MIDNIGHT PRINCE: Empire of Sin

A few minutes after Adam left the premise of the battlefield, a black man with a cigar in his mouth wearing a pair of black glasses and a black coat appeared not far from the scene alongside a few more behind him.

He looked at the scene with a face that gradually scrunched up the more he deciphered the contents and happenings of the battlefield.

The subordinate went forward and took a look at the deceased man's body before shaking their head and calling their leader to deliver the bad news.

[Falcon is also dead.]

The man took out the cigar from his mouth and let out a strained sigh, puffing up a great deal of smoke into the air.

"Smoker. what do we do now?"

Smoker, the leader of this small mercenary group, looked at the dead bodies of his companions once again and couldn't help but click his tongue with sadness and frustration.

A few hours ago they had been drinking together and talking about how they might retire and live without the risk of the job always behind them, targeting their heads and spreading terror into their souls. But now, his friends are all dead. It was a comeuppance for them.

But he wasn't just mourning at this moment.

"Diary. What do you see."

A woman wearing a black dress advanced and gave her opinion, "The target had help. Falcon recorded the altercation. We will have enough then. But I believe the one who helped the target managed to kill all of them simultaneously. There is not even a trace of struggle. So their death was instantaneous and swift. They were probably overpowered."

This was worrying, Smoker thought in his mind. This would mean the enemy had some wide-area skills. There was a limit to what they could do while operating in LA.

The LAPPD and the affiliates generally didn't interfere with what they did but this only went on as long as they did not take things too far.

"What about, Knight?"

"I believe he wasn't dead when he was taken away. But from the amount of blood, then he doesn't have much time to live on either. He will most likely also get tortured until he dies or blurts out every piece of information the torturer wants from them."

"I see…"

They stayed silent. They had no fear of being betrayed. They rarely shared their personal information and in the first place, they had all received training to last at least a few days even with torture.

"This was my mistake. I should have come with them."

"Boss…"

Smoker raised a hand to stop them from giving him undue pity. "Send their part of the money to their families and activate the retirement plans we already have for them."

Mercenaries could die at any moment. For those who had a family to protect, such measures were basically necessary if they didn't want their family to live in poverty. This was why each time they would prepare life insurance and the like to make sure the mercenaries can fight without worrying.

"Let's go."

"Boss, do we give up on the job?"

"We will try to recuperate Knight and if impossible we shall dispose of him. Either ways, we will need to leave L.A."

They looked at each other and nodded their heads in understanding. The best would be to leave now but they knew they would also wish to be saved from torture if something like this happened to the too.

"Tracker. Do your job."

The man called tracker was a muscular man. He growled before crouching down on all fours and sniffing the blood on the ground.

He caught the odor of the target and slowly advanced until he finally caught the complete odor of the intruder.

They should be this way.

"What about the civilians?"

"They will unconsciously walk away from here. The veil is as impressive as always."

"Very well. Let's move and catch the two targets.

———

On Adam's side, alongside Natasha, the two of them found themselves in an abandoned factory with the barely breathing body of the surviving mercenary.

Adam breathed harshly as he realized an unintended side effect of his high willpower.

Currently, his eyes were throbbing. His brain hurt and he felt like his body was hollowed out even though he still had Prana running through his pathways. He realized that he had strained his mind too much when using Accelerated Perception.

All he wished right now was to faint here but his willpower did not allow him to do so. The constant pain was bothering him so much that he wished he could simply off himself now and wake up later.

But he did not wish to show this ability to Natasha. He trusted her but not enough to reveal his deepest secrets if he had any other choice.

'How did I manifest that skill?'

[Your willpower mixed with The Crown and the Third Eye brought this result. I believe the Eyes of Truth and The World also played a role.]

Adam breathed deeply. His head was hurting even more. He looked at Natasha as she was busy trying to stop the blood of the man with mangled limbs to die but Adam knew that he had been too heavy-handed in the heat.

"So now, will you tell me what the hell was that?"

He moved his mind away from the horror he committed. Kill or be killed. There was no other way in that situation.

"I do not know."

Natasha sighed, "Adam, firstly I would like to apologize, I wanted to have a talk with you but instead I put you in danger. I am sorry."

He frowned and waved his hand, "Don't worry about this and now tell me what we should do."

"We need to leave. I do not know who is targeting me. But whoever it is, there will be more. You seem to be in a bad state and I do not wish to fight a group of mercenaries without more knowledge."

"What about this man?"

"He died."

Adam gazed once again at the man and realized that his chest had stopped moving, realization sunk in and he sighed,

"I should have simply killed him."

Adam knew what it felt like to die in pain. He knew all too well, the fear and terror that would grip one heart as life slowly left you.

In those kinds of situations, a swift death was a mercy.

Natasha frowned as she looked at Adam.

She felt like she was receiving too many mixed messages from his scent. There was a mix of, fear, sadness, simple indifference, and even a hint of joy.

Those contrasting feelings were clearly affecting him and it confused her as it was like Adam was someone who had seen death but at the same time someone with no experience with it.

"I rested enough. Let's move."

"Very well."

It was then that alarm bells rang in both Adam's and Natasha's minds. One reacting thanks to his domain and the other with her sense.

Natasha's eyes widened when she felt Adam pushing her down before covering her entire body with his.

BOOM!!

What followed was an explosion of light and heat as the factory was entirely set on fire by an explosion.

(AN: Welp. We are playing GTA now.)