FROM PRISON TRASH TO GOD OF WAR

Chapter 2: Blood and Retribution

"Stop pretending, you bastard! Kill him!" Derek barked, unnerved by the look in Alexander's eyes.

A dozen men charged, grins plastered on their faces.

BOOM.

The man in front didn't even see the hit. He was sent flying like a cannonball, his chest collapsing with a sickening crunch. A two-hundred-pound man, killed in a single, effortless strike.

Alexander moved like lightning through the rain. No wasted motion. No flashy tricks. Just raw, brutal efficiency. Every punch shattered a limb; every kick snapped a spine.

The cemetery became an altar of screams and breaking bone. In less than sixty seconds, Derek’s entire crew lay dead, their bodies twisted into grotesque shapes.

"H- how dare you kill them!" Derek stammered, his face turning ghostly white.

Alexander didn't blink. He walked toward Derek, each footstep sounding like a death knell.

With every step Alexander took, the pressure grew. By the third step, Derek was drenched in cold sweat, his legs shaking so hard he could barely stand. He felt like he wasn't looking at a man, but at an ancient, predatory beast.

"I-I'm Robert's right-hand man! If you touch me, he’ll destroy you!" Derek yelled, desperate for any leverage.

"My uncle's right-hand man?" Alexander’s voice was a whisper from the grave.

“Yes!

If you kneel and beg me now, I may-” Before Derek could finish his words, Alexander cut him off with a cold snort.

He reached out, his hand clamping around Derek’s throat like an iron vise,his boot came down on Derek's right hand. Hard.

"AHHHHH!" Derek's scream echoed off the tombstones.

Alexander pressed down slowly, methodically. The first finger snapped.

"Remember this?" Alexander's voice remained calm. "This is what you did to me five years ago."

"Please! God, please stop!"

Second finger. Crack.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I'll do anything!"

Third finger. Fourth. Fifth. Each one breaking with deliberate precision.

"Your apology means nothing."

Derek sobbed hysterically, his body going into shock. "Please... please..."

Alexander released his foot, then grabbed Derek by his hair, dragging him through the mud toward his mother’s destroyed graves. "Kowtow."

"What?"

Alexander slammed Derek's head into the ground. "Apologize to my mother."

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Derek's forehead hit the earth.

"Again."

THUD. Blood mixed with mud.

"Again!"

THUD. Derek's voice grew weaker.

"AGAIN!"

THUD. THUD. THUD.

Derek's forehead split open, blood pouring down his face.

“C- could you let me go now?” He pleaded, his eyes full of horror.

"Well, you want to know what five years of war taught me?" Alexander sneered, his voice was eerily calm. " That you should never spare your enemy.”

A lethal light flashed in his eyes. A sharp crack echoed through the rain as he snapped Derek’s neck like a dry twig.

Alexander let the body slump into the mud.

He knelt in the filth, his bloodstained hands suddenly trembling with gentleness as he began to pick up the shattered shards of his mother’s urn.

The whup-whup-whup of helicopter blades cut through the air.

A low-frequency thrumming started in the distance, growing into a deafening roar that swallowed the sound of the storm.

High above the gray clouds, the silhouettes of twelve F-35 stealth fighters tore through the sky, their afterburners lighting up the gloom like dying stars.

They circled the cemetery in a combat formation, declaring a total No-Fly Zone over the city.

Then came the heavy metal.

Six Black Hawk gunships descended in perfect synchronicity, their high-intensity searchlights cutting through the rain like god-rays, pinning Alexander in a halo of blinding white light.

Before the wheels even touched the mud, the doors slid open. A man in a dark, high-collared military trench coat leaped out.

Colonel Marcus Bennett. The "Crimson Reaper." A man whose name alone could make enemy generals surrender via radio.

Behind him, a hundred elite soldiers—members of the legendary Ghost Legion—hit the ground. They moved with terrifying precision, forming a living wall around the ruins of the grave, their rifles held at high-ready.

"SALUTE THE WAR GOD!" Marcus roared.

A hundred voices answered, a thunderous shout that drowned out the lightning: "HAIL THE GENERAL!"

Marcus ignored the mud ruining his $5,000 boots. He marched forward and dropped to both knees with a bone-jarring thud, his forehead nearly touching the wet earth at Alexander’s feet.

"General!" Marcus’s voice boomed, raw with a mix of terror and fanatic loyalty. "The orders have been dispatched. I’ve mobilized the Global Engineering Corps and the National Architect Guild. Within thirty minutes, five thousand elite soldiers will cordon off this mountain."

Marcus looked up, his eyes burning with zeal. " I’ve ordered ten tons of premium white jade and solid gold leaf to be flown in by heavy-lift transport. We will pave this entire hillside in marble. By sunrise, this will be a Forbidden Zone. No one

will be allowed to step within three miles of this sanctuary without your seal. "

Alexander continued his careful work. "Good."

"Sir, there's another matter." Marcus hesitated. "All the major families in the city have submitted formal invitations. They want the War God to attend their banquets. The mayor, the governor, every CEO and tycoon—everyone wants an audience with you."

"Declined."

"Yes, sir. I've already begun sending rejections." Marcus paused. "However... Your uncle...has also extended an invitation. He's inviting the War God to be the guest of honor at the Kane Estate tonight. "

The air seemed to freeze.

Alexander stood slowly, a shard of ceramic still in his palm. When he smiled, it was the expression of a predator sighting prey.

"Is that so?"