The Smugglers’ Den

It's the same in many other countries. When many people in the government are corrupt, the national security tends to be more "flexible". Especially in a place like Bali, it's a heavenly destination, 2.8 million tourists a year, mostly from Australia, China, and India. Most come to have "fun", this could be translated as, alcohol and drugs. When there is a demand, then the supplier will come. There are a few posts with a trade front all over Bali, but this was the only one Jerry is in charge of.

It's a small hotel next to a beach, the place was quite far away from the busy street for obvious reasons. 5 floors high and only around 40 rooms, there really were not many customers besides the "special" ones. In the top room, Jerry was currently sitting in front of a table and was on a phone, there were a few people seen standing in front of him.

Jerry spoke on the phone: "I understand, but I think the current market will be fine to reach this year's target, and it will be much safer too, recently, the police are harder to bribe as well."

Jerry continues, "Yes I understand, I will try my best." The call ended.

Jerry had a stiff look on his face, there were 4 men in front of him, one of them said: "What did the big boss say?"

"The boss is really serious in expanding the market..."

Jerry was the leader of this post. He has been a smuggler for almost 20 years, most of his crew was also the same, they were recruited since as young as 10 years old. Mostly taken from the streets, or from a very poor family. 20 years ago, he started as a simple delivery boy, walking around the streets of Bali, dodging police, and the other gangs. Some of the other boys he knew ended up in prison and got forgotten or died in a street somewhere. He was an orphan, and he worked really hard to survive for both himself and his little sister. As the market demand was huge, the competition was just as fierce, even international syndicates were often involved. Therefore most smugglers learned basic fighting, some even learned a martial art to survive. After many years, Jerry managed to step up the food chain, he made many huge contributions and turned his gang into one of the biggest in Bali, naturally, he became one of the most respected leaders in the gang.

But recently he has been in a dilemma, first, his sister was sent to work overseas a few months ago and he hadn't heard from her the last few weeks. The second was the way the gang recently turned, these few years the gang chose to mainly sell drugs, which was fine for him at first, but recently the boss had been forcing him to up the market by selling it to the school kids. Jerry knew that he is not a saint but this has pushed into the boundaries of his moral compass. The adults can screw themselves for killing each other with their own money, but the kids are innocent.

Most of his crew has been following him as a leader, and they could understand him and relate. Many of them were also the victims of an irresponsible adult. Like the saying, the man character can relate to his father. But as almost all his men had no father, they related to him as their leader.

Suddenly Jerry hears a huge commotion down the stairs. He led his men down to check. In the hotel lobby, there was a guy standing in the middle wearing a Bali scary mask. A weird person walking into his smuggling base, it only meant trouble.

There were 20 of his men surrounding the weird mask guy. Jerry's actually quite calm. He sent one of his men to check the hotel outside parameters to see if there were any other troubles.

"What do you want?"

"There you are, Jerry, right? I want you and your men to work for me."

This masked guy was Alex, he bought the mask on the market on the way here. He thought it's not yet the time for his face to be known by many of the Bali locals.

Jerry responded: "Working for a funny weird guy? Not a chance."

Jerry made a simple look and nodded, one of his men suddenly moved forwards to grab Alex's shoulder, he tried to push him down but it felt so heavy it didn't budge at all. Alex made a simple move and grabbed the guy's hand, pulled him and punched him in the stomach. The guy suddenly passed out.

Jerry and the gang were finally alarmed, this was not a simple guy. Jerry made another gesture. 4 of them moved to surround Alex. They sent a few punches and kicks but Alex easily dodged them. A few seconds later, one punch was enough for each of them to all fall down pass out.

Jerry then yelled "ALL ATTACK!", his men already saw what Alex could do, so they took and pulled out all sort of weapons; knife, hatchets, and steel pipes. 10 plus people fiercely attacked Alex.

Alex currently is a high stage Mortal Realm human, his speed and strength were 3 times of a professional athlete. He can run 100 meters in about 5-6 second. If he punches with a full strength he can easily break people's bones. But his body is not invincible, those knives and hatchets could still hurt him. Time to get serious, although his opponents were not amateurs, Alex had 10 years of fighting experience, so he could easily predict their moves. Their blades could not touch him. Alex used this time to measure and practice his body's strength. 1 minute, 2 minutes still no one could touch him, suddenly there was a figure jumping fast at him with a dagger. He was almost as fast as Alex, it's Jerry.

"He is an Evolve indeed, even at early stage mortal realm, his speed already surpassed the middle stage."

But Alex could still dodge him.

Jerry looked surprised, he was very confident in his speed, but this guy could still dodge him.

Alex then stopped his practice time, he punched and kicked a few more of Jerry's men. Suddenly, Alex realized one of the guys on the back pulled out a gun.

A gun could be a problem. Alex rushed up to the guy before he could aim properly, Alex took the gun from him easily and aimed the gun, pressing it on the guy's forehead.

Jerry order "All STOP!!"

"Ok, you got my full attention, we definitely can't beat you, whatever you need we can talk about it, just don't hurt my men."

Alex knew from his past life how Jerry felt about his men, Alex released the man, took the gun and then followed Jerry to one of the rooms to talk in private.

"Who are you? Are you with the police? ...CIA?"

Alex took off his mask and said "Just a normal Indonesian citizen like you."

Jerry thought the guy in front of him didn't look normal at all.

"So Jerry, how can I convince you to work for me?"

"It's not possible, don't you know I am part of the Black Snake Gang? The gang has hundreds of members all around Bali, we might make most of our money from drugs, but we occasionally also smuggle weapons, I see you are very strong, but in our main base you will be facing guns and rifles."

Alex smiled. "My hope exactly, the more the merrier."

"There is no way I will help you, although we are a group of thugs and smugglers. I know some of the men pretty well, I will not help you hurt them."

"What if I added information about your sister?"

Jerry's lost the calm on his face.