2025-12-26 19:18:49Chapter 8
The auction hall went eerily silent. Adrian had struck a nerve
Master Lancelot's face twisted, he was enraged. "You don't know who you're talking to."
"I know exactly who I'm talking to.”
Lancelot's control snapped.
He moved with the speed of someone who'd trained decades in actual combat. His fist shot forward in a textbook military strike — designed to break ribs, to incapacitate, to kill. Fast, brutal and efficient.
Adrian's hand came up and caught the fist mid-strike.
The way Adrian did it looked so casual like swatting a fly.
Lancelot's eyes widened in shock. He tried to pull back, but Adrian's grip was iron. He threw a follow-up strike with his other hand but again, Adrian blocked it with his forearm. The impact echoed through the hall.
They separated, both taking a step back.
The crowd held its breath.
Jasmine stood frozen. Her pupils trembled as she watched the exchange. Master Lancelot, her hope for victory had just been blocked. Twice.
A cold sneer spread across her face.
"Even if you can barely withstand Master Lancelot," she said, her voice cutting through the tension, "you can't handle his soldiers. You'll meet your end here today, Adrian Lancaster."
She reached into her designer handbag and pulled out a military-grade walkie-talkie. She raised it to her lips, pressing the transmit button.
"All units," she said clearly. "Target the man on stage and the girl in the cage. Weapons hot. Await my command."
In an instant, red laser dots appeared.
Hundreds of them. They painted Adrian's chest, his head, his arms. They covered Celeste in the cage behind him, tiny red points of light dancing across her terrified face.
Through the glass skylight, the silhouettes of soldiers could be seen on the roof — prone positions, rifles aimed, fingers on triggers. Through the windows, more soldiers lined up outside, their weapons trained through the glass.
The crowd screamed and dove for cover.
"Adrian!" Celeste's voice cracked with terror. She pressed herself against the back of the cage, trying to make herself smaller. "Don't worry about me! Just run! Please!"
Jasmine threw her head back and laughed. She turned toward the cage where Celeste huddled, her eyes gleaming with cruel satisfaction.
"Look at you," Jasmine said mockingly. "Waiting for your beloved brother to save you. How touching. How pathetic." She stepped closer to the cage, her heels clicking on the stage. "But neither you nor your precious brother can escape now. You should both just wait for death."
Celeste pressed herself against the bars, her face pale as though she had accepted defeat.
Jasmine spun around to face the terrified crowd that had been cowering against the walls.
Her voice rang out with authority. "Ladies and gentlemen! I apologize for the unusual interruption to tonight's proceedings. But I assure you, this situation will be resolved momentarily." She gestured toward Adrian with casual contempt. "This intruder will be executed on the spot. And then we can return to business as usual."
The crowd stirred with whispers.
"The Christian-Grey family is handling it..."
"We're safe now..."
"That guy is finished..."
Confidence returned to their faces. Some people even straightened up from their cowering positions. A few men in expensive suits started nodding to each other, relieved smiles appearing.
"Finally, someone with real power!"
"That arrogant fool is about to learn his place!"
The auction attendees began openly mocking Adrian, their fear transforming into vindictive pleasure now that they thought they were on the winning side.
Adrian didn't move. The laser dots danced across his face, painting him in red light. His voice came out visceral, dripping with fury. "You're doomed today, Jasmine."
Jasmine's smile widened. She turned back to Master Lancelot, her voice dripping with satisfaction. "Master Lancelot, give the attack order. Let's end this farce."
But Adrian's voice cut through the noise calmly, "Tell me something, Master Lancelot." Adrian's eyes locked onto the military officer. "As a military officer, as someone who swore an oath to this nation — will you really use the nation's army to intervene in a private vendetta? To help people who auction off innocent girls?"
The crowd went quiet.
Master Lancelot's jaw tightened. His hand moved to his sidearm. "I serve those who have helped me gain power. Nothing more. Nothing less." His voice was flat, emotionless. "Morality is a luxury for people who don't understand how the real world works."
He raised his hand, ready to signal his troops positioned on the roof and around the perimeter.
"All units, on my mark…"
Then Adrian moved in all of his glory.
His hands came together in a configuration that made Lancelot's eyes widen in horror, he undoubtedly recognised this technique.
Lancelot froze.
His eyes locked onto Adrian's hands. Onto the way Adrian's stance had shifted. Onto the specific positioning of his fingers and the way energy seemed to coalesce around him.
It was rare, only uniquely and perfectly done by the one and only King of the North.
Adrian’s fingers positioned in a specific pattern, stance shifting into something that radiated killing intent.
"No…" Lancelot's voice cracked. "That's impossible…"
Adrian's hands blurred through a sequence of movements. It was called the Northern Decimation Strike, a forbidden technique known only to the highest commanders of the Northern campaign. A strike that concentrated all of a fighter's power into a single point, designed to break through any defense, to shatter bone and rupture organs.
It was called forbidden because it had been used only three times in recorded history. Each time by the same man.
The King of the North.
Master Lancelot had seen it once, years ago, during a military demonstration. The War King had performed it on a reinforced steel target. The target had been reduced to twisted scrap metal.
"Who..." Lancelot's voice came out strangled. His hand dropped from the signaling position. "Who are you?"
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Epilogue
EpilogueWilliam Lancaster was fifteen and moving through the advanced Lancaster forms with the fluid precision that made his grandfather smile and his father quietly assess from the training room's doorway.The forms were complex — third-tier perception sequences that most adult practitioners required years to master. William executed them with the natural ease of someone who had been learning since he could walk, his body and mind synchronized in the particular way that the Lancaster bloodline made possible, the technique flowing through him like water through a channel shaped specifically for its passage.He finished the sequence and stood in the resting position, his breathing controlled, his awareness extended outward in the expanded perception that Frederick had spent a decade teaching him. The training room's details registered in his consciousness with crystalline clarity — the grain of the wooden floor, the movement of air through the ventilation system, the heartbeats of the
#197
Chapter 197The Lancaster estate on an autumn evening, five years after the war's end, looked like something that had always existed.The trees Aunt Betty planted had reached the height where their canopy began to merge — not the mature, established growth of the original gardens, but substantial enough to create pools of shade and corridors of dappled light that gave the grounds the feeling of a place with history rather than a place with damage. The roses on the south wall had climbed to the second-story windows. The lavender near the bench bloomed every spring with reliable abundance. The wildflowers in the corners had naturalized, spreading beyond their original beds into the spaces between formal plantings, softening the garden's edges into something that felt organic rather than designed.The estate itself was whole. Not restored — the word implied returning to a previous state, and the Lancaster estate had never returned to what it was. It had become what it was meant to become
#196
Chapter 196William Lancaster was five years old and absolutely certain that he could fly.This conviction manifested most frequently in the Lancaster estate's garden, where the stone bench his grandmother had once loved served as a launching pad for attempts at flight that consistently ended with grass-stained knees and the particular indignation of a child who believed the laws of physics were personal affronts."Again!" William announced, climbing back onto the bench for what Adrian counted as the seventh attempt of the morning."The ground isn't going anywhere," Adrian said from the pathway, coffee in hand, watching his son with the particular combination of amusement and vigilance that fatherhood had taught him was the baseline state of parenting a fearless five-year-old.William jumped. Gravity won. The knees were stained again."Again!"Adrian smiled. The expression still felt new sometimes — not rare anymore, but still carrying a faint novelty, the way a language learned in ad
#195
Chapter 195William Frederick Lancaster arrived at 3:47 AM on a spring morning, announcing his presence with a cry that carried through the hospital's maternity ward with a volume that several nurses later described as impressive for a newborn.Adrian was there. Had been there for fourteen hours of labor, standing beside Kris's bed with the focused, unwavering presence of a man who had decided that this was his position and nothing short of divine intervention would move him from it. The medical staff had tried once to suggest he wait in the corridor during a particularly intense phase. The look he'd given them had ended that conversation permanently.Kris had labored with the same determination she brought to everything — fierce, focused, refusing to surrender to the pain even as it pushed her body beyond anything she'd previously experienced. Adrian held her hand and discovered that his wife's grip strength during active labor exceeded anything he'd encountered in combat, including
#194
Chapter 194Kris told him on a Tuesday evening, in the kitchen of the Lancaster estate, while Adrian was reviewing quarterly reports from the Veterans Transition Initiative.She didn't build to it. Didn't create atmosphere or engineer a moment. She walked into the kitchen, set a glass of water on the table beside his paperwork, and said, "I'm pregnant."Adrian's pen stopped moving.The reports in front of him — veteran placement statistics, funding projections, program expansion timelines — continued existing on the table, but the words on them lost all meaning. His mind, trained across a decade to process incoming information and immediately generate tactical responses, received the data and produced nothing.Blank. Complete, absolute blank.Kris sat down across from him and waited. She'd learned his processing patterns well enough to know that significant information required space before response — that the man who could assess a battlefield in seconds needed longer to process thin
#193
Chapter 193The idea came from a conversation Adrian hadn't planned to have.He'd been visiting the veterans' medical facility — the wing where operators injured during the Penumbra siege and Arctic deployment were completing their rehabilitation. Standard visit, the kind a former commander made because the people who'd bled under his orders deserved the acknowledgment of his presence during their recovery.Sergeant Torres was there. His injuries from the Arctic — sustained when Natasha had struck him during the first engagement — had required extensive surgery and months of physical therapy. He was walking again, which the doctors called remarkable. Torres called it insufficient."I can't go back," Torres said, sitting on the edge of his rehabilitation bed with the frustrated posture of a man whose body could no longer do what his identity required. "Combat operations are finished for me. The nerve damage in my shoulder means I can't hold a weapon steady at distance. Medical discharg
You may also like
Back From Prison!
KMyay179.9K viewsZILLIONAIRE’S COMEBACK.
Becca72.8K viewsThe Midnight Heir
South Ashan100.6K viewsThe Useless Son In Law
Blue white93.5K viewsTHE SECONDS BETWEEN US
Serene180 viewsSecond Chance For Revenge
Jaxon Reed132 viewsShe Choose Her Ex Over Me
Stella167 viewsALPHA DOMINIC’s SUPREMACY
Onome Rae28 views