Chapter 89

"What the hell are you?!" One yelled, his voice cracking with terror.

Alex ducked under their combined attacks easily. To him, their movements were as slow as watching a movie in slow mo. He stepped into one of the man’s guard, and connected his elbow with the thug’s jaw.

The bone cracked instantly, and the man spun at least three times in the air before landing face first on the asphalt, completely knocked out cold before he even hit the ground.

The fourth man, a guy with a mohawk, turned away to run. But he didn’t even make it past two steps, before Alex caught him by the back of his collar and slammed him downward.

Just the impact alone almost cracked the pavement. It was a sure guarantee that at least most of the bones in his body were broken. Alex stood over him for a brief second, his face a mask of absolute, icy calm, before turning back to the leader.

The leader was struggling to sit up, and would occasionally cough up blood that splattered against his thick gold chain. His right arm hung at an impossible angle, and his chest was heaving as he fought for breath. The halo of being a high ranking member of the legendary Black Mambas had been stripped away, leaving only a broken man staring at a monster in human form.

Alex walked toward him with slow and deliberate steps, before stopping a few inches away. He looked at the ruined tires of his not even a day old Lamborghini and then back at the man.

"Earlier you mentioned something about me meeting my maker," Alex said, his voice smooth and terrifying. "I think you’re the one who got the directions confused. I am the one that’ll decide where you go."

The leader let out a wheezing laugh as his eyes subtly darted toward the man that Alex had slammed into the pavement. The mohawk thug was groaning, and his shaky hand slowly reached into the shadows beneath the dented SUV where a discarded 9mm handgun lay.

The leader then threw a bloody spit at Alex’s shoes, pretending to still be nonchalant about the pain while secretly signalling to the mohawk guy to shot while he distract Alex.

"You... You think you won, little homie?" He rasped, his bloody teeth bared in a defiant snarl. "We’re the Black Mambas, kid. We don’t die... We wait for the right moment to strike."

He nodded almost imperceptibly toward the man on the ground, who had already finally closed his fingers around the grip of the pistol, the barrel slowly turning toward Alex’s back.

The mohawk thug’s fingers brushed the cold metal of the 9mm. Despite the agonizing pain running through broken body, a large surge of adrenaline fueled his desperate movement.

He didn’t care about anything anymore, if he was going, then he was going to take that monster with him. As the barrel began to tilt upward, centering directly at Alex’s back, the leader’s bloody snarl widened into a grin.

"Die, you arrogant prick!"

And just as the man’s finger slowly began tightening on the trigger, Alex gave a small knowing smirk. He had already long since anticipated that attack from the leader’s subtle gestures that he thought he didn’t notice.

And without turning his head back, he pointed his fingers into a gun sign and flicked his wrist with precision while mouthing the word, bang.

A single razor sharp, obsidian petal of ice darker than the void between stars and colder than the heart of a glacier, instantly shot forward with astonishing speed, and before the thug could even fully press the trigger the shard slammed into his neck with devastating force.

If someone were to watch every action in slow mo, they would witness as the shard punched through flesh, and bone as if they were wet paper. Then a spray of bright red blood erupted, and the thug convulsed once before collapsing to the ground dead.

The shard continued moving for at least ten more meters before it embedded itself halfway into the pavement, still quivering with residual power.

Black frost crystals even began slowly blooming outward in the area around it, before stopping when it reached half a foot long.

"And you know," Alex muttered under his breath. "I was actually just going to let you go with a light punishment of having most of your bones broken. A few months in a cast, maybe a limp for the rest of your life... But you just had to go and do that."

The leader’s defiant snarl vanished as if it had been slapped off his face. His eyes bulged so wide that they looked just about ready to pop out from their socket. He watched the black shard sharply embedded ten meters away with frost surrounding it.

"Wha... What the hell?!" The massive man stammered, his voice trembling with terror as he ignored his broken hand and tried to scramble backward, pressing himself harder against the dented side of the SUV as he tried to wedge himself deeper into the crumpled metal.

The once fearless gangster now looked like a frightened kitty.

"What the hell are you, man?! What kind of voodoo shot is this?! You ain’t human! What the fuck are you?!"

Alex didn’t respond, he just stood motionless for a second as the bright afternoon sunlight cast long shadows across his imposing frame. He finally tilted his head slightly after his Aura farming moment, and said calmly.

"You don’t need to know what I am. All you just need to know is that I’m the guy who’s very important car you just scratched."

Alex stepped forward and slowly squatted in front of the trembling man. As he did, his emerald green eyes began to glow faintly, making the air around them grow noticeably colder, so much so that the moisture in the leader’s breath turned into visible frost.

In his right hand, another Deathfrost Bloom was slowly beginning to materialize, spinning slowly an inch above his palm. He lazily leaned in closer, the glowing green of his eyes reflecting in the leader’s terrified pupils, and pointed the tip of the shard directly at the man’s neck.

"Now," Alex whispered. "I’m going to ask you once, and if the answer isn’t what I want to hear, I’ll make sure that you end up in the exact same way you friend did, so make sure to think carefully before answering. Who sent you?"

The dark burly man, who had only minutes ago been mocking Alex like a helpless baby, broke down completely. Tears streamed down his face, carving clean tracks through the thick sweat.

Soon even a dark stain began spreading across the front of his pants as terror overpowered him.

He blubbered incoherently at first with snot and tears mixing together with the blood on his lips.

"I... I don’t know, man! Please! It was our big boss, the black mambas leader who put the word out himself after hanging up a call. Said some pretty face with black hair and green eyes who looked like all those pretty faces on TV needed to disappear before the day runs out. Said you were stepping on the toes of someone who could end your entire existence in a flash. Please, God, don’t kill me! I got kids, man! I’ll do anything! Just don’t... don’t do that ice shit no more!"

Alex stared at him, his icy gaze unblinking. He remained silent for a long time as he studied the man’s face, while keeping the Deathfrost Bloom dangerously close to the man’s throat.

At a point the shard even touched his neck, causing a thin layer of frost to form around the skin.

’The Black Mamba’s big boss, huh.’

Internally, his mind raced with countless possibilities of who could be trying to kill him.

Marcus was already off that list. The man had literally sent an elite Awakened subordinate to kill him yesterday night, and since that failed woefully, it was only a fool that would immediately follow up with street level thugs like this, and Marcus was no fool.

Besides, Silas was already in Nyx’s custody so he was also ruled out. That left only Renzo and Julian. Renzo hated him for stealing Nyx away from him but he hadn’t acted all this while, but it could be that he was patiently waiting for a particular time to strike. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

And as for Julian, after that embarrassing moment earlier. With his spoilt and arrogant temper it didn’t exactly take a genius to figure out that he would most definitely get his revenge. Or could it be someone else entirely, perhaps one of the members of the board.

After all, they did seem pretty annoyed that Nyx made a young pretty face college kid the largest shareholder of BluePeak Corporation. And the rejection of the Linkex app did tick off a lot of people.

The leader continued to babble, offering his gold chain, his money, and even his very soul if Alex would just let him live.