Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

Rhodes is very efficient.

The letter and badge were delivered that afternoon.

The next morning, after completing his daily training in the back mountain, Xilun returned to his study to find a reply letter on his desk.

The envelope was unsigned, except for a hammer-shaped mark drawn in ink.

Xilun opened the envelope.

The handwriting on the letter was neat and powerful, each character as if it had been carved with a knife.

To Mr. Xilun:

We attach great importance to the letter and gifts we received.

Regarding your request to eradicate smuggling activities in the St. Mary's Diocese, we have agreed to cooperate after discussions.

The rewards for the cleanup operation will be split 50/50 afterwards.

We will be sending three Tier 2 Extraordinary Individuals and two armed forces to participate in this operation. The arrival time will be announced separately.

We are willing to work hand in hand with you to safeguard peace and security.

Xilun put down the letter and rested his chin on his hand.

Three second-order extraordinary beings.

Two armed forces.

So many people?

He pondered for a moment, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

This doesn't seem like they're here to help; it seems more like they're here to flex their muscles.

The armed insurgent party has sent far more personnel than is needed for cooperation, and the implications are self-evident—we have the strength, and we are also observing you to see if you are worthy of our further cooperation.

This is both an assessment and a test.

Xilun folded the letter and put it in the drawer.

Regardless of the other party's purpose, at least the immediate problem has been solved.

With the three second-tier extraordinary beings plus himself, there are four second-tier beings.

If the smuggling group also has four or five Tier 2 fighters, then the two sides are at least evenly matched in terms of high-end combat power. Add to that the two armed forces of the armed insurgent party—

The scales have tipped, but Siron has not relaxed.

Because he didn't yet know the other party's specific plans.

How would the smuggling ring operate? From where would they begin? And when would they strike?

The answers to these questions need to be found by his people.

"Rhodes".

"exist."

"Have the people keeping watch at Nancang and Dongcang hand over all the records from the past two days. Also, what did they find out about those two unfamiliar faces they followed yesterday?"

Rod opened the small notebook in his hand.

"The people who were tracking them reported that the two men went into an old hotel in the dock area and had not come out by this morning."

But around 5 a.m. this morning, a figure flashed through the alley behind the hotel. Our men chased after him for a while and found that he had entered an old shipyard about four miles east of the North District.

Old shipyard.

Xilun's eyes narrowed slightly.

"What's in the dock?"

"It's too far to see clearly. But our people said that the windows on the second floor of the dock are boarded up, there are sentries at the door, and a lot of people are going in and out, so it seems like a gang's stronghold."

stronghold.

Xilun stood up and walked to the large map of the North District hanging on the wall.

He located the old shipyard and measured its distance to the Brotherhood mansion, the South Warehouse, and the East Warehouse with his fingers.

"Keep watching." His voice trailed off.

"Don't get too close, don't alert them. I only need to know one thing—how many people are there, and how many are extraordinary."

"clear."

Rhodes left.

Xilun stood alone in front of the map, his gaze shifting back and forth between the marked points.

Two days later, the armed insurgents will arrive.

Before that, he needed to figure out the other party's strategy.

His finger stopped at the intersection of Laoqiao Street and Hebin Road—

The fastest route from the mansion to the South Granary is through this place.

If he were a member of a smuggling ring, where would he set up an ambush?

Xilun's gaze darkened.

right here.

He tapped the intersection lightly, turned back to his desk, picked up a pen, and began to sketch out a rough counterattack plan on the paper.

First, the resource points—

If the enemy intends to attack Nancang to lure him out, then he will set up an ambush in Nancang in advance and wipe out the attacking troops first.

Then--

Feigning ignorance, they stepped into the encirclement.

But I'm not going alone.

Xilun put down his pen and leaned back in his chair.

He looked at the ceiling, a very faint smile curving his lips.

Come on, he thought.

I'm waiting.

……

On the second floor of the old shipyard, the window panels were nailed shut, leaving only a two-finger-width gap at the very top.

The pale sunlight seeped in through the crack, cutting through the smoky air and landing on a long table covered with nautical charts and markings.

Victor Brown sat at the head of the table.

He put an unlit cigar in his mouth and rubbed the metal casing of the lighter repeatedly with his thumb, but he didn't press it.

This is his habit.

He never lights a cigarette before undertaking any important task.

He once said that cigarettes are for the living to celebrate their successes; the dead don't need them.

"Is everyone here?"

John stood to his left, opened a filthy ledger, and said in a low voice:

"Monica brought eight people with her from the deep water, plus herself—one Tier 2, seven Tier 1, and one field master, not counting combat personnel."

"On the Anchor side, we have twelve capable fighters of our own, including you and me, two Tier 2 fighters."

Victor didn't say anything.

John continued reading, "Over at Black Sails... Biglen is dead, but he still has eleven men who haven't been captured. They sent a representative over last night, saying they're willing to work with us, they don't want a share, they just want revenge."

"revenge."

Victor finally put down the lighter and let out a very low laugh.

There was no contempt in that laughter; it even carried a hint of sympathy.

"That idiot Biglen, at the party at Moon Lake, didn't even know who his opponent was before someone came to his door and ripped his head off."

He paused, his gaze falling on the location of the Brotherhood's South Warehouse, circled in red on the nautical chart.

"But his men still wanted revenge, which shows that Biglen did at least one thing—he fed them."

John didn't respond.

He had known Victor for so long that he knew the man was actually talking about himself when he said those things.

Victor Brown.

The head of the Iron Anchor Smuggling Gang, the largest smuggler in the North District East Bank Wharf Area.

Before becoming a smuggler, he was a sergeant in the 17th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Army. He fought in the Southern Territory for three years and personally strangled a Tier 1 Extraordinary with a blunted entrenching tool and a ruthless, reckless spirit.

After retiring, he returned to the North District with a meager retirement pay.

Then I discovered—

My home is gone.

The wife and daughter lived in a shantytown by the dock, barely making a living by washing clothes for others.

The injury he sustained when he retired left him with a problem in his right leg, and no factory was willing to hire a lame veteran.

He tried many methods.

He moved goods, did odd jobs, worked as a sparring partner at a boxing gym and got beaten up, and even rummaged through garbage dumps for scrap metal that could be sold.

But even with all of this combined, they couldn't even afford their daughter's tuition.

Later, someone approached him and said there was a way to make money quickly at the dock.

Victor knew it was smuggling, and he hesitated for three whole days.

On the morning of the fourth day, he saw his daughter wearing a pair of old boots with worn-out soles, walking on the puddle-filled stone road, her toes sticking out from the holes, frozen and turning purple.

That night, he boarded the ship.

From that moment on, Victor Brown never hesitated again.

With the discipline of a veteran, the intuition honed on the battlefield, and a pair of blood-stained hands, he climbed step by step to the top of the Iron Anchors.

He wasn't a good person, but he supported many people.

The desperate veterans, unemployed workers, and cripples kicked out of the boxing gym at the docks called Victor "boss," but more often they called him "leader."

Because Victor has an ironclad rule—

He doesn't touch women, he doesn't touch children, and he doesn't touch the poor man's life-saving money.

This rule made Anchors' reputation in the North District much cleaner than that of Blacksail and Deepwater.

But cleanliness does not equate to safety.

"So," Victor straightened up, lifting his gaze from the nautical chart and sweeping it over everyone in the room, "how many of us do we have now?"

John closed the ledger.

"Five Tier 2s—you, me, Monica, plus Chester from the Deep Sea, and the remaining guy from Black Sails named Grant."

"What about the first tier?"

"Thirty-one men, including the eleven from Black Sail. In addition, there are fourteen musketeers, all equipped with military rifles."

Victor nodded.

"Where is the domain master?"

A deep female voice came from the doorway.

"The Field Master is one of my people."

Monica walked in from outside the door.

She was in her early thirties, with short, dark red hair, a stern face, and a silver anchor-shaped earring hanging from her left earlobe.

He was the second-in-command of the deep-water smuggling gang and also the plenipotentiary representative of the deep-water side in this joint operation.

"Old Bate, with a background in field science, can set up a medium-sized containment field within half an hour, covering an area of ​​about fifteen meters by twenty meters."

She walked to the table and tapped the location of Old Bridge Street on the nautical chart with her fingernail. "That's enough."

Victor looked at her.

"What about the materials? Biglen went to Moon Lake to purchase site materials. He's dead, the materials—"

"I brought a spare set," Monica interrupted him, taking a flat wooden box wrapped in oil paper from the leather pouch at her waist and placing it on the table.

"The supplies in the deep water area aren't the best, but they're enough to maintain a level 6 containment zone for about forty minutes."

Victor remained silent for a moment.

Forty minutes is enough.

Killing a person takes more than forty minutes.

"Okay." He finally picked up the lighter, but still didn't light the cigar. "Then let's talk about how to kill him."

He stood up, walked to the nautical chart, and tapped heavily with his knuckles on the location of the Brotherhood's South Warehouse.

"We'll begin here late tomorrow night—"

His voice deepened, carrying the certainty of a battlefield commander.

"Grant will take the remaining eleven from Blacksail, plus our three Tier 1 Beyonders from Anchor, and six musketeers, for a total of twenty men. Their mission is singular—"

His finger traced from the south warehouse towards the Brotherhood residence to the north.

"Attack the South Warehouse, create chaos, and make the biggest commotion. Let the entire South District know that the Brotherhood's territory has been vandalized."

John frowned.

"Grant is only a Tier 1, can he hold on?"

"We don't need him to hold things up." Victor's eyes turned cold.

"He just needs to come back alive. There aren't many guards at the South Warehouse, maybe ten or so, with a first-tier squad leader. Grant can take twenty men, which will be enough to turn the place upside down."

"But the focus is not on Nancang."

Monica picked up the conversation, her fingertips landing on the intersection of Old Bridge Street and Riverside Road.

"This is the key point."

Victor nodded.

"Sirlen lives in the Brotherhood mansion in the north. He'll definitely come if something happens to the South Warehouse."

His fingers moved slowly along several routes between the mansion and the South Granary.

"There are two fastest routes from the mansion to the South Warehouse—Wellington Street and Old Bridge Street."

Wellington Street is too wide, and both sides are residential areas, making it difficult to set up an ambush. Therefore, he will most likely take Old Bridge Street.

"What if he doesn't take Old Bridge Street?" John asked.

"Then we'll create an obstacle at the entrance to Wellington Street—an overturned truck, or a pile of burning debris, anything will do."

Victor's tone was flat, as if he were arranging a routine freight shipment. "Force him to take Old Bridge Street."

He turned to Monica.

"The site is located in the middle section of Laoqiao Street, near the intersection with Hebin Road. There is a section of road there with the outer walls of old warehouses on both sides. There are no side streets or windows, so once you go in, it is very difficult to get out."

Monica nodded slightly.

"Old Bate will go scout the location tonight and pre-install the materials tomorrow during the day. Then, all it will take is a trigger signal to activate the field within three seconds."

"Three seconds," Victor repeated.

He finally took the cigar out of his mouth and placed it on the table.

"After Siron entered the field, John and I went to meet him head-on. Monica and Chester flanked him from both sides."

The musketeers took up positions on high ground at the edge of the area, creating crossfire.

He looked around at the people inside the room.

"Five Tier 2 soldiers, over thirty Tier 1 soldiers and musketeers, plus a sealing field."

"We swarmed in—"

His voice lowered, carrying a heavy sense of resolve.

"That golden knight will also fall to the ground with resentment."

The room was silent for a few seconds.

John whispered, "Boss, Siron killed three Tier 2s all by himself in Klein Alley."

Victor turned to look at him.

Are you scared?

"It's not fear," John shook his head.

"Yes... I think we can't let our guard down. He's not Biglen; Biglen was assassinated when he was completely unprepared. But if Siren is prepared—"

"That's why we need a space."

Victor interrupted him.

"In a head-on fight, I might not be his match. But within the arena—his senses will be disrupted, his movements restricted, and his aura suppressed by at least 20-30%. Add to that the combined attack of five second-tier fighters and the musketeers firing in unison—"

He paused.

Do you think he can still win?

John fell silent.

Monica leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and said coldly, "Even if he's a monster, he couldn't possibly get out of this encirclement alive."

Victor did not speak again.

He put the cigar back in his mouth and his gaze fell on the intersection point on the nautical chart, which he had marked with three red circles.

The killing is already decided.

But Victor knew in his heart—

He wasn't driven by any ambition or for any power.

He was just a man trying to make a living.

But a young man named Xilun stood in his way.

"That's enough," he waved his hand. "Go back and prepare. Proceed as planned after sunset tomorrow."

The group gradually left.

John walked to the door, then suddenly turned back and asked, "Boss, do you think we can win?"

Victor remained silent for a long while.

Then he lit the fire.

The embers of the cigar flickered in the dimly lit dock.

"Whether we win or not—" he exhaled a puff of smoke, his tone as indifferent as if he were talking about the weather, "we have to give it a try."

"You can't expect someone to shit on your neck."