Chapter 7 The Dragons Den

The sun went down, and the bright lights of New York turned on. Ares did not return to the Sterling mansion right after the corporate meeting.

He knew that to build his own power, he needed money. He could not rely on Vivienne's wealth, and he refused to use her failing company to fund his own path. A true warlord needed his own treasury.

He walked down a dark, quiet alley in a rough part of the city. The rain from the morning had left deep puddles on the ground. He stopped in front of a heavy iron door with a small sliding window.

Ares knocked three times.

The window slid open, revealing a pair of tired, suspicious eyes. "What do you want?" a rough voice asked.

"I am here to fight," Ares said simply.

The man behind the door laughed. It was a dry, mocking sound. "Look at you. You look like a businessman who lost his way. Go home, kid. This is not a place for games."

"Open the door," Ares said. He did not raise his voice, but he used a tiny hint of his divine aura. The air around the door suddenly became heavy and cold.

The man behind the window stopped laughing. He felt a sudden chill run down his back. Without another word, he unlocked the heavy bolts and pulled the door open.

"Suit yourself. Go down the stairs. Talk to the man at the desk."

Ares walked inside. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a simple black cloth mask, slipping it over his face to hide his identity. He walked down a long staircase.

As he moved deeper underground, the sound of shouting, cheering, and loud music grew louder and louder.

At the bottom of the stairs, a large man with a thick beard sat behind a metal desk, counting stacks of green cash. He looked up, his eyes pausing on Ares’s black mask.

"A mask, huh?" the big man said, leaning back in his chair. "We get a lot of people who want to hide their faces. What name do you want to use on the board?"

"Ghost," Ares replied.

"Ghost. Fine," the man said, writing the name down in a messy notebook. "The rules are simple. No weapons. You fight until someone knocks out or taps out. The winner takes ten thousand dollars cash for the first round. If you die, we are not responsible. Do you agree?"

"Yes," Ares said.

"Good. You are in the next match. Go through those doors and wait by the cage."

Ares pushed the double doors open and stepped into the main arena.

The room was huge, packed with hundreds of people screaming, drinking, and waving money in the air.

In the very center of the room was a massive iron cage. The floor inside the cage was stained with old blood.

Above the crowd, behind a large glass window, sat Natasha Romanov. She was a strikingly beautiful woman with bright red hair and intricate tattoos covering her arms.

She was the undisputed Queen of the New York Underworld, and she owned this entire facility. She sipped her drink, looking down at the crowd with a bored expression.

"The fights are boring tonight," Natasha said to her chief bodyguard standing beside her. "None of these men have real talent. They just swing their arms like wild animals."

"The main event is next, Boss," the bodyguard replied respectfully. "Our undefeated champion is going inside. No one lasts more than two minutes with him."

Down by the cage, Ares stood quietly in the shadow of the pillars, his arms crossed. He used his new skill, the Eye of the Warlord.

His vision shifted, allowing him to see the physical flow of energy in the people around him.

Suddenly, the crowd erupted into a massive roar.

A giant man walked out from the opposite tunnel. He was well over six feet tall, covered in thick muscles and old scars. He raised his fists, and the crowd screamed his name: "The Anvil! The Anvil!"

The big man at the desk walked into the center of the cage with a microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen! Tonight, our undefeated champion faces a newcomer! A man who calls himself... Ghost!"

The crowd looked toward Ares, and a wave of laughter rippled through the room. Compared to the giant champion, Ares looked lean and thin in his plain clothes.

"Is this a joke?" someone shouted from the front row. "The Anvil is going to break him in half!"

The cage door opened. Ares walked inside with calm, measured steps.

His face was completely hidden by the black mask, but his dark eyes were steady as he looked across the ring.

The giant champion looked down at Ares and sneered, spitting on the floor. "Hey, little boy. Did you lose your way to school? If you drop on your knees right now and beg, I might let you leave this cage with your teeth."

Ares did not answer. He simply uncrossed his arms and let them hang loosely at his sides. He did not take a fighting stance. He just stood there, completely relaxed.

"Begin!" the referee shouted, scrambling out of the cage and locking the iron door behind him.

The giant roared, stepping forward with heavy, powerful strides that shook the ring.

He swung a massive right fist straight toward Ares's face, intending to end the fight with a single, brutal blow.

Up in the glass box, Natasha Romanov leaned forward slightly, her eyes narrowing as she watched the thin man in the black mask. She expected him to run or scream, but he didn't even flinch.

"He is too slow," her bodyguard muttered. "He is dead."

But Ares was not slow. To his divine eyes, the giant’s massive fist was moving through the air like a turtle. He waited until the last possible second.

With a tiny, effortless tilt of his head, he let the giant fist graze past his ear, missing him by less than an inch.

The giant gasped, his momentum throwing him slightly off balance. "What?"

Ares did not waste a single moment. He stepped deep into the giant’s guard, his body moving like a shadow.

He gathered a small amount of force in his right palm and drove it straight into the center of the giant's thick chest.

A loud, hollow thud echoed across the entire arena, silencing the screaming crowd instantly. The giant champion froze, his eyes widening in pure shock.

All the breath left his lungs at once, and his massive body lifted slightly off the floor before crashing down backward onto the canvas.

The giant did not move. He was completely unconscious, his chest rising and falling in shallow gasps.

The entire arena went dead silent. Nobody moved. Ares stood over the fallen giant, his breathing perfectly steady. He didn't even look at the crowd.

He turned his eyes toward the large glass window up above, looking straight at Natasha Romanov.

Up in the box, Natasha slowly stood up from her chair, dropping her glass. For the first time in years, her bored expression was completely gone, replaced by intense curiosity.