Chapter 1

The bitter wind howled mercilessly, whipping against my gray, tattered cloak.

My name is Kane Aldridge.

At this moment, I trudged through the muddy streets of the slums like a common vagrant.

But no one knew that tens of thousands of meters above my head, an epic-class dragon of colossal size circled in the sky.

Passing through dark alleyways, I finally stopped before a dilapidated shack on the verge of collapse.

My brow furrowed involuntarily. My parents had clearly left behind a brick house with a courtyard and a well-located shop—how had it come to this? Even the front door was just a drafty piece of broken wood.

I pushed open the wooden door. Inside was dark and cold.

By the faint moonlight, I saw a skeletal girl curled up on a pile of straw in the corner.

"Ella?" My voice trembled slightly.

The girl recoiled in terror like a frightened animal, then looked up. When her bloodshot eyes finally recognized me, tears instantly streamed down her face. "Brother... is it really you? You didn't die at the border?"

I rushed forward and pulled her tightly into my embrace.

But the moment I touched her, my pupils involuntarily flashed with a golden, dragon-like vertical slit.

I sensed the lingering stench in the air—the fluctuation of dark magic.

I pulled up Ella's sleeve and discovered that her once-pale arms were covered with twisted black whip marks like venomous snakes, wounds emanating a cold curse.

What made my eyes burn with rage even more was the magical rune glowing with a ghostly green light branded on the back of her neck.

It was the Empire's absolute taboo—a soul-binding slavery contract!

"Who did this?" I lowered my voice, desperately controlling the killing intent in my tone.

High in the cloud layer, the dragon resonating with my soul seemed to sense my fury, and muffled thunder rumbled faintly in the sky.

With just one word from me, this entire city would instantly become a sea of flames.

"It was Viktor..." Ella clutched my clothes desperately, sobbing uncontrollably. "That dark wizard's son, Viktor Valen. He coveted our family shop's location and wanted to forcibly seize it. I went to the City Hall to report him, but his father bribed the court..."

"Three months ago, he brought thugs who smashed our home and dragged me into a dungeon to torture me. He used dark magic to destroy my will, forcing me to press my fingerprint and sign a soul slavery contract. Our property was legally confiscated by them, and I... tomorrow I'm to be taken to the Valen family estate as his personal slave..."

Fury burned madly through my veins.

Destroying a mere provincial city's wizard family would be less than a warm-up for me.

But I couldn't do that.

"Don't be afraid, Ella. Your brother is back."

I gently patted her back, calming her down.

"Since we're born in the Empire, we must follow the Empire's laws. No one can arbitrarily plunder civilians' legal property, and no law recognizes forcibly signed soul slavery contracts."

I stood up, carefully placing the imprints of Ella's dark magic wounds and the evidence of the Valen family's years of forging documents and oppressing civilians into a leather envelope.

I suppressed the resonance with my dragon, deciding to retract all fangs and claws.

This time, I would use mortal rules, official law, to righteously seek justice for my sister.