These mutants possessed strength, speed, and defense far surpassing ordinary gang members. When the players fired their lasguns at them, it was incredibly difficult to deal lethal damage unless they repeatedly struck the exact same spot.
Solid-slug weapons were even less effective, as the carapace deflected most bullets.
The battle instantly went white-hot.
The players used their numerical advantage to swarm the mutants. Working in groups of three or four, one would draw aggro while the others targeted vulnerable spots like the joints or eyes.
Players were continuously torn apart by the bone claws, their bodies falling to the ground, but new players immediately stepped in to fill the gaps.
Die. Respawn. Fight again.
After undergoing multiple augmentations, combined with the game System capping their pain receptors at a maximum of 30%...
Their immunity to pain had drastically increased. They barely felt anything.
This was the most terrifying aspect of the players. They didn't fear pain, and they didn't fear death.
The gangs completely broke.
Watching these fearless, death-defying enemies slowly grind down the mutants—their ultimate trump card—their morale completely shattered.
"Run!"
Someone screamed. The surviving gang members threw down their weapons and fled deeper into the town.
Tax Bro didn't chase them.
He stood there, panting heavily, watching as the final mutant was focused fired by a dozen lasguns simultaneously, turning it into a smoking sieve.
The battle was over.
From the first shot to the end, it took exactly twenty-three minutes.
Player casualties... Tax Bro checked the System statistics.
[Casualties this battle: 187 players]
[Enemy Kills: Approx. 2,100 gang members, 13 mutants]
[Friendly Wounded: 89 severe, approx. 400 minor]
One hundred and eighty-seven lives.
Even though they could respawn, Tax Bro's heart still sank.
He shook his head, suppressing the emotion, and issued orders over the regional channel.
"Clean up the battlefield. Confiscate all weapons."
"Lock down all major intersections in town."
"White Scars, take your men and hunt down the rest of the gang members hiding in the town. Leave no survivors."
"Understood."
White Scars acknowledged the order and led the Crimson Wind players deep into the town.
Sporadic gunfire and screams soon followed.
Tax Bro turned and walked back to the transport truck.
Helovia was still sitting inside, her small face pressed against the window, her eyes wide.
Tax Bro pulled the door open.
"Were you scared?" he asked.
Helovia shook her head, then nodded slightly, whispering:
"A little... but I wasn't afraid." She paused, looking at the blood on Tax Bro's armor. "Uncle, you're hurt."
"Just a scratch." Tax Bro looked down. The armor on his left arm had been grazed by a laser, scorching a patch of plating and lightly burning the skin beneath. It wasn't serious.
He pulled a medkit from his inventory, sprayed some antiseptic on it, and slapped on a bio-bandage.
"Come on," Tax Bro reached out a hand. "Let's go see the place we just conquered."
Helovia hopped out of the truck, her tiny hand grabbing onto Tax Bro's thick fingers.
The two walked into Merida Town.
The environment here was slightly better than Red Town. At the very least, the streets were relatively clean and had basic drainage ditches.
The houses were also more uniformly built. Many were constructed from black iron ore waste rock, giving the deep brown walls a unique aesthetic.
But corpses littered the streets—both gang members and players.
The surviving gang members had been herded into the plaza by Crimson Wind. They knelt on the ground with their hands behind their heads, numbering around five or six hundred.
The town's residents had been gathered on the opposite side. It was a massive crowd, easily numbering eight or nine thousand.
Most of them were gaunt and sallow, their eyes numb, but they seemed to have a bit more... life in them than the people in Red Town?
Perhaps it was because the stable black iron mining operations here meant they at least wouldn't starve to death.
White Scars walked over from the other side of the plaza, carrying a dripping severed head.
"Boss of the Blood Scar Gang," he tossed the head onto the ground. "Put up a fight, so I butchered him. The rest of the ringleaders have been pretty much cleared out too."
Tax Bro nodded, looking at the kneeling gang members.
He didn't have Paul's Wisdom trait, but he had a good eye for spotting scum.
The viciousness and cruelty in these gang members' eyes couldn't be hidden.
"Standard operating procedure," Tax Bro said. "The worst offenders get a bullet."
"The lesser offenders go to labor reform."
"Start the screening."
The players got to work.
They picked out a few residents who had been directly victimized by the gangs to point out exactly what these men had done.
The process went quickly.
An hour later, a fresh corpse pit had been dug at the edge of the plaza.
Over five hundred irredeemable gang members were executed. Tax Bro's handling was far more brutal than Paul's…
Then came the residents.
Tax Bro walked to the front of the crowd, looking at nearly nine thousand people.
He took a deep breath and repeated the speech Paul had given in Red Town, using his own words.
Food, shelter, dignity, labor in exchange for survival...
The residents' reaction was similar to Red Town's. At first, it was suspicion and fear. But when they saw the players actually start distributing food—using nutrient paste confiscated from the gang's warehouses (which, while disgusting, filled the stomach)—the mood shifted.
People gradually began to believe.
Especially when the players dragged out the hoarded grain, water, and even a few crates of luxury goods, old clothes cast down from the upper Hive, and trinkets, and handed them all out to the crowd.
"Are you... really not here to pillage?"
A trembling middle-aged man asked.
Tax Bro crouched down, looking into the man's cloudy eyes.
"If we wanted to rob you, we'd take the stuff and leave. Why would we go through all this trouble? What we want is for the citizens of the Imperium to stand up on their own two feet." He pointed around. "Those of you willing to work, willing to live an honest life—we will take you in. Those who aren't willing whether you live or die after today is none of our business."
The man fell silent for a long time, then slowly dropped to his knees.
It wasn't a kowtow of subservience. It was a kneel of... finally seeing hope.
"My Lord... thank you... thank you..."
Tax Bro pulled him back up.
"Don't kneel," he said. "We don't do that in Crimson Dawn."
"If you want to thank someone, thank yourselves for surviving all these years to finally see today."
With that handled, Tax Bro left White Scars in charge of securing the town, while he took Helovia and a few technical players to the gang's warehouse district.
This was where Merida Town's true wealth lay.
It wasn't food. It wasn't water. It was black iron ore.
The warehouses were piled high with processed ore—deep brown stones that were incredibly heavy.
[God-Tier Mechanic] ran a scan with a portable auspex, his eyes lighting up.
"Tax Bro, the purity on this ore is pretty good! Even though the promethium yield is low, the associated heavy metals are worth a lot! The System salvage price is... roughly a thousand Imperial Coins per ton!"
Tax Bro did some quick mental math.
There were easily two thousand tons sitting in these warehouses.
Not to mention the unmined veins still in the pits...
"We're rich."
He broke into a wide grin, then turned to [God-Tier Mechanic].
"Organize a crew. Load all this ore onto the trucks and haul it back to base. Send some guys to take over the mining pits too. From now on, this is our mine."
"Understood!"
--
TL/N: Donate powerstones people, only for this week every 100 PS = 1 Bonus chapter.
Next Bonus chapter = 200 Powerstones.