Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 586: Black Skull. (Part Eighteen)

A faint zap disturbed the silence of an otherwise calm room. One of the ceiling lamp malfunctions wasn’t out of the ordinary for such an old place, but in its current state, the flickering light only accentuated the sickening atmosphere of its interior.

A disaster had struck the place, leaving a field of dead bodies in its wake. Harry watched from the entrance, his nose upturned in disgust. The men lying in a pool of their own blood had once been his. They were all capable soldiers, enhanced with enough bionics to be at the peak of Level 2, and trained constantly to ensure they remain the elite force he wanted them to be.

Even after all the money he spent on them, they were all done in before they could even resist. The state of the room showed exactly that. Whatever happened in the small bar couldn’t be considered a fight. No. It was an execution. A cold-blooded death sentence, delivered by someone who considered themselves the judge.

This was one of many similar scenes that had been reported that day. The attacks came one after the other, and by the time they were discovered, everyone would already be dead. Sometimes, reinforcements would arrive only to learn that the call had purposefully been allowed through to lead them into a trap.

This had not turned out to be another one of them, but it left Harry enraged nonetheless. The reports indicated that someone with a mask that can only be described as a red demon was the one responsible for all the attacks they suffered since morning. Harry could only grit his teeth as the face of a red-haired youth appeared in his mind, but the anger he felt wasn’t directed at him.

When he heard about what happened at the place called the Sanctuary, Harry immediately knew that this was coming. Being the one who handled organizing their forces and most of the fighting, he knew how to measure the threats they had to deal with.

When he handed him info about the shipment arriving that day, Harry thought the Red Demon would organize an assassination at most, or maybe try to free the goods being moved. Instead, not only did it lead to the death of Captain Ahab and the extermination of the White Whale clan, but it also resulted in the destruction of the dock as well.

Ghost, the villain backing the Cyberpunk and his Inferno, didn’t fear making powerful enemies. In one night, the bastard turned half of the underworld against him. That wasn’t someone to pick a fight with—not without proper preparations. The best way to handle him would have been to try to cut a deal with him until he was handled by the people whose ire he learned. That’s how Harry would have handled the situation, but he wasn’t the one making the final call.

Just when it became clear that he won the throne, Harry learned that the empire he was meant to rule might not be there by this time next week. There was no stopping it this time.

The enemy was going after their forces from the ground up, eliminating everyone who happened to bear the mark of the Black Skull. Even if he were to fight back now, they could never survive going against a monster who could erase an entire neighborhood right under the nose of the world’s strongest. With that in mind, Harry could only think of one thing he could do at this point—make an exit plan. Black Skull was done for, and trying to save it was a fool’s endeavor. Getting out while he still can was the most logical choice.

’No...’

Alas, logic didn’t always dictate one’s actions, and though it was the worst time to go against it, that’s exactly what Harry chose to do. He was going to lead Black Skull out of this mess and prove his worthiness of being its boss. Even if that meant sacrificing most of what the gang has now, he would only need to rebuild. He would have to do so anyway if he chose to escape, so instead of forcing himself to live with the disgrace of having abandoned what is rightfully his, he decided to fight for it, even if that meant challenging powers beyond him.

Sparing his dead subordinates one more glance, Harry was about to turn around and leave, but he stopped at the entrance. He looked behind him once more, and after standing there for a while, he went back into the room and crouched down at the nearest corpse, his eyes narrowing as he examined her. His bionic eyes didn’t have any special capabilities that could help with the investigation, but something still caught his attention, and it didn’t take him long to figure out what it was.

The corpses had been beheaded and dismembered, the same as what happened to everyone who had been attacked by the Red Demon. The problem was that the wounds appeared too clean in this case. The victims of the Red Demon had their limbs ripped off, but in this case, they were cut with something sharp. Not one that, but whoever did it was good enough to avoid being obstructed by the bionics the cyborgs had implanted.

Then there were the bullet wounds.

Until now, Harry had been sure that the Red Demon was working alone and that he only used the power granted by his bionic limbs to do the job. The latter part might be true, but apparently not so much for the former.

There was another—a second enemy who took it upon themselves to steal prey from the Cyberpunk. As he considered who it might be, Harry remembered a few cases where some of Jason’s Doll Houses were raided. The perpetrator had always been alone back then, and they used similar methods to what he was seeing right now.

The assumption had been that they worked for Inferno all along, but was that really the truth?

For some reason, Harry got the feeling that this second enemy was the true driver behind all the misfortune they were currently facing. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Though stopping them was unlikely to bring it to an end, Harry still wanted to understand. What was the reason behind this crusade?