“Move it, move it, carry all the goods inside. The boss said our sales have been great lately. As long as we make a few more big profits, every one of you will get dividends then!”

A woman in a crisp suit with gold-rimmed glasses, dressed like a professional secretary, issued orders to the people around her.

“Dividends?”

The Black Tiger Gang cadres, dressed in suits like upper-hive office workers, looked at one another.

Greed surged in everyone’s eyes.

“Yes and not just credits.”

The secretary glanced at the time on the projection screen and said in a deep voice, “Tonight’s promotion event is the main show. As long as everyone handles it well, the boss will even help you get a path to register residency in the upper hive.”

““Register residency in the upper hive?!””

The group of underlings felt their blood surge with excitement.

It was no wonder they couldn’t stay calm.

The promise coming from the secretary was simply too tempting.

Registering residency in the upper hive was practically the dream of every lower city resident.

No need to worry about gang street wars.

No need to fear revenge from enemies.

No need to face that rotten stench that reeked of blood and decay every day.

There were far too many reasons the upper hive made people flock to it.

“The boss said it.”

Seeing her underlings already itching from just a few words, the secretary struck while the iron was hot.

“As long as we finish this job, they can obtain upper-hive citizen status. When that happens, it won’t be a dream for them to officially register our Black Tiger Company as a legal corporation! By then the boss will be the CEO. And each of you will be company executives.”

The secretary patted the notebook she was holding, as if hinting at something.

“Now, let’s see how everyone’s results look.”

Swish swish swish!

One Black Tiger Gang cadre after another enthusiastically uploaded their lists.

“I’ve successfully sold the goods to more than two hundred people. This is their test data!”

“Heh, your Group Eight used loan sharks and threats to squeeze that many people and only got data from two hundred. Let me tell you, our group has already locked down five hundred!”

Those cadres who usually strutted around the district in suits, acting lofty and superior, were now just like vendors in a market screaming themselves hoarse.

They argued nonstop with absolutely none of that elite air.

After recording every list one by one on paper, the secretary nodded in satisfaction.

Then she looked at the guards beside her, wearing combat suits and fully armed.

“Alright then. Each group come collect this week’s new stock.”

Click.

Under the guards’ watchful aim with energy guns, the Black Tiger Gang cadres stepped forward one by one to receive lockboxes.

“Hehe, our group’s results have taken first place for several rounds in a row. At this rate, once the boss really takes off later, I’ll rise with her too.”

“The upper hive…”

‘Naive.’

Blended into the shadows, using footwork to completely seal off his presence so that no one could sense him without military-grade detection radar, Li Chen watched this farce like an onlooker enjoying a show.

‘Rise with her? You’re dreaming.’

Li Chen shook his head slightly.

‘Even if that Black Tiger Gang boss really can obtain upper-hive citizen status and legitimize her business. The first thing she’ll do after that will be to purge all the old hands in the company.’

He stated their ending with absolute certainty and coldness.

Back then when the game version had just updated and opened the new upper-hive map, the major guilds happily moved in.

Then they discovered that in the eyes of those arrogant upper-class people, there was no possibility of accepting mud-born outsiders like them.

Unless… they offered a pledge of loyalty and washed away the filth on their bodies.

And what pledge of loyalty could compare to sacrificing the good sisters who had once lived and died beside them?

Even though he was a solo player, Li Chen had still heard plenty of stories about guilds tearing each other apart because of that update.

Several guilds that had once dominated the rankings even vanished completely because of it.

‘Put that way, if I wipe out the Black Tiger Gang today, maybe I’m actually helping those ‘sisters’ strengthen their bond.’

Li Chen curled his lips in mockery, yet his hands did not slow at all as he began recording everything in front of him.

A high-spec recorder captured their ugliness with perfect clarity.

Especially what was inside those suitcases.

It looked like something with outstanding effects.

In reality, it completely ignored the user’s health.

No, it could even be said it deliberately amplified side effects.

All for the sake of collecting experimental data.

A sinful thing.

‘Heh, Xiao Meng, Xiao Meng. So this is how you create a new order?’

Li Chen stared at everything before him in pain, feeling as if his heart were being carved apart.

He was truly wrong.

At this moment, Li Chen’s heart finally died.

If Lin Caining kicking him out of the mercenary group and Daili firing him from the company could still be explained away as simply how the Hive City was.

Then what about Xiao Mengya?

What about her, the one he had rescued from that forbidden laboratory, saving her from the original story’s fate of becoming a major villain who brought disaster to the Hive City and was ultimately hunted down and killed by players?

‘I originally thought you stole that treasure that could change aptitude and transform someone completely because I filled your head with radical ideas and you went a little off the rails. But, but… Maybe I was truly wrong.’

Li Chen shook his head in grief.

‘The current you is no different from those top-hive conglomerate oligarchs.’

Back then, after being betrayed again and again by female leads, Li Chen cracked and hit a dead end that pushed him into radical thinking.

Why did Lin Caining, the childhood sweetheart who had once been close with him and that conglomerate illegitimate daughter he had helped during her lowest moment both cut him off the moment they rose to power?

Maybe it had something to do with them personally.

But what mattered more was this cruel Hive City.

What was wrong wasn’t them.

It was the Hive City’s order.

They were simply assimilated.

If that was the case, then let him destroy this rotten order.

But he could never do it alone.

That was fine.

As a transmigrator, Li Chen had plenty of methods.

For example, that major villain from the original story.

So, relying on his advantage of knowing the plot, Li Chen abducted the perfect weapon test subject that the top-hive conglomerates had pinned their hopes on, created using massive investment and pre-civilization singularity technology inside a secret laboratory.

* * *

Boom!

Inside the white laboratory where flames shot into the sky, a slender figure drenched in blood rose from a culture tank.

Short emerald-green hair carried the scent of fresh grass.

From her dazed face came murmurs with unclear meaning.

Li Chen tightly hugged the girl and rushed through the raging fire.

“...Dad?”

The girl woke in confusion.

A clear glow shimmered in her hazy eyes like fireflies.

“Not your dad.”

Li Chen scratched his head, feeling amused by her cuteness even though in the original story she had brought players immense pressure and was once believed impossible to defeat.

“Mengya.”

Li Chen patted her head.

“Starting today, I’m your master.”

* * *

After that, the two of them depended on each other to survive.

Li Chen seized all kinds of resources and poured them into her, raising her and helping her grow.

Xiao Mengya did not disappoint him.

In just a few years, she grew into a ninth-tier powerhouse.

With a top expert backing him, Li Chen also obtained countless returns.

The most important one was the treasure from the original story that could defy fate and greatly improve martial aptitude.

The Life Gemstone.

But at the exact moment Li Chen obtained that gem and happily discovered his aptitude rising rapidly…

What greeted him was Xiao Mengya’s unforgettable betrayal.

It hurt.

‘Actually, I wasn’t angry at first.’

Li Chen murmured, “After all, I’m just a useless martial arts cripple. That I could seize this pre-civilization core relic treasure from so many super experts was also thanks to her. By that logic, letting the gemstone belong to her isn’t necessarily bad. Even later when you kicked me out of the organization I founded with my own hands, I didn’t blame you.”

Looking at crate after crate about to be pushed into the market and harm who knows how many ordinary, pitiful, innocent people like the worker he saw earlier, Li Chen’s voice grew more and more grief-stricken.

“But you never should have used innocent people as stepping stones for your career.”

Hoo.

Li Chen took a deep breath and steadied his emotions.

‘But this is really embarrassing.’

Li Chen shook his head and mocked himself for losing control just now.

‘The disciple who used to follow behind me all day has now become the mastermind behind a plot like this. And my martial arts have actually regressed instead of improving.’

Clang.

Gripping his alloy steel saber, Li Chen crouched down, coiled to strike.

He waited for the moment the Black Tiger Gang members revealed an opening.

Then he would move and knock all of them down.

Tap tap.

But right as he was about to act, crisp high heels approached and disrupted his plan.

‘When did she get here?’

Li Chen tensed up.

Those footsteps belonged to a martial artist.

And a fairly high-level one.

She actually managed to evade the detection radar on him.

Could it be that Black Tiger Gang boss, the fourth-tier martial practitioner?

“Boss?”

The secretary looked toward the warehouse door.

Then she hurried with quick little steps to the side of a richly dressed noblewoman who entered the warehouse.

The woman was dripping with jewelry, her face caked in heavy makeup and she had an elegant-looking teenage boy in her arms.

The secretary bowed.

“Big Sis!”

The cadres present immediately straightened up and greeted her in unison.

As expected.

Li Chen narrowed his eyes.

“...”

Facing her subordinates’ respectful greetings, the Black Tiger Gang boss’s expression sank.

“What’s going on?”

She raised her cane and brought it down on the secretary without mercy.

Thud...

The dull sound echoed through the empty warehouse.

“B-boss?”

The secretary was full of confusion, yet she did not dare say much.

She only bent at the waist and said respectfully, “May I ask what I’ve done inadequately. Please instruct me, boss.”

“Hehehe.”

The noblewoman clicked her tongue in contempt.

“I knew it. If I’m not personally here, you can’t handle a single thing properly. You didn’t even realize a rat slipped into your own territory?”

As she spoke, she wiped the playful grin off her face.

Her sharp gaze stabbed straight at where Li Chen was hiding.

‘What bad luck.’

Li Chen hadn’t expected that a routine smuggling run of illegal drugs would bring the gang boss out in person.

‘Looks like this will be a hard fight. But why… do I feel even more excited instead?’

Li Chen felt his blood boil with a long-lost heat.

How long had it been?

Since Bai Wei took him in, how long had it been since he’d faced a battle that felt truly satisfying?

In the end…

‘I’m a martial artist too.’

Clang—

A saber flash burst forth as it lunged straight for the Black Tiger Gang boss.

Red Lotus Saber Art, activate!