The warehouse where everyone was station, loom like a decaying beast, however this pce was soaking with Negativity, to be honest the sheer amount of it if could be seen would look like a tower of bck mass.

  The sheer amount of crimes that has happen here was monsterous if not straight up disgusting.

  its rusted walls stained with grime and the sour reek of stale blood, smoke, booze and oil. Inside, the air was thick, if not utterly suffocating, heavy with the tang of rust and rot that has built up over the years.

  A single flickering bulb swung from the ceiling, casting jagged shadows across the concrete floor where a line of trembling captives stood, wrists bound by zip ties, their faces pale and drawn. Boys and girls, barely adults, shivered in tattered clothes, some stripped down to the

  As they are force to watch if not relic in the indirect revenge against their captor getting brutally abuse.

  And after said abuse is finished, he said to half dead Boldrick.

  "Are you really going to sell the organs of these people to someone like Cy?"

  He asked, his voice a low drawl.

  Boldrick forced a shaky smile through split lips, propping himself up on quivering elbows, his breath hitching in ragged bursts.

  "Yes."

  He rasped, wiping blood from his chin with a trembling hand.

  "Recently, he has been collecting hearts, brains, and spinal cords from young people. From the little information I have gotten, he needs a lot of ‘em. I don't know why, but he’ is offering four times the usual rate for a shipment from us."

  "Hell he dried up the North bck market four days ago, cleaned it out of almost all it organs. So I got in touch with him, and he is ready to pay big... If I get it, then I will have enough to cover the debt and then some."

  At this new's Taro paused, cigarette dangling from his lips as he gnced at his men.

  The cleaver-wielding thug let out a guttural chuckle, the bde catching the light in a wicked fsh, while the others swapped sly smirks, their eyes glinting with raw greed.

  The captives shifted, a ripple of fear passing through the line. Bck hair twin whispered to her sister, her voice a barely audible hiss.

  "This bastard is really going to sell us."

  She said, and the other replied.

  "Disgusting asshole's all of them."

  Boldrick's smile faltered, sweat beading on his brow as Taro's gaze turned even more menacing, the air thickening with tension.

  Taro then began to crouched slowly, his face inches from Boldrick's, the heat of his cigarette radiating against the man's sweat-slicked forehead.

  Without breaking eye contact, he pressed the glowing ember into Boldrick's skin.

  A sharp sizzle cut through the warehouse, the acrid stench of burning flesh blooming as Boldrick's scream tore free.

  "Arghhhh!"

  His cry was raw, animalistic, his body convulsing under the searing pain, eyes squeezed shut as tears streamed down his cheeks. But he didn't dare move, frozen by Taro's grip on his colr, the Yakuza's knuckles white against the fabric.

  "You should’ve led with that mate."

  Taro murmured, his voice smooth as silk but sharp as a bde, twisting the cigarette deeper before flicking it aside, where it sparked against the concrete.

  He released Boldrick with a shove, letting the man slump, his forehead now blistered, a raw red welt pulsing like an angry brand.

  Straightening, Taro dusted his hands as if shaking off filth, his gold tooth fshing in a cold grin.

  "Here is the py...we chop up this fresh meat, sell Cy what he wants...hearts, brains, spines, whatever. But 99% of the profit, after you pay the boss's three million, comes to me, and my boys."

  Boldrick's eyes snapped open, wide with disbelief, his blistered forehead throbbing as he clutched the floor for support.

  "That's not fair."

  He whimpered, as his voice began cracking like brittle gss, barely audible over the warehouse's oppressive hum.

  Taro loomed over him, his shadow swallowing Boldrick whole, the dim bulb casting his face in sharp relief, with mocking scowl.

  As he said with wicked smile.

  "I will tell ya what's not fair."

  He said, each word dropping like a guillotine, slow and deliberate alike.

  "And that is you being carved into five pieces and dumped in the bay for the sharks to rip apart... That my friend isn't fair."

  The threat nded like a physical blow, vivid and visceral.

  Boldrick's face drained of color, his body quaking as terror cwed at his chest.

  Images fshed, jagged bdes slicing through flesh, blood pooling on the concrete, the cold bck of the ocean swallowing him whole as teeth tore into him.

  "N-NOOO you wouldn't!?"

  He said while looking up at Taro.

  "Trust me we would, hell that might have been you earlier if you didn't had a way to pay back the boss, but seeing that you now do, and then some...things have change. Now you can either do as you are told and take the 1%, better than nothing...or you can die right now, and we do the work for you, and I take your 1%, the choice is yours."

  Taro said as be began to rose from his crouch, his shadow retreating from Boldrick's quivering form like a tide pulling back from a wrecked shore.

  He then began to speak once more saying

  "Ohhh well, I think got the picture of your situation well enough, I am leaving some of my men here to keep an eye on you."

  He said casually in a bored tone.

  "Jus make sure you don't stray."

  He turned, his gaze turning back cold again, sweeping over the line of chained young people, the twins among them.

  Their bruised faces taut with silent fury. Taro locked eyes with Boldrick again, stepping closer, his presence suffocating.

  "Get to work."

  "Harvest all their essential organs. Give Cy what he wants, hearts, brains, spines. Store the rest in cold storage; they can be sold ter."

  He leaned in, his breath hot with cigarette smoke still lingering on his breathe.

  "When it is all prepped, you and I, with my boys, will make the deal with Cy. That fucker is a Hesta much like myself, a damn powerful one like myself from the rumors I have heard of him, and I don't trust him one bit. But I am close to my third evolutionary circle, I feel that it is just in reach. Two, maybe three more days at moat, and I'll hit it naturally. Till then, I've got shit to do."

  He straightened, towering over Boldrick, who shrank under the weight of his stare.

  "Have I made myself clear?"

  Boldrick's blistered forehead throbbed, his voice barely a whisper as he nodded.

  "Crystal clear,."

  He croaked, his eyes darting to the floor, avoiding Taro's piercing gaze.

  Taro turned to four of his men... Tetimo, Jamian, Lionel, and Quincy, leaning against the crates, their faces hard but eager.

  "You four stay with this fucker."

  Taro said, pointing a finger at Boldrick, with the other hand in his pocket.

  "Make sure he doesn't do anything to screw our profit. Do this right, and I'll make sure each of you gets a decent cut."

  The men grinned, their eyes lighting up like wolves scenting blood.

  "Yes sir, you can't count on us, we won't mess this up."

  Quincy said, his voice steady, a scarred hand resting on the hilt of a knife at his belt. Tetimo on the other hand, cracked his knuckles, Jamian nodded silently, and Lionel's lips curled into a predatory smirk.

  They were ex-military, brothers-in-arms hardened by betrayal when their country failed them, as such one thing led to another, and locate his is them now, and Taro trusted their discipline to keep Boldrick in line.

  Taro nodded, satisfied, and strode toward the warehouse's rusted exit, his remaining eight goons falling into step behind him like shadows.

  As he reached the door, he waved a hand dismissively without looking back.

  "Get everything ready by delivery time, Boldrick, or I'll kill you myself."

  He called, his voice echoing off the grimy walls.

  From there, Quincy turned to Boldrick, his expression all business, the glint in his eyes betraying a familiarity with bloodshed.

  "Let us get to work then."

  He said, his tone clipped.

  "First thing first,set up a room for butchering the product."

  Said Quincy casually, after all it wasn't his first time. Quincy had been a military doctor before the colpse, his hands as skilled with a scalpel as they were with a gun. His brothers-in-arm Tetimo, Jamian, and Lionel, shared that grim expertise, their pasts forged in the same crucible of bloody war between nations

  "Move."

  Quincy barked.

  Boldrick scrambled to his feet, wincing, his voice trembling but obedient.

  "I've got a space ready. I'll have my boys clear it out now."

  He said, gesturing to a few of his own ckeys, who scurried toward a back room, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous warehouse.

  Meanwhile outside, the dead of night wrapped Anthen City's in a shroud of silence, broken only by the distant hum of neon and the occasional wail of a siren.

  Taro stepped onto the cracked pavement, the cool air biting at his exposed skin as his eight men fanned out toward a sleek, bck armored car parked under a flickering streetmp.

  Their boots thudded softly, their movements disciplined, a quiet aura or Gaian energy trailing them like smoke.

  Yet they where strange beings, all of them normal humans, but the passive influx of Gaian energy in each make one thinks otherwise, however they where not Hestas, yet the could use Gaian energy for some reason.

  That aside though, Taro's hand dipped into his pocket, fishing for another cigarette, one box was done but he had another, but at the same time, his phone buzzed sharply against his thigh. He froze, a scowl creasing his face.

  "Who the hell is calling at this hour?"

  After all he put his phone on do no disturb earlier tonight.

  He muttered, pulling the device out. As though piss and annoyed soon turn to serious and afraid.

  His eyes widened, beads of sweat prickling on his brow as the screen lit up with a name that made his blood run cold.

  As his fingers fumbled, nearly dropping the phone, before he answered in a rush, his voice shifting from gruff to unnervingly respectful.

  "Lady Makima."

  He said, his tone smooth, deferential, a stark contrast to the brutality he had unleashed moments ago.

  "How are you?"