abcnovels
Chapter 102: Statement
Chapter 102: Statement
Chapter 102: Statement
?
Adam left the store through the front door, a backpack on his shoulder and a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.
The cameras stationed around the store followed him with intense scrutiny, capturing his
every move.
"Hey, you."
At that moment, several people left the shadow of the nearby alleyway and surrounded him like a pack of wolves.
They were quite tall, towering over Adam like a bunch of giants.
They knew they were quite menacing-looking, and any ordinary person would be shitting bricks at the sight of them. They took pride in that and even displayed their tattoos proudly for all to see.
"You know what I smell when I look at you?" One of them asked with a grin. "A smell of a coward."
"Brat, you came to the wrong place." Another one said and cracked his knuckles. "There are some sick individuals lurking around here, and you would sell for a penny."
"So that's why you are here?" Adam asked emotionlessly. "To sell me as a slave?"
"You catch up quick." They laughed. "That's right. It's nothing personal, just business." "Occasionally, some people from above-the-ground venture here or get lured in. They'll never see another light of the sun again.
"The slave industry is a booming business down here. We make a pretty penny off of it."
"You seem like you're someone new here." A man said, "If you just decide to give up willingly, we promise we won't sell you to some sick monster who will do unspeakable things to you."
Adam scratched his forehead and shook his head. He then slowly dropped his backpack and pulled out two shiny-bladed knives.
Their expressions changed to annoyance.
"Idiot." A man said and revealed a gun holster with a pistol slipped inside.
He touched the handle and stared at Adam with a steely gaze.
"This is the real world, brat. Wanna rather die?"
"Fuck off." Adam swung his knife and sliced through the throat of a person beside him.
The person looked shocked and fell to the ground while blood poured out of his throat. He didn't expect to get attacked!
Everyone thought that Adam would put his focus on the gunman in front of him, but everyone was wrong.
"Fucker!"
The man unholstered the pistol, but before he could raise it to fire at him, Adam sliced his fingers off with the red-handled knife, and the man dropped the weapon in agony.
"Aaaargh!"
The rest looked shocked for a moment, but then they brought out their sharp-bladed pocket knives and rushed at the young man.
They came from all directions, but then Adam swung his knives around, deflecting and leaving behind trails of blood as he fought off the attackers.
Adam weaved around the attackers, slicing, stabbing, and parrying their attacks with masterful skill.
His arms moved like whips, and with each slice, his speed increased, making it impossible for the attackers to keep up.
One of the attackers stabbed with his pocket knife, but then Adam moved his knife, slashed the attacker's fingers off, and then finished him off with a quick stab to the chest.
Another person fell to the ground with a loud scream. However, he didn't die, but he was severely injured and unable to continue the fight.
"Just fucking kill him!" The leader of the group, who had the gun, screamed in pain while holding his fingerless hand.
Adam brought down his knives and blocked a machete, with the two blades scratching against the blade of the machete.
At that moment, a pocket knife came behind him.
Adam swung his right arm over his shoulder and blocked the pocket knife with his knife.
The blade of the pocket knife hit the blade of his knife and clanged loudly, causing a spark to fly in the dimly lit street.
"H-how the hell did he block that?" The person whispered to himself. "Does he have eyes at the back of his head or what?"
Adam whipped his leg across the person's waist and sent him sprawling to the ground with a loud thud.
The machete-wielding man screamed and raised it high above his head, but it left his chest wide open, and Adam quickly sliced through his abdomen with the sharp knife.
The man collapsed on the ground while trying to stop himself from bleeding.
Adam looked around at the group of men, sprawling and crying on the ground with various injuries.
Without proper medical care, most of them would die.
"Argh..." The leader of the group grabbed the gun with his last remaining hand and aimed it straight at Adam.
Before he could pull the trigger, Adam kicked the gun out of his hand and stabbed his knife through his shoulder.
"F-fuck!" The man screamed in agony and looked at him hatefully. "Y-you'll regret this."
"Hmm." Adam pulled his knife out of the bleeding shoulder and wiped it on the man's shirt before saying, "I highly doubt that."
"Y-you think you can get away with this? You won't." The man said, "You intentionally did shallow wounds because you're afraid to kill. You can't survive here if you aren't willing to kill!"
Adam raised an eyebrow, and without a change of expression, he slashed through the man's throat. This time, it was a much deeper wound.
The man, shocked and utterly baffled, fell to the ground and felt his life slowly drain away
from him.
In the last moments of his life, he watched as Adam stood up and wiped the blood off the knives as if it were just another day.
"W-who... the... are..."
His words became incomprehensible as he took his final breath.
Adam put away his knives and looked straight at the cameras that recorded it all.
...
Kang and others watched silently as Adam finished off the fight and then turned to look at the camera as if he were making a statement.
"Hah, I see..." Kang chuckled and shook his head. "Statement, huh."
"He is not even that old yet, and he is willing to kill without a second thought." Someone
said. "Does he feel nothing?"
"There're people who have lost the ability to tell the difference between the fake and real
worlds. To them, killing is just the same in both worlds."
Kang scratched his beard and said, "However, it has only been barely a month since he started playing the game. Has he really been affected that much already?"
"Maybe he has been raised by a criminal family?" A person asked. "He has top-level skill. No wonder he became S-ranker with that amount of skill, and he can kill without blinking." "Maybe..." Kang looked at the address on the piece of paper. "Navy Town, his home is in just some rural area. Also, I don't recognize Palestar name."
"What was the statement you talked about, Sir Kang?"
"The news move around Red Thread quickly." Kang said. "Within a day, all the big names of the city will know that the newly-crowned S-ranker, Adam Palestar, visited this place and they will know his every move.
"Him defeating those guys was him making a statement-in the real world, he is not
someone to be messed with."
"I see..." The person muttered. "What crazy confidence he has. Are all S-rankers like this?"
"Not sure, this is my first time meeting one." Kang chuckled. "What a crazy group of people,
S-rankers..."
"So, we'll be expecting visitors from the gangs tomorrow?"
"Mm." Kang looked at one of them and asked. "You have the recording of the fight, right?"
"That's right."
"Make copies out of them." Kang said. "We'll give it to them; otherwise, they'll just bother us
all day long."
"A-alright, sir!"
"Also, let's start the transport of our equipment to Navy Town." Kang said with a smile. "We have a new client; we can't disappoint him."