Chapter 4

The basement air was thick, heavy with rot and hopelessness.

I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d seen sunlight. Hunger and thirst wrapped around my nerves like vines, tightening by the hour.

But the deepest torture wasn’t physical.

It was my daughter’s broken cries, drifting down from above in fragments.

Each “Daddy” was a blade, slicing my soul over and over. I pressed myself against the icy stone wall, as if my body heat could warm her from afar—could soothe the fear in her tiny heart.

I could imagine her tear-filled eyes, her little face lost and helpless. Yet no one answered her. No one comforted her.

My mother, my eldest brother, my second brother—they were all upstairs, and they ignored a child’s wailing like it was nothing.

They had once been my blood. Now they were strangers—worse than my cruelest enemies.

They stole my daughter’s life-saving money and locked me in this lightless pit for a fortune that didn’t even belong to them. I clenched my fists until my knuckles turned white, hatred surging like a flood.

On the third day, I was so weak my mind blurred.

Then—metal scraped.

The iron door opened with a shriek, and a thin beam of light cut into the darkness. A strong stench of alcohol followed.

Second brother stumbled down. His face was flushed, eyes bloodshot—fresh from the casino. The look he gave me wasn’t the old contempt.

It was manic joy. Blood-hungry greed.

“Well, look at you—still tough, huh?” He lifted his foot and kicked my numb body, hard, like he was venting. I didn’t move. I only slowly raised my head and stared at him with eyes made darker by thirst.

“Don’t think staying silent helps you.” He squatted, greasy face close to mine, smug as a winner. “That money on your bank card? I already ‘invested’ it. Too bad—my luck wasn’t great. Lost it all.”

Boom—

Lightning blew my body apart from the inside.

My daughter’s surgical fee—money I’d pieced together with dignity, sweat, and endurance—was gone in a single night, burned by this piece of filth.

Rage shattered every thread of restraint. Every blood vessel in my body screamed to rebel. Every bone trembled.

“You—” A beast’s growl crawled out of my throat, thick with killing intent. I fought to rise—but the chain locked me down.

Second brother shrank back under my eyes, then forced his arrogance back up again.

“Don’t be mad,” he hissed, grin venomous. “With your build, you’ll sell for a good price in a black mine. They’re short on bodies. I already talked to Big Brother Jackson—he likes your muscles.”

He stood, looking down at me like I was meat on a cutting board.

Despair wrapped around me with sharp clarity. My daughter’s life. My everything. About to be destroyed.

But at the edge of despair—was something deeper, something ready to explode.

Thugs dragged me out of the basement and stuffed me into a battered cargo truck. Rust and dirt stank inside the compartment. I was tied up so tight I couldn’t move. I heard Second brother bargaining with a stranger about my “price,” like haggling over vegetables at a market. My heart soaked in icy brine—pain so deep it went numb.

The truck jolted into an abandoned mining area. Barren mountains, exposed rock, and a distant pit—everything screamed cruelty.

I was hauled down and thrown onto a cold iron chair. Rough rope bound me again, tight as a cage.

Second brother pointed at me excitedly, talking to the mine boss. His greedy face was nauseating.

I closed my eyes and took a slow breath. Every cell in my body was screaming to fight back. This was the final line of my life. I would not become someone else’s tool for profit. I would not let my daughter’s hope be extinguished.

While the mine boss and Second brother got caught up in their talk—and the thugs relaxed—

I exploded with force.

Years of battlefield grinding had forged a body far beyond ordinary men. Under the instant surge of muscle, the rope squealed under strain. I twisted. My joints snapped with crisp cracks. One rope strand burst.

Like an arrow loosed, I tore free. My body blurred like a ghost. My fist carried wind, striking the nearest thug with perfect precision.

In only a few breaths, three to five thugs dropped like torn sacks. Their screams echoed through the hollow mine.

Then my steps locked. My blood froze solid.

“Don’t move! Or I’ll send her to hell!”

Second brother’s voice shook with panic, but it was soaked in viciousness.

Somehow he had grabbed my daughter—the cold muzzle of a gun pressed to her thin skull.

My daughter’s terrified eyes looked at me through tears. Her little body trembled in his grip like it might snap.

My world collapsed in an instant.

Slowly, I raised both hands. In front of my daughter’s life, resistance meant nothing.

The thugs rushed back in. Angry fists and boots rained down. Blunt iron pain, tearing punches—waves drowning me.

I clenched my teeth and didn’t make a sound. I only angled my body toward my daughter—protecting her direction, terrified that even a flying stone might hurt her.

“Th-this kid’s a monster…” one thug panted. His iron bar had bent, yet I still hadn’t groaned.

Second brother noticed too. Suspicion and excitement flashed in his eyes as he stared at me—at those swollen, bruised eyes still burning with unbroken fire.

“This one can sell high!” he shouted to the mine boss, voice trembling with excitement. “Call Big Brother Jackson—tell him to come see the goods himself!”

My heart sank to the bottom.

Jackson. The man who ruled this town with one hand. The god my second brother worshipped.

If he came, my last chance to fight would be crushed completely.

The mine door shoved open. Knife-cold night wind and gritty dust flooded in. Several high-powered flashlights cut through the dark like blades.

A crowd stepped in, their silhouettes huge in the light.

Leading them was a man with an expensive cigar in his mouth, arrogant and impatient.

Jackson—the underground emperor of this town.

His men swept the light carelessly across my beaten face.

But when that beam focused on me—

The whole mine froze.

Jackson’s indifferent expression locked up like it had been iced over. The cigar slipped from his lips and fell silently into the mud.

His pupils shrank. His body jolted as if struck by an invisible blow.

Then his knees buckled.

With a heavy thud, he dropped to the ground.

He crawled—rolling and scrambling through the mud—straight to the chair where I was bound. His forehead slammed into the earth. He stayed bowed, shaking like a sieve.

And from his mouth, pressed to the ground, a voice packed with terror—almost sobbing—was forced out, syllable by syllable:

“Sir… h-how… is it you…”