The night was torn apart.
Just as Ling Feng and Shi Lei's figures completely vanished into a distant, dark alley, the first muffled explosion erupted from Warehouse A of Scrap Relay Station No. 3.
It was followed by a second, and a third...
It was as if a slumbering behemoth was awakening in the depths of the warehouse, letting out roars of fury.
BOOM—!!!
Accompanied by a terrifying, deafening explosion that was powerful enough to make the entire Rust Belt tremble, the warehouse roof was violently ripped off and thrown into the air by a shockwave of pure energy!
A thick column of ethereal blue energy shot into the sky, briefly dyeing the eternal, dusky firmament of the Rust Belt a strange, daylight-like blue.
Countless shattered energy lattices, wrapped in flames and shockwaves, scattered in all directions like a magnificent meteor shower. They landed on the surrounding mountains of junk, triggering secondary and tertiary chain explosions.
In just a dozen seconds, the entire relay station was transformed into a raging, roaring inferno of blue electrical arcs and orange flames.
"Ho... ly... crap..."
On the top floor of an abandoned high-rise several kilometers away, Shi Lei stopped, panting, and looked back at the light that was brighter than the man-made sun. He was completely dumbstruck.
He had expected Ling Feng's final move to cause some chaos, but he had never imagined it would be such a... world-ending spectacle.
This wasn't just sabotage; this was like detonating a tactical nuke right in the Iron Fist Gang's face!
"Stop looking, let's go!" Ling Feng's voice snapped him out of his shock. Ling Feng's face was also pale, but he was much calmer than Shi Lei. "The explosion was too big. Soon, every gang in the Rust Belt, and even the security patrols from the civilian district, will be on the move. We have to disappear completely before they lock down all the routes."
Shi Lei shuddered and, without further hesitation, shouldered his heavy crate of energy lattices and followed Ling Feng into a hidden ventilation duct entrance inside the abandoned high-rise.
They didn't go back to the workshop.
That was the first and most necessary place they had to abandon.
Shi Lei's knowledge of the Rust Belt proved crucial at this moment. He led Ling Feng into the city's long-abandoned underground maintenance tunnels, a tangled web as complex as a spider's web.
This was the "sewer" of the Rust Belt, a forgotten world that even the gangs couldn't be bothered with.
After nearly an hour of navigating the damp, dark, and mutant-insect-infested tunnels, Shi Lei finally stopped at a fork. He activated a mechanism hidden in the wall, and a secret door, disguised as part of the wall, slowly opened.
"We're here," he said, his voice hoarse with fatigue.
Behind the door was a relatively dry, abandoned shelter of about thirty to forty square meters. This was clearly Shi Lei's most secret hideout, prepared long in advance. It was even stocked with some compressed biscuits and sealed drinking water.
The two heavily dropped the three crates of energy lattices on the floor and then collapsed beside them, gasping for air like two dehydrated fish.
Only then did the full emotional wave of post-disaster relief, a mixture of excitement and fear, truly wash over them.
"Did we..." Shi Lei looked at the three crates of spoils, which glowed with an enticing blue light in the darkness, then at Ling Feng, a smile that looked more pained than a sob on his face. "Did we actually succeed?"
"Yes." Ling Feng nodded, his gaze penetrating the thick walls of the shelter, looking out at the world that had been plunged into utter chaos. "We succeeded in setting this wasteland on fire."
Meanwhile, in the Rust Belt, at the headquarters of the Iron Fist Gang.
It was a menacing steel fortress converted from an old-era arsenal.
In the top-floor office, a man who was not burly, but rather lean, stood with his back to the floor-to-ceiling window, quietly polishing his pair of high-strength alloy fists that gleamed with a cold light.
He was the uncrowned king of this land—"Iron Fist" Buck.
BANG!
The office door was thrown open by a panicked subordinate.
"B-Boss! It's bad! Relay Station No. 3... Relay Station No. 3... has been blown up!"
Buck's movements didn't pause for a second.
He continued to slowly and methodically polish every knuckle of his iron fists with a silk cloth.
The pressure in the office, however, instantly dropped to freezing.
"What about Brute Bull?" Buck's voice was calm, so calm it was chilling.
"Brother Bull... he... when they found him, he was lying unconscious and charred black at the entrance of Warehouse A. The medics said... even if they can save him, his muscles and nerves are almost completely destroyed..." The subordinate's voice was already cracking with tears.
The polishing stopped.
Buck slowly turned around.
He had a gentle, scholarly face and even wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. But at this moment, behind those lenses, his eyes held no anger, no rage, only a pure, cold killing intent that was enough to freeze a man's soul.
He looked out the window at the blue glow that still hadn't faded from the night sky, as if admiring a beautiful painting.
"Increase the bounty. Tenfold."
He said softly, as if giving the most ordinary of commands.
"Fifty thousand credit points. I want him alive. I'm going to personally... crush every bone in his body, inch by inch, into dust."
"Send out my order. Lock down the entire Rust Belt! I don't care if you have to tear this place apart, find those two rats who dared to light a fire in my granary... and drag them out!"