Rachel stood in the center of the bar while using her cold blue eyes to scan the men that surrounded her with the intention of fishing out the leader among them.
Sixty of them—all of them who were huge and covered with tattoos, with their arms thick with muscle, and their facial expressions having 'violence' written on them.
The air was heavy with tension, but Rachel didn't flinch.
Instead, she smirked at them with a sharp and fearless curl of her lips that cut through the silence like a blade before saying, "So, you've all been waiting for me? Good... Then let's not waste each other's time, as we're all busy people... Now tell me where my cousin Josie is… And don't you dare lie to me, because I know she's here."
One of the men, whose chest was bare except for the tattoos crawling across it, barked back at her and said, "We have no girl called Josie here."
Rachel tilted her head slightly with her smirk deepening, and with her voice low but laced with menace, she said, "I think I said, 'Don't you dare lie to me.'"
Another man stepped forward, and with his voice sharp, he said, "Who says we're lying?"
Then a third one added, and with hostility dripping from every word, he said, "Wait—where do you think this place is?"
Rachel, whose patience had snapped, took a slow breath and summoned the auras of her past lives, which came as Fetrixcon, the hacker; Hiyita, the assassin; Kaida Reyes, the legendary Five-Star Supreme Grand General of the Lazurian Army; and Liana, queen and war general of the Ancient Kingdom of Norpond.
Each aura she summoned and released all carried weight, danger, and the kind of presence that could break even the strongest man.
The already tense air thickened as Rachel's aura expanded and pressed down on the men like a mountain.
She swept her icy glare across them and said, "I hate lying.... Why? Because my late parents told me that all liars will go to hell... If you don't hand over my cousin in the next minute, you won't need to be sent to hell because I will bring hell straight to you."
The men shifted uneasily; their bravado wavered under the crushing force of Rachel's aura, but they weren't ready to admit defeat.
The same man barked again with his tone shaky but loud and said, "We have no girl called Josie here... And even if we did, we wouldn't hand her over to you."
As soon as Rachel heard that from him, her blue eyes hardened as she said, "That's not what I wanted to hear."
Then another brown-haired man with tattoos crawling up his neck sneered at Rachel, pulled a pistol from his belt, and pointed it at her before saying, "You should be worrying about yourself instead of others.... You were doomed to die the moment you walked in here because no one walks into our territory and leaves alive.... They all leave dead."
After saying that, he cocked his pistol, smirked coldly at Rachel, and hissed while saying, "Go to hell!" before pulling the trigger.
The gunshot echoed across La Vipera's Den, and it was sharp, loud, and violent.
Outside La Vipera's Den, Ashley, who had been waiting, flinched at the sound of the gunshot.
Her heart jumped into her throat, then she whispered to herself in a terrified tone, saying, "I'm not going to die here. I'm sorry, Chel, but I'm too young to die."
Without another thought or a moment of hesitation, she ran to the Audi RS7, slid behind the wheel, turned the ignition, and slammed the car into reverse.
The Audi screeched backwards with smoke blasting from its exhaust before Ashley spun it around and sped off Maco Street with its tires screaming and its engine roaring like a beast that was escaping its cage.
Back inside La Vipera's Den, Rachel moved with the reflexes of Hiyita, the top assassin.
She twisted and rolled, which made the bullet miss her by inches.
In a blink, she closed the distance between her and the shooter.
Before he could react, she snatched the pistol out of his hand and pressed the cold barrel against his temple.
"Put down your guns, fellas," Rachel said calmly while sweeping her icy gaze across the men. Then, with her voice laced with deadly intent, she added, "Or I'm going to blow his head off."
The atmosphere in the bar shifted, and the fifty-nine men, who were all shocked that their leader was now held hostage by the young woman standing opposite them, aimed their guns at her with panic flickering in their eyes.
The panic they all fought to hold back, as they didn't want the young woman standing opposite them to see it in their eyes because they all thought she was bluffing.
On the other hand, Rachel didn't give them time to think.
She fired a shot into the man's right leg.
The man screamed in pain before collapsing as blood started to spread across his jeans.
Then she growled, saying, "I give you guys one minute.... If I don't see my cousin Josie in the next minute, then the next bullet I fire will go straight through his skull."
After saying that, she swept her icy gaze across the men, and with her smirk returning, she added, "And I'm not joking. Count with me."
Her voice rang through the bar as she started to count aloud in a slow and deliberate manner, saying, "One, two, three, four, five…"
She counted all the way to sixty, and by the time she finished, the fifty-nine men couldn't hold back anymore as fury exploded out of them and made them open fire at her, with bullets raining down on her from every angle.
As soon as they opened fire at her, Rachel yanked the bleeding leader in front of her and used his body as a shield before darting toward a fallen round table.
Bullets kept ripping through the wood and shattered glasses around the round table as she hid behind it.
With steady hands, she returned fire while picking off heads with precision.
One after another, men dropped down dead.
When her bullets ran out, she didn't hesitate to smash beer bottles against the floor, scoop up the shards, and throw the shards at their throats and faces with an assassin's accuracy.
Blood sprayed and splattered, and loud, painful screams filled the bar, but Rachel kept slipping between tables while vanishing and reappearing like a phantom.
After a while, the gunfire died down because the bullets of the men were all spent.
Rachel slowly rose from behind a round table and smirked as she faced the survivors before saying, "You're all out with no ammo to reload with… And I've already sent twenty of your brothers to meet their maker... If I don't see Josie alive… not a single one of you is going to leave this bar alive."
The survivors that remained in the bar were now forty men, and having no ammo to reload their pistols, they brought out their knives, which gleamed in the dim light as soon as they raised them in mid-air while getting ready to rush towards Rachel.
Laughing a little, Rachel spread her arms slightly with her steps slow and fearless as she walked toward them while saying, "We're all reasonable people, aren't we? Release my cousin, and I'll leave this place and never come back. How about that?"
The deputy leader, a thick-necked man with rage burning in his eyes, shouted and said, "Don't listen to her! She killed Landon and nineteen of our brothers! We have to deal with her! We have to avenge them! And I, Jimmy, will avenge them. Who's with me?!"
After he finished saying that, his furious gaze swept across his men.
"WE ARE WITH YOU, JIMMY!" The gang roared back with their knives raised high.
Rachel smirked at them with her eyes narrowing, and as if it was Hiyita speaking through her, she said, "It's been a while. I think I'm going to enjoy this."
Jimmy sneered at Rachel after he heard what she said while grabbing a dagger from the bar counter as he said, "Brothers, she's pretty, isn't she?"
"Yessss!" the men shouted as they felt the rush of adrenaline in their bodies.
"Then ruffle her up and bring her to me!" Jimmy yelled, and then he added, "I'll teach her a lesson first, then I'll take her to my bed and have a taste of her... After I'm done with her, I'll hand her over to you guys so you can all have a taste of her too!"
As soon as he finished saying that, he hurled the dagger at Rachel, but Rachel's hand shot out and caught it in mid-air, then she spun it and glared at him with ice in her veins as she said, "You shouldn't have said that. Now the only taste you'll have is the taste of hell."
After she said that, the bar exploded into chaos.
Jimmy came at Rachel first, but Rachel's kick sent him flying across the bar and crashing into the counter.
The others swarmed around Rachel, which made her rip the hem of her diamond gown so her legs could be free for her to move faster.
After ripping her diamond gown, she became Hiyita again—but in motion with kicks, punches, somersaults, and knives snatched in mid-air.
She tore through them like a storm with each hit she landed, leaving their bones breaking with the men howling and knives clattering to the floor.
The gang had thought she was just a young woman, but she was something else; she was a demon in the flesh.
Minutes later, the bar floor was littered with groaning bodies.
Jimmy and his men, who were broken and battered, writhed on the ground while staring at Rachel with wide, terrified eyes.
Inside their heads, one truth echoed, and the truth was, "She isn't a woman... She's a monster."
Rachel crouched down beside Jimmy, whose muscles were twitching with pain.
She lifted his chin and forced him to look at her; then, with her icy gaze shooting at him, she smacked her lips and said, "Now... where's my little cousin Josie?"
Letting go of his chin, she stood up and gave him a brutal kick that sent him crashing into some overturned tables and said coldly, "Tell me quickly... while I'm still being nice."
But before Jimmy could answer her, Rachel felt the cold press of a gun barrel against the back of her head.
Then a voice that was calm and deadly spoke behind her, saying, "Where do you think this place is? F.Y.I., any unauthorized person who isn't a customer of our bar that walks in here to cause trouble is already dead... And now—you're dead too."
After he finished saying that, he clicked the trigger of his pistol and fired a shot.
"BANG!