The mysterious man stood in the dim glow of President Lee’s war tent, his posture relaxed, his tone calm and methodical—an eerie contrast to the chaos outside.“President Lee,” he said softly, “do not concern yourself with the lack of resistance. War doesn’t always need screams and fire to be effective. In fact, the silence is an advantage.”Lee narrowed his eyes. “Advantage?” he barked, tossing a map onto the floor. “It’s boring. Lifeless. This is not what war should feel like.”“But that is precisely why we will win,” the mysterious man replied, stepping forward. “We are not being slowed. There are no rebels, no snipers in the shadows, no barricades. We are slicing through this land like a hot blade through silk. And soon, we will reach the very core of Barion—the source of Calvin’s power.”He gestured to the map on the floor, pointing to the deep

The outer wall groaned.Cracks spidered across its surface like lightning frozen in stone. Dust rained down. A moment later—boom—the first section of the ancient barrier collapsed inward with a thunderous roar, revealing the luminous core of the Fountain beyond.The enemy troops surged forward, eager to claim their prize.And then… they stopped.Dead in their tracks.There, standing calmly amid the golden light that poured from the breach, was a figure cloaked in black, arms crossed, eyes cold.Calvin Hudson.Alive.Waiting.“What—?!”“Is that—?”“He’s here—!”Panic rippled through the ranks. They’d thought him dead. Or crippled. But there he stood—untouched, unwavering.And then he moved.Calvin raised one hand.The earth answered.In an instant, the ground beneath the sold

The system’s alarm blared in Calvin’s ear like a siren, shrill and relentless, as if the world itself was screaming at him.[WARNING: Incoming Aerial Strike – Coordinates Locked – Estimated Impact in 7 seconds.]A sharp whirr followed—mechanical, hungry, deadly. Calvin’s head snapped upward. The sky above the battlefield twisted with black smoke and glimmers of metal. Then, cutting through the haze, a sleek black helicopter emerged, its blades slicing the air with cold precision. It hovered like a vulture over a carcass, silent and lethal.Calvin’s breath caught. The insignia on its side—a coiled serpent wrapped around a crimson eye—was unmistakable.“Lee’s elite unit,” he muttered, voice grim.Then he saw it: a glint of metal dropping from the undercarriage. A steel cylinder. Too small to be a missile. Too large to be anything benign.A bomb.Time seemed to freez

Calvin stared at the photograph in his hand—a weathered, yellowing picture that had clearly been folded and handled too many times. The edges were frayed, and faint creases ran through the center, but the image was still clear enough. The boy in the photo had sharp, focused eyes and a faint scowl on his face. Something in his expression struck Calvin deeply—like looking into a mirror from the past. The attached message from his trusted aide replayed in his mind: “Confirmed. The illegitimate child is alive. New identity untraceable for now.”He stood silently in the garden, wind brushing through the leaves above him as he processed the revelation. His heart pounded—not in fear, but in the overwhelming weight of possibility. That child… could be the one. Could be the same person who nearly killed him. Could be his half-brother.Calvin walked back into the clinic with his brows furrowed, the photo clutched tightly in one hand.

Calvin leaped back from the cascade of sparks as his blade of compressed air sliced through an enemy cannon. Steel screamed, gears burst, and the machine crumpled. A dozen Han Xin soldiers scattered in panic, only to be swept off their feet by a sudden quake in the earth Calvin summoned beneath them.Amid the chaos, he caught sight of a familiar dark silhouette springing from shadow to shadow. Hugo’s twin daggers flickered in and out of view, each flash marking another assassin falling lifeless to the ground.The sight still felt strange. Only yesterday this man had tried to drive a sword through Calvin’s spine.When the immediate wave of attackers broke, Calvin raised a wall of pressurized wind, buying them a brief reprieve. He turned, breath misting in the cold tunnel air.“Why are you helping me?” he demanded, chest still rising and falling from exertion. “You could have vanished.”Hugo snorted, wiping blood from a dagger with clinical indifference. “Helping? I’m just paying my bil