Chapter 2

The echo of the solid brass doors crashing against the walls acted like a sledgehammer, smashing the hypocritical elegance of the banquet hall to bits.

The melodious Mozart symphony halted instantly, as if someone had strangled the life out of it.

The scent of Cuban cigars and top-tier perfumes hovering in the air was instantly dispersed by the cold, bloody, rain-soaked wind I dragged in from outside.

I looked like a drowned ghoul freshly fished out of a septic tank, holding a half-shattered, dripping champagne bottle, just standing blatantly at the entrance of the highest-tier Mafia banquet in Atlantic City.

Hundreds of eyes snapped toward me in unison.

In that brief, dead silence, my eyes darted across the hall.

Beneath the resplendent crystal chandeliers stood various corporate magnates and underworld bosses in haute couture evening wear.

At the far end of the room, on the high platform, the Vito Patriarch was holding a wine glass, his brows knitted tightly together.

Standing beside him was Victoria, wearing a pure white, astronomically expensive wedding dress and a pigeon-blood ruby necklace.

Seeing my pathetic state, Victoria's arrogant face flashed with brief astonishment, only to be seamlessly replaced by thick disgust and revulsion.

("I'm doomed, I'm doomed, I'm completely doomed. The whole village is gonna feast on my funeral. There are over a hundred submachine guns in here! Even if I sprout wings today, I'm getting shot full of holes!")

My legs, like overcooked noodles, were shaking violently inside my suit pants.

I even felt like my bladder was about to give out. I was ready to kneel and kowtow right then and there to these underworld titans, begging them for a quick death—preferably leaving an intact corpse.

"Pfft—"

Amidst the suffocating silence, a shrill, artificial sneer suddenly rang out from the crowd near the door.

A blonde socialite wearing a diamond-studded backless evening gown stepped forward, holding a champagne flute.

Her name was Chloe, the heiress to an Atlantic City shipping conglomerate, who had always been secretly envious (and jealous) of Victoria.

Back when Victoria and I were together, she never missed a chance to fan the flames and dish out cold, sarcastic remarks.

Chloe covered her nose with a lace-gloved hand, looking at me like I was a heap of unspeakable garbage, dramatically waving the air away.

"Oh, my God! Victoria, doesn't your family need to switch security companies? How did a rat from the sewers sneak in? Do you all smell that nauseating stench of poverty? The stink radiating from his thrift-store suit is completely ruining the imported Italian wool rugs!"

Her words instantly broke the tension.

The dignitaries and mobsters in the hall erupted into roaring laughter.

Their initial wariness upon the violent forced entry melted entirely into an arrogant, spectator-like amusement as soon as they saw my miserable, bottom-feeder appearance.

"Isn't that the loser who got his engagement broken off?"

"Haha, what a suicidal clown. Is he here to beg for a cup of wedding wine?"

Facing the mockery of the entire room, a towering man beside Chloe took a cooperative step forward.

This was Chloe's personal bodyguard, a notorious "Red Pole" enforcer on the West Coast. He wore a tight black shirt, had a neck as thick as a bucket, a face full of savage muscle, and fists covered in deathly calluses.

"Miss Chloe, this bug is dirtying your eyes." The enforcer bared his teeth, staring at me with dead-fish eyes, cracking his knuckles loudly. "Would you like me to rip his limbs off and throw him in the ocean to feed the sharks?"

That terrifying pressure, that killing intent practically salivating to rip me to shreds!

("No need to trouble yourself, big bro! I'll roll away on my own! I'm sorry, I will disappear right this second!!!")

My spine went numb. My tiny shred of so-called dignity wasn't worth dog shit in the face of death. My knees went weak; I genuinely wanted nothing more than to kneel and call him Grandpa.

However, fate—or rather, this godforsaken System—locked my knees in place.

[Ding! Perfect bullying opportunity detected! Advanced Side Quest updated!]

[Quest Objective: Pick up a glass of red wine, publicly splash it in the corporate heiress Chloe's face, and mentally execute her with the most vicious words imaginable!]

[Quest Rewards: Titanium bulletproof skin duration doubled, plus one random special status.]

[Failure Punishment: Instant reverse-fracturing of all 206 bones in your body. The jagged bone shards will pierce your heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys from the inside, letting you experience the supreme ecstasy of having your internal organs shredded while wide awake!]

"I'll screw eighteen generations of your ancestors!!!"

My inner voice let out a pig-slaughterhouse shriek.

All bones reverse-fractured?! Piercing every organ?! Was this even a punishment a carbon-based lifeform could think up?!

Compared to the agonizing pain of having my organs mashed to paste, the Mafia was nothing!

A submachine gun was practically an act of pure mercy!

Just to keep from being tortured to death, my buckling legs abruptly straightened.

Following that, the eerie power granted by the System once again commandeered my facial nerves.

That Arkham Asylum VIP patient grin materialized again, even more manic than out by the door.

"Heh... hahahaha..."

Under the mocking gazes of everyone present, my legs started moving.

My CQC Mastery gifted me the acute senses of a wild beast.

I completely ignored the terrifying enforcer blocking my path. Walking as if taking a leisurely stroll, I effortlessly swiped a full glass of premier Bordeaux dry red from the tray of a petrified waiter.

"What do you think you're doing? Looking to die, trash?" The enforcer roared, reaching out to grab my collar.

But my body moved like a slick, venomous snake. Under the System's micro-guidance, I dodged his massive hand by a hairsbreadth and closed the distance right into the face of the corporate heiress Chloe in a single step.

The sneer on Chloe's face hadn't fully faded, and she looked at me in startlement.

Without a trace of hesitation, eyes glued to the flashing blood-red timer of the [Full Skeleton Reverse Fracture], I swung my arm out viciously.

"Splash——"

The entire glass of crimson Bordeaux wine flew out like a bucket of cold water, perfectly, precisely, and impeccably coating Chloe's exquisite, arrogant face!

The wine trickled down her high-pinned blonde hair, smearing her expensively maintained skin, and ruined her hundred-thousand-dollar limited-edition Chanel haute couture white dress, turning it into a disaster zone reminiscent of an Aunt Flo side-leak.

Dead silence across the hall!

Including the enforcer who had just grabbed thin air, all hundred-something people at this banquet were petrified into statues.

A slap in the face.

This was a complete and utter slap in the face! Who dared to publicly throw red wine on a corporate heiress at an exclusive banquet booked by the Corsican family?!

("I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I'll work like a mule in my next life to pay for your dress, lady!!!")

My heart was bleeding, my soul crying for mercy.

But my throat, welded shut by the System, flawlessly spewed the filthiest, crudest, most venomous chain of street trash-talk from the slums of Atlantic City:

"A stench of nobility?"

I looked down at the dumbstruck Chloe, my mouth cracking into a cruel curve, my voice raspy and mocking.

"Are you referring to the plastic smell radiating from that fake face of yours piled high with hyaluronic acid and silicone? Or are you referring to the slutty stench you leave behind in the beds of those octogenarian board members while fighting your dead daddy for his fortune?"

"You... you..." Chloe trembled violently, her eyes bulging like brass bells.

I gave her zero breathing room. Every word pierced her heart.

"Putting on clothes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars can't cover up the barren wasteland of your soul. In my eyes, you don't even measure up to the two-dollar streetwalkers on Fifth Avenue; at least they earn their meals through hard work."

"But you, Miss Chloe? Aside from shaking your tail and following behind Victoria's ass like a female dog in heat, what else can you do? You don't even qualify to dirty my eyes."

[Ding! Fatal vocal assault! Corporate heiress's mental defenses destroyed!]

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!"

After sitting there frozen for three solid seconds, Chloe finally processed what I had said. She reacted like a cat who'd gotten its tail stomped on. Clutching her sticky, wine-soaked face, she emitted an eardrum-shattering, hysterical scream of total breakdown!

The face of the aloof, high-society lady completely shattered.

Her makeup was ruined, her posture was gone. Under the gaze of hundreds of bigwigs, her deepest, ugliest secrets had been shredded by my gutter-trash insults and trampled into the floor.

"Kill him!!!" Chloe pointed at me, her voice as shrill as a shrew's. "Aaron! Chop him to pieces!! I want him dead!!"

If the atmosphere in the hall was previously like watching a farce, right now, it was an active volcano that had just blown its top!

The Vito Patriarch, who had been sitting on the platform, slammed his hand down and stood up.

The hundreds of suited Corsican mobsters and corporate bodyguards instantly dropped all looks of amusement.

The temperature in the room seemingly plummeted below freezing.

Intense, physical killing intent washed over me like a tidal wave, and countless hands reached right for the holsters inside their suits.

("Dead dead dead! I don't have a single drop left to piss! I'm gonna get minced into meat pie, Mommy!!! Why did you make me say those things, I haven't even held a girl's hand before!!!")

My inner self had thoroughly broken down in terror, wishing I could just dig a hole and bury myself alive.

But to everyone else in the room, I was still holding the empty wine glass, standing in the crosshairs of an enraged mob, laughing arrogantly and psychotically like an unrivaled madman.

"You suicidal little bug..."

A low, beast-like growl exploded from directly behind me.

That 'Red Pole' enforcer nicknamed "The Meat Grinder" saw his master insulted so terribly, and was now standing on the absolute precipice of a berserk rage.

His face flushed purple-red, the veins on his neck bulging out like earthworms.

"I'm gonna peel every inch of your skin off!!!"

He bellowed furiously, and with a crisp "snikt," drew a pitch-black tactical folding karambit from behind his waist.

In a fraction of a second, the razor-sharp curved blade cut through the air into a blur under the crystal lights, tearing through the air with a suffocating screech of death, aiming right for my jugular with extreme prejudice!

"Die!"

Too close, too fast! It was a fatal strike that, even with CQC instincts, was almost impossible to dodge while off-guard.

("Ahhhhh System save me ahhh he's getting my neck with a knife I'm gonna die!!!")

Faced with that icy blade that was practically kissing my neck skin, I could literally feel the Grim Reaper's scythe resting against my throat.

Retreat?

The System absolutely wouldn't allow me to perform such a cowardly act right after posturing so hard.

But if I don't retreat? What the hell do I block with? My face?!