Chapter 71
The gambling bar was busy, but not the polite kind of busy where people sat quietly and placed careful bets and left when their money ran out.
This was the 9th District kind of busy, loud and chaotic.
The air thick with smoke and cheap cologne and the desperate hope of men who thought the next roll of the dice would change their lives.
The cheap alcohol was free while the good stuff cost money, so most people drank the free stuff.
Elijah sat at a private table in the corner with his back against the wall, his red eyes watching the crowd from a small table meant for two where he sat alone.
With a glass of something expensive—dark amber and smoky, the kind of whiskey that cost more than most people in this room made in a week.
He was smiling, not because of the whiskey but because of something else that had been sitting in the back of his mind for weeks.
He could help his mother now.
Not just with small things like groceries or a bill here and there, but with everything—the rent, the utilities, Amy's school expenses, whatever she needed.
The money was there sitting in an account he barely looked at.
Ten thousand dollars a week adding to it like clockwork.
For the first time in his life, he didn't have to watch his mother come home exhausted from a job that paid too little for too much work.
Or see her count coins at the kitchen table trying to stretch their money until the next paycheck.
He took a sip of his whiskey and let the smile settle on his face.
Mai appeared at his table and slid into the chair across from him, wearing the black jacket with the golden sun, her purple hair falling across her shoulders, her dark purple eyes bright in the dim light of the bar.
She had left someone else in charge of the drinks—a young woman with quick hands and a quicker smile who had been working for them for three weeks and had learned faster than anyone else.
Now she sat across from Elijah with her elbows on the table and a curious look on her face.
"You look happy," Mai said.
"I am happy," Elijah replied.
"You're never happy," she said, shaking her head. "You're always serious and brooding, like a character in a bad novel."
Elijah laughed. "A bad novel?"
"A very bad novel," Mai confirmed, her lips twitching into a smile. "The kind where the hero wears black and stares at walls and thinks about how alone he is."
"I don't stare at walls," Elijah said.
"You're staring at a wall right now," Mai countered.
Elijah looked at the wall behind her, then looked back at her face. "That's a window," he said calmly.
Mai turned around in her chair to look, and sure enough it was a window looking out onto the dark street.
When she turned back, her cheeks were flushed slightly. "Fine," she said. "You stare at windows."
They sat in silence for a moment while the noise of the bar washed over them.
A man at the dice table cursed loudly as he lost another hand. His friend laughed and slapped him on the back.
A woman in a red dress walked past with a tray of drinks, scanning the room for the next customer.
Mai nodded toward the dice table where the man who had cursed was already reaching for his wallet again, pulling out more bills and placing another bet.
"Look at them," she said. "They know they're going to lose. They always know. But they keep playing anyway."
Elijah followed her gaze and watched the man lose again. This time he didn't curse. He just stared at the dice for a moment before reaching for his wallet once more.
"It's because of the drinks," Elijah said.
Mai raised an eyebrow. "The drinks?"
"The free drinks," Elijah explained, taking another sip of his whiskey.
"It's easier to gamble when you're drunk. Easier to believe the next roll will be different. Easier to ignore the voice in your head that tells you to stop. We made it easy for them, and that's why they keep coming back."
Mai watched the man lose a third time.
His shoulders slumped as he finally pushed back from the table and walked toward the bar to drown his losses in more free alcohol.
"And when they win?" she asked.
"When they win, they spend it all back," Elijah said, setting his glass down on the table. "Drinks and bigger bets and more drinks until they leave with nothing, same as always. But they remember the win and they forget the losses. This business has very low losses and very high returns, which is why it works."
Mai shook her head slowly, a small smile on her face. "You're terrible," she said.
"I'm honest," Elijah replied.
"Those are the same thing sometimes," Mai said.
They were quiet again while the noise of the bar filled the space between them, but it wasn't uncomfortable.
Mai picked at a thread on her jacket, her purple eyes distant, and after a long moment she spoke again.
"You spend a lot of time with your Vice Leaders," she said finally.
Elijah looked at her. "They're the people I trust."
"I know," Mai said quickly, still not looking at him. "I'm not complaining. It's just that I barely see you anymore. You're always with Kai or Henry or Aurora. Even Tristan gets more of your time than I do."
Elijah was quiet for a moment because she wasn't wrong.
He had been so focused on the gang and the training and preparing for Jack that he had let other things slip.
Mai ran the bar and managed the gambling den and kept things running smoothly, but she wasn't in the inner circle.
She wasn't at the meetings.
"You're right," he said finally. "Let me take you out tomorrow. Just the two of us. Somewhere that isn't here."
Mai's cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink. "Like a date?" she asked, her voice quieter than before.
Elijah laughed. "Like two friends having dinner," he said. "Unless you want it to be a date."
Mai looked down at the table where her fingers were still picking at the thread on her jacket. Her voice was barely audible when she spoke.
"I'll think about it," she said.
Elijah smiled and took another sip of his whiskey.
Two hours later, the bar was still busy.
Elijah had moved to a different table closer to the door where he could watch the entrance.
Two gang members stood near the door—young men both in their early twenties, wearing the black jackets with the golden sun.
Their eyes moved constantly, scanning every person who walked through the door, checking for weapons, watching for trouble.
Elijah's Ki sense was spread wide, reaching out in a two-hundred-meter radius around the bar.
He had learned to keep it active at all times, even when he was relaxed. It had been exhausting at first, but now it was as natural as breathing.
He felt the car before he heard it.
Moving fast.
Too fast for this street.
Coming straight toward the bar.
He set his glass down as his body tensed and his Ki sense focused on the vehicle. It was a dark-colored van with its engine roaring and its tires squealing as it rounded the corner.
Mai was still talking about something—the new bartender, the way she mixed drinks, a customer who had tried to skip out on his tab—but Elijah didn't hear any of it.
"Mai," he said.
She stopped mid-sentence, her purple eyes widening at his tone.
"What?" she asked.
Elijah stood up and made a small sharp gesture with his hand—a signal to the two gang members at the door.
One of them nodded and fell into step behind him while the other stayed at his post with his hand moving to the gun hidden beneath his jacket.
"Stay inside," Elijah said without looking at Mai, his eyes fixed on the door. "Lock the door behind me and don't open it until I come back."
Mai's face had gone pale. "Elijah—"
"Stay inside," he said again.
He walked toward the door.
The night air was cold against Elijah's face when he stepped outside.
The van came into view immediately, moving fast with its tires smoking and its engine screaming.
The headlights were off. The windows were tinted dark. No license plates that he could see.
The van slowed as it approached the bar. Not stopping. Just slowing enough for the side door to slide open.
Elijah's Ki sense screamed.
Danger.
The katana appeared in his hand, pulled from his inventory without thinking. The blade materialized from nothing, the black lacquer scabbard smooth against his palm.
His thumb found the guard and pushed. The blade slid free with a sound like a whisper.
Zenith exploded through him at one hundred percent. The red aura blazed around his body, bright and fierce, pushing back the darkness.
Flash Step hummed in his legs. Iron Body hardened his skin.
His stats shifted behind his eyes.
Strength: 45 → 90
Agility: 43 → 86
Endurance: 44 → 88
Defense: 42 → 84
With Flash Step and Iron Body active:
Agility: 86 → 103
Defense: 84 → 101
He could move at forty meters per second. His physical strength was enough to break bone with a touch if he wanted to.
The van's side door was fully open now. A man was inside with his face hidden in shadow.
His hand raised. The gun was small—a compact submachine gun, the kind that fit in a jacket and fired fast.
The muzzle flashed.
Elijah moved before the first bullet reached him.
His body flowed like water as his Ki sense showed him the trajectory of every round before the man's finger finished pulling the trigger.
The first bullet passed through the space where his chest had been.
The gang member who had followed him outside was frozen, his hand reaching for his own weapon, his eyes wide.
Elijah reached him in a single stride, grabbed his jacket, and pulled him behind the cover of a parked car.
Bullets sparked off the pavement. Chipped the brick of the building behind them. Shattered a window somewhere down the street.
The van was still moving, still slowing, still trying to stop in front of the bar. The gunman was still firing, his weapon chattering, the muzzle flash bright in the darkness.
Elijah stepped out from behind the car.
The gunman's aim shifted. The bullets came at him in a fast, relentless stream, designed to cut him down before he could close the distance.
Elijah raised his katana.
The blade moved in arcs of silver light, tracing patterns in the air. The bullets struck the flat of the blade and deflected, sparks flying, the sound of metal on metal ringing through the street.
He was not faster than the bullets. No one at his stage was. But he was faster than the man's aim. Faster than the gun's traverse. Faster than the split second between the man's decision to fire and the bullet leaving the barrel.
He crossed the distance to the van in two seconds.
The gunman's eyes went wide behind his mask. He tried to bring the weapon around for another shot, but Elijah was already there. Already inside his guard.
Elijah drove the katana's hilt into the gunman's throat.
Cartilage crunched. The man's eyes rolled back. His finger spasmed on the trigger, sending the last few rounds spraying harmlessly into the night sky.
His body went limp. He collapsed, sliding out of the van and hitting the pavement hard, where he lay motionless.
The van's driver slammed on the brakes. The vehicle skidded to a stop, tires smoking, the smell of burnt rubber filling the air.
The other gang member—the one who had been frozen behind the car—was finally moving. His gun was in his hand, his face set in hard lines, his Ki sense sharp.
The gang member from inside the bar had joined him, his own weapon raised, his eyes scanning for more threats.
Two more men spilled out of the van.
They were armed with pistols and knives—the kind of weapons men carried when they expected to kill. Their auras flickered around them, weak and unrefined. Beginner Knight Stage Mid.
Elijah's Ki sense reached into the van. Empty. Just the driver, still behind the wheel, his hands shaking, his aura flickering with fear.
The two thugs raised their pistols.
Elijah moved.
The katana flashed through the air in a single clean arc. The first thug's pistol clattered to the ground, cut cleanly in half. The blade had passed through metal and plastic like it was nothing at all.
The man stared at his ruined weapon, his mouth hanging open, his brain still trying to process what had just happened.
The second thug fired.
Elijah's Ki sense read the trajectory of the bullet before it left the barrel. He stepped around it smoothly, bringing the katana up so that the flat of the blade slapped the man across the face with tremendous force.
Teeth flew from the man's mouth in a spray of blood and saliva. His head snapped to the side. He crumpled to the pavement unconscious before he even hit the ground.
The first thug finally snapped out of his shock and tried to run.
Elijah's foot swept his legs out from under him. He hit the pavement hard, his head bouncing against the concrete. His eyes went blank as he lost consciousness.
The driver was still in the van. His hands were on the wheel. His body was trembling. He wasn't trying to run or fight. He was just sitting there, waiting.
Elijah walked to the driver's side door and pulled it open.
The man inside was young—early twenties, maybe. His aura was so weak it was barely visible, the Ki of someone who had never trained or fought or been in a situation like this before.
"Please," the man said, his voice high and shaking. "Please, don't—"
Elijah grabbed him by the collar and pulled him out of the van.
The man's legs buckled immediately. He hit the pavement with his hands coming up to protect his face.
The two gang members were beside Elijah now, their guns raised, their eyes hard. One of them—the one who had been frozen behind the car—had blood on his cheek where a piece of shattered glass had cut him. He didn't seem to notice.
The street was silent. The bar was dark, the door locked, the windows shuttered. Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking.
A screen flashed in the corner of Elijah's vision.
[Quest: A King Protects What Is His]
Rival gangs hate your success and want to destroy what you have built and take what is yours. A King protects what is his, and anyone who dares touch what is his must face the consequences—beating them is a light punishment for this disrespect, so kill the attackers, and destroy their gang which show them no mercy.
Reward: 3,500 System Points | 3,500 EXP
Punishment: Death by the system. Disrespect cannot be overlooked.
Elijah read the screen.
Then he looked down at the young man cowering at his feet.
The man was crying now, tears streaming down his face. His hands remained raised. His body shook uncontrollably.
"Please," he said again, his voice breaking. "Please, I have a family. I have a wife and a daughter. Please don't—"
Elijah raised the katana.
The blade caught the light of the streetlamps, silver and cold and perfectly still in his hand.
The man's eyes went wide with terror. His mouth opened to scream or beg or pray.
No sound came out.
The blade came down.