Danny waited well into the night. The two cops never came home.He slipped inside anyway, checked the room, checked the courtyard. Nothing worth taking.Figured guys like that either carried their cash on them or stashed it somewhere smarter than their own house.Damn it. Rotten luck.The cold night wind cut through, and Danny tightened his collar, muttering a curse.Guess those two were out carousing somewhere and wouldn't be back tonight. If he couldn't settle this with them now, tomorrow would only get messier.Not like he could go door to door checking every brothel and tavern in the South Side for two beat cops.Better to head back.He abandoned his post and started walking.The streets along the way were unnervingly quiet.Danny frowned and stopped, listening.The South Side wasn't Blackwood Alley it had actual night watchmen making rounds, ringing bells to mark the hour. With his current senses, he should've been able to pick up the sound from anywhere in the district.He'd hea

Danny blinked, stunned.Killing monsters drops loot?He didn't hesitate selected the item immediately.A soft white light rose off the fox spirit's corpse.The tail detached from the body, drifting upward, slowly reshaping itself into a cloak. The pale fur, worn like a scarf, actually looked pretty sharp.The fox-tail cloak floated over and settled itself around Danny's neck.On the attribute panel, the Iron Bone Method slot cleared out, replaced by the cloak.Danny looked down at his own new look and clicked his tongue, impressed despite himself.The system processes monster drops automatically? Handy.Shame about the timing, though.This was genuinely good gear a free 20% damage reduction, and devastating against opposite-sex cultivators specifically. But he didn't have a free slot to spare on it right now.His current two slots the Iron Bone Method and the bone knife weren't just boosting his raw stats. They gave him the vision to read an opponent's weak points mid-fight. Without t

Danny walked down the street, his face pale, leaning against a stone wall as he lifted the edge of his shirt.Three wavy, blood-red bands wrapped around his waist and stomach, running from his navel down to his lower back like something had bound him three times over with red silk.The toll's been paid.Just now, the Phantom Bride had taken another bite out of him. The ten points of Vitality he'd clawed back with the ginseng root gone, drained clean.Maybe it was because his body was stronger now, more attuned to the shifts inside it. But when his Vitality dropped, the wave of weakness hit harder than before nearly buckling his knees right there on the street, even with the high of taking down an External Force demon still fresh in him.Danny let out a wry smile. A thought hit him.By the rules of the Phantom Bride's ritual, once all six rites completed, she was supposed to "marry" him and drag him straight down to the underworld.But he'd just clawed back ten points of Vitality. All

Anyone who's ever run with a gang knows: when you're up against a whole mob, take out the leader first. Cut off the head, and the rest scatters.But against seasoned, ruthless veterans, that trick falls apart. The smarter move is the opposite pick off the weakest first. Grind the group's strength down piece by piece.Danny worked from that logic, dropping two of Nathan's men in a single exchange.Nathan's face went dark with fury.Two men down in one clash. This mattered this whole operation tied straight to Frank's promotion. Tonight he'd brought his strongest crew. Even the weakest here sat at fifth-stage Body Tempering. A group like that could've dominated all of Ashford County unopposed.And now, Kessler fighters hardened through the Iron Bone Method were falling like ordinary men in front of Danny. One punch. One knee. Dead.Worse Danny's breathing hadn't even changed. Whatever he'd just done had cost him almost nothing.This guy's still just Body Tempering. How?Nathan took a br

Even with the source of the curse figured out, Danny knew this wasn't going to be the end of it with Kessler.This whole operation had been a weapon aimed at another crew's boss the Razor Society. Whether it was to recover the bracelet or bury the whole embarrassment before Cutter got suspicious, Kessler was coming for him. Tonight's outcome had been about them underestimating who they were dealing with.Not that Nathan had underestimated the job itself, exactly. An External Force fighter and six Body Tempering men, sent after one small-time thug that was overkill by any reasonable standard.Unlucky for them, Danny had a cheat code.But once word got back to Kessler that Nathan was dead, this situation would stop being anywhere near as manageable as it had been tonight.Turning it over in his mind, Danny made his way back to Vince's house.He found Gloria trying to slip out the door and blocked her path."Danny... Danny, please!"Her face drained of color at the sight of him. Before h