Chapter 110 - 111: The Cult’s New Technology

Chapter 110: Chapter 111: The Cult’s New Technology

Chapter 111: The Cult’s New Technology

Axel Vance had no intention of entering the Sunset Gang stronghold alongside Jigsaw’s masked vigilantes. His gaze moved along the side of the building until he found an old fire escape leading toward the upper floors, and his enhanced Physique made reaching it little trouble. Within moments, he had climbed onto the upper level and started searching for another way inside while the vigilantes prepared their own assault below.

Before Axel could move much farther, gunfire erupted from the lower floors. Shouts and scattered bursts echoed through the building as the Sunset Gang fought back against the masked attackers, turning the entire structure into chaos. Axel used the noise as cover, entered through an upper window, and moved into the dark corridor without concerning himself with the battle downstairs.

He had not come here to help Jigsaw’s people deal with ordinary gang members. His real target was "Butcher" Barlow, the missing Sunset Gang leader whose disappearance lined up too neatly with the cult’s recent activity. If Barlow was still somewhere inside this building, Axel intended to find out exactly what had happened to him.

Axel rounded a corner and stopped.

Three figures in black robes stood silently across the corridor.

Their clothing immediately reminded him of cult servants he had encountered before, but something about their posture was wrong. They did not speak, breathe heavily, or react like normal people who had just discovered an intruder; instead, they moved forward together with a stiff, gliding rhythm that made them look more like puppets than living men.

A faint smile appeared at the corner of Axel’s mouth. "So I came to the right place."

The Chainsaw Sword roared to life in his hands, its engine blending with the supernatural pulse of his Psionic Power. One black-robed figure attacked first, but Axel met the charge with a brutal sweep that tore through the corpse-like attacker before it could slow him down. Thick black fluid splashed across the wall instead of normal blood, and the remaining two cult servants continued advancing without showing the slightest reaction.

They attacked together, but the result was no different. Axel’s upgraded weapon carved through both of them in seconds, leaving their ruined bodies sprawled across the corridor. Not one of the three screamed, begged, or even seemed to understand that they had been injured.

Axel shut down the Chainsaw Sword and crouched beside one of the bodies. Pulling back the oversized hood revealed gray-white skin, deep postmortem discoloration, sunken cheeks, and cloudy eyes that no living person should have possessed. The corpse looked as though it had already been dead for a considerable amount of time before somebody forced it to start walking again.

Axel’s expression hardened.

This was not simple possession.

The cult had somehow learned to turn dead bodies into obedient tools.

He remembered the information uncovered during the earlier Texas investigation, where the cult’s records had hinted at increasingly ambitious experiments involving supernatural energy, human bodies, and supposed scientific advancement. At the time, much of it had sounded like the rambling work of fanatics trying to justify atrocities with scientific language. The corpses lying at Axel’s feet proved that at least some of those experiments had produced real results.

"They actually made it work," Axel muttered.

That made the situation considerably worse.

An ordinary cultist could be arrested, questioned, frightened, or killed, but a dead body following commands had none of those weaknesses. More importantly, something had to be creating or controlling these things, and Axel wanted to know what.

He ignored the continuing firefight below and headed higher.

Near the top floor, the building changed noticeably. The cheap doors and battered walls gave way to a more expensive private section, and a heavy door at the end of the corridor looked more like the entrance to a luxury suite than part of a gang hideout. Four more black-robed corpse soldiers stood directly in front of it.

Their heads turned toward Axel at exactly the same moment.

Cloudy dead eyes locked onto him.

Axel did not bother speaking.

The Chainsaw Sword came alive again, filling the corridor with its harsh mechanical roar as he moved forward. The four corpse guards attacked without fear or hesitation, but they lacked the adaptability of living opponents, and within seconds the floor was covered with black fluid and ruined bodies.

Axel stepped over them and kicked the heavy door open.

A tall figure stood inside with his back toward the entrance.

The man wore an expensive suit, but his body had changed so dramatically that the fabric had split across his shoulders and arms. His muscles were grotesquely swollen, his frame far larger than the measurements listed in the intelligence files, and even from behind he radiated an unmistakably inhuman pressure.

He slowly turned around.

Axel recognized the face.

Butcher Barlow.

Or at least what was left of him.

Barlow’s skin had become unnaturally pale, while his body had grown into something closer to an upright bear than an ordinary man. He calmly pulled a large empty syringe from the side of his neck, tossed it onto the floor, and rolled his shoulders as though preparing for exercise.

His gaze settled on Axel’s Chainsaw Sword.

There was no fear.

Only amusement.

"So you’re Axel Vance," Barlow said, cracking his neck. "The cult leader has been paying a lot of attention to you."

That single sentence confirmed something important.

Axel was not merely being watched by scattered operatives.

Someone near the very top already knew his name.

Barlow looked him over from head to toe and grinned. "I expected more. You look pretty skinny for someone everybody keeps talking about."

Before Axel could answer, the door behind him burst open again.

The wolf-masked man from Jigsaw’s organization rushed inside with several armed vigilantes behind him. They had apparently followed the trail Axel left through the upper floors, expecting to find another group of gang members rather than the monstrous figure waiting in the suite.

Everyone stopped.

Barlow stood in the middle of the room like a grotesquely enlarged human predator.

Axel remained opposite him with the Chainsaw Sword in hand.

The vigilantes stared between the two.

The wolf-masked leader’s body language changed immediately. His people had walked into the operation prepared to face murderers, gangsters, and cult sympathizers, but the thing standing before them obviously belonged to another category entirely.

These people were not professional soldiers. They were ordinary men and women held together by anger, grief, and the desire to punish people they believed had escaped justice. Courage had carried them this far, but courage did not prepare anyone for a man who looked as though human biology had become optional.

The wolf-masked leader made his decision.

"Take him down!"

The vigilantes opened fire.

The room filled with gunshots as rounds struck Barlow’s enormous body. His expensive suit tore apart under the impact, but the flesh beneath barely reacted the way normal human tissue should.

Some shots simply failed to do meaningful damage.

Others penetrated shallowly, only for the swollen muscle around the wounds to twist and contract in disturbing waves.

Then the bullets began coming back out.

Metal fragments dropped onto the floor one after another as Barlow’s flesh forced them free, and the wounds visibly closed behind them. Within moments, most of the damage had disappeared.

The firing slowed.

Then stopped.

Barlow looked down at himself as though checking whether anyone had spilled a drink on his clothes. He brushed torn fabric away from one rapidly healing wound, yawned, and raised his head toward the masked vigilantes.

"That’s it?"

His grin widened.

The room went completely still.

The wolf-masked man and his companions had faced criminals who were willing to die.

They had faced killers who felt no fear.

But they had never faced someone who looked like he simply couldn’t be killed.

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