Darius had no idea that, at this very moment, a large-scale operation was unfolding across multiple venues under the Black Hounds’ control. His attention was fixed elsewhere, his confidence unshaken. In his mind, there were only two locations that mattered tonight, and of those two, one in particular was completely secure.
That venue was under Vivian’s watch.
Vivian was not just another member of the Black Hounds. She was the strategist, the tactician, the one who operated behind the scenes and ensured that chaos always unfolded exactly as planned. While Darius was the face and Jett was the hammer, Vivian was the mind that made their victories inevitable. If she was present, things did not spiral out of control.
At least, that was what Darius believed.
But tonight, for the first time in a long while, Vivian was struggling.
On the rooftop venue of a luxury hotel, the air was thick with tension and the smell of sweat and blood. This was supposed to be a clean operation. Controlled. Predictable. Fighters were meant to fall one after another, crushed beneath carefully planned matchups and pressure.
Instead, several individuals had done the impossible.
They had beaten the odds.
Match after match, fighters who should have been eliminated early were still standing. Wolf, Joe, and Chad had continued to advance, disrupting every projection Vivian had made. At first, she had been irritated. Then frustrated. Now, she was genuinely annoyed.
She had already tried intervening directly.
Joe had been attacked before his match, an underhanded move meant to weaken him just enough to ensure defeat. When that hadn’t worked, Vivian had escalated the situation further, forcing Joe into a tag-team match alongside Chad. Two exhausted fighters against opponents chosen specifically to overwhelm them.
And yet, they still won.
That was when Vivian had made her next move.
With calculated cruelty, she had kicked Chad down into the fighting pit, forcing him into the chaos below. Now, all three of them, Joe, Chad, and Wolf, were trapped together in the same space.
To Vivian, this was no longer a problem.
It was an opportunity.
The venue was packed. Fighters. Bodyguards. Mercenaries hired by wealthy clients. Members of the Black Hounds themselves. People who lived for violence and profit. Even fresh fighters who hadn’t yet stepped into the ring were present, watching, waiting.
No matter how strong the three of them were, no matter how many fights they had survived already, Vivian was confident.
They couldn’t possibly take on everyone .
Standing at the top of the stage, Vivian raised her hand. Her voice carried clearly through the venue as she made her declaration.
A bounty.
If Joe, Chad, and Wolf were defeated, ten million would be paid out.
Ten million.
For most of the people present, it was a life-changing amount of money. Enough to buy freedom. Power. Status. Enough to justify any amount of violence.
The moment the words left her mouth, something changed in the crowd.
Eyes lit up.
Smiles spread.
Without hesitation, fighters began jumping down into the pit, one after another, drawn by nothing but greed.
"So do you have a plan for this, or what?" Chad shouted, his voice strained as he watched men land around them. "You had to have predicted this could happen, right?!"
Wolf didn’t answer immediately.
The men who had jumped down were already charging toward them, cracking their knuckles, grinning as if they were already counting their money.
"Well, I can’t say I didn’t expect it," Wolf finally said, his tone calm despite the chaos. "I just thought it was unlikely."
He glanced upward briefly, toward where Vivian stood, her expression unreadable.
"When it comes to mind games, she’s S-rank, no doubt about that," Wolf continued. "But her confidence... that’s what might hold her back."
Wolf scanned their surroundings quickly. Normally, when outnumbered, fighters would retreat toward a wall or corner, forcing enemies to approach from only one direction. Narrow spaces turned numbers into a disadvantage.
But this pit offered no such luxury.
People were dropping in from every side.
"We have to stick close together," Wolf shouted. "Attack aggressively, then pull back to the center. Take down as many as we can, but don’t let anyone get behind us!"
"And what about me?!" Chad yelled. "Do I just stick next to one of you guys and pray?!"
"Chad," Wolf snapped, already moving, "you’re going to have to throw your own damn punches!"
Wolf burst forward first.
He leapt into the air, twisting his body and kicking two attackers square in the face before they even had time to react. Landing smoothly, he rolled onto his back, spun his legs, and swept another fighter off his feet, sending him crashing hard into the floor.
Joe followed immediately.
With his healing ability active, Joe didn’t hesitate. He charged straight into the densest cluster of enemies, arms raised. A punch slammed into his ribs, but he ignored it completely, driving a jab into one attacker’s face before pivoting and delivering two brutal strikes to another man’s chin.
Pain flared, but Joe endured it.
He forced himself forward, then leapt back, regaining footing before snapping out a clean jab-cross combination that dropped yet another opponent.
They were holding their ground, but only barely. The problem wasn’t skill. It was numbers.
Even when Wolf and Joe knocked fighters to the ground, many of them weren’t staying down. These weren’t amateurs. Unless someone was fully knocked out, they would rise again, staggering but still dangerous.
Meanwhile, Chad had hesitated.
He hadn’t rushed forward like the other two. Instead, he stayed alert, watching their movements carefully. He noticed something important.
When Wolf and Joe attacked and then retreated, they weren’t always moving back to the same position. That meant gaps. That meant danger.
Before Chad could shout a warning, someone rushed him.
"NO!" Chad yelled, ducking just in time as a punch whistled through the air above his head.
The attacker overextended. Chad didn’t hesitate.
Dropping low, he drove his fist upward into one of the most vulnerable places a man could be hit. The attacker collapsed instantly, gasping, clutching himself as he fell.
But there was no time to celebrate. More were coming.
Chad turned and sprinted back toward Wolf and Joe, heart pounding.
"Can’t you just offer them more money than what she’s offering?!" Chad shouted desperately. "Or something?!"
Wolf stopped moving.
"Wait a second," he said.
In the middle of the chaos, with bodies charging and fists flying, Wolf’s eyes narrowed, not in panic, but in calculation. That was when it clicked. Vivian had made a critical assumption. She believed fear and greed would overwhelm reason.
She believed numbers alone would decide the outcome. But she had forgotten one thing. People like this didn’t fight for loyalty. They fought for profit. And profit could be manipulated. Wolf’s lips curled into a faint, dangerous smile.