From Prison scapegoat to a Multi-Trillionaire

Chapter 1: System rebirth

The last thing Detective Sean Riggs remembered was the sterile smell of bleached hospital sheets, the steady, annoying beep of a heart monitor, and the suffocating weight of lung cancer pulling him into the dark. He had spent his final months wasting away in a white room, a decorated homicide detective reduced to a skeleton, wishing he could have died in the line of fire instead of fading out like a flickering candle.

He had closed his eyes, welcoming the cold numbness of death. It was supposed to be over.

So why the hell did his lungs suddenly burn with a sharp, painful gasp of air?

Sean’s eyes snapped open. He wasn't looking at a white hospital ceiling. He was staring at cracked, damp concrete. The air smelled of rust, urine, and sour sweat.

‘What is this?’ Sean thought, his detective instincts instantly firing through the confusion. ‘Did the resuscitation fail? Am I in a morgue?’

He tried to push himself up, but a rush of pain tore through his ribs, forcing a painful groan from his throat.

He looked down at his hands. They were thin, hardened, and covered in drying blood. These weren't his hands. He was wearing a filthy prison uniform.

Suddenly, a surge of foreign memories violently forced their way into his brain, crashing against his mind.

He wasn't Sean Riggs anymore. He was inside the body of a man named DAMIEN BLACKWOOD—a weak, submissive, tragic soul who had been labeled the "trash son-in-law" of high society.

For two years, Damien had been a punching bag for his wife Chloe’s wealthy family. He was the one who stood in the kitchen cooking and cleaning while they mocked his poverty.

And then, the ultimate betrayal. Chloe's younger brother had driven drunk and crushed a pedestrian in a hit-and-run. To save their precious son, the family had drugged Damien, put him behind the wheel, and forced him to take the fall. His own wife had wept fake tears, promising they would bail him out. But the moment the iron gates slammed shut, they abandoned him.

They even paid off inmates to ensure this weak, pathetic scapegoat would rot and die in Cell 4, burying the truth forever.

The original Damien had just died from that brutal beating minutes ago.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Sean thought, absorbing the memories with a mixture of disgust and anger. ‘The poor kid was a walking doormat. They chewed him up and spat him into a cage.’

Before he could process anything further, a blinding, holographic neon blue light erupted in his vision, freezing the world around him.

> [WARNING: Soul Integration 100% Complete.]

> [System Status: Online. Host detected in a critical, low-status environment.]

> [Initiating Identity Selection Protocol. Choose your supreme identity to claim your destiny:]

> Option 1: The Peerless Sovereign Physician (Master of life and death, divine medical arts).

> Option 2: The God of War (Supreme military commander, unmatched physical prowess).

> Option 3: The Multi-Trillionaire CEO (Master of global wealth, hidden links, infinite financial dominance).

Sean blinked, staring at the floating screen. A system? He had seen enough weird cases in his life, but this was insane. Yet, looking at the options, the detective in him immediately calculated the odds. A physician or a soldier wouldn't destroy a corrupt, wealthy elite family.

To utterly crush people who worshiped status and money, you had to control the very lifeblood of their world.

“Option three,” Sean commanded internally, his mind hardening. If he was being given a second chance in this kid's body, he was going to play the game right.

> [SELECTION CONFIRMED: Multi-Trillionaire CEO identity locked.]

> [System Binding Protocol: Initiated.]

> [CRITICAL NOTICE: To permanently unbind the System and secure your infinite wealth, you must complete Three Trial Tasks. Until then, your status remains 'Poor' and your funds are locked.]

> [TRIAL TASK 1: The Jailbreak.]

> Objective: Escape the prison cells and cross the outer perimeter without being recaptured.

> Time Limit:6 Hours.

> Penalty for Failure: Soul Obliteration.

> Reward for Success: $50 Million USD initial funding deposited into an untraceable Ghost Account.

The screen vanished, and the ache of Damien's broken body rushed back. Sean spat out a mouthful of blood, a grim smile forming on his bruised face.

"Six hours to bust out of a maximum-security block in a broken shell," Sean muttered, pulling himself up against the concrete wall. "Good thing you picked a homicide detective, kid."

This body was incredibly weak, malnourished, bruised, and trembling but Sean possessed twenty years of tactical experience. He looked around the dim cell. The heavy iron door was locked from the outside. The corridor was quiet, except for the rhythmic footsteps of Officer Vance on patrol.

From Damien's memories, Sean knew Vance was a corrupt guard paid off by the wife’s family to look the other way during the beatings.

Sean didn't have the muscle to break the bars, so he had to use psychology.

Sitting cross-legged on the damp floor, Sean used an old trick he'd learned from vice-squad ops to manipulate his breathing, intentionally slowing his heart rate and shallowing his breath to mimic a severe internal hemorrhage. When the heavy footsteps stopped outside, Sean let out a wet, choked gasp, throwing his body into a violent, rigid convulsion against the iron bars before collapsing into total stillness.

Officer Vance stopped, shining his flashlight into the cell. "Hey! Keep it down, trash," he growled.

Sean didn't move. He let a stream of saliva and blood pool at his lips, his eyes rolled back.

Vance’s expression shifted to sudden panic. The wealthy family paid him to make Damien suffer, but an unrecorded death on his shift would trigger an internal affairs investigation, exposing his bribery. "Hey! Wake up!" Vance hissed, fumbling frantically with the heavy ring of keys at his waist.

The lock clicked. The heavy door groaned open, and Vance knelt down, pressing two fingers against Sean’s neck. "Dammit, don't die on my watch, you piece of—"

In a split second, Sean’s eyes snapped open. The dull vacancy of the weak son-in-law was gone, replaced by the lethal, cold glare of a veteran cop.

Before Vance could even register the trap, Sean’s hand shot upward. His fingers drove ruthlessly into the nerve cluster at the base of the guard's throat, cutting off his oxygen and paralyzing his vocal cords.

With a fluid, practiced motion that maximized leverage over brute strength, Sean grabbed Vance's head and slammed it hard against the wall.

Vance went completely limp. Sean caught him before he hit the floor, preventing any noise.

Breathing heavily, Sean ignored the sharp protest of his cracked ribs as he quickly stripped the guard of his uniform. He pulled the dark blue shirt and trousers over his bruised frame, taking the keys, the security badge, and the flashlight. Stepping out into the corridor, he quietly locked the unconscious guard inside his own cell.

Moving through the prison was like second nature to an old detective. Sean timed the sweeps of the security cameras perfectly, staying in the blind spots and slipping through the shadows like a ghost. Within forty minutes, he bypassed the inner checkpoints and reached the rear loading dock, where a laundry truck was idling, preparing to leave.

Slipping underneath the large vehicle, Sean latched himself onto the undercarriage metal frame. He clamped his jaw shut, his fingers gripping the cold iron with sheer willpower, completely ignoring the blistering heat of the exhaust pipe inches from his skin.

The truck rumbled to life, rolling past the heavy iron gates and the armed guard towers. The searchlights swept the asphalt, completely missing the shadow clinging to the belly of the vehicle.

Two miles down the highway, as the truck slowed around a dark bend near a dense forest line, Sean let go. He hit the asphalt, rolled smoothly into the ditch, and vanished into the trees.

The cool night air hit his face, and his vision flashed blue.

> [SYSTEM NOTICE: Trial Task 1 Completed. Time Remaining: 4 Hours, 12 Minutes.]

> [Reward Issued: $50,000,000 USD has been successfully wired to your untraceable Ghost Account.]

> [TRIAL TASK 2 ACTIVATED: The Evidence.]

> Objective: Locate and secure the original, unedited black-box footage or physical evidence proving Julian Kingston’s guilt in the hit-and-run accident.

> Status: Unresolved.

Sean leaned against a tree, wiping the blood from his mouth, a dark, dangerous laugh escaping his chest. He was alive. The cancer was gone. He had fifty million dollars waiting in the shadows, and a global empire to unlock.

He looked down at his bruised hands, his eyes narrowing. The family thought they had buried a weakling. Instead, they had just given a brilliant, ruthless detective the ultimate weapon.

"Chloe. Julian," Sean whispered, using Damien's voice but his own deadly intent. "Your doormat is dead. I'm coming back home. And the investigation has officially begun."