Dual wielding volcanoes, killing through the west

There was no one behind the tree trunk; the dark figure moved freely among the trees, so much so that no one could even catch a glimpse of him. Only in the flash of the gunfire could one barely make out his frozen form, but the next second, he was gone again.

"ah----!!"

Screams began to erupt from among their companions, along with the crisp sounds of bones shattering and breaking. The group shifted from a scattered formation to a more concentrated one. Eventually, they huddled almost in a circle, back to back, their faces etched with terror. In the dim light of the night, only the increasing number of people lying on the ground could be vaguely discerned, but what had killed them, and where the murderer was... remained a complete mystery.

Only that figure, constantly darting through the trees, making a rustling sound, could not be caught by even bullets.

"How could this happen... How could this be? Who is this person...?"

Tommy was startled and looked around, but all he could see was a cramped forest and a spotless night sky.

In his eyes, the dilapidated wooden house in the distance seemed like a lantern on the head of an anglerfish deep in the ocean.

"You...you hold them off! Hold them off! I'm going to Mr. Angelo for backup..."

Before he finished speaking, he turned and ran.

"ah----!!"

The screams of my companions came from behind me, extremely shrill, but then fell silent after a moment.

The dark and narrow mountain path seemed to be shortening on its own, giving him the feeling that no matter how hard he ran, he couldn't get out.

He realized that his revolver was out of bullets and was about to reload when his hand trembled, and the bullets clattered to the ground.

“Shit! Sh…”

At a time like this, a single bullet might just save a life. Tommy quickly crouched down and groped around in the dim grass, trying to find the fallen ammunition.

A pair of cloth shoes came into his view.

The faint moonlight filtered through the trees, and the man stood before him, looking down at him with an expressionless gaze.

"...Wait a minute...I am..."

"boom----!!!"

Tommy now understood what the sound he had just heard was.

A fist the size of a sandbag suddenly slammed down, exploding on his body like a thunderbolt.

His skin, bones, and muscles were all deformed by the punch. With a crack, a lump inexplicably bulged on his back. His eyes instantly became bloodshot. He clutched his chest, unable to catch his breath, and collapsed to the ground, quickly falling silent.

Chapter 220: Against My Will

"Hmm...that's not right..."

Zhang Renfeng turned Tommy's body over, ignoring his miserable and somewhat ferocious death, and stared at the fist mark on his chest, muttering to himself.

"Mr. Hongzhong, are you alright... Waaah!"

Xiao Mei, carrying a kerosene lamp, came out to check the situation. When the light shone on her, she saw corpses lying scattered across the grass, their bodies in such a terrible state.

The scene, without filters, could be directly edited into an R-rated horror movie, and it terrified her quite a bit. The way everyone died was very abstract—their faces turned bluish-purple, blood flowed from their seven orifices, they were in extreme pain, their chests were caved in, and their backs were bulging out.

"What are you doing now?" Theon couldn't help but complain. "You killed them with one punch?"

"I wanted to try out the silk-reeling energy, but when I tried it, it wasn't what I expected. It was just a simple 'Mizongquan' (a type of martial art)."

Zhang Renfeng looked at his calloused fists and sighed, "Senior brother is right. This is something that takes years to understand. There's no way to learn it quickly."

The Silk-Reeling Force is one of the milestones achieved in the practice of the Lesser Formless Skill; it can be said to have come naturally. My master and senior sister explained it this way: without any deliberate practice, it simply came naturally one day.

"Anyway, practicing now won't improve my skills." With this in mind, Zhang Renfeng simply put the matter of the Lesser Formless Skill aside and stopped thinking about it. Things will work themselves out; when the time comes, there will always be a way.

"So many children." Xiaomei examined the bodies lying on the ground, her tone complicated. "They looked to be less than ten years old. How could they do something like this..."

"So what? They shot at me." Zhang Renfeng showed no pity. Perhaps he was used to the bloodshed on the battlefield. He felt no remorse for what had just happened. He said in a deep voice, "Xiaomei, remember this too... No matter who the other side is, whether they are old, young, or pregnant... the moment they raise their weapons against you, they are the enemy, especially since they have guns."

"If you're even a fraction slower, you'll be the one who dies."

“Red is right,” Theon added calmly. “Monsters like him who can dodge bullets are still a minority. In fact, most ordinary people have a very low margin for error when facing bullets. If you hesitate even slightly, a bullet will come at you.”

“I’ve been on the battlefield and seen a lot of Boy Scouts… They disguise themselves as refugee children to lull soldiers into a false sense of security. Once they get close, they suddenly throw a lit explosive at them. The explosive detonates right in their faces, and severed arms and legs fly everywhere. Those soldiers who show mercy end up being blown to bits.”

"These bastards are more despicable than ordinary enemies because they used their 'child' status to lower the moral standards of the entire battlefield. Although there are no moral standards on the battlefield, ever since then, anyone who appears on the battlefield and is not one of our own is immediately shot dead."

“The truly innocent children may also lose the opportunity to call for help because of this.”

----

That being said, Zhang Renfeng did not actually kill them all; he only dealt with those who fired at him. As for those who turned and ran, he did not arrest them. Someone would eventually spread the news back to the city, letting those stockbrokers hiding in the high-rise buildings know that they had kicked a hornet's nest this time.

As for the people who ask questions... keeping just one is enough.

He walked slowly to a child lying on the ground, his features almost contorted into a grimace, and gently kicked him, saying irritably, "Stop pretending to be dead, I'm not a bear."

The boy was already struggling to breathe, and when he was kicked like that, he was immediately thrown into the air, opened his eyes, and his face was filled with terror.

His face was covered in blood from his nose. Just now, the boy had given Tommy a small act of resistance, within the limits of what he could do.

The result was that he was punched and his nose bled profusely.

During the intense gunfight, he didn't draw his gun on himself. Instead, he turned and ran away. He probably tripped over something like a tree root or a rock, fell to the ground, and twisted his ankle. He had no choice but to lie on the ground and pretend to be dead.

Because of these things, Zhang Renfeng's attitude towards him became slightly milder. He reached out and pressed his palm against the bridge of his deformed nose, and suddenly exerted force!

Click!

"Hiss... Ah!"

The boy covered his nose, sweating profusely from the pain, but he could feel that his nose had returned to normal.

"Luckily you're just a child, your bones are flexible, it was easy to straighten it back." Zhang Renfeng wiped the blood from his hands with his clothes. "Name?"

"John..."

"How old?"

"Eight years old."

"Is this something an eight-year-old should do?" Zhang Renfeng's tone was calm, but the anger rising in his eyes was terrifying. "To burn two innocent people alive? What did this guy called the Italian offer you to make you follow him like this?"

“No, sir! I…we…” John bit his lip, hesitated for a long time, and finally confessed, “We had no choice. Joining or leaving was not something we could decide.”

----

Zhang Renfeng made a mistake.

Gangs and criminal gangs are fundamentally different.

The Red Central Gang is a bandit gang that recruits powerful figures from all walks of life. With men, guns, and horses, they roam the grasslands, snow-capped mountains, and deserts, making the world their home. They first choose a town to settle in, then set up a temporary camp on the outskirts of the town in a convenient escape route. They pull off a heist in the town, then immediately flee, only to move on to another location… This is the operating strategy of most bandit gangs.

But gangs are different. They use relatively developed cities as their base, penetrating deep into those areas and controlling all the shady black market industries. They base their rule on violence. The stable and continuous flow of profits is undoubtedly much safer than that of ordinary criminal gangs. As wealth and fame accumulate, gang leaders also gain a certain social standing in the city, inspiring fear in the police and city government.

The Italian is at a stage where, rather than being a gang member, he is more accurately described as one of the behind-the-scenes manipulators of the city.

Of course, the city doesn't belong entirely to him. Only when the profits from the division are large enough will other forces still be lurking and eager to make their move.

After gang warfare, those who die need to be replaced by new people.

Where do newcomers come from?

The gang's new recruits are all wanted criminals, wandering gunmen, and outlaws... but for the gang, such people are too unstable. What Angelo needs are loyal henchmen who will obey his orders without question.

Only those who are nurtured from a young age can achieve this effect.

----

“When gangs are short of members, they start drawing members from the neighborhoods they control…” John’s voice trembled, revealing a hint of despair. “My father owns a saddlery shop, just a very small one, but he still has to pay them protection money every month.”

“Just a few months ago, two of them came and, while collecting protection money, announced that from that day on, I would be working for them.”

"I...we...have no right to refuse, sir, absolutely none!"

Chapter 221: I understand, you just wait to get your share of the money.

The environment can easily transform a person's mind. Objectively speaking, there may be people who can resist the environment and stay true to themselves, but they are definitely not the majority.

Moreover, it's a gang, a group that combines violence, murder, and profit, and can quickly distort values.

It's no surprise that a group of children who haven't yet grasped the true nature of the world would be tainted by this cesspool. Tommy, the leader, was only about sixteen or seventeen years old, but he already followed Angelo's lead blindly. He wouldn't feel any moral remorse for burning two people alive.

The most feared group in the underworld are hot-blooded young punks, because they are often impulsive, easily angered, and do things without considering the consequences.

If it's two groups of older people, and they encounter situations like turf wars or street clashes, they often just exchange threats to maintain appearances, but in the end, it's all bark and no bite, and the fight rarely even breaks out. This is because both sides know that if they really fight and someone bleeds, it will be very difficult to separate them again. Neither side wants to suffer casualties, so they just muddle through and get away with it.

But if it were two different groups of young people... just wait and see, this matter won't be over until at least five people die!

However, Angelo didn't care about any of that; all he needed were ruthless and obedient henchmen. If they were trained from childhood and survived to adulthood, they'd all be as ruthless as Tommy.

"This is simply...incomprehensible..." Xiaomei was furious. "It's one thing to be desperate, but they won't even spare people who are living a normal life?!"

Zhang Renfeng didn't waste any more words, "Where is he?"

"This... I... I don't know either. Someone like me is just the lowest-ranking underling. There's no way I would know Mr. Angelo's itinerary."

John's tone was full of helplessness, as if he was afraid the other party wouldn't believe him. It's normal to be afraid when facing a monster who can indiscriminately kill more than ten people. Maybe if he gets angry, he'll tear himself apart.

“Most of Angelo’s men don’t meet with us directly. They’ll give orders to people like Tommy, who will then take us to carry them out. This includes bootlegging, gambling, loan sharking, underground boxing matches, arms deals with Ankara Fortress, and contraband transported by sea and train…”

"Oh, right!"

John suddenly remembered an important piece of information, "I heard from Tommy that the bootlegging business seems to have run into some trouble yesterday. Mr. Angelo was quite angry about it. If this information is of any use to you..."

Zhang Renfeng and Xi En exchanged a glance, both feeling a bit like laughing and crying at the same time.

To be honest, it did have some use. At the moonshine camp, they interrogated the Thunderfury gang member named Bobby, but he only knew it was being delivered to San Quintak, unable to name the buyer. At least now, they know who's involved in this supply chain.

The Zolael family produced bootlegging, transported it to San Quintac, where it was bought by Italians and circulated throughout the city, with the Zolael family taking a cut of the profits.

The problem is, they probably knew about the bootlegging incident even before Angelo himself. Once the news has passed its timeliness, it's no longer of any value.

"What about the others?" Zhang Renfeng shook his head.

"Hmm...uh..." Little John's expression changed, he pursed his lips, and remained silent for a long time.

"Are you worried that if you reveal the gang's secrets, Father will face retaliation?"

……

Trist walked over silently, barefoot, and stood next to Zhang Renfeng.

Also.

Gunshots were ringing out outside; even the soundest sleeper would be awakened.

Facing this little boy who had come to her room but was about her age, she didn't show much harshness on her face. In fact, her chestnut-brown eyes even revealed a hint of pity that didn't belong to his age. In contrast, little John didn't dare to meet her gaze and simply turned his head away.

"I overheard most of what you just said. There's nothing shameful about wanting to protect your family, I understand, really..."

Trist deliberately walked to John's side, half-squatting down, stubbornly trying to meet his gaze. It was as if only in this way could their conversation take place.

“My brother and father both died protecting our family. They came to collect debts, ransacked our house, and then killed them.”

“I…I’m so sorry…” John’s shoulders trembled slightly. “But…but, if we don’t collect the money, we will be…”

“I know.” Trist’s tone was gentle, but she interrupted him with an unyielding firmness. “I don’t want to dwell on whose fault it is, or whose fault it isn’t. At least for now, you and I are both victims of the Mafia.”

“As long as the Italians live, there will be more and more victims like us. Imagine if one day they asked you to take a gun and go shoot at other gangs, would you dare not go? If you don’t go, maybe your father will be retaliated against; if you go… maybe you won’t come back alive.”

"What will your father do then?"

John's expression froze.

Rather than saying that Trist's description was too terrible, it's more accurate to say that this is the "reality" he has been unwilling to face, yet it truly exists—an unsolvable lose-lose situation.

The real winner is always the Italian who recruits others into the game. His underlings fight for him, while he hides in his mansion, enjoying fine wine and beautiful women.

“I know, but… what can I do, that Italian…”

“Of course we can’t, but someone can.” Trist smiled slightly, took Zhang Renfeng’s hand, and gently pulled him in front of her. “This is a superhuman warrior from across the ocean with superhuman strength! He can break rocks with his bare hands, uproot willow trees, and fly around on rooftops! This morning, he was the one who saved me from the henchmen of the gang.”

"He will definitely defeat the Italians, believe him!"

----

"..."

Zhang Renfeng didn't interrupt, but quietly witnessed the whole thing, secretly amazed by Trist's rhetoric.

She possessed a remarkable ability: empathy. Through empathy, she quickly drew little John to her side and pointed out the real problems they faced. As long as the Italians lived, they would never have a good day; their current situation was nothing more than a prolongation of their existence.

It's hard to imagine that such a strong sense of empathy could exist in a twelve-year-old girl.