I Am the Devil of This Hell

Chapter 041

Kane Adler smiled, but the cold curvature of his lips promised nothing but violence. "We have a history, you and I. A debt of blood. Didn't you know?"

"A history?" Justin Day narrowed his eyes, the neon lights reflecting in his dilated pupils. He scanned his mental rolodex of enemies and backstabbed partners but came up empty. He looked at the strangers behind Kane—men possessing an unnatural, terrifying stillness. They eyed him not with anger, but with the detached hunger of butchers viewing a side of beef.

Before Justin could speak, Kane cut him off. "Don't hurt your brain trying to remember," he said softly over the thumping bass. "You can think about it in Hell. Kill them."

Kane let out a roar that tore through the nightclub. "Kill!"

Owen Steele and the Talons had already marked their prey. With only twenty-one men in Justin’s entourage—and Marcus Grady having already dispatched two—the math was disappointing. There weren't enough victims to go around. To feel the hot spray of arterial blood they had dreamed of in the Confinement Death Ward, they had to be fast.

They didn't charge like soldiers; they exploded like starving wolves. A suffocating aura of bloodlust washed over the room. Justin’s street toughs, used to brawls, felt their knees buckle under the sheer weight of apex predators who had forgotten the taste of mercy.

Kane moved first. Torquing his body with piston-like precision, his right leg lashed out in a blur.

CRACK!

His boot connected with the temple of the man beside Justin. The sound was sickeningly loud. The thug became a ragdoll projectile, smashing through four glass tables in a shower of shards before sliding to a halt against a pillar, dead on impact.

Kane didn't stop to admire his work. The beast was awake.

He completed his spin, his momentum carrying him forward. His right fist, hard as iron, hooked upward in a vicious arc.

THUD.

It connected squarely with Justin Day’s solar plexus. The air was driven from Justin’s lungs in an explosive gasp. He was lifted off his feet, flying backward through the air.

But Kane wasn't done with him.

As Justin reached the apex of his backward flight, Kane’s eyes narrowed. He lunged forward, his movements defying gravity. His right hand clamped onto Justin’s right ankle like a vice. His left hand seized the thigh.

With a grunt of exertion, Kane drove his own knee upward while yanking the leg down.

SNAP!

Knee met knee. Physics took over.

Justin Day’s leg bent—but it bent the wrong way. The joint exploded, the ligaments shredding like wet paper. The leg folded into a grotesque 'V' shape that nature never intended.

"AAAAAHHHHH!!!"

Justin’s scream was a high-pitched shriek of absolute agony. It pierced through the heavy electronic dance music, cutting through the bass, rising up to the second floor, echoing in the rafters. It was the sound of a man whose reality had just been shattered by pain.

"Too loud," Kane growled.

He twisted his body, spinning Justin around mid-air. His right hand released the ruined leg and struck out like a viper, his fingers forming a claw.

Crunch.

He gripped Justin’s throat. Thumb and forefinger dug into the cartilage of the larynx. He squeezed.

The scream cut off instantly. It was replaced by a wet, gurgling choke. Justin’s eyes bulged from their sockets. He tried to speak, to beg, to scream, but all that came out was a fountain of bright red blood mixed with white fragments of crushed cartilage.

Kane looked down at the man writhing in his grip. Justin’s face was a mask of purple agony, his mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.

"Pathetic," Kane sneered.

He released the throat. His hand flattened into a palm strike. He drove it downward, aiming directly for the heart.

THUMP-c***k.

The force of the blow caved in the sternum. Ribs shattered, piercing the organs beneath. Justin Day’s body convulsed violently, a final spasm of the nervous system, before a thick torrent of dark blood poured from his mouth.

His eyes remained wide open, staring at the ceiling, frozen in a permanent expression of terror. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Around Kane, the club had turned into a slaughterhouse.

Marcus Grady, Sev, and the others moved with terrifying grace. No weapons were drawn; they didn't need them. Using only fists, elbows, and boots, they tore through the Iron Crest thugs like a thresher through wheat.

It was a symphony of violence—the crunch of bone and gurgling screams set to the relentless beat of the abandoned DJ booth. Blood and brain matter painted the velvet couches and mirrored walls.

Reverting to their Confinement Death Ward instincts, the Talons didn't spar; they annihilated. Faces were smashed into marble until unrecognizable. Ribcages were caved in. One giant gripped a screaming thug and ripped, snapping the collarbone and separating the shoulder from its socket.

Staff huddled in corners, retching as the smell of copper and bowels overpowered the room. Hostesses lay slumped on the floor, mercifully unconscious to the living nightmare.

Three minutes.

That was all it took.

The music kept pounding—thump, thump, thump—a heartbeat for a room full of corpses.

Aside from the twenty members of the Talons, who stood amidst the c*****e breathing heavily, their eyes bright with adrenaline, there was not a single enemy left standing. In fact, there wasn't even an intact body left on the floor. It was a mosaic of ruin.

The Talons looked around, their chests heaving. They weren't horrified. They were exhilarated. Slowly, lips curled into smiles. It was a dark, collective satisfaction. The beast had been fed, but it was still hungry.

Suddenly, a commotion erupted at the main entrance.

"Get in there! Kill them all!"

A horde of men poured down the wide staircase. Fifty of them. They were shirtless, covered in tattoos, waving massive machetes and steel pipes. This was the backup. The muscle of Iron Crest.

They charged into the main hall, screaming war cries, ready to tear apart whoever dared to attack their turf.

And then they stopped.

The lead men skidded to a halt, their boots slipping on the blood-slicked floor. The men behind crashed into them, a domino effect of confusion.

The war cries died in their throats.

The scene before them defied comprehension. The air was thick with a red mist. The floor was a lake of crimson. Twisted limbs and shattered bodies lay in heaps. And standing in the middle of it all were twenty men, covered in blood, looking back at them with glowing, predatory eyes.

"Urgh..."

One of the toughs at the front, a man who had likely smashed heads in street fights before, couldn't handle it. The smell hit him—a hot, metallic stench of death. He doubled over and vomited his dinner onto the floor. Others gagged, their faces turning pale green. Their grip on their weapons loosened. They had come to fight a g**g war, not to walk into a charnel house.

"Who... who are you people?"

The voice came from the center of the reinforcement group. A man stepped forward. He was bald, his scalp shining under the lights, a gold chain as thick as a thumb hanging around his neck. He was trembling, fighting with every ounce of his will to keep his composure. His fingernails dug into his palms, drawing blood, using the pain to anchor himself to reality.

These dead men... they were his brothers. They were his earners.

Johnny Malone felt a rage building inside him, warring with the terror. He had spent months rebuilding Iron Crest after Kane Adler had decimated the previous leadership years ago. He had clawed his way back to relevance. And now? In one night? Destroyed.

"Which g**g are you from?" Johnny Malone demanded, his voice shaking. "Since when did Iron Crest provoke you? Why... why this s*******r?"

Kane Adler reached into his pocket. He pulled out a wet wipe, calmly cleaning a speck of blood from his hand, and then produced a photograph. He held it up, smiling that same bright, terrifying smile.

"Iron Crest acting boss... Johnny Malone?"

"That's me," Johnny hissed. "I asked you a question. What is the meaning of this? What is our feud?"

"Feud?" Kane laughed softly. "Oh, no. That was the old days. Tonight? Tonight is strictly business. I actually came here to ask for a favor."

Johnny Malone stared at him, incredulous. "Favor? You butcher my men, you turn my club into a graveyard, and you say you want a favor?"

"Exactly," Kane said. "I recently started a small organization. We call it the Shadow Eagle Clan. But, you see, we're new. Nobody knows our name. We lack prestige. So, I need to borrow something from Iron Crest. I need something to pave the road for our rise to power. I was hoping you'd be generous."

"You son of a..." The man next to Johnny lunged forward, pointing a shaking finger at Kane. "You think you can—"

Johnny Malone slapped the man’s hand down. He stared at Kane, sweat dripping down his bald head. He knew he was outmatched. He needed to buy time.

"What do you want to borrow?" Johnny asked, his voice tight. "If Iron Crest has it... maybe we can discuss a price."

The room went silent. The only sound was the thumping music.

Kane threw his head back and laughed. It started as a chuckle and grew into a maniacal, chilling sound. Behind him, Marcus Grady and the Talons joined in, a chorus of hyenas laughing in the dark.

Kane stopped abruptly. His face went stone cold.

"I want to borrow two hundred and nineteen lives from Iron Crest."

The number hung in the air like a death sentence.

Before the words fully registered in Johnny’s brain, Kane moved.

He pushed off the floor with explosive force. He was a blur, an arrow released from a heavy bow. His right arm was drawn back, fingers curled into a claw, rotating like a drill bit. The killing intent radiating from him was palpable, a physical pressure that locked Johnny in place.

Johnny Malone watched the claw expanding in his vision. His heart hammered against his ribs. Fast. Too fast.

He acted on pure instinct. He was a veteran brawler, a survivor of the streets. He didn't try to run; he knew he couldn't. He crossed his massive, muscular arms in front of his face, bracing for impact, praying his bones would hold.

BANG! c***k!

Kane’s claw didn't stop. It slammed into the crossed forearms with the force of a hydraulic press. Just centimeters before impact, Kane’s fingers clenched into a fist.

The impact was catastrophic.

Johnny’s forearms, conditioned by years of lifting weights and street fighting, snapped like dry twigs. The bones shattered. His arms were driven backward into his own face, bending inward in a grotesque concave shape.

"GAAAH!"

Johnny was lifted off his feet. He flew backward as if hit by a speeding truck.

SPLAT.

He hit the wall behind him. The impact was so severe that for a moment, he defied gravity. He stuck to the wall, a flattened mass of flesh and broken bone, surrounded by a halo of blood spatter. He hung there for three agonizing seconds before gravity reclaimed him.

He slid down the white plaster, leaving a thick, wide smear of crimson slime behind him like a snail trail of death.

He hit the floor, gasping for air, his chest heaving. But the nightmare wasn't over.

Swish-Swish-Swish-Swish.

Four flashes of silver light cut through the dim club air.

Johnny Malone screamed again—a sound that tore his throat raw.

Four Bowie Knives—thrown with impossible precision—slammed into him.

Thunk. Thunk. Two knives pierced his palms.

Thunk. Thunk. Two knives pierced his wrists.

They pinned him to the wooden wainscoting of the wall. He was crucified. The heavy blades shattered the small bones of his hands and pinned him tight. He was an eighty-kilogram man, hung up like a piece of meat in a butcher shop.

The pain was blinding. The cold steel severed nerves and scraped against bone. Johnny writhed, his legs kicking uselessly, blood pouring from his wounds, his mouth foaming with agony. His face was twisted into a mask of absolute despair, his screams turning into wet, animalistic sobs.

Hiss...

The fifty men of the reinforcements stood frozen. Their brains had short-circuited. They looked at their boss—the man they feared, the man who ran the South District—pinned to the wall like a butterfly in a collection case. They looked at his shattered arms. They looked at the blood.

Fear, cold and absolute, gripped their hearts.

But Kane Adler didn't give them time to process the trauma. He stood amidst the blood, looking like a demon prince. He raised his right hand and chopped it down.

"Kill."

The Talons roared.

"KILL!"

They reached behind their backs. Metal sang as twenty Bowie Knives were drawn in unison. The blades caught the strobe lights, flashing with a deadly promise. The killing intent that exploded from the unit was suffocating.

The reinforcements panicked. They raised their machetes, trying to defend themselves, but they were farmers fighting knights. They were street thugs fighting a reaper squad.

The Talons crashed into them.

It wasn't a battle. It was a harvest.

Shing! s***h!

The sound of sharp steel cutting through meat replaced the music. The Talons moved with a terrifying efficiency. They didn't hack wildly; they targeted vital points. Throats. Hearts. Arteries.

A Talon ducked under a clumsy machete swing, his Bowie Knife flashing upward, opening the thug's belly from navel to sternum. Another Talon spun, his blade decapitating a man before he could even scream.

The Shadow Eagle Clan had no concept of mercy. They had left their humanity in the prison cells. They were machines built for this specific purpose: to purge, to cleanse, to kill.

Blood sprayed the ceiling. Heads rolled across the dance floor. The screams of fifty men merged into a single, horrific chorus of death.

For the Talons, this was worship. Blood was their wine. Violence was their prayer. And tonight, the Nightjar was their church.