As Vicente descended from the third floor of the Scarlet Syndicate headquarters, he reached the second floor of the building.
As he appeared in a large hall of that building, several men, uncertain of their future after the earlier events, looked toward the stairs where several people were coming down from the second floor.
In front of these people coming down the stairs were Vicente and the two level 4 men, who were currently wearing handcuffs on their wrists and heels but also being carried in the air by metal plates.
Colt felt a shiver run down his spine as he realized what this was all about.
'I barely escaped.' He thought to himself as he looked at Cesar and sensed his leader's current magic level.
Not only did he realize this, but so did everyone around him, whether they were men of the Mazzanti family or of the Scarlet Syndicate.
So the people standing in the hall soon bent their knees to welcome Cesar back, all shouting with the same level of respect.
"Welcome back, Don Mazzanti!"
Of those who shouted, only the wounded men of the Mazzanti family weren't there, as they were still recovering in the estate's meditation room.
But all the others who had felt or heard the current commotion left their seats to gather there, quickly bringing more than 120 people into a 150-square-meter hall.
Arriving at the center of this area, Vicente looked around and spoke, pointing to the two men. "My friends, I have just returned from a mission. But to my surprise, instead of finding a group united to solve their own problems, I found two rats planning to act behind my back.
At the first sign of danger and uncertainty, these two had already started talking about betraying my Mazzanti family and taking advantage of my wounded soldiers!"
As he said this, Vicente made all the men of the Mazzanti family look at the two of them in ugly ways, some muttering curse words.
Meanwhile, the men of the Scarlet Syndicate broke out in a cold sweat, afraid that they would be punished somehow for the idiocy of two of their leaders.
"Then I'll use my return to settle this matter first," Vicente said in a thicker tone as he put the two men on the ground while he formed a sword out of the metals they were carrying.
He looked at Colt and said. "You, come here."
"Yes, boss!" Colt quickly arrived at Vicente's side in a cold sweat but did not dare to question him.
"The punishment for treason in our forces is death. But these two have never betrayed me. They only talked about treason. As such, their punishment should not be death."
The terrible looks on Paul and Jaxon's faces suddenly improved as they sensed that Cesar was more merciful than he seemed.
"Boss..."
But then Vicente gave his final verdict on the matter. "Colt, rip the dominant hand from each of these fools!"
Hearing this, the people around stopped muttering as they watched Colt pick up the sword Vicente had made and prepare to do the deed.
Paul and Jaxon broke out in a cold sweat as they stared at Colt, trembling as they tried to summon the courage to beg for mercy.
But under Vicente's gaze, neither dared say a word, simply standing still as they watched their old companion move to tear their hands off.
"Aaaaagh!"
Colt was quick, and soon both men were screaming in pain, already without their dominant hands, as they lost blood from the wound in their fists.
Vicente then roared. "From now on, those without their dominant hands will be known as fools, rebels, incompetents. Anyone who makes mistakes as serious as these two will suffer similar punishments.
Remember that. I'm watching all of you. So don't mess with me!"
"Yes, boss!" The men there said simultaneously, all feeling different things within themselves, from fear to respect for their leader.
Killing these two would have been easy. But Vicente had chosen to keep them alive, to limit their fighting power, to make their lives difficult, but most of all, to humiliate them in front of the people they worked with every day.
At the same time, they would still have to serve him, a punishment far worse than death for many of the people there.
As Vice left, those many men looked at his back, seeing how complex their leader was.
"Now get back to work."
With those words, the people there quickly dispersed, leaving a few individuals next to Paul and Jaxon.
Meanwhile, one of the level 2 men from the Mazzanti family approached their leader, walking alongside Vicente as they made their way to where Bart and Rory were.
"Boss, congratulations on your promotion." He said before getting down to business. "As you can see, we followed Plan B. Unfortunately, we couldn't stop the enemies and lost the 3rd-stage herb."
"Hmm, I know."
"We tried everything to make Plan A work, but the Viscount and the Commander were too strong for us. Even Miss Bain got in our way a bit, so our chances weren't good.
Anyway, following Plan B, we abandoned our headquarters to avoid confrontations with ambitious groups. So we're in the dark about what happened to our headquarters and the items in the safe. But some soldiers and members of the Symons family certainly took a dozen of our weapons.
The good thing is that these weapons have no ammunition, and with the boss here, we can track them down easily.
The bad news is that the Viscount and the Commander have taken the herb and will probably move on to the middle level of the 3rd stage."
"I killed Commander Hogan before I got here, so the problem is 'only' Viscount Symons," Vicente commented, aware that this in itself would be terrible.
The man looked at Vicente admiringly and said. "The boss really is powerful. That will help us a bit in solving our local problems."
"How were our losses?"
"Bad. We lost 20 men this afternoon, and we have 8 wounded, counting the deputy and Bart. But that wasn't all. While fighting at our headquarters, Layla and Jasmine were attacked by a strange group."
The moment he heard this, Vicente stopped walking down the stairs leading to the training area of this estate and looked seriously at his soldier. "What?"
Jasmine's situation was what could ruin his life right now!
"This unknown group kidnaped Jasmine while Layla managed to survive and stay behind with Casey's help. She checked in with us an hour ago and left her contact so we could let her know when you were back."
"Get in touch with her. I want to see her immediately!"
The man left to solve this problem, while Vicente finally met Bart and Rory.
