All Chapters of Hand of God: Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
114 chapters
The Duel
“KADE!”Sofia’s voice tore through the smoke.She was reaching for him, she stretched her small fingers, her face wet with tears and her eyes were wide with terror.“KADE HELP ME!”He was running toward her.He was always running toward her.But hands grabbed him from behind. Thick, rough hands that seized his arms and yanked him backward. He fought against them, thrashing, twisting, but they held with a strength that didn’t feel human. He couldn’t see their faces. He could never see their faces — just dark shapes, outlines, figures that existed only to hold him back.“LET GO OF ME!”His fingers stretched toward her.Sofia reached back, straining, her small hand inches from his…“KADE PLEASE —”On the floor behind her, his parents lay still.His mother face down against the marble. His father beside her, one arm extended forward as though even in death he had been trying to reach his family. Dark pools spread slowly beneath them both, black in the low light, creeping between the tiles
The Duel II
An elderly man stepped between them, hands clasped behind his back. The arena quieted immediately at his presence.“Mr. Hollow.” His voice carried easily across the space. “Have you chosen a representative?”“Don’t need one.”The words landed flat and simple.For a moment nobody spoke.Then the arena erupted.“Is he insane?”“Does he actually think he can beat Reign?”“He’s bluffing. He has to be.”In the elevated section, Chad leaned back in his seat with a slow, satisfied smile. The kind of smile that had already written the ending.Zia stood at the edge of the arena floor, arms folded, jaw tight. She had done the math repeatedly since last night and it never changed. Reign was mid-Sovereign, borderline peak — the youngest Captain in Azure history. Her own cultivation sat at beginner Sovereign, which meant that if this went wrong she couldn’t intervene even if she wanted to. And Kade was an unknown quantity whose only documented history was ruling a prison full of criminals.Crimina
The Duell III
Reign’s aura exploded outward.It wasn’t gradual. It detonated a violent pressure that swept across the arena like a shockwave, rattling the air itself. Several of the lower ranked members in the stands instinctively leaned back. Even some of the dragon guards straightened in their seats.“That aura…”“He’s not holding back at all.”“Hollow is finished.”Zia’s hand moved to her side. She had already made her decision. If it came to it, if Reign went for something lethal. She would move regardless of the consequences. Zucker had given her one task. She would not fail it in the first hour.Reign launched forward.The ground cracked beneath his first step. By the second he was already crossing the distance. By the third his fist was driving toward Kade’s face with enough force to cave stone.Kade moved his head.Barely. Just enough. The fist passed so close it disturbed his hair.A beat of silence.Then the crowd found its voice.“Lucky.”“Had to be luck.”“He won’t dodge the next one.”
The Duel IV
Zia stood with her hand still raised from where she had half-moved to intervene. She lowered it slowly. Kade’s shirt was unwrinkled. His breathing was the same as when he’d walked in. He hadn’t broken a sweat.She had expected to be pulling him out of the infirmary by now.Chad had gone pale in his seat.Then Reign moved.Slowly at first. One hand pressing against the arena floor, pushing up, blood running freely from his nose and the corner of his mouth. He got to one knee. Then both feet. He straightened up with stubbornness. He was someone who has never been put on the ground before and cannot process the experience.His eyes found Kade across the arena.Something in them had changed. The calculated confidence was gone. What replaced it was rawer and more dangerous.“You bastard,” he said quietly.Then louder.“YOU’RE DEAD!”The temperature in the arena dropped.Reign dropped into a stance nobody had seen him use before. Both arms pulled back, Aether visibly condensing around his e
George Hale
The arena held its breath.Nobody moved or spoke. Every eye was fixed on Reign’s motionless body against the far wall, then on Kade standing at the center of the floor looking like he had just finished a light stretch.The announcer walked across the arena slowly. He crouched beside Reign, tapped his shoulder once, twice. No response. He straightened up and turned to face the crowd.“Ladies and gentlemen.” His voice was steady but carried a faint undercurrent of disbelief he couldn’t entirely suppress. “The winner — Kade Hollow.”The gasps that followed weren’t surprise exactly. More like the sound of a large group of people having their reality adjusted against their will.Then the elevated section moved.Chad didn’t use the stairs.He dropped directly from his seat onto the arena floor, the impact sending a shockwave outward that cracked the stone beneath him. His aura followed immediately, the full unrestrained pressure of a peak Dragon Lord with no intention of containing himself.
What is your Cultivation Level?
“Depends on the scenario,” Kade said. “For now, sovereign level is sufficient.”George studied him for a moment, he was being given a partial answer but decided to accept it. A faint smile crossed his face.“Don’t disappoint Master Zucker.” He inclined his head slightly and walked away.Zia waited until he was out of earshot then stepped closer. “That was remarkable, Young Master.” Her eyes moved briefly over him with professional assessment. “Are you hurt?”“No.” Kade was already moving toward the exit. “I’m leaving for the south today.”Zia fell into step beside him. “The south?”“The old man left me an assignment.” A brief pause. “An awkward one.”“What kind of assignment?”“I’m going to meet my fiancée.”Zia stopped walking.Kade didn’t.She caught up quickly. “Your… what?”“Apparently it’s already arranged.” He said it with a casual tone.She processed that for two seconds. “And your coronation? That’s tomorrow morning.”“I’ll be back.”“I can arrange a private jet. You’d arrive
The Hollow Street
South City, Asheville.The train doors slid open and passengers spilled onto the platform in steady streams. Among them, unhurried, was Kade Hollow. Grey shirt, black trousers, black jacket. Nothing that should draw attention.He stepped out of the flow and stopped.The city stretched ahead of him. He had passed through South City the day of his release but there had been no time to look. Jeffrey Sky’s car, the hospital, the fleet of black vehicles. Everything had moved too fast for the reality of it to land properly.Now it did.Ten years. The skyline had changed. New towers where he remembered open sky. Roads rerouted. Entire blocks rebuilt from the ground up. The city had continued without him, indifferent and thorough.“A lot has changed,” he murmured.A black car pulled up smoothly to the curb. The door opened and a man in a formal suit stepped out, posture straight, a bald head and expression professional.“Greetings, Sir. I’m Tony Brian. Sent by the organization to assist you w
The Taxmen
“Well, I—”The sound reached them before the vehicles did.Engines rolled in. The neighborhood moved without a word spoken. Stalls folded shut. Doors pulled closed. Mothers gathered children against their sides and stepped back into doorways. The frail man in front of Kade went very still, the way prey goes still when it has learned that stillness is the only available option.Three Hilux trucks rolled onto Hollow Street and stopped in a loose formation. The engines cut. Doors swung open.Eight men climbed out. Thick builds, casual clothing. One of them dragged a wooden crate from the truck bed and dropped it onto the ground. Another kicked over a vegetable stall that hadn’t folded quickly enough, scattering produce across the dirt without looking at it.The leader came last.He was broad across the shoulders, a dead cigar pressed between his teeth. Bruce Vice. A man who had never once been challenged in a place he considered his territory. He surveyed the empty street with mild satis
He’s just one Man
The knife drove forward.Shen grabbed his children and turned away. His wife pressed her face into his shoulder. Around the street, hands covered eyes and mouths.Kade’s head was still down.Then, without lifting it, without shifting his stance, he drove his fist forward.TOOM.The sound was wrong for a punch. Too deep. It connected with Bruce’s shoulder socket with surgical precision. The joint gave immediately, a wet, grinding displacement that preceded the scream by half a second.“ARRRGH—”The knife hit the dirt. Bruce crashed into his own men, clutching his arm against his chest, his face contorted, the cigar somewhere on the ground behind him.Nobody moved.The men who had climbed out of those trucks with complete confidence thirty seconds ago stood in a loose group and stared at the young man with liquor still drying in his hair who had not yet fully raised his head.“KILL HIM!” Bruce’s voice cracked with rage. “KILL THAT BASTARD RIGHT NOW!”And then they moved.Axes, chains, i
The Don
Bruce watched Kade’s silence and read it as fear.Behind him, the neighborhood felt it differently. The Don’s name had weight in these streets, the kind of weight that had been pressed into people slowly, over years, until it sat in their bones permanently. Shen’s hand found his daughter’s shoulder without him realizing he’d moved it.Kade looked at Bruce for a moment longer.Then reached out, hooked him by the throat, and lifted him off the ground.Bruce’s swagger left him immediately. Both hands flew to Kade’s wrist, clawing, twisting, finding no give whatsoever. His feet kicked at empty air. Kade’s grip didn’t tighten dramatically or shift, it simply held, with the absolute indifference of something that could not be moved by anything Bruce was capable of producing.“You didn’t understand what I said.” Kade’s voice was quiet. Almost gentle. “So I’ll say it once more.”He let the choking do the work for a moment.“I don’t care who sent you. Leave this street.” His eyes didn’t change