Novels by baegeneral2019

The Zhao family hall was magnificent.Forty-foot ceilings with crystal chandeliers that cost more than most houses. Marble floors polished to a mirror shine. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city skyline, the lights twinkling like stars. Classical music played by a live orchestra in the corner not recorded, live, because the Zhaos didn't do anything halfway.The room was packed.Easily three hundred people, maybe more. CEOs and board members. Politicians and judges. Investors and venture capitalists. Media personalities and social influencers. Everyone who mattered in the city's elite circles.And all of them were here for one reason, to celebrate Ryan Zhao's success.The revolutionary project he'd unveiled last month the one that was going to change the tech industry, the one that had already attracted billions in investment interest, the one that had made Ryan the golden boy of the family business.Everyone wanted to be associated with success. Everyone wanted to shake Ryan'

At that moment The phone hit the bar top and shattered into pieces, plastic and glass scattering across the polished wood surface. "That bastard!" Ryan's voice filled the penthouse suite, sharp and venomous. "That bastard didn't die!" His jaw was tight, clenched so hard the muscles jumped and twitched beneath the skin. His hand was still extended where he'd thrown the phone, shaking with barely controlled rage. He'd recognized the voice immediately. Marcus. It was definitely Marcus. But how? How was that possible? "How the hell did those idiots fail?" Ryan spun around, his fist slamming into the bar. The impact made the expensive bottles jump and rattle. "I saw his legs broken! Both of them! His ribs were shattered! They injected him with enough suppressant to stop an elephant's heart! How is he walking? How is he talking? How is he—" He stopped mid-sentence, breathing hard, his mind racing through possibilities and coming up empty on all of them. The woman who had been draped

At that moment Marcus twisted his wrist.The baton snapped like a dry twig. The guard's wrist broke with an audible crack not just broke, but shattered, the bones fragmenting under the pressure Marcus applied. The man screamed and stumbled backward, cradling his arm, his face white with shock and pain.The second guard had pulled a knife a folding tactical blade and rushed forward, slashing wildly at Marcus's throat.Immediately Marcus moved.Not fast enough for the eye to track. One moment he was standing in front of the knife. The next, he was behind the guard, his hand closing around the back of the man's neck.The martial arts knowledge in his head told him exactly where to strike, exactly how much pressure to apply. The point was called Fengfu—the Wind Mansion, at the base of the skull where the spine met the brain.He pressed.The guard's eyes rolled back. His body went rigid, then limp. The knife clattered to the pavement.Marcus let him drop.The first guard the one with the s

His pants were still torn and soaked with blood. But underneath, through the rips in the fabric, he could see his skin. Intact. Unbroken. He reached down and touched his left shin the place where Elena had brought the bat down again and again.Smooth. No swelling. No deformity. The bone was whole."What..." Marcus whispered, his voice hoarse. "What the hell is going on?"But even as he said it, he knew. The knowledge was there now, sitting in his mind like it had always been there. The dragon mark. The bloodline awakening. The accumulated power of a thousand generations activating all at once in response to mortal danger.He was healed.Not completely he could feel that his body was still weak, still recovering. The qi flowing through him was powerful but his meridians were new, untrained, like muscles that had never been used before. Every movement took conscious effort.But he was alive, and more than alive.Marcus pushed himself up further, getting his legs beneath him. His body pr

The third came a scholar in elegant robes, his face thoughtful and serene.Cultivation techniques. The movement of qi through meridians Marcus didn't know he had. Breathing methods that could draw energy from the air itself, from the earth, from the heavens above. The Dragon's Breath Cultivation Method the core technique of the Chen bloodline, designed specifically to awaken and strengthen the dragon mark. It worked in nine stages, each one exponentially more powerful than the last. Marcus instinctively knew he was at the first stage the Awakening. Methods to sense energy in others, to detect lies and intentions, to project his presence like a physical force that could make weaker-willed people kneel without him touching them.They kept coming, the fourth. The fifth. The tenth.By the time the hundredth entered him, Marcus was gasping, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information flooding into him. His consciousness was expanding, stretching, trying to contain lifetimes of accumulat

It was not dark where he went.It was open the way a field is open, the way the sky is open on a morning when there are no clouds anywhere. But there was no field and there was no sky. There was just light, and space, and something that felt like stillness after a very long time of noise.Then he saw them, they came from a distance, though distance didn't quite work the same way here. One moment they were far, indistinct shapes on the horizon. The next, they were simply present, surrounding him on all sides.Men and women, more than he could count.They came in ones and twos and small groups, moving toward him from every direction, and as they got closer Marcus could see that they were not the same. Not even close.Some wore suits dark ones, impeccably tailored, the kind worn by men who sat at the heads of boardroom tables and moved nations with a signature.Some wore robes heavy silk fabric with intricate embroidery, high collars, dragon patterns woven in gold thread, the kind he'd o