All Hail the Warden

003

Staring down at his fragile younger sister, seeing the inhuman abuse she had been forced to endure, and realizing she had been mere seconds away from being defiled by a pack of filthy vagrants, an agonizing guilt pierced Nick Crane. That guilt instantly ignited into a monstrous, heaven-scorching fury.

"Victoria Lawson, you are actively courting death," he growled, his voice vibrating with murderous intent.

Victoria Lawson stumbled backward, her mind short-circuiting. She never expected anyone to violently breach her private domain. As the shock wore off, her eyes locked onto the intruder's face in absolute disbelief.

"Are you Nick Crane?" she stammered in panic. "I thought you had gone completely insane and died. How are you back here?"

"You are exactly right. I am back." He let out a cold sneer. "I came back specifically to settle the debts you owe. You had the gall to treat my family this way. Therefore, I will use your blood to announce my return."

Faced with his suffocating killing intent, genuine panic crossed her heavily made-up face. However, she quickly swallowed her fear, desperately clinging to her ingrained arrogance.

"What an absolute joke," she scoffed, straightening her ruined designer jacket. "Do you honestly believe Diverton is still ruled by the Crane family? Even if you recovered from your illness, you are nothing more than a pathetic stray dog. Since you have foolishly delivered yourself to my doorstep, this works out perfectly. I was just getting bored of torturing your sibling, so now it is your turn. Guards, take him down!"

Before her shrill voice even faded, over a dozen heavily muscled bodyguards flooded into the destroyed office.

"Get out of my sight."

Nick Crane did not even bother looking at them. He simply raised his hand and delivered a sweeping strike through the empty air, unleashing a terrifying surge of kinetic power.

The bodyguards did not even have the chance to raise their fists. The invisible force slammed into them like a speeding freight train. They were violently launched backward simultaneously, coughing up massive mouthfuls of blood as their ribs shattered. They crashed into the walls and died instantly before their bodies even hit the floor.

The cruel smirk completely froze on the female executive's face.

Her eyes widened in absolute horror. These were highly trained professional enforcers and hardened military veterans. Yet, with a single wave of his hand, this man had slaughtered every last one of them in the blink of an eye.

In the very next heartbeat, a large, impossibly strong hand clamped directly around her throat.

She was forcefully hoisted into the air, her feet kicking uselessly off the ground. The tall man stared up at her with glacial cruelty.

"Tell me now," he whispered softly. "Do I still look like a nobody to you?"

"You..." She felt as if electricity had surged through her body, her face rapidly turning a deep purple. "Are you really going to murder me? The Lawson family has long since ascended to become a top-tier power in Diverton. If you kill me today, my family will absolutely ensure you suffer a death of a thousand cuts."

He offered a scoff of pure contempt. Her family had barely qualified as a bottom-tier entity years ago. They had only climbed to the top by feasting on the ruins of his destroyed lineage.

"So what if they are?" The grip on her neck tightened mercilessly. "If I want you dead, you will die."

He applied a sudden, crushing pressure to his arm.

Thick veins bulged violently against the woman's ruined makeup. The visceral fear of asphyxiation shattered the last of her sanity. A warm patch of liquid rapidly spread across her designer skirt as her bladder completely let go in pure terror.

Just as her eyes began to roll back, a weak voice called out from the floor.

"Please, no." Lydia dragged her bleeding body across the ruined carpet and wrapped her frail arms tightly around his leg. "Please do not kill her."

He immediately understood. His gentle sister was utterly terrified of the brutal retaliation he would face from the powerful elites of the city. For her sake, he abruptly released his iron grip.

The woman collapsed into a miserable heap on the floor, gasping hungrily for air.

"Consider yourself incredibly lucky," he declared coldly. "For my sister's sake, I will spare your miserable life today. Besides, simply snapping your neck right now would be letting you off far too easily. You specifically arranged for a pack of street beggars to defile her. Therefore, it is only fair that you personally experience the exact same hospitality you planned for her."

"What did you just say?" The fleeting relief of escaping death was instantly replaced by utter horror. She trembled violently. "No, please do not do this to me. Let me go. I will give you endless amounts of money."

He remained completely deaf to her begging. "Serena, Helena, take care of this trash."

Two deadly silhouettes materialized from the shadows. The women moved with lethal precision, effortlessly hoisting the screaming executive up by her arms and dragging her backward toward the exit, simultaneously corraling the surviving beggars out of the room to follow the doomed woman.

"No, I am begging you," she shrieked, her shrill voice echoing down the corridor. "I will curse you to die a horrible death. Ahhh!"

Her agonizing screams were completely swallowed by the heavy thud of the closing elevator doors.

"Thank you..." The frail girl on the floor tried to utter another sentence, but the emotional exhaustion finally overwhelmed her. Her head tilted to the side, and she slipped into a deep unconsciousness.

"Lydia!" He immediately dropped to his knees, gathering her broken body into his strong arms.

He placed her gently onto the surviving leather sofa. Pressing three fingers against her slender wrist, he meticulously checked her internal pulse. She had endured unfathomable physical torture and prolonged psychological torment. Her body's core vitality was dangerously overdrawn.

The only blessing was that she had not suffered catastrophic damage to her internal organs. With the miraculous medical skills he had inherited from the old monster during his confinement, pulling her back from the brink of collapse would be relatively simple.

He flicked his wrist with practiced grace. Over a dozen gleaming silver needles materialized between his fingers and descended upon her key meridian points with the speed of falling rain.

This was the Divine Healing Technique. Let alone severe physical trauma, even if the patient had only a single breath left in their lungs, this legendary method was powerful enough to forcibly snatch their soul right out of the icy grip of Satan.

Within mere moments, the pale girl let out a soft sigh and slowly fluttered her eyes open.

"You need to run," she immediately gasped, clutching his shirt. "Please leave quickly. You treated her so ruthlessly. Her powerful family will absolutely never let you get away with this."

"Listen to me carefully," he said, grasping her shaking shoulders to ground her. "As long as I am standing right here beside you, you have absolutely nothing to fear. Let alone one insignificant corporate family, I do not even place this entire city in my eyes. From this day forward, no one will ever be allowed to hurt you again. You just have to trust me."

"I was so terrified." The sudden warmth of her only family finally shattered her emotional dam. She buried her face deep into his chest, weeping uncontrollably and shedding tears of pure, agonizing relief.

His own heart ached fiercely. He silently swore a blood oath that he would shield her from all the cruelty this world had to offer.

"I miss our father," she whispered, wiping away her tears. "I miss our mother so much. And I really miss our old house. Can we please just go home?"

"Yes. We are going home right now," he agreed, his voice thick with unyielding resolve.

He carefully supported her weight as they walked together out of the ruined executive office. Cowering in the corner by the elevators, the sycophantic assistant who had handed over the whip was trembling violently. The moment he saw the terrifying man emerge, his courage shattered completely.

"Halt." A single, booming command froze the assistant dead in his tracks.

"Please have mercy on me, great master." The pathetic assistant dropped to his knees, slamming his forehead against the marble floor. "I am just a lowly employee. None of this was my idea."

"I have a specific question for you," he demanded sharply. "This entire building used to be known as Zenith Tower. It was a core asset that belonged strictly to my family. When exactly did it become the property of these thieves?"

"Sir, this... I..." The assistant stuttered in fright.

"Speak."

"Ever since your family was tragically wiped out, all of your remaining corporate assets were viciously divided and swallowed up by the various powerful factions across the city," the assistant confessed rapidly. "This specific skyscraper was the prize that the Lawson family managed to claim for themselves."

"I see how it is now." He took a slow, deep breath, his eyes darkening with a deadly storm. "What a truly magnificent display of greed by these people. What an outstanding performance by all the elite families of Diverton."

He glared down at the shaking assistant. "Roll back to your masters right now and deliver a message for me. Tell them that they must unconditionally return every single piece of property they swallowed from my family before tomorrow morning. Furthermore, you will tell every single living member of their household to crawl to the front gates of the Crane family estate and kneel in the dirt to confess their sins. If they fail to comply, I will personally exterminate their entire bloodline."

After delivering his ultimate ultimatum, he gently guided his weeping sister toward the elevator, leaving the ruined floor behind.

On the quiet drive back to the outskirts of the city, the fragile girl could clearly sense a monumental shift in her brother's entire demeanor. He felt completely different from the gentle young heir he had been all those years ago. She desperately wanted to ask him what had happened, but she struggled to find the right words.

"I heard terrible rumors from the guards," she finally murmured, looking down at her scarred hands. "They said you had suffered a complete mental breakdown, and that you were permanently locked away in a terrifying prison. Did you..."

"You silly girl," he chuckled warmly, affectionately ruffling her hair. "Do I really look like a crazy person to you? I was fully cured a very long time ago. More importantly, I spent that time learning a great deal of extraordinary skills."

His gaze then shifted toward the passing city skyline, his jaw setting into a line of unbreakable determination. "Everything we lost in the past, whether it is our vast wealth, our supreme power, or our stolen dignity, I am going to take every last bit of it back."