From Prison To Power

******

Blackthorn Bastille.

Speak its name, and you can feel the temperature drop.

It is the most dreaded prison on the planet—a place where not even ghosts dare to linger. A place with an escape rate so low, it rounds off to less than zero.

This fortress of torment is located in a region so unforgiving that even the weather has anger issues. Boiling heat by morning, bone-splintering cold by night. It’s as if Mother Nature herself wanted in on the punishment.

But the inmates here? They’re not petty criminals or tax evaders.

No!

They are living myths. Mercenary warlords with kill counts longer than phonebooks. Bloodthirsty mafia dons whose whispers topple regimes. Shadowy billionaire criminals who once played chess with global economies and nations. And mad scientists who probably thought ethics were a suggestion.

Names so infamous that just hearing them can cause riots, stock crashes, and sleepless nights for world leaders.

To be sent here isn’t just a death sentence. It’s worse.

At least with execution, you die once.

In Blackthorn Bastille? You die a little every damn second.

Whether it’s the psychotic climate, the fellow prisoners who could rip out your spine because you looked at their sandwich wrong, or the hellspawn wardens who hand out punishments like candy—this place makes Hell look like a spa weekend.

The world knows its name and even fears it.

And once you’re in, there are only two ways out: one, you get officially released, and two… you leave it in pieces, ideally inside a body bag.

….

Deep within the heart of this wretched hellhole, in a vast, cavernous assembly hall, thousands of inmates sat in haunting silence. Every single one of them—an embodiment of terror, a nightmare given form.

Men who were inked from skull to toe with horrifying sigils. Hulks that looked like they’d been sculpted out of tanks. One guy in the back looked like he ate other bodybuilders for breakfast. Protein shakes? Nah, he snorted raw testosterone.

Even the ones who looked clean, quiet, and delicate emitted an invisible miasma of death.

They always say never judge a book by its cover—but in this hall, from the monstrous figures to the ones with deceptively innocent faces, it’s painfully obvious: not a single soul here is innocent.

The aura they exuded by just sitting still—the constant haze of bloodlust around them, the piercing looks in their eyes… how else would you recognize beings of legend and terror if not by this?

Yet... something was wrong.

Despite their intimidating presence, the atmosphere was bizarrely gentle. These men—these beasts… currently looked broken.

That’s right.

Every single one of them had eyes filled with grief at this moment, reluctance, and something even rarer than remorse among killers: emotional devastation.

You’d think someone just told them the dearest person to them, who had kept them moving and living all these years, had died.

The room was so quiet it felt like oxygen itself refused to move. The eyes of some people glistened with unshed tears. Some even sniffled—though none dared admit it.

Only the rhythmic pounding of thousands of pained heartbeats echoed… until—

Tap… Tap… Tap…

Footsteps echoed, soft, unhurried, and almost weightless.

Given the size of the hall, the sound should’ve been drowned by sheer scale. But in this pin-drop silence, it hit like thunder.

And when those footsteps hit their ears, a collective tension flooded the room. In the following second, knuckles clenched and muscles tightened.

The pain in their expressions greatly intensified.

One might expect this reaction was for someone revered—an ancient figure who had shielded them, protected them and led them like a father.

But instead…

Tap… Tap… Tap…

The footsteps grew closer.

And finally, from the towering doorway at the front of the hall emerged a young man no older than twenty-five. He wore nothing more than faded jeans and a plain shirt that looked like it hadn’t seen sunlight in years.

He should have looked insignificant.

Yet, for some reason… the air bent around him.

His face was handsome, yes—but it wasn’t beauty that held their eyes. It was the calm, the quiet certainty in his step, the gravity that made every breath in the room pause when he entered.

He was the reason these devils cried… the reason legends wept.

And when he appeared, it felt like gravity had increased tenfold. Every soul present instantly felt their chest tighten.

Then, like a dam breaking—

"I-Is this really happening…?"

A deep, gravelly voice croaked, trembling with disbelief, like someone watching their world crumble.

"No! I wished this day would never come! I prayed—every day—that he’d stay with us forever," another wailed, sounding like a 300-pound toddler losing his teddy bear.

"Master Glenn… is really leaving us?"

"Who’ll protect the weak inmates from the savage from now on?"

"Who’ll stop the wardens when they come for our blood as they had done before his arrival?"

An emotional outburst rang through the air—something so raw and unexpected, it would shake the outside world to its core if word of it ever got out.

However, the young man to whom all this was directed appeared utterly calm and unfazed.

This young man is Glenn Avery, worshiped by every single person in the prison and feared alike.

He possesses an unraveled strength, something he didn’t have before he was sentenced.

During his first few months in the prison, he had been weak, constantly bullied by every single inmate, and almost lost his lifetime without a number, but then by a lucky encounter, he met his now-deceased master, who trained him in the act of cultivation, impacting him with both knowledge and power.

And now… although he appears to be one of the youngest, his appearance looking so weak and ordinary compared to the terrifying inmates that surround him, he is the sole ruler of Blackthorn Bastille.

….

Glenn’s gentle smile never faltered even a bit as he walked calmly into the inmates’ midst.

He didn’t speak, instead, he calmly watched them as their voices rose.

Only when their cries reached their peak did he finally open his mouth?

“Will you lot stop throwing tantrums like children already?” he uttered.

The words weren’t scolding, and they weren’t angry. No. They sounded tired, helpless, and resigned.

However, the moment they sounded, they hit harder than any thunderclap.

Every voice instantly died.

The dismayed voices died down instantly, leaving the hall so silent that one could hardly even hear the sound of breathing.

With this, Glenn scanned the room, meeting every tear-filled, bloodshot gaze. Then, he chuckled softly.

“All of you cry about wanting freedom every damn day, unable to wait to return to your lives in the outside world and show off everything you have learned and gained,” he said. “But now that I finally get to leave, you're sobbing like widows. Are you all cursing me to die in here?”

As soon as the prisoners heard him, they were stunned, then they exchanged gazes.

‘That seemed to be true,’ they thought in unison.

‘Are we… being selfish?’

Their expressions shifted, guilt blooming within them like rot.

In the next second, some scratched their heads, and the others looked down in shame.

Witnessing this, Glenn rolled his eyes speechlessly, shoved his hands into his pockets, and turned.

“I’m going now. Try not to burn this place down after I’m gone.”

Without hesitation, he stepped forward, ready to leave when…

“Master Glenn!!”

A voice stopped him—old, gravelly, yet powerful.

Standing at the front of the crowd was a man in his late seventies; his back was straight, and his presence appeared immense. This was a man who once commanded half the criminal underworld from a throne of blood.

Before Glenn arrived and displayed his power, this man had been the prison’s king. One of the two supreme rulers among the inmates

His name was Dante Salvatore, the infamous leader of the Crimson Vow Syndicate—a mafia empire so feared that his name alone could halt military convoys.

But now?

Dante looked like a beaten hound, his eyes sunken and his shoulders low, an image that the outside world would have never imagined for someone of his fearsome reputation.

Glenn paused and slightly turned his head.

“What’s wrong, old man?” he asked, his voice edged with barely concealed urgency—like someone itching to be anywhere else.

Dante instantly gritted his teeth, stepped forward, and slowly pulled out a blood-red emblem from his coat. Its surface bore the sigil of the Crimson Vow: a serpent devouring a crown.

“Master, as much as it hurts me that you are leaving us, this must happen sooner or later. You’re far too powerful… too important to be locked away in a place like this,” he said hoarsely. “So please…”

He knelt—knelt before the young man, a sight that would have turned the outside world into utter chaos and commotion.

“Take it. This is the symbol of my empire. With it, the entire Crimson Vow will obey your command without hesitation. We’ll die if you ask. We’ll kill without question. Just say the word.”

The hall became breathless once more.

The Demon King of Blackthorn had just been offered a throne—no longer in the prison, but now in the outside world.

And this… was only the beginning.