The heavy steel doors of The Rust Bucket vibrated under the reverberating shriek of the guard whose wrist Deku currently held in a vise-like grip.
The second guard blinked, his brain momentarily lagging as he tried to process how a skinny kid in a ruined, filth-caked uniform had managed to immobilize their veteran enforcer with a single motion.
”Let… let go of him, you little rat!” the second guard roared, his fingers sparking with a crackling, unstable violet arc of low-tier space-time magic.
He whipped his hand forward, attempting to warp the space directly around Deku’s collar to snap him backward.
Deku didn’t flinch.
Thanks to the basic spatial resistance he had acquired from his very first altercation in the alleys, the warping air pressure felt like nothing more than a stiff, chilly breeze against his neck.
With a cold, detached expression, Deku twisted the first guard’s arm behind his back and shoved him hard into his advancing companion.
The two thugs collided with a heavy, metallic thud, tangling their limbs and sprawling awkwardly onto the grime-covered welcome mat of the gambling den.
”Is this the best the Iron Syndicate has to offer?” Deku muttered, stepping over their tangled legs with immaculate posture.
He flickus-adjusted the collar of his ruined shirt, his dark eyes scanning the smoky, chaotic interior of The Rust Bucket.
Inside, the den was a sensory assault.
The air was thick with the acrid stench of synthetic tobacco, cheap alcohol, and burning ozone.
Dozens of rough-looking scavengers, low-level mutants, and syndicate thugs were crowded around makeshift gaming tables, shouting over flickering holographic dice.
The music grinding from the battered speakers abruptly stuttered to a halt as the commotion at the entrance drew the room’s attention.
All eyes turned toward the doorway.
”Who the hell is making a racket at the door?”
A booming voice cut through the quiet from the back of the room.
A massive man sitting atop a raised metal throne carved from an old industrial turbine stood up.
He was easily six-and-a-half feet tall, his bare chest crisscrossed with jagged scars and glowing blue mutation veins that pulsed rhythmically with every heartbeat.
This was Barok, the area commander for the Iron Syndicate in Sector 9.
Barok cracked his knuckles, a cruel grin spreading across his scarred face as he stared down at the teenager standing amidst his fallen guards.
”Well, well.
Look what the sewer pipe puked up,” Barok sneered, stepping down from his throne and heavy-stepping toward Deku.
“A lost schoolboy who forgot his uniform is supposed to stay clean. Did you wander into the wrong alley, kid?”
Deku didn’t step back.
He met Barok’s towering gaze with an unblinking, absolute stillness.
[New Quest Active]:
Break the local commander’s ego and force the Iron Syndicate to submit to your authority.
”You’re running this place?” Deku asked, his voice smooth, clear, and dripping with profound condescension. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Barok stopped a few feet away, letting out a harsh, barking laugh that echoed off the metal walls.
“That’s right, punk. I run these streets. And if you want to breathe Sector 9 air, you—”
Before Barok could finish his threat, Deku moved.
It wasn’t just physical speed anymore; the spatial resistance humming in Deku’s veins allowed him to fractionally warp the distance between them, closing the gap in a distorted blink of an eye.
His fist, wrapped in a dense, invisible barrier of compressed air and pure malice, drove straight into Barok’s muscular stomach.
BOOM.
The impact sounded like a detonating explosive.
Barok’s eyes bulged completely out of their sockets, the breath turning instantly to dust in his lungs as his massive body froze rigid.
The shockwave of the blow shattered the floor tiles beneath their feet, sending spiderweb cracks rippling across the entire room.
Barok opened his mouth to gasp, but no sound came out.
As he collapsed heavily to his knees, clutching his stomach, Deku calmly stepped forward and rested the heel of his ruined shoe lightly against the syndicate commander’s bowed head, pressing it down into the dust.
The entire room of hardened thugs, mutants, and gamblers stopped breathing.
The Iron Syndicate’s local lord had been brought to his knees in a single second.
Deku looked down at the trembling giant, a dark, dangerous smirk curling his lips as the system notification chimed softly in his mind.
”From now on,” Deku whispered coldly into the stunned silence of the den, “attendance is mandatory.
And you’re all failing.”