Chapter 138. Calamity
Just as Logan leaned forward to spit fire, the earth erupted behind him. A flash of bony white shot out of the soil and pierced through the back of his head, bursting out his eye socket. He pitched where he stood and bucked back, his mouthful of flame shooting harmlessly into the sky as Sable manipulated her tail to point his head upward. She hadn’t anchored herself by sending her tail into the earth; she’d used it to sneak around behind Logan and attack him from behind. Rhys nodded, finally understanding. He breathed out, quietly relieved. He’d trusted Sable, but still, that had been frightening to watch.
Logan bucked as he bled out, kicking against the bony appendage that speared through him. His remaining eye dimmed, and he finally slumped to the floor. Sable retracted her tail with a derisive yank, splashing blood and dirt as she freed it from Logan’s body and the earth alike. Not wasting any time, she knelt and used the blade side of her tail’s end to slash open the man’s potbelly. The Crimson Flare Orb rolled out, and she picked it up and carried it over to Rhys.
Rhys nodded at her, palming the orb, then holding it up for all to see. It was beautiful, in a gristly kind of way; past the blood that streaked its surface, its interior was a raging ball of endless fire, as if the glass orb encapsulated the heart of a bonfire, or a very tiny star. He smiled at the thugs. “Negotiations with your boss have failed, so we’re progressing to the hostile takeover part of our plan. Would anyone else like to resist? I promise you, working under me will be no more troublesome, or illegal, than working under Logan poorly-surnamed-Waters. Should’ve called himself Logan Fires, honestly.”
The thugs glanced among one another. At last, the defiant one clambered back to his feet, groaning and aching the whole way. He nodded at Rhys. “The Waters family lead the most powerful crime syndicate in this area. We’d be fools to take your hand.”
“Oh, do they? Awesome. Point them at me, and I’ll take care of the problems. It’s a boss’s job to take on risk for his employees,” Rhys declared, thumping his chest. He didn’t really mind a fight, and Logan hadn’t exactly impressed him. Sable had basically played with him, and still easily slain him. He was sure the upper echelons got more powerful, but, well, there was a big power gap between Logan and himself, and he was pretty sure he could handle anything the Waters family threw at him.
Besides…. His eyes glittered, and he smiled. He wanted logistics, farms, the whole nine yards. If he merely took down one small gang, that was whatever. But to find out that the small gang was led by a larger crime syndicate? It was everything he’d hoped for and more. He needed to get stronger, so why not smash a crime syndicate and take it over while honing his own strength in battle? He could always fall back on trashy impurity-based techniques if he couldn’t win, and, at the very least, throw his attackers off for long enough to escape. If he took Lira, Sable, and Mouse with him, he could strengthen his most powerful allies at the same time. It was a win-win situation, and even in the case he lost, he could escape and recover. Truly ideal. Rather than a threat against him… he was a threat against this crime syndicate.
Rhys grinned. This was his kind of hostile takeover.
The thugs glanced among one another. The leader stepped forward. “We can’t defy you, but if we remain here, the syndicate will burn us to the ground. If you must take us alive, then you have to relocate us.”
Reasonable enough. Mages in this world did seem rather zero-sum, scorched earth kinds of people. Rhys thought for a moment. He didn’t want to take these people to his original farm for several reasons; the chance of betrayal, the risk the syndicate would find his farm, even the chance they’d simply alert the Empire, if they figured out he was more than just a hostile criminal group, and actually part of an insurrection. No, that was no good. But there was plenty of undeveloped land nearby, so he nodded firmly and gestured. “Bring everything you need for farming and distribution, and come with me.”
Long term, he’d simply overtake the entire syndicate, and acquire their fields and buildings as well as their workers, but for now, he needed to make sure they didn’t try to send him a message by massacring his hard-won workers. With that in mind, he turned to Sable. “Can you tear this place up a bit, spread some of his—” he gestured at Logan “—blood around the place, so it looks like I killed everyone at a glance?”