Chapter1

Seven years ago, betrayed by my closest friend and my fiancée, I was thrown into the lightless Black Sea Death Prison and tortured mercilessly.

Seven years later, I returned through a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, only to find my crippled little sister being trampled in the mud by my former "brother," forcing her to sign a humiliating organ extraction contract.

"A worthless ghost who just crawled out of death row—what makes you think you can fight a billionaire tycoon like me?"

At a grand banquet at the Peninsula Hotel, the treacherous couple threw a bloody dog bone at my feet. They mobilized hundreds of heavily armed SWAT officers to surround me, demanding I kneel, kowtow, and call them master.

They thought their wealth and power made them untouchable on the West Coast, assuming I was still the same spineless weakling from years ago.

That was until an EMP tore through the night sky. Three military stealth fighter jets hovered outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, and hundreds of laser sights from the nation's most classified special forces locked dead center on the foreheads of every elite in the room.

Under the horrified gazes of the city's high society, a four-star general crashed through the window and gave me the highest military salute:

"Tier Zero Task Force assembled! Supreme Commander, please give the order to purge!"

At that moment, the high-and-mighty tycoons finally remembered the terror of being dominated by the abyss.

Seven years of sea breeze couldn't wash away the smell of engine oil in the old West Coast district. I pushed open the taxi door, the hem of my black tactical trench coat kicking up a cloud of ash.

The rusty sign reading "Locke Family Auto Repair" was being crushed into scrap metal by bulldozer tracks.

In the flying dust, a wheelchair lay overturned in the muddy water. Its wheels were still spinning weakly.

"Sign it, little cripple."

The harsh sound of synthetic fibers rubbing echoed as a heavy tactical boot stepped hard on Anna's frail back. Three fully armed private defense mercenaries surrounded her. The leader, sporting a mohawk and a neck covered in poisonous snake tattoos, was chewing gum insolently while playing with an aluminum baseball bat.

He grabbed Anna by the hair, forcing her to look up, and slapped a mud-stained "Voluntary Organ Collateral Contract" onto her face.

Anna trembled in pain, her fingers clawing desperately at the gravel until blood seeped from under her nails. Tears mixed with dust streamed down her face: "No... this land is the only thing my brother left me..."

"You mean your brother dropping the soap in the Black Sea Prison?" The mohawk sneered, lifting Anna's chin with the bat. "If he's still breathing, I'll swallow this bat right now. Don't be ungrateful. Sign this, and your corneas and kidneys can still fetch some settlement money. Otherwise, when the bulldozer rolls over you, you won't even be fit to sell as spare parts."

A humiliating contract, along with my only remaining blood relative in this world, was being trampled under the feet of these vicious dogs raised by capitalists.

I walked forward over the gravel. The sound of my boots scraping the ground wasn't loud, but amid the noisy ruins of the construction site, it seemed to carry a bizarre, piercing power.

The mohawk turned around warily. He looked me up and down in my unbranded black clothes, his gaze lingering on my empty hands for a half-second, before blowing a smoke ring and then a gum bubble.

"Look who it is. A tramp crawling out of which sewer?" He tapped the bat against his palm and spat on the ground. "Listen, street rat. This plot is now under the New Syndicate. If you know what's good for you, roll over here and help this little cripple sign it. Maybe if I'm in a good mood, I'll toss you a few bucks to buy some illegal meds to get high on."

I didn't speak. My gaze bypassed him and landed on Anna's tear-stained face. Unseen for seven years, she was so thin she was almost unrecognizable, her eyes filled with terror toward this world.

This fear made my blood instantly drop to freezing point.

Seeing me unresponsive, the mohawk thought I was a coward scared out of my wits. He cursed, strode toward me, and swung the baseball bat directly at the side of my neck.

Too slow.

On the overseas battlefields, in those trenches where even the air reeked of blood, an attack of this caliber was as slow as an old slide projector.

The instant the bat was two inches from my skin, I moved.

My left hand shot out like iron pincers, accurately gripping his wrist, my thumb pressing hard against his radial nerve ganglion. Before the mohawk could even make a sound, his eyes widened instantly. I stepped in, generating power from my waist, and my right elbow smashed heavily into the inverse joint of his arm with a piercing whistle.

Snap—

A teeth-grinding bone crack suddenly echoed, even drowning out the roar of the bulldozer. The ulna and radius snapped simultaneously. Pale bone splinters pierced the tattooed skin, exposed directly to the air.

Giving him no room to breathe, I followed through and twisted his other arm, employing a clean, bone-breaking close-quarters combat technique used by special forces.

With another dull crack, both his arms hung down limply like boiled noodles.

The mohawk fell heavily to his knees in the mud, emitting a leaky hissing sound from his throat; even his screams were jammed in his ruptured vocal cords. The surrounding defense personnel instinctively reached for their holsters, but the moment they met my gaze, everyone froze.

It was a physiological, instinctive suppression. Like prey targeted by a fierce beast, they were completely stripped of the courage to even draw their guns.

Clatter.

The tactical walkie-talkie from the mohawk's waist dropped to the ground and rolled to my feet. The indicator light flashed, and a male voice came through—a voice so familiar it made my nerves instantly tighten.

"Is it cleaned up? Don't let that cripple ruin the mood tonight."

It was Victor. Seven years ago, a brother who lived and died with me. Today, the orchestrator who personally sent me to hell.

In the background of the walkie-talkie, melodious classical string music intertwined with the crisp clinking of champagne glasses.

"Tell the guys down there to hurry up. The victory banquet on the top floor of the Peninsula Hotel is about to start. The mayor and councilmen are all waiting to cut the cake. As for that ruin, bury it along with that little cripple."

The voice was arrogant and aloof, as if discussing crushing an ant.

I lifted my tactical boot and crushed the walkie-talkie with one stomp. The static noise stopped abruptly.

I took off my trench coat, draped it over the shivering Anna, squatted down, and wiped the mud from her face with my cuff.

"Brother..." Anna looked at me in disbelief, her lips trembling violently as tears flowed like a broken dam.

"I'm back," I said softly, lifting her into the righted wheelchair.

Then, I straightened up and turned to look at the Peninsula Hotel towering into the clouds in the city center. Night had just fallen, and the neon lights there were glaringly bright.

They thought throwing an ordinary man into the abyss would allow them to comfortably enjoy their plundered wealth in peace.

But they didn't know that the one who crawled out of the abyss was no longer an ordinary man, but a ghost commanding the thunder.