Returning to the Mysterious Era-Chapter 263 - The Gangsters Who Stray from Their Duties

Tap, tap, tap... tap, tap, tap...

The passageway echoed with the steps of leather shoes. If one listened closely, they would notice that two people were walking in the corridor. The elderly white-haired man exuded the poise of an elegant butler in his black suit. To his right, a boy of about fifteen to sixteen, with shaggy black hair and delicate features walked along. He looked aristocratic in his knee-high boots and sharp black vest.

Both wore white cuffs adorned with intricate silver swirling eye emblems—an ancient family crest. As they continued walking down the corridor, the boy started getting a little excited. His pale, delicate face flushed slightly.

"Butler, those three caused such a commotion. Isn't this what the magazines call a gang shootout, where one gang takes out another?" The boy asked, using the new phrases he'd picked up. "A gunfight!"

The butler nodded and replied, "Young Master You An, you're correct. Judging by the number of panicked people fleeing, it's likely that there was a large-scale gunfight inside. Further, there were likely more than just three individuals. There may have been other gunmen from the same gang working with them. Now, can you guess what kind of place this is?"

You An thought for a moment, "An underground fighting ring? Or a casino?"

He paused, recalling the clothing of the fleeing patrons from earlier. "No, it’s an underground fighting ring..."

The butler nodded, encouraging him further. You An continued, "The boss of an underground fighting ring must be involved in the black market; they can't be weak. They likely have their own channels for smuggling firearms. Heavy machine guns are unlikely, and the chance of light machine guns is small too. Most likely, they use pistols or even submachine guns. Just now, we saw at least ten men in black moving toward the ring, so there’s likely two or three times that many in total. It’s possible there are twenty to thirty gang members with pistols and submachine guns. I’ll need to keep my bone armor defense at metal level to avoid any sudden attacks..."

The butler nodded approvingly. "Exactly."

Before they knew it, the two reached the final door to the underground fighting ring. You An could already smell the overwhelming stench of blood through the crack in the door. He exchanged a glance with the butler and touched his brow.

Under his clothes, a white liquid started to seep out of his pores, gradually solidifying into a white armor. A moment later, You An was fully clad in white bone armor. Meanwhile, the butler stood in front of him, black bone-like patterns forming across his face like intricate tattoos.

They knew that barging into a gang shootout would likely result in being shot at. The plan was for the butler to shield the young master from most of the bullets, and encourage him to take the offensive. The butler hadn't brought Young Master You An here just to expose him to the dark side of society or to witness a gang war and practice critical thinking. The true purpose was something else—this was the perfect setting for You An’s first kill. After all, someone born to wield deadly tools could not avoid bloodshed. It was time for the young master to understand the difference between them and ordinary people. Only with blood could the brightest flowers bloom...

Bang!

The butler kicked open the tightly shut door. He charged in first, looking menacing as his black bone spikes tore through his clothes. But the hail of bullets he was anticipating never came. The underground fighting ring was oddly silent.

The butler scanned the scene in front of him and stopped in his tracks, You An close behind him. The latter took a quick step around his butler. His eyes widened as he braced himself against the wall.

"Urgh! Urgh..."

You An's stomach churned, and he vomited up his dinner. The smell intensified, triggering further waves of nausea and vomiting.

"This... this doesn’t look like a gang shootout..." You An muttered.

Even the butler, who had killed many people over the course of his career, frowned in disgust. Even he had never witnessed such a gruesome sight.

There were bullet holes and craters everywhere. The neatly arranged wooden seats were now in disarray, with some sections smashed to rubble. Around fifty bodies lay all around, from the main aisle to the spectator seating, and the space near the ring. Each corpse was mangled and dismembered, with limbs strewn across the floor, limp and scattered.

The floor, walls, and aisles were sticky and wet with blood. Every step on the blood-soaked ground produced a disgusting squelch.

It was a reflection of hell. It would take someone with an enormous willpower not to faint at such a sight. It was normal for You An to be overwhelmed with nausea and start vomiting.

After about a minute, You An stopped puking, not for lack of nausea, but simply because there was nothing left in his stomach. He gasped for breath and turned his head, only to spot a headless body kneeling nearby, which made him dry heave again.

"B-Butler, isn’t this supposed to be a gang shootout?" You An’s eyes were teary from vomiting.

"This is quite unexpected, Young Master."

The butler frowned and led You An down the main aisle. There were more than a dozen white human skeletons, some tangled in clumps of flesh. You An shut his eyes in fear and let the butler guide him forward.

The stench of blood clung to his nose, intensifying his nausea.

The butler, on the other hand, reached out solemnly to examine the remains. To his shock, he discovered that the skeleton in front of him had been stripped of every trace of muscle and flesh, like a flawless dissection.

"How... how was this done?" he muttered, baffled.

Squish.

You An suddenly let out a cry.

The butler turned to see two round, glassy eyeballs rolling around. One was intact, while the other had been crushed underfoot.

"Butler, let’s go back. I don’t want to be here anymore." You An had reached his limit. Any fear of embarrassment had been crushed by the overwhelming psychological trauma. How had a gang shootout turned into a slaughterhouse?

Understanding the danger they were in, the butler promptly nodded. He was about to lead You An back the way they came when quick footsteps approached from the corridor. They quickly realized there were quite a few people coming their way.

The next second, seven to eight men in black uniforms rushed out of the corridor, guns in hand, and started shooting as soon as they saw them.

"Take them down!" one of the leaders shouted.

The barrels of their guns erupted with smoke and sparks as bullets tore through the air. The bullets hit You An and the butler, but their bone armor held firm, sending golden sparks through the air.

"You've got the wrong idea! This wasn't our doing!" You An shouted as he dodged, but trying to explain was utterly futile. These gunmen had no intention of stopping.

"Young Master, don't waste words on these mortals! Let's fight our way out!" The butler's eyes flickered with a cold gleam. He was getting the sense that they had been caught up in a dangerous vortex. Escaping was the top priority!

"Get out of the way!"

With a low growl, six sharp bone claws instantly grew out of the backs of his hands. He charged into the group of gunmen, slashing furiously. Some of the gunmen nearly lost their hands from deep slashes, while others had their faces and chests slashed open. Yet, they kept coming, showing no signs of pain, like lifeless puppets.

The gunmen threw away their firearms and reached into their torn wounds, pulling out blood-red melee weapons—spiked knuckles, axes, broadswords, spears...

Once the weapons were drawn, their gruesome wounds began to heal rapidly. The flesh around their injuries squirmed nauseatingly as it regrew. More footsteps echoed from the back of the passageway—more reinforcements seemed to be closing in.

"Young Master, this way!"

The butler leaped back, grabbed the bewildered You An, and dashed toward another corridor. The black-clad men followed closely behind.

The passageway had a few scattered corpses, but their deaths seemed like clean kills, unlike the gruesome and bloody kills seen in the underground arena.

Holding You An under one arm, the butler moved like a black blur through the passages. In truth, he was starting to regret bringing the Young Master out to "broaden his horizons." Tonight's experience was far beyond anything he had ever seen himself!

How on earth had those three bumbling gangsters gotten involved in such a dangerous supernatural event? It was utterly absurd. Gangsters should stick to the norm of shooting and killing. What was the point of meddling in such a dangerous supernatural vortex? Did they have a death wish? And to drag both him and the Young Master into this mess as well...

The butler swore to himself that if he ever saw those three idiotic groundhogs again, he'd kick their butts with the Young Master's shoes. What an utterly dreadful situation.

They turned several corners in the corridor, and the butler was starting to feel lost. There were multiple branching paths, and he had no idea where they led. Thus, he randomly chose one and sprinted down it. They shot through the underground tunnel in a flash.

The hall ahead was filled with crystal chandeliers, their bright light causing the butler to squint as he scanned the scene.

He was greeted by a grotesque scene of carnage—a blood-soaked battlefield littered with corpses. The three idiotic groundhogs were right in the midst of a killing frenzy.

The white-haired one was swinging a whip, hanging people in mid-air and twisting their necks off. The blond one used his fingers like guns, as his bullets easily pierced through opponents' skulls and hearts. However, the black-haired one was the most brutal of all.

He was like a human butcher, tearing flesh from bone wherever he went. His killings were like works of art—gruesome yet strangely beautiful in their elegance.

"So it's those three gangsters! Dear god!"

The butler realized the gangsters' opponents were the same group of freaks they had just been fighting. But these freaks were being slaughtered like pigs by the three killers.

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Great.

In their attempt to escape, they'd somehow ended up in the most dangerous part of the vortex. The butler mentally slapped himself.

He was about to retreat with the young master, but he heard footsteps echoing behind them. There seemed to be even more gunmen than before. This time, there were also a few mysterious figures in long black robes; clearly, the leaders of the group.

A sense of danger flashed through the butler's mind. He quickly sidestepped, making sure not to get caught between the two opposing forces.

Sure enough, as the gunmen rushed into the hall, they were immediately drawn toward the three killers in the middle of the casino. Only a few headed their way.

Bang!

One of the gunmen was struck by a massive force and sent flying through the air, spinning wildly as blood sprayed from his mouth like a crimson mist. One of the black-robed leaders caught the body midair. When the black-robed man realized the gunman was dead and his vitality completely drained, he snorted coldly and tossed the corpse aside.

Suddenly, he shot forward like a gust of wind, heading straight for Cassius. A pale, slender hand shot out from beneath the cloak, striking viciously at Cassius's back.

This strike carried an explosive technique. The palm gradually sped up, intending to smash down with compressed force.

Cassius sensed the attack coming. He brutally swatted aside one of his enemies with his left hand, then swung his right arm in a wide arc, delivering a counter-elbow strike that clashed head-on with the black-robed assailant's palm.

The black-robed figure staggered back several steps from the impact, but Cassius's hurried elbow strike also faltered slightly. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the group of black-robed figures.

"So, after killing so many Blood Spirit Society juveniles, the fully-formed Dead Bloods have finally shown up?"

He braced his hands on the platform and shot forward like a cannonball, launching himself into the gunmen's barrage.

The two Blood Spirit Society gunmen in front were instantly kicked in half, while the others quickly formed an encirclement. When they realized their guns were ineffective against Cassius, they tore open their own wounds and drew weapons from their blood.

But Cassius barely paid attention to these gunmen; he was focused on the black-robed figures. He spread his hands wide and seemed to teleport instantly, appearing at the side of his black-robed assailant.

He unleashed a claw strike with his right hand to tear the figure apart. However, the black-robed figure was surprisingly agile and evaded the attack with a familiar footwork technique.

The sharp claws slashed through the air, tearing away the black hood. A head of messy, teal-colored hair whipped into the light, revealing a strikingly delicate, pale face. Narrow, seductive eyes gleamed intensely. Yet, the long neck also had a prominent Adam's apple.

Cassius froze on the spot, even as two Blood Spirit Society members landed harmless blows on him. He gazed at the face before him, and long buried memories of someone with teal-colored hair resurfaced.

The two faces, one in front of him and the other from his memory, quickly overlapped.

"Third Senior Brother, Gordon Lance."