"Spare me, sir! I surrender, I submit! From now on, I'm yours!"
Baldhead was dragged before Hawkins and immediately began begging for mercy, terrified that Hawkins would kill him without a word.
A true man could bend and stretch. He knew his own strengths and weaknesses very well. If they had fought underground, he would not have feared even a hundred Hawkinses. The problem was that Hawkins had the ability to flip the table, dragging both him and Mark out from underground.
It was like a fish leaving the water—no matter how capable it was, it could not outplay the angler.
Mark sneered. "Weren't you pretty arrogant just now? What was that about thinking that holding a Cursed Relic meant you could do whatever you wanted? Looks like you're the same. Can you still do whatever you want with a Cursed Relic now?"
"No, no. We can count it as no fight, no acquaintance. Let's be friends. My name is Xiao Yaojin!" Baldhead said with an awkward laugh.
Mark smacked Xiao Yaojin's bald head and said flatly, "What kind of ridiculous name is that? And... who said you were my friend?"
"Hehe, now that we know each other, aren't we?" Xiao Yaojin rubbed his head and smiled ingratiatingly.
Hawkins could not help laughing. The pronunciation of that name was practically "Fairy," wasn't it?
Though the two were not homophones in this world, that did not stop Hawkins from finding it funny.
The meaning of Xiao Yaojin's name should have been something like "steadfast treasure mountain," a very masculine name. But when transliterated, it became Xiao Yaojin, though it could also be rendered as Fairy...
"Alright. Since you've fallen into my hands, you can be spared the death penalty, but you won't escape punishment. As for how to deal with you, I'll consider it after I settle Black Market Island." Hawkins looked at Fairy—no, Xiao Yaojin—and spoke calmly.
Xiao Yaojin wanted to beg for mercy again, but Hawkins tossed him straight into a ripple.
After dealing with Xiao Yaojin, Hawkins carried Mark down to the ground. Great quantities of soil rained down from the sky, filling the huge pit.
"Captain, is that it? What about the mastermind behind this?" Mark looked at the corpses on the ground and could not help asking.
Hawkins looked toward the tallest building on Black Market Island and smiled. "Hasn't the answer already come out?"
"Who is it?"
Mark felt as though he could not keep up with Hawkins's train of thought.
Hawkins slowly walked toward the Dalton Hotel, explaining as he went, "Who on the entire Black Market Island do you think could mobilize all the killers and assassins to hunt us down?"
"Robuchi!" Mark answered with certainty.
Hawkins suspected that Mark was playing dumb, but seeing no flaw in Mark's expression, he smiled. "Although Robuchi holds enormous sway over killers, he is ultimately only a middleman. The one who can truly make killers excited, even make them throw themselves into danger without a care for their lives, is..."
"A woman—Vanessa!" Mark immediately blurted out.
Hawkins fell silent for a moment, then continued, "The answer is money. Why do killers become killers? Naturally, for money. And on Black Market Island, who has the most money and can make all the killers risk their lives to hunt us down?"
"Vanessa. She's a smuggler, so she must be insanely rich!" Mark insisted.
Hawkins knocked Mark on the head and said flatly, "It's Dalton!"
The careless chatter of those killers had inadvertently revealed plenty of information, such as the price on his head and the price on Mark's head. There were absolutely not many people who could afford such a sum.
Whether Robuchi or Vanessa, although both could afford it, doing so would definitely leave them badly depleted. Thus, Hawkins had immediately ruled them out.
At that moment, Hawkins stopped walking.
Mark looked ahead and saw a middle-aged man in a red Dark Trench Coat walk out of an alley before them, blocking their path.
"Robuchi?"
Hawkins was not entirely certain.
He knew there was a man named Robuchi, but he had never met him.
Robuchi raised his head and said darkly, "Hawkins, Son of Pirates, do you know how much effort I spent raising those useless bastards? And you dared to kill every last one of them!!"
"Should I have stood there obediently and let them take my head?" Hawkins could not help laughing.
"Enough. I'm busy. If you want to trade insults, sorry for the trouble, go find someone else. If you want to die, then make your move." Hawkins lost interest in Robuchi.
Robuchi sneered. Suddenly, cockroaches, centipedes, geckos, ants, and bees surged in from all directions like dense waves.
These insects had originally been hidden behind the buildings surrounding the street. Clearly, Robuchi had prepared long ago.
"Help! I have trypophobia!" Mark cried out when he saw the insects swarming toward them.
If these insects had merely been ordinary insects, Mark would naturally have had nothing to fear with Curse Power protecting his body. But something was wrong with them. Mark could sense that every one of these insects carried curses.
How had they even been raised?
Hawkins was also shocked. As had been mentioned before, the larger a creature's body, the stronger its resistance to curses.
Conversely, the smaller the body, the weaker its resistance to curses would certainly be.
A Cursed Relic that was merely Good Grade on a human might be Death-Tier on a small animal. Seeing the densely packed cursed insects, Hawkins was truly stunned.
But now was not the time to stand around in a daze.
Hawkins grabbed Mark by the clothes and hurled him directly into Eternal Space. Then the air around him suddenly compressed, creating a violent gale.
Though these insects carried curses, they were ultimately too small. Under the biting gale, every one of them was blown away.
Hawkins took the opportunity to close in on Robuchi and drove a fist toward his abdomen. Yet Robuchi revealed a strange smile, opened his mouth, and spat out a long centipede. It immediately coiled around Hawkins's hand, its venomous fangs piercing into Hawkins's arm.
In an instant, one of Hawkins's arms was corroded by venom, and all the curses beneath his skin liquefied.
"Son of Pirates, you are no match for me."
"I have operated in the Black Market for twenty-five years. This is my territory. Even if a Lord came to the Black Market, they might not be my match."
"If I'm not mistaken, you are special, just like those Lords, aren't you?"
"I discovered long ago that people like you seem to possess some invisible power capable of defending against all attacks. Even the vast majority of Cursed Relics cannot harm you. So I kept thinking: if my enemies were special people like you, what should I do?" Robuchi looked at Hawkins and slowly smiled.
Hawkins suddenly understood. Robuchi clearly did not know about Curse Casters, but he knew that Curse Casters possessed the trait of Curse Power protecting their bodies, so he had specifically devised a way to break through that defense.
"So... what did you do?" Hawkins looked at Robuchi and asked.
A great number of venomous insects crawled out from Robuchi's body. He placed a spider on his index finger and looked at it. "I can control insects. I discovered a secret."
"What secret?" Seeing him pause, Hawkins followed his lead and asked.
Robuchi suddenly laughed. "You think I'll tell you? I said all that nonsense only to buy time, so I could summon more venomous insects. And now... even if you grew wings, you couldn't escape... Die!"
A high-frequency vibration sounded from every direction.
Thirty seconds later, a sky-covering swarm of flying insects swept in—locusts, bees, flying ants, cockroaches, mantises, and even many insects unique to this world.
For example, flying centipedes with wings, as well as a kind of serpentine worm even more disgusting than centipedes.
The densely packed insects directly wrapped the entire street into a circle.
Just as Robuchi had said, even if Hawkins grew wings, he could not escape now.
All of these insects had been tainted by curses. The effects of those curses were still unknown, but since they bore curses, they undoubtedly possessed some kind of ability.
Recalling how a single bite had directly crippled his arm, Hawkins guessed that it was related to poison.
A venom capable of breaking through Curse Power?
Hawkins's thoughts stirred. The next moment, electric currents gathered behind his back, forming a halo.
He rose from the ground and said flatly, "If insects are all you have, then I'm afraid killing me may be a little difficult."
Honestly, without Mother, dealing with so many cursed insects would have been quite troublesome.
But with Mother's computing power, Hawkins had plenty of methods.
When the insects drew close, their wings suddenly burst into flames. In the blink of an eye, they fell to the ground, and quickly burned up.
Hawkins looked at Robuchi and smiled. "Can you tell me what that secret is now?"
"What's in the air?"
Robuchi said nothing. His eyes continually swept over the surroundings, yet he failed to find the culprit behind the insects catching fire.
He did not know what high-frequency electromagnetic waves were, so he could not understand Hawkins's method at all.
But seeing that the insects had died because they caught fire, a thought came to him, and many heat-resistant insects rapidly rushed over.
At that moment, his pupils suddenly contracted. Hawkins's arm, which had just been corroded by venom, had actually grown back.
"Don't want to talk? Then I'll just take a look myself!" Hawkins suddenly said.
The next moment, he appeared at Robuchi's side. His Hand Blade instantly struck Robuchi's nape. In Hawkins's eyes, Robuchi was far too slow. Once he got serious, Robuchi had no way to defend against his sneak attack.
Before Robuchi could react, his eyes rolled back and he immediately fainted.
His unconsciousness caused all the insects to go berserk, but any insect that entered a certain range around Hawkins immediately caught fire and died.
Hawkins could create magnetic fields, so naturally he could also create microwave fields.
If he had not deliberately controlled it, even Robuchi would have been instantly burned, perhaps even burned alive.
At that moment, strands of his hair pierced into Robuchi's cervical vertebrae. Before long, he read a massive amount of information and gradually smiled.
Robuchi's method of raising insects was actually somewhat like cultivating venomous parasites.
Simply put, it was survival of the fittest, victory through numbers.
He placed huge numbers of insects onto Cursed Relics. The insects that died became food, while those that survived continuously reproduced, thereby creating insects capable of surviving under curses.
These insects possessed the abilities of Cursed Relics. Under his control, they were scattered around Black Market Island, and anyone who landed on Black Market Island could not escape his eyes.