Chapter 29: Demon Gang Headquarters

Copperfield Department Store. The first and second floors had been turned into a sprawling indoor market, more like a produce market than a department store. Stalls jammed every corner, selling mutated bison meat, oat flour, and rifle rounds in a dirty, chaotic mess.

Finn and the other two strode straight past the shouting vendors, climbed the stairs, and headed for the third floor. Just before they reached it, Olivia raised her hand and stopped them cold. She whispered, “Ambush. Four riflemen, one with a submachine gun.”

Finn nodded and marched right up to the stairwell landing. The moment his head cleared the edge, a storm of bullets hammered down. Every round slammed into the Profound Energy shield in front of him, ringing out in a chaotic clatter of metal on metal.

Finn stood tall in the bullet rain, raised his assault rifle, took aim, and unleashed a burst that dropped three gunmen instantly.

Olivia stayed half-crouched behind him. The second she confirmed the transparent shield let bullets pass outward without resistance, she rose and fired twice—bang, bang—putting clean rounds through the skulls of the last two attackers.

Her aim was flawless. At this range, she could make a submachine gun perform like a sniper rifle.

The third floor had once been a textile workshop. Crude spinning tools and looms lay scattered across the floor alongside a few battered weaving machines and treadle sewing setups. The female workers had all fled, leaving only the loom wheels turning slowly on their own.

Olivia picked up one of the spent bullets and said, surprised, “They’re actually using armor-piercing rounds.”

She glanced at Finn, a flicker of admiration in her eyes. These tungsten-carbide rounds were expensive and brutally effective—they could punch straight through a mutated land tortoise’s shell—yet they couldn’t even scratch Finn’s defense.

The stairwell landing on the second floor looked barricaded, but Finn, Olivia, and Jimmy strolled straight into the textile workshop anyway. Suddenly the sewing machines creaked to life, wheels spinning with no one on the treadles.

The loom gears began turning on their own. The cloth stretched across them twitched, shuttles slid up and down, and every hempen thread pulled taut, humming with a faint buzz.

Finn stopped cold. The whole scene was flat-out creepy.

All the hempen threads started vibrating in unison. The low, rhythmic hum rose and fell until the sounds shaped themselves into words:

“A butterfly wanders into the spider’s web, unaware that its life is already beginning to wither, still struggling in vain… pitiful, lamentable…”

The instant the voice faded, every filament on the sewing machines and looms whipped outward. They came alive, lashing straight at the three of them.

Countless filaments wove into a tangled net that swept over them. Each strand vibrated at blinding speed, sharp enough to slice wood and carve through metal.

Jimmy gripped his assault rifle and sprayed wildly into the thickest cluster of filaments. Nothing happened. Then one strand slithered along the floor, snapped across his leg, and tore open his pant leg in a clean line of blood.

“Ah!” Jimmy yelped, rolled toward Finn, and dropped into a tight ball with his arms over his head.

Olivia blinked. “Why do you look so damn practiced at that?”

Jimmy: “…”

The strands tightened, buzzing together into a cold, mocking laugh. “Poor, withered little butterfly… the nourishment in you must be exquisite…”

Finn instantly formed a Profound Energy shield around Jimmy and Olivia. At the same time he drew the Skybearer Sword and slashed through the incoming strands. The workshop was now a forest of dense, writhing filaments, cutting off their view in every direction.

“On the left!” Olivia hissed. Her eyes narrowed as she peered through the threads, locking onto a blurry, shifting silhouette.

She raised her submachine gun and fired a quick burst, lighting the way for Finn.

Finn gave a sharp nod and dove straight into the sea of filaments. Dozens of strands coiled around him, cinching tight as they tried to saw through his arms and legs.

He simply swung the Skybearer Sword in one clean slash. The tangled strands parted instantly. Behind the severed threads, a shifty figure was already scrambling for the exit—long, greasy hair whipping behind him like seaweed.

The long-haired man caught sight of Finn. His hair shot straight up in terror, puffing out as if struck by static. Venom flashed in his eyes as he yanked the window open and prepared to leap.

“Pretty weak power, but you’ve sure got a talent for showing off,” Finn said with a cold laugh. He sprang forward and sliced through the man’s long hair and head in a single cut. Blood sprayed out like a fountain, splattering across the ceiling.

Olivia stepped forward to examine the corpse, her face lighting up. “He’s one of the Demon Gang’s officers—Baldwin Joyce, nicknamed ‘Mad Spider.’ Tier 3 Vanguard.”

“They say he always carries five balls of yarn into every fight. While everyone else throws grenades, he throws yarn balls. When he’s not in combat, he knits sweaters. He hands them out to people, and if the fit isn’t right… he kills the wearer.”

Finn stared down at the bleeding body and pictured the guy knitting away. A chill ran down his spine. 

They crossed the worn concrete stairs and continued upward. Suddenly Olivia raised her submachine gun again. Fire spat from the muzzle as a burst of bullets punched into the wall, leaving a neat row of small holes.

Shouts of agony burst from behind the wall, then died instantly. The ambush team never even made it out before Olivia’s armor-piercing rounds tore through the concrete and dropped every one of them.

Finn noticed that even with a low-precision submachine gun, Olivia could put every follow-up bullet straight through the hole left by the one before it. Her x-ray vision paired with wall-piercing ammo let her strike first every single time.

Along the way, a couple of guys tried laying down suppressing fire with light machine guns and one idiot even tossed a stink-gas bomb. They were all dealt with just as easily.

When they reached the tenth floor and wiped out a Demon Gang security squad led by another Tier 3 Vanguard, Olivia kicked the steel door open with a solid boot.

The room was a disaster. Distillation flasks and reaction vessels lay scattered across the floor. Several open bags of white powder leaned against the wall, and the sharp chemical stench punched straight into their noses.

Olivia took a quick look around. This was a major hallucinogen production hub. The drug “Mad Hawk” that had been killing and driving people insane all over Refuge City was coming straight out of here.

The workers had already fled and cleared out every bit of the semi-finished hallucinogen, but Olivia still lit a furnace and burned every last raw ingredient, enduring a smell strong enough to sear the inside of a person’s nose.

The higher they climbed, the fiercer the resistance became. Finn was now certain this was the Demon Gang’s main headquarters. They hadn’t used a single grenade or explosive pack, either. Apparently even these bastards didn’t want to wreck the base they’d worked so hard to build.

Floors fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen had been turned into a residential zone. People from Refuge City had partitioned the space with sheets of tin, plywood, and salvaged bricks to create crude living quarters. The dim hallways were dark and stank of sewage that flowed freely across the floors.

As Finn and his group came down the hall—especially with Olivia in her Security Force uniform—most residents slipped back into their shacks. Only a few drunks stayed slumped in the corners, clutching bottles with blank, unfocused stares.

A couple more lay sprawled on the floor, eyes glassy, muttering under their breath with unnatural flushes on their cheeks. The paper packets licked clean beside them made it obvious: they’d hit the hallucinogen hard and were floating in the dazed comedown.

Behind the dirty plastic windows of the makeshift shelters, pairs of eyes watched—wary, angry, or completely numb. Olivia’s gaze swept across them, and her chest tightened.

This raid might shut down the drug lab and even take out the Demon Gang’s headquarters, giving Black Mountain a short breather.

But for the people living here, it meant losing their jobs and the gang that squeezed them while offering protection. Of course they’d resent it.

Finn barely registered any of it. He’d seen too many hate-filled eyes to care anymore.

After roaming the Endless Worlds for centuries and witnessing far more darkness than most could imagine, whatever softness Finn had once possessed had long since been sealed beneath indifference—an iron-cold shell nothing could crack.

One drunk leaned against the hallway wall in a ragged red robe, legs splayed wide. A puddle spread under his ass—piss or sewage, impossible to tell.

Finn stepped over the man’s outstretched legs and kept walking.

Suddenly the scruffy drunk’s eyes snapped wide open. Muscles rippled under the robe like flowing water. A silver glint tore through the fabric and stabbed straight at Finn’s ass.