The warehouse district reeked of rust, rotting fish, and stagnant water.
We arrived just past midnight. Seven soldiers plus Marco, all hand-picked by Father for this kind of work. These weren't the bodyguards who stood around looking intimidating at fancy events. These were killers. I could see it in their eyes, that flat emptiness that came from doing terrible things so often they stopped registering as terrible.
And I was supposed to lead them.
My stomach had been twisting itself into knots since we left the estate. Every few minutes, I had to remind myself to breathe normally, to keep my hands from shaking where the others could see.
"Target building is straight ahead," Marco said quietly, gesturing toward a decrepit structure that looked ready to collapse. Broken windows gaped like missing teeth. Graffiti covered every visible surface. The kind of place the city had forgotten about decades ago. Perfect for storing illegal goods before moving them through territory that belonged to us.
The Hao Family had gotten bold. Or stupid. Probably both.
"How many inside?" I asked. My voice came out steadier than I felt, which was something.
"Four confirmed. Could be five." Marco pressed a suppressed pistol into my hand. The weight of it felt wrong. Too heavy and too light at the same time. "You absolutely sure about this, Young Master?"
Every cell in my body screamed no. I wasn't sure about anything. Three days ago I'd been someone else entirely, living a completely different life. Now I was here, about to lead a raid that would probably end with people dying.
"Let's finish this," I said instead.
We moved in near silence. Two soldiers peeled off to circle around to the back entrance. The rest of us approached the front door, keeping to the shadows, weapons ready. My heart hammered so hard I could feel it in my throat. The Beretta felt slick in my sweating palms.
Marco didn't bother with subtlety. He kicked the door hard enough to tear it half off its hinges.
Then everything exploded into chaos.
Shouts erupted from inside. Dark shapes moving in the dimness. Then muzzle flashes lit up the warehouse interior like lightning, stroboscopic and disorienting. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space.
I threw myself behind a stack of wooden crates as bullets tore through the air where I'd been standing. Wood splintered. Concrete dust filled the air. Something whistled past my ear close enough that I felt the displacement of air.
One of our guys went down hard, clutching his shoulder and screaming. Another returned fire, the suppressed weapon making sharp coughing sounds. Across the warehouse, someone else screamed. A different kind of scream. The kind that said they knew they were dying.
This is insane, some part of my brain kept repeating. This is absolutely insane. People are dying. I'm going to die.
"Young Master! On your left!" Marco's voice cut through the noise and fear.
I spun and saw him emerging from behind an old forklift. A Hao soldier, young, maybe twenty-five, gun coming up to aim at me. Time seemed to slow down. I could see his face, see the determination in his eyes.
Training I didn't remember having kicked in. My body moved before my brain caught up. Three shots. The recoil jolted up my arms, throwing off my aim. The first bullet went wide. The second caught him in the shoulder. The third hit center mass.
He jerked backward like someone had yanked a rope attached to his chest. Then he crumpled.
I'd just killed someone.
The thought hit me like a physical blow, but there was no time to process it. More gunfire. Someone shouting orders in Chinese. Glass shattering. Then—
The temperature dropped.
Not gradually. Instantly. Like someone had opened a portal to the arctic. My breath came out in visible clouds. Goosebumps erupted across my skin despite the late summer heat.
And I felt it. That pressure I'd only just learned to recognize. Like invisible weight pressing against my skin from all directions. Aura. Nen.
Someone in here was a Nen user.
"EVERYONE GET DOWN!" I shouted, dropping flat.
The explosion came half a second later.
A shockwave of pure force rolled through the warehouse. One of our soldiers, Carlos I think his name was, got caught in it. He flew backward like he'd been hit by a car, body tumbling through the air. He crashed through a wooden partition wall with a sound like a bomb going off. The entire structure collapsed on top of him. He didn't get back up.
Another soldier screamed as something invisible struck his arm. I heard the bone break from fifteen feet away. A wet, crackling snap that made my stomach turn. His arm bent at an angle arms weren't supposed to bend.
Then I saw him.
He stepped out from behind a stack of cargo containers at the far end of the warehouse. A man in his thirties, stocky and heavily muscled, wearing a tank top that showed arms covered in scars. His knuckles looked like they'd been broken and healed wrong dozens of times. And he was grinning. The kind of grin that said he was about to enjoy himself.
White aura surrounded his body, visible even in the dim light. It rippled and pulsed like heat waves rising off summer asphalt.
An Enhancer. Had to be. The way he moved, the sheer physical presence he radiated, the aura concentrated around his body. Everything about him screamed close-combat specialist.
"So you're the Volpe brat," he said. His voice carried easily across the warehouse despite the chaos. "Your old man really sent a kid to handle this? That's just disrespectful. I'm almost insulted."
Marco and the remaining soldiers opened fire. A dozen shots at least, center mass, proper spacing, everything by the book.
The Enhancer didn't even try to dodge.
The bullets hit his aura and just stopped. Literally stopped in mid-air, hanging there for a split second before dropping to the concrete floor with little pinging sounds. Like shooting rubber bullets at a tank.
My blood turned to ice.
"Marco, RUN!" I tried to pull him toward the exit.
But the Enhancer was already moving.
One moment he was twenty feet away. The next instant he'd crossed the distance in a single explosive burst of speed. No windup. No warning. Just there, fist already drawn back, aura condensing and concentrating around his knuckles until they seemed to glow.
Ko. The technique where you focused all your aura into a single point for maximum power. I recognized it from Regis's fragmented memories.
That punch was aimed at Marco's head. If it connected, it would kill him instantly. His skull would pop like an egg.
I didn't think. Just reacted.
My own aura flared up instinctively. Weak, uncontrolled, barely there compared to the Enhancer's. But it was something. I threw up Ten like a shield and shoved Marco aside with everything I had.
The Enhancer's fist caught me in the ribs instead.
The world went white.
Pain unlike anything I'd ever experienced exploded through my entire torso. I felt ribs crack, felt something tear inside. Then I was flying backward, the ground disappearing beneath my feet.
I hit the concrete wall hard enough to crater it. Felt the impact shudder through my entire skeleton. My head snapped back against brick. Stars burst across my vision.
Then I was falling, sliding down the wall, barely conscious, tasting copper and blood.
"Oh?" The Enhancer's voice sounded distant, muffled. "You've got Nen. Barely awakened, by the feel of it. That's adorable."
Through blurry vision, I watched him start walking toward me. Each footstep echoed in the warehouse. Casual. Confident. Taking his time.
Why wouldn't he be confident? He was a trained Nen user with years of experience. I was some rich kid who'd awakened his aura three days ago and barely knew how to use it.
My hand scrabbled across the concrete, found the Beretta where it had fallen. I raised it with a shaking arm and fired.
The Enhancer lazily swatted the bullets aside with the back of his hand. They ricocheted off into the darkness, hitting metal with sharp pings.
"That the best you've got, Young Master?" He was smiling. Actually enjoying this. "Your daddy's going to need a closed casket for you. Might even need a bucket."
Somewhere behind him, I could see Marco and the survivors retreating, dragging the wounded. Smart. They couldn't fight this. Normal people with guns couldn't fight a Nen user. Hell, I couldn't fight this guy.
But I had something. One thing he didn't know about.
Predator.
The name pulsed in my mind like a heartbeat. The ability I'd discovered just this morning. Create a Nen beast specifically designed to counter an enemy. But only if I had enough information about them.
Think. Focus. What do I know?
He was an Enhancer. Used Ko for devastating single-point attacks. Relied on his aura for defense. Preferred close combat. Brutal, efficient, overconfident. Probably had fought in underground rings given his scars and attitude.
Not enough. I needed more details.
"You're Hao's special guard, right?" I coughed, spitting blood. Buying time. "The one who used to fight in those underground death matches before you joined up?"
The Enhancer's grin widened, showing too many teeth. "Oh, you did your homework. Yeah, that's me. Forty-two wins, zero losses. I broke every single opponent. Made them beg." He flexed his scarred knuckles, making them pop. "Killed more than half of them. Your father's going to get what's left of you in a garbage bag."
Perfect.
Underground fighter. All offense, minimal defense training beyond basic aura reinforcement. Used to short fights where he overwhelmed opponents quickly. Probably had poor stamina for extended combat. Relied entirely on ending fights fast with overwhelming force. And that arrogance, that absolute certainty he'd already won.
That was the weakness.
I focused everything I had left into my aura. Reached deep inside for that ability I barely understood. Predator.
Show me. Show me what hunts someone like him.
My aura changed.
Not the normal white or pale colors I'd seen on other Nen users. Mine turned black. Actually black, like ink spreading through water. It pooled around my crumpled body, spreading across the concrete floor like a living shadow.
The Enhancer stopped walking. His grin faltered. "What the hell are you doing?"
The shadow moved.
It rose up from the darkness at my feet, pulling itself into existence with a sound like tearing fabric. Not human. Not animal. Something in between, something that shouldn't exist.
The form that took shape was nightmarish.
A long serpentine body, easily fifteen feet from head to tail, covered in overlapping scales that looked like black obsidian armor. But it wasn't the body that made it terrifying. It was the appendages.
Eight whip-like limbs extended from its torso, each one at least ten feet long, covered in those same armored scales. The tips ended in curved hooks that looked sharp enough to cut steel. The appendages moved independently, writhing and coiling through the air like they were tasting it.
The head was featureless except for a mouth that split open far too wide, revealing row after row of needle-thin teeth. No eyes. No nose. Just that mouth and the sense that it could somehow see everything anyway.
The Nen beast let out a sound that was half hiss, half shriek. The noise made my bones ache.
"What the fuck is that thing?" The Enhancer stumbled backward, his confidence cracking.
Predator didn't answer. Didn't wait. It lunged.
The Enhancer threw up his aura defensively, Ko concentrating around his forearms. But the beast didn't attack head-on. Instead, those eight whip-appendages spread out wide, circling him like a cage, attacking from every angle simultaneously.
One whip lashed out from the left. The Enhancer blocked it with Ko, and the appendage rebounded off his reinforced arm. But the instant he blocked, three more whips attacked from his right, his back, above his head. He could only block one. The others struck home, those hooked tips raking across his ribs, his shoulder, his thigh.
Not deep cuts. The Enhancer's passive aura defense was too strong for that. But they drew blood. First blood.
"Impossible!" The Enhancer roared, swinging a Ko-enhanced fist at the nearest whip.
The appendage dissolved into shadow just before he made contact, reforming an instant later to slash across the back of his knee. He stumbled, and two more whips caught him across the back, tearing his shirt and the skin beneath.
I understood what I was seeing. My ability had analyzed him and created the perfect counter. An Enhancer's strength was overwhelming single-point offense and defense. Ko let them become unstoppable in one direction. But that was also their weakness. They could only focus on one point at a time.
The Predator was designed to make that impossible. Eight independent attack vectors, each one requiring a separate defense, attacking too fast for him to focus Ko more than once per exchange. Every time he concentrated his aura to block or strike, the other seven appendages would tear into his undefended areas.
It was forcing him to spread his aura thin for defense, which meant he couldn't concentrate it for offense. His greatest strength was being turned into his greatest liability.
The Enhancer roared and charged forward, both fists blazing with concentrated Ko. He was trying to reach the beast's main body, to land a killing blow.
Predator's serpentine body simply flowed aside like water. The whips struck again. This time they wrapped around his wrists mid-punch, those hooked ends digging in. The Enhancer tried to pull free, but two more whips wrapped around his ankles.
Then the beast pulled.
The Enhancer flew off his feet and slammed into the concrete wall hard enough to crack it. The entire warehouse shook. Dust and chunks of concrete rained down.
He struggled to his feet, blood now flowing freely from dozens of cuts across his body. His aura was flickering, his stamina draining from trying to maintain Ko in too many places at once.
"Stop! STOP!" The Enhancer was backing away now, all confidence gone. His voice cracked with fear. "I give up! I surrender!"
The Predator paused, all eight appendages raised and ready. Its eyeless head turned toward me, waiting for instruction.
I should have felt sick. Horrified at what I'd created, at what I was doing to another human being. But all I felt was cold, calculating clarity.
"Information," I said. My voice sounded different. Harder. "Where's the rest of your shipment? Who's your contact inside Father's organization? Every name, every location. Talk fast."
The Enhancer talked. Words spilling out desperately. Names, locations, schedules, everything. He gave up his entire operation, his allies, his contacts. Betrayed them all in under two minutes.
When he finished, I nodded slowly to the Predator.
"Kill him ."
Predqtor make the man badly, blood leaving a trail behind him as he disappeared into the night.
The Predator turned back to me. For a moment, we just looked at each other, creator and creation. Then it dissolved. The shadow form broke apart like smoke, flowing across the concrete before being absorbed back into my aura.
The moment it disappeared, something transferred. Knowledge, sensation, a new awareness. Enhanced flexibility. The ability to move my body in ways I couldn't before, borrowed from the serpentine beast.
But I also felt the cost. My aura reserves were completely drained. Empty. I could barely maintain Ten.
Marco appeared beside me, his face pale. "Young Master, what in God's name was that thing?"
I tried to answer and couldn't. The adrenaline was fading fast, and with it came the full realization of what I'd just done. I'd tortured information out of someone using a monster I'd created. Broken him completely. Turned him into a terrified animal.
My stomach heaved. I bent over and vomited onto the concrete.
"Get everyone to the cars," I managed when I could speak. "We're leaving. Now."
The ride back to the estate was silent except for the groans of the wounded. Marco kept glancing at me but didn't ask questions. The others wouldn't even look in my direction.
I didn't blame them. I probably wouldn't want to look at me either.
Viktor was waiting when we arrived, standing in the strategy room with his hands behind his back. I gave him everything. The Hao Family's storage locations, their distribution networks, the name of their contact inside our organization. A warehouse supervisor named Chen who'd been taking bribes. Everything the Enhancer had given up.
"And the Nen user?" Viktor asked.
"Dealt with. He won't be a problem again."
Viktor studied me for a long moment with those cold eyes of his. Then he nodded once. "Your father will be very pleased with this outcome."
I left before he could say anything else.
Back in my room, I collapsed onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. My ribs were screaming. Definitely cracked, maybe broken. Every breath hurt. But that wasn't the worst pain.