Task Force Delta

Chapter 10: The Blood Bracket

Getting into the Pit wasn't as simple as walking through the front gates. The lower ring was fiercely guarded by heavy iron portcullises and armed syndicate enforcers who laughed in the face of outsiders. When Task Force Delta reached the subterranean security checkpoint, a towering pit bouncer with a scarred jaw blocked the tunnel, demanding a hundred-chip entry fee or proof of martial worth. Rather than flashing cash that would draw suspicion, Vanya stepped up without a word. In a single fluid breath, she disarmed the bouncer's sidearm, swept his legs, and pinned him to the steel grating before his guards could even draw their batons.

Impressed by the brutal efficiency and eager for fresh blood to stir up betting odds, the pit master immediately cleared all three of them for the arena floor—granting them direct access to tonight's main bracket. The heavy iron gate dropped with a deafening CLANG, sealing Task Force Delta’s strike trio inside the sunken, blood-stained cage of The Pit.

Above, the crowd surged against the chain-link railings, roaring in a frenzy of spilled beer, sulfur smoke, and gambling chits. In the high spectator balconies, Mars leaned against a rusted pillar, his dark hood pulled low. Beside him, Silas activated a subtle ocular visor to scan the arena's energetic frequencies, while Sasha kept her hands buried in her coat, her eyes nervously scanning the exits.

"First match!" the announcer's voice boomed through the screeching megaphones. "In the red corner, three unranked fresh faces! In the blue corner... the reigning Trench Bruisers!"

Three heavily muscular syndicate brawlers stepped into the glare of the flickering floodlights. The middle goon—a towering brute with a scarred jaw—grinned, holding up a crude, red-runed iron knuckle-duster. The weapon hummed with unstable, bio-corrupted heat.

"Look at 'em," the brute sneered, flexing his shoulders. "A girl with a gauntlet, a pretty boy in a leather coat, and a street rat. Easy money."

"Vanya," Yuki said softly, her hands resting at her sides. "Take the lead."

"With pleasure," Vanya muttered.

Before the brute could even raise his Kirin knuckle-duster to trigger its explosive flame burst, Vanya exploded forward. She didn't possess an X-gene, nor did she bear the dark tattoos of a Kirin contract, but her movement was a masterclass in raw, unadulterated street survival.

She ducked under the brute's telegraphed swing, stepped inside his guard, and struck his windpipe with an open-palm thrust. As the giant choked, she grabbed his outstretched arm, executed a lightning-fast hip throw, and slammed his skull directly into the concrete floor with a sickening crunch.

One shot. The brute went completely limp.

The remaining two goons blinked in absolute shock. Before they could react, Rudy glided forward with a casual smirk, executing a sweeping leg-kick that swept the second goon off his feet, finishing him with a heavy boot to the temple. Simultaneously, Yuki stepped past the third goon, her palm catching him cleanly on the side of the jaw with precise, non-Kirin kinetic momentum, dropping him instantly.

The entire arena fell dead silent for two full seconds before the crowd erupted into wild, frantic screaming.

"Total match time... four seconds!" the announcer yelled, gaping. "A clean sweep without even drawing a weapon!"

High in the private VIP trade box overlooking the ring, two men stood behind reinforced glass. One was a dressed-up black-market broker in a tailored suit; the other was a hulking Black Crow enforcer wearing an altered Kirin harness.

"Damn," the broker muttered, taking a sip from his glass. "That girl in the dark armor... look at those gauntlets on her hip. And the guy in the coat—those twin revolvers are high-tier military hardware. Where did they find gear like that?"

"Forget the gauntlet girl," the Black Crow goon grunted, his eyes fixed on the arena floor. "Look at the iron on their belts. Heavy gauntlets require strict kinetic formulas or physical balance contracts—they're too rigid, too complex to mass-produce or sell to street thugs who just want to smash things. But those twin revolvers on that kid... pistols are simple, intuitive, and deadly. If those guns carry a versatile soul-binding contract, they're a goldmine. Watch how he fights in the next round."

Down in the cage, the second match passed in a blur of swift hand-to-hand brutalization, forcing the arena managers to bring out their absolute top-tier muscle for the final round.

"Third and final match!" the announcer brayed. "If the challengers win this, they claim the VIP audience!"

The massive steel doors at the far end of the pit ground open. Three hulking syndicate champions stepped out, wielding massive, altered Kirin weapons dripping with volatile, crimson energy. The ambient air in the cage instantly plummeted, then spiked with intense, suffocating heat.

"Alright, Cap," Rudy said, his casual grin sharpening as he reached beneath his coat. "Hands-only won't cut it against these guys. Permission to unholster?"

"Granted," Yuki said, her voice dropping into a dangerous calm. "Show them what real Aegis hardware looks like."

Rudy drew his twin heavy revolvers in a single, fluid motion. The left revolver—Icy Cold—was forged from a pale, frosted silver alloy; the right—Boiling Hot—was lined with molten red iron.

Unlike science-based weaponry or innate X-gene biological gifts, Kirin relics were ancient, arcane artifacts of pure spiritual rule. A relic possessed no inherent spell list of its own; instead, it responded dynamically to the wielder’s soul, forging a personal Soul Contract bound by inescapable, life-draining laws.

Where Mars’s katana demanded a strict rhythmic sequence of alternating horizontal and vertical cuts to stack hits, Rudy’s guns operated on a far harsher tactical constraint: Thermal Equilibrium.

Because his soul bound two opposing elemental forces—absolute heat and absolute cold—his contract prohibited him from simply spamming fire and ice at will. Every time Rudy loaded a cylinder, he had to commit fully to one elemental alignment. Firing Boiling Hot built up extreme internal heat resonance within his own body; he could not switch to Icy Cold until he successfully purged that thermal charge through a complete, six-shot drum cycle.

Even worse was the ammunition price tag: Every single bullet loaded into his revolvers cost him exactly one minute of his natural lifespan. Every reload made the ink-like Kirin runes on his forearms squirm and creep a fraction of a millimeter closer to his throat. If he miscalculated his bullet count or fired blindly into a dodge, he wasted priceless minutes of his life for zero return.

Click-clack.

Rudy loaded a six-round thermal cylinder into Boiling Hot. The dark ink on his left forearm flared crimson, advancing slightly up his wrist.

"He's locking into thermal alignment," Silas observed from the spectator balcony, his visor tracking the sudden surge of caloric energy. "Rudy's contract is brutal. Unlike Mars, who can reset his combo if he misses, Rudy is locked into his elemental state once he loads a cylinder. If he loads fire, he must expend all six thermal rounds before his contract allows him to draw frost. If he gets caught in a tactical mismatch, he's trapped."

"And if he reloads mid-fight to force a switch, he's burning through his life for nothing," Mars added quietly, his eyes narrowed. "That's why he never misses."

The first syndicate champion charged, swinging an altered Kirin battleaxe that unleashed a roaring wave of black fire.

Rudy didn't dodge. He raised Boiling Hot, his eyes locking onto the target.

"Kirin Art: Lava Collision!"

He pulled the trigger. A concentrated projectile of pure, liquid magma erupted from the barrel, instantly vaporizing the incoming wave of black fire and slamming into the champion's chest. The impact detonated in a molten explosion, blasting the massive fighter clear across the arena and pinning him to the iron wall in a crater of melting rock.

Without pausing, Rudy emptied the remaining five thermal rounds into the arena floor and surrounding concrete barriers—purging his thermal charge in rapid succession. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The concrete melted into glowing slag, relieving the heat pressure inside his body and clearing his contract's restriction.

With Boiling Hot empty, Rudy snapped a fresh frosted cylinder into Icy Cold. The dark ink on his right arm twitched, creeping another fraction of an inch higher as six more minutes vanished from his lifespan.

The second champion leaped high into the air, bringing down a heavy Kirin hammer with crushing momentum.

Rudy raised Icy Cold and pulled the trigger.

"Kirin Art: Ice Age!"

A beam of absolute-zero frost discharged from the silver revolver. The moment it struck the airborne champion, a massive, jagged glacier instantly flash-froze his body mid-air, locking him inside a ten-foot spire of solid blue ice that crashed heavily onto the dirt floor.

The third and final champion, panicked by the absolute destruction of his teammates, roared and activated his altered Kirin's overcharge safety breach, rushing Rudy with raw, suicidal speed.

Rudy’s expression went completely cold. "Time for the heavy penalty."

Rudy slammed the handles of Boiling Hot and Icy Cold together. The twin revolvers clicked, shifted, and mechanically fused into a single, long-barreled heavy anti-materiel sniper rifle.

This was Rudy's ultimate weapon state—combining his twin guns into a specialized heavy artillery form. But the Soul Contract penalty for this state was horrifying: Because fusing opposing elements broke natural equilibrium, every single shot fired in fused mode claimed ten full minutes of his life force.

As the heavy rifle locked into place, the Kirin tattoos on Rudy's forearms flared with a blinding crimson light, creeping agonizingly close to his neck. Rudy felt the cold shadow of mortality tug at his chest, but his grip never faltered.

He pulled the heavy trigger.

BOOOOM!

A dual-element beam of swirling magma and absolute frost tore through the cage floor, blowing a thirty-foot trench into the concrete and blasting the final champion completely out of the ring, shattering the reinforced steel barrier behind him.

Silence fell over the arena once more, broken only by the hiss of steam rising from Rudy's fused rifle.

Up in the VIP trade box, the Black Crow goon slammed his fist against the glass, his eyes wide with fanatical greed. "Did you see that?! Fire, ice, and heavy artillery in one package! That twin-g*n relic is incredible! Get those three down to the VIP lounge now! We are buying those revolvers—or killing him for them."

Down in the ring, Rudy unlatched his revolvers, separating them back into twin pistols with a heavy sigh. He rubbed his wrist, where the dark ink of his Kirin contract sat visibly higher than it had ten minutes ago.

Yuki stepped beside him, her hand resting gently on his shoulder. "Good work, Rudy. You gave them the show they wanted."

The iron gate leading to the upper VIP levels slowly ground open, an arena host bowing low. "The management requests your presence in the high-tier trade suite."

Yuki, Rudy, and Vanya stepped into the dark corridor leading up to the suite, while high above, Mars narrowed his eyes as he watched several dark-robed figures slip into the shadows behind the arena manager.

The Black Crow trap had been set—and Task Force Delta was walking straight into the center of it.