"Brothers, the Wild Dogs' stronghold is right ahead!"
"Once we win this battle, the war is ours!"
"So all of you better stay sharp!"
Griffin gave the warband a simple and brutally direct pep talk, and those excited scum immediately burst into cheers.
Since the war began, they had not lost a single battle.
After victory after victory, their morale had already reached its peak.
Now, the Wild Dog Gang's headquarters was right in front of them. As long as they captured it, they would become one of the legends who had won a gang war.
How could scum like these not be thrilled?
"Fight properly, and once this battle is over, none of the loot needs to be handed in!"
Griffin knew very well how to squeeze the maximum fighting spirit out of these people.
And so, the entire First Warband, excited like they had been pumped full of stimulants, grabbed their weapons and surged forward toward a grim steel fortress not far away.
The road there was rough and hard to traverse, but it did nothing to dampen their soaring spirits.
Gavo pulled the cart loaded with weapons, ammunition, medicine, and her adoptive father, leading the rest of the Children's Gang along in the middle of the formation.
For some reason, the unease in her heart was growing stronger and stronger.
But unlike the times before, when danger was near and the whispers of unseen things would fill her ears, this time there was nothing.
That made her begin to doubt her own instincts.
She glanced at Griffin, walking at the front of the column. This vicious piece of scum was the craftiest fighter she had ever seen.
The expression on his face right now could be summed up in three words:
The advantage is ours.
Since neither the whispers nor Griffin's danger sense had raised any warning, Gavo could only bury her unease deep inside.
As they drew closer, the Wild Dog Gang stronghold came fully into view.
It was a steel fortress converted from an abandoned factory, with huge and vicious-looking defensive emplacements spread across its towering walls.
But at this moment, all of those emplacements were unmanned.
Griffin raised a hand to halt the warband, then gave a signal, and his second-in-command, Sharkteeth, immediately understood.
Sharkteeth went to the back of the formation and used his gun to force a group of northern scavengers they had captured to walk forward.
These poor people had no idea what kind of grudge existed between the Tearblood Gang and the Wild Dog Gang. They had simply been unlucky enough to be on the warband's path and had been dragged into a war between two major gangs.
Gavo felt a pang of pity, but there was nothing she could do. All she could do was silently pray in her heart for these innocent people.
Facing the terrifying steel fortress that loomed like a giant beast, the scavengers were too scared to move forward.
But after Sharkteeth fired a warning shot into the sky, they could only grit their teeth and, driven by fear, walk toward the walls of the fortress, which radiated a murderous atmosphere.
Griffin watched everything with cold eyes, already calculating how many batches of scavengers he would need to send in order to trigger every mine and trap.
Yet perhaps some existence had actually heard Gavo's prayer, because a miracle happened.
The scavengers reached the foot of the wall unharmed.
"Boss, if you ask me, the Wild Dogs are scared of us. Hurry up and let the brothers move in!"
One of the Tearblood members licked his lips greedily as he stared at the Wild Dog fortress ahead.
That was a top-tier gang stronghold.
Even if all he got was scraps after the battle, it would still be enough for him to live well for the rest of his life.
Griffin's gaze shifted.
Even now, his danger sense, sharpened through countless brushes with death, had still not been triggered.
And there were no traps ahead.
Even if the Wild Dogs were planning to ambush them inside the fortress, their numbers would not be very large.
Everything pointed to the same conclusion.
The front was safe.
This battle, like all the others before it, would end in Griffin's victory.
So he raised his hand, swung it sharply, and gave the order:
"All of you, retreat immediately!"
Instinct? Danger sense?
He did not trust things like that.
After the Croc-Men incident, he understood all too well how cunning the Wild Dogs were.
If he wanted to avoid having those crafty bastards tear flesh off him, then he had to stay one hundred and twenty percent cautious.
The truth was, if the Wild Dogs had left just a little more manpower here, or planted even a few mines, Griffin might have chosen to risk storming the fortress.
But now, he had made up his mind to wait until the other warbands linked up with them before coming back here.
Sure, that would mean more people splitting the credit and the loot, but it was also the safest option.
"Ironarm Boss, what's this supposed to mean?"
The Tearblood members, who had just been immersed in dreams of plunder, were all stunned.
"I said retreat immediately! Damn it, are you deaf or just stupid?!"
As Griffin's logging gun roared, no matter how dissatisfied those greedy bastards were, they could only grit their teeth and follow him back.
And the moment the Tearblood people turned around, disaster struck.
One huge hand after another burst out of the ground, seized the nearest ankles, and locked onto them with monstrous strength.
Then blades also thrust out from below, instantly piercing the flesh above.
For a moment, blood sprayed and flesh ripped apart.
The heart-wrenching screams assaulted the nerves of the warband, and they immediately began fighting back.
Dense gunfire tore into the disturbed earth, and with muffled cries rising from underground, some of the attackers lost their lives.
But more of them were already clawing their way up out of the soil that had buried them.
So that was why the road had been so uneven.
It had all been caused by these things burying themselves underground.
What kind of horrifying monsters were they?
Their eyes burned with bloodthirsty light, and the ragged strips of cloth on their bodies faintly revealed that they had once been human.
Their limbs had undergone grotesque mutations, becoming abnormally thick under the blessing of some profane force.
These freaks wielded all kinds of melee weapons, and as they burst from the earth, they roared:
"Blood for the ritual!"
In this brutal close-quarters slaughter, the Tearblood Gang's ranged advantage was completely neutralized.
By burying themselves underground, these mutated creatures had successfully closed the distance with Griffin's people, and with their warped limbs, they were already beginning to punch through the hurried defensive line the warband was trying to form.
"Everyone fall back!"
Looking at the monsters still crawling endlessly out of the ground, Griffin's heart sank to the bottom.
But things were about to get even worse.
Because these creatures had closed the distance so quickly, several of them had already broken through the forward line and reached the center, where the logistics team was stationed.
Just as one freak with twin axes grinned hideously and charged toward Rabbit-Mouth, who was so frightened that he was crying out for parents who did not exist...
At that critical moment, before Rabbit-Mouth's terrified eyes, the monster's head suddenly burst apart like a smashed watermelon.
Staring at the headless freak slowly collapsing, Gavo shook the blood from her hand, and a strange curve slowly rose at the corners of her mouth.
When she said things were about to get even worse...
She had not been talking about the warband's situation.
(End of Chapter)
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