Chapter 78: Crushing the Ants

The scout squealed, spinning on his heel as pure panic surged through his veins. Driven by raw instinct, his right hand plunged into his jacket pocket and whipped out a set of heavy brass knuckles, swinging a wild, frantic hook straight toward Donape’s jaw.

"Get off me, you little—!"

Thwack!

The man didn’t even see the counter coming.

Guided purely by the razor-sharp muscle memory Donape honed inside the VR simulation, his palm shot forward like a striking viper, catching the thug directly across the cheek with a casual backhanded slap.

The sheer physical mass behind the blow turned the scout’s head sideways, clicking his teeth together with a sickening crunch. The man spun half a turn in midair before crashing heavily onto the asphalt, sliding two feet on his stomach. The brass knuckles clattered uselessly across the pavement.

"Agh... cough!" The thug gagged, clutching his shattered jaw as blood and a stray molar spilled onto the cold street.

He looked up with wide, terrified eyes, frantically scrambling backward on his elbows.

Donape looked down at the wounded scout, reaching a swift conclusion.

’An amateur.’

If the scout had responded calmly with words, Donape wouldn’t have taken the initiative to strike first. But the moment the man chose violence, Donape had simply neutralized the threat.

He casually dusted off his palm, stepping over the discarded brass knuckles without even looking down at them.

"Who are you?" Donape asked, his voice completely flat and devoid of effort. "What are you doing in this neighborhood, and why did you attack me?"

He crouched beside the trembling scout, resting his elbows on his knees. Instead of passively waiting for an answer, he didn’t waste time.

Silently, Donape channeled his Qi into Qi Perception, expanding his sensory radar outward in a widening wave. It was an environmental scanning technique he had mastered from The Path of Heavenly Martial Arts.

Originally, the baseline Qi Perception technique taught by the Heavenly Cloud Sect was designed purely to sense and read the subtle flow of natural energy within the surrounding environment.

However, the aggressive disciples of the Mount Hua Sect had altered the technique by infusing their own internal energy into the wave, turning it into an active probing radar.

By sending out pulses of their own Qi to forcefully ping against the energy fields of others, Mount Hua martial artists could accurately determine a target’s exact position and physical strength.

Naturally, this modified version frequently landed them in bloody conflicts back in the game world—powerful experts viewed having another martial artist’s Qi forcefully slammed into their body as a direct challenge to a duel rather than a simple scan.

On Blue Star, however, ordinary humans had no Qi of their own to clash with, making the technique completely undetectable to normal civilians.

As his awareness expanded through the surrounding alleyways, he instantly picked up three more suspicious signatures lurking nearby, their faint vital patterns moving in a tight, coordinated perimeter.

Before Donape could question the scout further, the man’s eyes rolled back. Overwhelmed by shock, fear, and the excruciating throbbing in his shattered jaw, he fainted dead away on the pavement.

Donape shook his head, staring at the unconscious thug. ’Did I hit him too hard...?’

Shrugging it off, he glanced up toward the surrounding rooftops, selecting a high vantage point to scout the perimeter before moving in on the three remaining targets.

With a light tap of his foot, Donape launched himself vertically into the night air. His body rose weightlessly through the shadows, landing with the silent precision of a falling leaf on the flat gravel roof of a three-story commercial building overlooking the alley.

Crouching near the rusted air conditioning units on the ledge, he pulled his hood down slightly lower over his eyes.

From this vantage point, the entire block lay mapped out below him.

The neighborhood streets weren’t completely deserted. A few locals walked by here and there, but only the three figures he had detected earlier displayed stiff, unnatural movements while repeatedly glancing back toward Origins VR Cafe.

Donape couldn’t help but find it amusing. ’Who sent these amateurs?’

Their terrible positioning and complete lack of tactical coordination practically screamed that they were bottom-tier scouts.

’Or maybe they aren’t working together at all? Is that why none of them noticed the guy I took out down there?’ he mused, considering the possibility.

Up on the roof, Donape’s eyes narrowed into cold, calculating slits. Leaving these shady figures lurking around his storefront was too much of a risk. He decided to incapacitate all three of them on the spot.

He slipped over the edge of the rooftop, falling silently through the darkness like a ghost. Channeling his Qi to lighten his body—a foundational weight-manipulation technique from The Path of the Heavenly Martial Arts—he landed on the damp asphalt behind a row of overflowing trash bins without making a sound.

The three men were spread far apart, making picking them off easier than taking candy from a baby.

The first scout, positioned about twenty meters to the left of the cafe, kept looking around for Donape. Yet every few seconds, his eyes instinctively drifted back toward the brightly lit storefront, as if expecting it to re-open despite the customers and part-timer having already left.

"Is there anything in that shop that makes you often glance that way?" Donape whispered, appearing right beside him.

The scout gasped, wildly swinging a frantic backhand toward Donape out of pure panic.

Crack!

With a quick, practiced twist of his wrist, Donape drove the knuckle of his right hand directly into the scout’s incoming forearm, instantly fracturing the bone.

The man’s arm went limp in a fraction of a second. His mouth flew open, preparing to unleash a blood-curdling cry of pain.

Before a single sound could escape his throat, Donape delivered a heavy, precise strike directly into the scout’s solar plexus. The sheer impact robbed the man of all the oxygen in his lungs, forcing him to his knees as his left hand desperately clutched his stomach.

Instead of a shout, only a muffled, agonizing groan choked out of the man’s throat. His face contorted as saliva dripped onto the pavement, his body twisting soundlessly in agony.

"Aghhr—gah!"

Donape crouched beside him, getting straight to the point.

"Who are you? Who sent you? And are you working with those other two?"

Before any answers could spill from his mouth, the man’s eyes rolled back, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

"Geez! I barely put any weight behind that strike, and he still passed out? These guys are way below amateur," Donape muttered, clicking his tongue. "What kind of idiot sent them here? And for what?"

Questions began piling up in his mind. Just as he turned to hunt down the other scouts, his senses registered movement—the remaining targets were grouping up, accompanied by two newly arrived presences.

"Now, it seems it will be a confrontation. It’s easy then."

Without hesitation, Donape walked, dragging both scouts from different places, each, dumping them right in front of Origins VR Cafe as a blatant provocation.

It worked.

The four men converged on the storefront, their heavy footsteps echoing through the quiet street.

’The two scouts are bottom-tier warm bodies,’ Donape analyzed, tilting his head slightly. ’But the other two... dressed in suit pants and button-downs. Trained enforcers? Maybe.’

"Brat, looks like you’ve been putting your hands on our people," one of the suited men growled, cracking his knuckles. "Forgive my lack of courtesy, but I’ll have to teach you some manners."

"You think you can beat up our scouts and walk away clean?" the second man sneered. "You deserve to be beaten black and blue."

Donape raised a single hand, cutting off their posturing with a dry sigh. "Stop with this clumsy excuse. Just come at me. Wasn’t that your intention from the start?

"This brat really doesn’t value his life!"

"Arrogant kid!"

The two suited enforcers lunged forward simultaneously, their movements fast and coordinated.

The moment the first enforcer closed the distance, Donape drove an open-palm strike directly into the man’s sternum. The sheer kinetic shockwave collapsed the thug’s lungs, leaving him gasping soundlessly for air before his knees buckled and he hit the pavement, completely unconscious.

Before the second man could process his partner’s instant defeat, Donape snapped his left backhand across the man’s jaw with blinding precision.

Crack!

The impact rattled the enforcer’s skull, dropping him instantly to his knees before he collapsed face-first onto the concrete.

The two remaining scouts froze on the spot, trembling violently as they watched two trained figures get flattened in less than two seconds. They took a hesitant step back, ready to bolt into the dark alleys.

"Try to run," Donape’s voice echoed, cold and razor-sharp. "I’ll break both your legs before a scream can even leave your throat. Trust me—I keep my word."

Their boots locked to the pavement. Terror completely paralyzed them.

It didn’t take long for the amateurs to break. Without Donape needing to raise a fist, the words spilled out of them like a broken dam.

"So, the six of you were sent by the Jin Family, Jin Do-Jun? That top family? To mess up my shop and harass me?" Donape said, his brow furrowing.

"Y-Yes... yes, sir!" one of the scouts stammered, bowing frantically.

"Do you know anything else? Are there more squads lying in ambush, or a larger force coming to destroy my place?"

"W-We don’t know, sir! Please spare us!"

"Sir, please have mercy! I have a wife and children at home who need food!"

Donape’s eyes darkened, his expression turning thoroughly disgusted. "If you care so much about your family, why are you taking shady hit-jobs? Did you never stop to think about the consequences?"

The two scouts hung their heads in shame, cowering under his glare.

If there was one thing Donape truly despised, it was people who shook hands with the devil to ruin innocent lives, only to hide behind the excuse of providing for their families.

"How can you earn and eat from others’ suffering and act as if it doesn’t matter? Geez! Just bring these people back with you two and turn yourselves in to the police. If I catch any of you lurking near my shop again, I’ll make sure you’re crippled for life!"