most probably been enhanced to level 3 at max with that armour but most likely it was level 2 so he didn’t even have a chance against Hayate.
It wasn’t his usual style to go so overboard
The thought was uncomfortable.
Hayate had an idea...maybe he could do something with these.
Hayate grabbed the other corpse and dragged it near the slushy mess. When he dropped the corpse next to the mess, it made a gross splash sound, one that he wished he could un hear.
Hayate had to suppress the urge to throw up, the sight was disgusting to say the least. He took a deep breath and tried to avoid looking at the corpse.
He was going to summon an undead using this.
How could he do this when he wasn’t a necromancer?
In Hollow, When you reached the fifth level, you got to choose a class and at level 15, you could specialize in a particular school of magic. Hayate’s class was a “Vile Omen Mage”. This class was basically an amalgamation of being a summoner, necromancer, and demonic mage all rolled into one. It was a sort of jack-of-all-trades, master of none class and Hayate had chosen skills and spells that made use of the potential of his class to the fullest.
The first school of magic he had specialized in was Demonic Magic. The Demon Magic was the school of magic most useful to him due to his descent from the Demon race. The second he has chosen was summoning magic and the third was necromancy magic which went well with the last two schools.
Hayate had dabbled in other schools of magic as well, like Abjuration, Transmutation and Evocation. But in terms of Specialization, his first, second and third were demonic, summoning and finally necromancy.
Now, the question was what kind of undead he was going to create. There was a large variety, ranging from weak skeletons to high level death knights to much more.
But these corpses were barely level 2..combined they would be 3 at max...at most he could use them to create a skeleton.
Hayate felt that he was really scraping the bottom of the barrel here...creating a skeleton out of these two was a rather pathetic way to use corpses, but hey at least it was better than nothing..this would also get rid of them. A win win situation
[create first tier undead — skeleton]
A low class skill.
All it did was create a basic skeleton to help out the user. The skeleton’s strength was the bare minimum, but at least it would follow Hayate’s orders.
He said the chant out loud.
As soon as he uttered out the command, the corpses on the ground in front of him started moving.
The slushy one, somehow seemed to reform into more of a human shape even though it was still very liquidly. It was a rather gruesome sight, as it looked like those corpses were being stitched back together. After that, the now combined corpse began to melt slowly, flesh and muscle and skin all melting together until only the bones remained.
The result was a simple-looking skeletal figure. The skeleton was made out of the bits and pieces of the two corpses and it looked rather disgusting, but it was also rather pathetic looking. It was small in stature and not really made for combat. It would have been a level 5 skeleton but due to hayate’s ring it was level 7.
Hayate had wanted to create a higher level not so weak undead. There was an obvious reason for this weakness, the fact that it was created using trash-tier corpses. But still, a level 7 undead was not to be scoffed at. It was still stronger than any normal person.
Hayate was not completely satisfied but he could not do anything about it. He looked at the skeleton and commanded, “protect this house, don’t let anyone enter.”
Hayate said. The skeleton nodded. It then stood still in one corner of the house, unmoving and unblinking. It would not move, it would not rest, it would simply protect the house. If it was not destroyed, it would forever stay here.
Ken suddenly shouted at Hayate, his voice filled with shock and fear. “What the hell is that? What’s happening?”
Hayate turned to look at him, his expression completely apathetic. “That’s an undead. I just commanded it to protect this place.”
Hayate walked over to ken and placed his hand on his head. He muttered a single word, “[erase]” and Ken fell unconscious, his memories vanishing into thin air. Hayate stood there, observing the success of the spell he had cast.
Hayate then walked over to the living room and sat down on the couch next to taro, he sighed as he rested his head. Dealing with this mess had taken a lot out of him, and now he had to handle even more troublesome things. But first, now to heal his friend.
Hayate turned over, observing his unconscious friend. He saw a dart in his neck, Hayate took out the dart from his neck, observing it closely. The dart was red in colour, made of plastic but with a metal tip. He crushed it in his hands, a fluid came out from inside. It was likely that the fluid was responsible for the tranquilizer effect of the dart.
Just to be safe, Hayate casted a [full recovery] spell on taro. Then he put away the crushed dart.
Hayate looked at taro’s unconscious form for a while longer, he knew it will take him some time to wake up. With that done, there was one final thing to do. Hayate had to eliminate the source of this problem, the black snake gang.
But strangely, Hayate seemed hesitant. He appeared to be having second thoughts about this. They were selfish thoughts.
What will he get out of this?
Hayate was never really a selfless person. He most of the time only did things if it benefited him. The one thing he was selfless on was helping his friend and he had done that. What he was going to do next was a problem which taro’s grandson should handle. Not him.
Hayate shook his head. If ken died facing those gangsters it would directly cause pain to taro, that wasn’t something he wanted.
Hayate also didn’t really care for Ken but he was taros family. Hayate was the outsider here. This whole dilemma has been placed on his shoulders without his consent. He felt no reason to do this. It’s not his problem but still something in his heart told him he still had to fix the root of this mess. Because if he doesn’t, taro will get hurt.
“I just want to disappear,” he muttered to himself.
Hayate stood up and slapped himself hard on the cheeks. It was a harsh gesture, as if he was trying to physically knock some sense into himself.
“Enough of these childish thoughts,” he said to himself.
This has got to be done.
——————————————————————
Tanaki Nakamura sat in his office, his face twisted into a scowl. It had been a bad day for him. One of his men had informed him about a situation in the slums of Tokyo. The Kusonoki conglomerate, one of the mega-corps, had sent a man to ask the people and the gangsters to relocate to a third tier city within a 4 days. The reason being that the gangsters have violated the treaty they had made, promising not to harm people related to the megacorp’s. Now, the whole slum was going to be destroyed in four business days.
Tanaki was absolutely furious to hear about this news. The slums of Tokyo was a major source of his income, and he had a lucrative drug business going on there. As many as 800 thousand people lived there, and 200 thousand of them were addicted to drugs. That made for a massive market for illegal substances.
To think that the Kusonoki conglomerate was planning to raze the place to the ground, over a minor gang breaking a treaty, was simply ridiculous. Well, it’s not like the government could do anything. The government was beneath those companies after all.
But it really did not matter to Tanaki who was behind it, what mattered was the fact that if the place was demolished, his income would be gone.
Tanaki thought hard on what could be done. He could either fight the conglomerate, or try to talk it over. No, fighting wasn’t an option. The kusonoki conglomerate as it said in the name was a conglomerate. It was made up of many different business, one of them being “TecCorp” a weapons manufacturing company which also had an entire private army at its disposal. Last he checked they had around 70,000 something troops.
Fighting was a stupid option. He might as well commit suicide by going against the conglomerate. The only edge he could think of that he had were his enforcer’s but they would be killed in less than a minute against that army.
So talking over it was the only other option, and with a conglomerate such a simple task was actually hard. He would have to convince their leaders to give up on the plan. Finding a needle in an ocean would have better chances than that of happening.
Tanaki let out a tired sigh. His head was hurting, this entire issue was beyond headache inducing. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He couldn’t even think of where to begin and what to do.
And that was not the only problem, The situation in Neo-Tokyo was complex.
There were three major gangs, Tanaki’s Black Snakes being the third, the White Lotus being the second and the top dogs, the Yakuza, holding the position of number one.
Years ago, there had been constant gang wars, but now it was relatively calm. This was because of a delicate balance, a sort of check and balance between the three powerhouses. If one gang attacked another, the third party could easily step in and eliminate them both after the battle. Each one of these gangs ruled a section of the city, and none could overstep the other without an entire gang war being triggered.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
This fragile peace was maintained because none of the three gangs wanted to take risks.
It was like a game of chess where each move needed to be calculated. However, despite the relative peace, tensions were still running high. All it would take is one push, one miscalculated move to tip the entire power structure.
If the black snakes weaken, the yakuza and white lotus can team up and destroy them.
This is why Tanaki was afraid of losing the revenue produced from the slums. The loss of such a major market would mean less income for the gang. This, in turn, would lead to a weakening of his faction, making it vulnerable to attacks from the yakuza and the white lotus.
It would be a complete massacre.
Game over.
Tanaki sighed heavily. Was an alliance with the white lotus the solution? Teaming up to take out the yakuza could work, but it would require a lot of planning and careful maneuvering. He weighed the pros and cons of such a course of action. On one hand, they would eliminate a major rival, but on the other hand, there was the risk of backstabbing.
It didn’t do any good either that white lotus was filled to the brim with druggies...physotic druggies who are always high and have a shit-ton of cyber implants and tend to go ape shit.
They might even turn on him and eat him. Literally. He couldn’t count on the white lotus, for even if he managed to work things out the drug fuelled druggies are always wild cards.
He let out another tired sigh and started rubbing his temples.
Tanaki let out another heavy sigh.
Things were bad, very bad.
He didn’t even remember the last time things were actually good for him. Maybe three years ago, no, actually, two years ago was worse.
Maybe 5 years ago?
...
Nah, now that he remembered it that year was a major nightmare.
He just looked up at the ceiling and muttered to himself, “everything sucks, life sucks, every year sucks.”
The recent two years had been hell for him. It was like the universe was punishing him ruthlessly.
First his wife had divorced him and ran away with the kid, then his entire warehouse burned down due to a fire....what else? Oh yeah, he was almost assassinated 2 times during those two years...Well something good which did happen was that his opposition had assassinated his wife and kid thinking he was still with them. He could remember when he heard that news he celebrated and drunk till he couldn’t..
But that was two years ago. In the meantime, he just managed to scrape by, barely managing to maintain stability. Everything was in ruins, but somehow he managed to keep things from hitting rock bottom. He was still alive and still the head of the gang, and he was still making a profit. It was not as great as before, but at least it was something.
He looked at the whiskey bottle on the table, considering pouring himself a glass.
As he was thinking to himself, the door to his office slowly creaked open and one of his men entered.
“Boss,” the man said in a low voice.
Tanaki looked up, his expression weary. “What is it?”
“of the three enforcers we send to district A, two of their chips looks like they had been destroyed..”
“Destroyed?” Tanaki repeated, his tired expression hardening. “What do you mean ‘destroyed’?”
“I mean all tracking signals from their chips ceased...” The man explained, his tone grave. “They’re dead and their brain chips have probably been destroyed.”
“What?!” Tanaki slammed his fist on the table, his face contorted with anger. “Are you shittn’ me? Two of my enforcers are dead? How the hell did that happen?”
Tanaki’s disbelief turned to fury. His enforcer units were his pride and joy, equipped with top-notch military-grade exoskeletons and armour which costs a kidney and a arm combined. They were heavily modified individuals, able to withstand bullets and far stronger than any normal thug or policeman. It was unheard of for one, let alone multiple, to be defeated.
District A...the Phoenix Club... The only enforcers teams out there right now were two teams.
The first was Team Alpha, his elite team, currently recovering at a private hotel after a run-in with the police. They had sustained some damage but were being taken care of. The other enforcer team was Team 9, the one he had sent to pick up an old man.
So, out of the three members of Team 9, two were confirmed dead.
District A was their territory. There was no way another gang should be in there. Even the police shouldn’t be there, but even if they had a run in with them, Team 9 should be able to escape using their 10-second invisibility tech and inform him promptly. Yet, that hadn’t happened, which meant it couldn’t have been the police.
This was bad. This was really, really bad. Tanaki leaned back in his chair, his mind working overtime. The only logical conclusion he could draw was that it must have been the work of the yakuza...or the white lotus.
They were the only other gangs in Neo-Tokyo that could cause the deaths of two of his enforcers.
But which one? The yakuza were powerful and feared, but they were more discreet in their operations. The white lotus, on the other hand, were reckless and unpredictable. They were known to act on whims and often didn’t think things through so it was most likely to be the latter.
Tanaki cursed under his breath. Dealing with the white lotus was like trying to predict a hurricane. They were crazy, they acted on a whim, and they were dangerous.
They were also high on drugs half the time.
ABX. The most deadliest drug in Japan by far. Their favourite.
Tanaki decided to hold off on drawing any conclusions. He needed more evidence.
The remaining member of Team 9 was most likely still out there, either escaped or captured.
“Do we know the location of number 29?”
“positive,” the man replied. “He’s currently heading towards our base.”
Tanaki nodded. A wave of relief washed over him.
So the third member was alive and on the way to their base. That was a good sign.
“Have a medic team on standby,” he ordered. “He might be injured and as soon as that is done bring him to me.”
“Yes sir,” the man replied before leaving the office.
Tanaki sat back in his chair, a dark feeling gnawing at his gut. Something was off. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was an unease, an intuition that something bad was about to happen.
He took a deep breath.
“Calm down,” he muttered to himself. You’re just being paranoid.”
But the feeling wouldn’t ease. If anything, it was growing stronger. Tanaki knew better than to ignore his instincts. After all, he had been in this game for a long time. This feeling had saved his hide many times.
He began to rub his temples, trying to ease the growing headache he could feel coming.
“Damnit,” he muttered under his breath. “What is it...?”
He thought back to the last few days. Was there a pattern that he had missed?
Was he under threat? Was the yakuza or the white lotus involved?
He couldn’t pin point what he was feeling, but something was definitely going to go wrong.
———————————————————
Hayate sat quietly in the back of the van. It was a simple, unassuming vehicle, an ordinary white van with no distinctive features. He would have preferred to sit in the front, but his size made it impossible.
He glanced out the window, watching the city scape pass by.
Hayate sat silently in the back of the van, his gaze fixed on the driver. The man was under his control, his mind fully dominated.
The vehicle was currently making its way to the headquarters of the Black Snakes.
The Black Snakes headquarters had a total of around 300 members in total and 24 enforcers. The base was located in district D. Neo-Tokyo was divided into 26 districts marked from A to Z. The district A, where Tanaki’s home was, was about 10 minutes drive to district D.
Hayate frowned as he thought about what he would do once he arrived.
He didn’t want to kill any more people, if he would at all and he knew he would have to. Maybe he could use threats, harm a few of them and kill as few as needed, demanding the boss. Yes, the boss would be the one person he would end if things went that way.
He could spare the grunts but not the higher ups.
“Why did everything have to be so complicated?” he said to himself.
He leaned back against the van. 300 members, 24 enforcers...
He was going to have a long, rough day.
After a small while, the van eventually reached the warehouse district. The area was mostly deserted, with numerous warehouses in sight.
Hayate looked through his inventory. He felt the need to hide his face, so he reached into his inventory, pulling out a small pouch. This pouch was filled to the brim with purely cosmetic items.
He rummaged through the items before pulling out a plain white mask. It did not have any special abilities but it wasn’t ugly to look at. The only word one can use to describe it were “plain” or “boring.”
Heck, even the name of the item was [plain mask.]
He put on the plain white mask, covering his face.
Hayate looked at his reflection in the window, pleased that his face was adequately covered. He exhaled deeply, taking a moment to collect his thoughts.
“Okay...let’s do this.” He muttered to himself.
The van came to a stop before one of the warehouses. From outside, Hayate could see the warehouse was large, well-built, and had a heavily guarded, reinforced door. The entrance was also manned by two heavily armed guards. He was about to walk into the snake’s den. Literally and figuratively.
Hayate stepped out of the van and walked toward the warehouse entrance. The two guards at the entrance watched him approach with a sharp gaze, clearly not taking any chances.
As Hayate drew closer, one of the guards spoke.
“Hold it right there.”
Hayate stopped a few feet away from the guards. He eyed them carefully, sizing them up.
“Who are you?” One of the guards growled, his hand on the pistol holstered at his hip.
“You look like some kinda cosplayer? You should leave.” Another said.
Hayate inhaled deeply. It was time to play the same role he did before in front of the mercenaries and Hiroshi. That of Lucifer, the demon.
His whole demeanor changed, and a cold, menacing aura emanated from him. He locked eyes with the guards. The guards’ eyes widened in shock and fear. And they weren’t imagining it. Hayate’s aura had literally changed.
Red flumes emanated from him, surrounding a area of 5 meters around him. It was thick, like the smog covering the sky. And inside it, it seemed like souls? Souls of the dammed were screaming as if in constant pain. This was [death].
[Death] was a skill that Hayate had learned because he knew necromancy. It was a powerful ability that caused anyone below level 30 to instantly die upon its activation. And for those below level 50, it caused a 50% reduction in their HP and a 80% chance of poison or paralysis. It had a AoE of 5 meters around the caster.
The aura itself felt like it brought dread or discomfort. And if anyone who knew what souls or spirits felt, they could have felt thousands of them screaming inside.
The two guards who were previously wary of him felt a sense of dread coursing through them. The air was thick, heavy. For a moment, their instincts kicked in, screaming to run. This man was dangerous. Very, very dangerous. One of the guards hand twitched. He was reaching for his gun.
The other one took out a radio as they didn’t have neurochips, because it was risky as they were just guards, fodder. Not anything worth, only enforcers and the upper ranking people had them, and spoke into it. “Boss, there’s-“
Before he could say anything else, the other guard who was about to draw his gun suddenly collapsed to the ground, dead.
The guard who was still standing on his feet backed away, wide eyed as he stared at his dead comrade.
“Wha...” He couldn’t articulate his words, too shocked from the sudden death of his colleague and then he fell to the ground too. Before he knew it, he was dead.
The whole thing happened so quickly. One moment they were standing, the next they were dead on the ground. Hayate sighed, he wanted to get this as quickly over as possible. So instead of them attacking him which they would have done anyways he just decided to give them instant death and get through the gate.
He walked over to the gate, it was 10meter tall metal gate, very thick too. It would atleast be a few thousand kilograms. He reached out and placed a hand on it, it was probably locked but he decided to push it open.
The gate didn’t budge and didn’t even move an inch at the force he put on it. Atleast, that’s what would have happened had he been a normal human.
He was no normal human, though. His strength stat was high, extremely high for a normal mage, mostly because of his items. If a normal person was considered to be 1 in strength and a boxer is 2 strength. A UFC fighter being 3 to 3.5, and a strong bodybuilder 4.
Hayate was a 130. A very, very high number. His strength was equal to or less than a level 50 warrior.
He tried pushing the gate with a small amount of his strength and to his surprise, it actually budged. He heard a creaking sound from the hinges as the gate slowly began to open.
While Pushing open the gate, Hayate was reminded of the feeling he would get when opening the gate to a boss room in a dungeon. The feeling of anticipation and excitement.
The creaking sounds of the gate opening echoed through the area as it slowly swung outwards. With a final groan, the gate came to a stop, finally revealing the inside of the warehouse.
Hayate took a step forward, his eyes darting around as he took in the surroundings. The interior of the warehouse was dark, the only light coming from a few flickering fluorescent bulbs overhead.
This place was old.
He could make out crates and boxes stacked high against the walls, leaving a narrow pathway heading deeper into the warehouse or rather underground.
Hayate took a final look back to the two dead guards before heading into the warehouse. As he walked, he noticed a few security cameras high up in the corners of the warehouse, no doubt being monitored by security personnel. He didn’t care if they saw him, by the time he was done, this entire place would be gone anyways.
Hayate reached the end of the warehouse, coming face to face with a heavy metal door. It was thick and had a large, bulky lock on it. It was the door to the base below. On it was plastered a red neon holographic sign saying “staff area only, please do not enter.”
Hayate stared at the sign for a moment, then smirked just a tiny bit beneath his mask. Like he was going to listen to that. He tried the door handle and found it unsurprisingly, locked.
He could just kick it open, but he was sure that would set off warnings and alarms.
Ah fuck it, they probably knew he’s here.
He stepped back and let out a high powered front kick to the door. The lock and handle got ripped off and the door flung inward like it was made of Styrofoam.
The door crashed to the ground, revealing a dimly lit staircase descending deep into the ground. Hayate began to walk down the stairs, his footsteps echoing in the confined space.