Rage X Sick Cat X Answer
Time seemed to freeze inside the tin shack.
Bo Tong stood there clutching the left side of his face. Half his face was swollen and burning, and the stinging pain in his palm and the numbness in his cheek took turns sending the same message.
He had really been slapped!
"How dare you...!!"
Before the words were out, Bo Tong fought to suppress the rage in his chest that was nearly ready to explode. He clenched his teeth, grinding his back teeth together with a faint, grating sound.
The contempt and composure in his eyes were gone, replaced by killing intent suppressed to its limit, a hair's breadth from pouring out.
But he didn't move.
He knew he was in the Rust Remains Alliance's stronghold, and the consequences of attacking would be unthinkable.
Even with the Dawn Society behind him, his own strength was sorely lacking.
Bo Tong took a deep breath and forced down the rage rising in his throat, then raised a hand and pointed at Jiang Ye, his fingertip trembling.
"Leader of the Rust Remains Alliance, is this your answer?!"
The words came through his clenched teeth, forced calm masking the humiliation he had suffered.
"Do you know... you're bringing disaster down on the entire Rust Remains Alliance!"
"Just you wait. I'll report everything that happened today to Chairman Nubia, without leaving out a single word."
"Then you can face his wrath!"
When he finished, a bloodstreaked smile stretched across his lips, as though he could already see the scene.
The Rust Remains Alliance's flag was torn to pieces and burned.
Jiang Ye knelt before the bulletproof steel plates of the old bank in the Fifth District.
Nubia came down the steps and looked down at him... as though looking at a crushed insect.
But the next moment, Jiang Ye smiled.
That inexplicable smile made the hairs on Bo Tong's back stand on end.
"Sorry, I don't usually laugh."
Jiang Ye tilted his head.
"Unless... I really can't help it."
He took half a step forward, and the shadow beneath him crept an inch forward with him.
The edge of the shadow slowly began to rise and deform, a shape bulging out of the flat black layer.
First came the low-slung head of a beast, followed by its shoulders, forelegs and back. At last, the outline of a giant crouching wolf took shape, lying quietly at his side, a single command away from fully materializing.
"Face Nubia's wrath?"
Jiang Ye repeated the words in an indifferent tone.
"His wrath, to me..."
He paused, his gaze falling on Bo Tong's clenched fists.
"Is no different from a fart."
At those words, Bo Tong's pupils contracted sharply.
"You...!"
He instinctively wanted to retort, but Jiang Ye gave him no chance to cut in.
"Do you know who I met not long ago?"
Bo Tong's Adam's apple bobbed, and he asked instinctively.
"...Who?"
Jiang Ye raised his eyes to him, his tone calm.
"Grey Elder."
The instant those words landed, Bo Tong felt as though someone had gripped his heart in a crushing fist.
Grey Elder!
District 13's newly appointed full elder!
It was a name the Dawn Society's three chairmen had repeatedly mentioned in recent internal meetings. Chairman Jiliu had even personally drafted a carefully worded request for a meeting, intending to offer a stable supply line in exchange for Grey Elder's verbal promise.
They wanted to plant a needle in District 13, and whether they could drive it in depended entirely on Grey Elder's approval.
And now Jiang Ye was standing in front of him, saying...
He had met Grey Elder?!
And he had returned unscathed, continuing to consolidate territory and expand his influence, building a gang gathered from drifters into a growing power.
What did that mean?
Bo Tong's mind raced at that moment, and he instantly understood one fact.
Grey Elder had tacitly accepted his presence.
Perhaps it was even more than tacit acceptance.
Someone like Grey Elder never did anything without a benefit. The fact that he had met Jiang Ye and hadn't made a move could mean only one thing.
Jiang Ye, or the Rust Remains Alliance itself, had already been placed on Grey Elder's game board for good!
He hadn't been wiped out.
So he was the piece allowed to remain on the board.
Having figured all this out, Bo Tong suddenly felt a deep chill shoot up from the soles of his feet.
What he had just said about Chairman Nubia coming after Jiang Ye now sounded like a joke.
No matter how strong Nubia was, he was only a chairman, a powerful man who had retired from the Elders' Guard.
At the end of the day, he was really just a bodyguard.
Grey Elder, on the other hand, was an elder.
He was the one sitting across the table dealing the cards, someone Nubia couldn't possibly compare to.
Bo Tong opened his mouth, but all the threats, warnings and intimidation he had prepared were now stuck at the back of his tongue. He couldn't force out a single word.
An eerie silence settled over the shack for several seconds.
Iron Wall stood to one side, a rare expression of confusion on his rugged face.
He didn't quite understand why Grey Elder's name had made Bo Tong turn deathly pale, but he could sense that the tide had completely turned.
Jiang Ye didn't wait for Bo Tong to recover before speaking again.
"In your eyes, Nubia is beyond reach."
His voice wasn't loud, yet each word hammered into Bo Tong's ears.
"But in my eyes..."
He paused, the smile still on his lips.
"He's nothing but a sick cat throwing its weight around."
As Jiang Ye said this, a thought surfaced in his mind.
To put it nicely, Nubia was a chairman of the Dawn Society. To put it bluntly, he was nothing more than a slightly stronger Nen user.
Compared with the Phantom Troupe and the Council of Elders, the Nubia card simply wasn't worth another half second of consideration.
Face Nubia's wrath?
As Jiang Ye saw it, the matter was about as serious as the slap Iron Wall had just delivered.
No pain, no itch!
Seeing that nothing could sway Jiang Ye, Bo Tong's expression darkened completely.
His lips moved several times as he repeatedly weighed his words. At last, he forced out a sentence with the last of his stubbornness.
"Don't think I don't know... elders are there to maintain a balance of power."
His voice no longer sounded as confident as before. He sounded more like a man clinging to his last piece of driftwood, desperately trying to prove he hadn't sunk to the bottom yet.
"Elder Grey only allows you to develop here. He isn't acting as your backing!"
"Chairman Nubia is still someone you can never defeat."
"If you still don't know what's good for you, don't blame me for reporting this to my superiors!"
He stared at Jiang Ye and asked his final question, enunciating every word.
"I'll ask one last time. Is this your answer?!"
Wind poured into the shack through gaps in the tin, stirring the edges of the rags piled in the corner with a rustle.
Jiang Ye didn't answer.
He simply raised both hands slowly.
His fingers overlapped, thumbs raised and fingers spread to form the outline of a canine's open mouth.
The shadow of his hands fell on the wall, casting the silhouette of a wolf's head held high.
The next second, the shadow beneath him surged and swelled.
A giant black-and-white shadow shot up from the ground. Before Bo Tong's retinas could even register its outline, claws had already swept past with a shriek of tearing air.
Shk!
A muffled sound.
Before Bo Tong's expression could change from challenge to terror, his head had already separated from his neck and spun twice through the air.
A line of blood traced a half arc along its spinning path, then landed on the ground with a dull thud.
The headless body fell heavily backward, the back of its head striking the armrest of an old wooden chair with a dull thump. It then slid down along the chair back and collapsed on the shack floor.
Jiang Ye lowered his hands. Divine Dog: Totality slowly crouched beside him, its black-and-white fur unstained by a single drop of blood. A low rumble rolled through its throat, as though it had merely yawned.
He looked at the head that had rolled into the corner, his voice so calm that no fluctuation of emotion could be heard.
"That's right."
"This is my answer."