The air in Hell's Kitchen was damp and sticky, clinging to the face, a smell of rust, urine, and despair mixed together.
Large chunks of paint peeled off the walls, revealing mold stains that looked like a distorted map.
When the third cockroach, fatter than a thumb, brazenly crawled past Raven's feet, her sanity snapped.
Bang!
There was an explosion.
Raven crushed the beer can in her hand into a piece of scrap metal.
The wail of metal tore through the dead silence of the room.
"I've had enough!"
She spun around abruptly, her golden vertical pupils like two molten gold orbs, fixed intently on Lin Ent.
"This life! This life of hiding in the sewers, fighting for scraps with maggots!"
Crash—!
The map on the table was swept away by her hand, the paper hitting the wall with a weak lament.
She approached step by step, each step making the creaking floor tremble.
"I have power!"
She pointed at herself, every word squeezed out through gritted teeth.
"Banks, smash jewelry stores! We take whatever we want! Why should we rot in this shitty place?!"
Lin Ent didn't look up.
He didn't even lift an eyelid.
He held a small screwdriver, methodically unscrewing the back cover of a broken radio.
One.
Two.
He picked up the unscrewed screws with tweezers, arranging them neatly on the table, like a row of soldiers awaiting inspection.
In the face of Raven's almost fiery rage, his calmness was, in itself, the ultimate provocation.
It's coming.
Lin Ent knew it clearly.
This was the last test before the transfer of power.
If he won, he would be the master.
If he lost, he would be a power bank that could be drained at any time.
He finally looked up, his eyes terrifyingly calm.
"Steal? Rob?"
He uttered two words, devoid of emotion, yet they were like two cold surgical knives, precisely piercing Raven's fury.
"That's what Beasts do."
"When hungry, they pounce and tear wildly. When full, they find a broken cave to lick their wounds."
"Waiting for the next hunger, and the cycle repeats."
"Raven, that's the way animals live."
Beast? Animal?
These two words, like two red-hot iron skewers, fiercely stabbed into the depths of Raven's memory.
The coldness of rummaging for food in muddy water, the humiliation of hiding in gutters while being hunted as a monster, exploded instantly.
The scar was torn open, revealing not blood, but fangs.
"Don't you dare preach to me!"
Raven grabbed his collar, lifting him from the chair, her nose almost touching his.
"Charles said this bullshit! Eric said it too!"
She sneered, her golden pupils filled with sarcasm and disdain.
"And what was the result?"
"One is paralyzed in a wheelchair, dreaming of World peace with a bunch of kids!"
"The other became the World's number one most wanted criminal! His pathetic ambitions ultimately led only to constant fleeing and failure across the World!"
"You?"
She scrutinized Lin Ent, as if looking at a huge joke.
"What makes you think this broken map you drew won't become the next joke?"
Lin Ent was angrily thrown to the floor by Mystique.
He looked at the flame in Raven's eyes, which, after being repeatedly battered by reality, was left with only disbelief, and instead nodded.
This was what he wanted.
A tamed soul was far less exciting than a conquered soul.
"You're right."
He actually admitted it.
"They all failed."
He picked up an old vacuum tube from the disassembled radio, gently tossing it between his fingers.
"Because Charles wanted to fix this broken radio and make it play hymns. Eric wanted to smash it and build a new toy that belonged only to Mutants."
He changed the subject and smiled.
"And I…"
"I just want to figure out every circuit, then hack into its system, replace its parts, and make it play my favorite songs twenty-four hours a day."
"Let the whole World sway to my rhythm."
He suddenly stood up, walked to the window, and pushed it open a crack.
Downstairs, three thugs were gathered around a trash can, sharing a discarded cigarette butt.
"Don't believe me?"
Lin Ent's voice drifted from the window.
"Then let's do an experiment with those three pieces of trash downstairs."
He turned around, his eyes no longer calm, only sharp like an eagle's.
"You use your method, to rob, to take what you think is valuable."
"I'll use my method, to dig."
"An hour later, let's see whose stuff is more valuable."
This was a gamble.
Raven stared at him, this proposal, like a hook, precisely snagged her inherent competitiveness.
"I want to draw a food chain map of New York's underground forces."
Lin Ent picked up the map from the floor, spread it out on the table again, and pressed it flat with his palm.
"Prying open their mouths is just the beginning."
"I want to know which one is a fish, which one is a wolf, and which one is a shark in human skin."
His voice was not loud, but it carried a madness that made Raven feel a chill in her heart.
"And we, Raven…"
He looked up, his eyes filled with an ambition that could devour everything.
"We are not hunters."
"We will become the Gods who set the rules for the hunt."
Raven thought he was crazy.
Starting with three street thugs to control the entire New York underworld? What kind of convoluted idiotic plan was this?
But… the suggestion of the experiment, that madness of manipulating everything in the palm of his hand… she was, damn it, a little excited.
"You're a lunatic."
She concluded.
"Perhaps."
Lin Ent smiled, this was the effect he wanted.
To use a game she couldn't refuse to crush her low-level survival logic of grabbing and running.
Raven stuck out her tongue, licking her lips, a glint of bloodlust flashing in her golden pupils.
She lowered her voice, leaning forward.
"I have hundreds of ways to make them cough up their guts. Which one do you want?"
This reaction, perfect score.
She was hooked.
Seduced.
"I don't need them to speak."
Lin Ent grinned, smiling like a devil.
"I want you to use the most primal method to make them spill everything."
"With fear, with pain, with the deepest despair in their bones."
He leaned close to her ear, his voice as soft as a snake's hiss.
"I want you to become their deepest fear."
"It could be the monster hiding under the bed when they were kids, it could be the enemy they just killed yesterday, or even… their mother with a cleaver catching them cheating."
"I want you to become their nightmare itself."
In Raven's golden pupils, a true flame finally ignited.
It was excitement!
That ultimate excitement when the prey finally bares its fangs, making the hunt incredibly interesting!
Lin Ent could feel all her muscles tense, like a fully drawn bow.
"Let me see,"
His voice held a playful tone, like inspecting a weapon, as he gently caressed her cheek.
"The blade I've sharpened for so long…"
"Just how fast it is."
Raven didn't answer.
She merely turned.
Her blue figure silently melted into the Shadows of the room.
One second.
Two seconds.
Downstairs, the first extremely short scream came.
Like a rat, its throat instantly crushed.
Lin Ent didn't look.
He just slowly closed his eyes, tilting his head back slightly, revealing a satisfied smile.
Listening to his blade, in this slaughterhouse called Hell's Kitchen… make its first sound.
The crisp, pleasant… sound of sharpening.