Rise Of The Underworld King

The steady beep of the heart monitor echoed softly in the quiet hospital room. Ethan Sanders sat on a small wooden chair beside the white bed, gently holding the frail, wrinkled hand of the only person who had ever truly loved him.

"Ethan, my dear boy," the old woman whispered, her voice faint and trembling as she opened her tired eyes. "Is Tina coming today? I have not seen your wife in such a long time."

Ethan looked at his grandmother's pale face, forcing a warm, gentle smile to hide the deep ache in his chest. "She was held up by a client at the office, Grandma. But do not worry. I will step outside and call her right now."

"Do not scold her, Ethan," Grandma Sanders said softly, a weak, tender smile touching her dry lips. "She is a busy woman running a big company. But I know my own body, child. I do not have much time left in this world. Before I close my eyes for the last time, I only want to see her once and hold both of your hands together."

"Do not speak like that, Grandma. You will get better," Ethan said, gently tucking the light blanket around her shoulders. "Rest for a few minutes. I will bring her here."

Ethan stood up and walked out of the room, quietly pulling the wooden door shut behind him. The hospital hallway was cold and it smelled strongly of disinfectant. Ethan took his phone from his coat pocket, looked at the name on the screen, and pressed the dial button.

The phone rang twice before the line was abruptly cut off. A short busy tone buzzed in his ear. Ethan lowered the phone, his jaw tightening slightly. He waited ten seconds, took a steady breath, and dialed the number again.

The call went straight to voicemail. Ethan did not stop. He dialed a third time, then a fourth time, and then a fifth time. The phone continued to ring until it clicked off automatically. Ethan stood alone by the corridor window, his thumb pressing the screen again and again.

On the eleventh attempt, the line finally connected. A loud, sharp, irritated voice answered before Ethan could even say a single word.

"Ethan, are you completely insane?" Tina Macy snapped through the speaker, her tone dripping with annoyance and disgust. "Do you have any idea how many times you just called me? I am in the middle of a business discussion with our top investors. Do you think my work is a joke like your useless daily routine?"

"Tina, listen to me," Ethan said, keeping his voice as calm and steady as possible. "You need to come to the city hospital right now. Grandma is in critical condition. She wants to see you."

A cold, mocking laugh came through the phone receiver. "The hospital again? Ethan, how many times are you going to use that exact same pathetic trick? Every time we have an argument, you run to your grandmother and pretend she is dying just to make me feel guilty. Are you a child?"

"I am not playing games with you, Tina," Ethan said. "Her organs are failing. The doctor said this is her final day. She is asking for you. As her granddaughter-in-law, you should be here."

"Stop lying to me!" Tina shouted back. "We had a disagreement yesterday because you refused to sign the property agreement for my brother, and now suddenly your grandmother is dying? Do you think I am stupid? You just want to drag me away from my work to force me to apologize to you."

"Tina, she took care of us for three years," Ethan said, gripping the phone tightly, his knuckles turning pale against the plastic. "She gave you her ancestral jade bracelet when we got married. She never asked you for a single penny. All she wants is to hold your hand for one minute before she dies. Just come and spend some time with her, even if it's just for ten minutes."

"I am not coming, Ethan, so stop begging," Tina said coldly."My time is worth fifty thousand dollars an hour. I am discussing a multi-million-dollar supply contract right now. I do not have time to sit in a dirty public hospital to watch you play the filial grandson. Stay there and do not call me again today."

"Tina! If you hang up this phone, you will regret it for the rest of your life," Ethan warned.

"The only thing I regret is marrying a useless man who spends his entire life doing household chores and fabricating medical emergencies," Tina sneered. "Solve your own problems, Ethan. Do not ever disturb my work again."

The line clicked dead. Ethan stared at the dark screen of his phone. His chest felt heavy, battered by the cruel, ungrateful words of the woman he had silently supported from the shadows for three full years.

He moved his thumb to redial the number, determined to make her understand the gravity of the situation. But before he could press the screen, a loud, piercing alarm suddenly shrieked from inside Room 304.

Beep—beep—beep—beeeeeep!

The continuous flatline tone cut through the hallway like a sharp blade. Ethan's face drained of color. He dropped his phone into his pocket and turned around in an instant.

"Doctor! We have an emergency in 304! The patient is in full ventricular standstill!" a nurse shouted as she rushed out of the nearby station.

Dr. Miller, the chief resident of the cardiology ward, ran past Ethan with two junior doctors, pushing an emergency resuscitation crash cart into the room.

"Prep one milligram of epinephrine immediately! Charge the defibrillator to two hundred joules!"

Ethan rushed into the room behind them, his eyes locking on the uncontinous figure on the bed. Grandma Sanders's face was completely gray, her eyes closed, and her chest no longer rising. The green line on the medical monitor had turned into a flat, unbroken horizontal streak.

"Clear!" Dr. Miller shouted, placing the defibrillator paddles against the elderly woman's chest. The frail body jerked upward from the electrical impulse, but the monitor remained flat.

"Again! Charge to three hundred! Clear!"

The machine discharged a second time, but there was no response from the heart. The junior doctor began manual chest compressions, his forehead covered in sweat as he pushed rhythmically against the brittle ribs.

Ethan stepped forward, his fingers moving with precision as he pressed two fingers firmly against his grandmother’s carotid artery. His sensitive fingertips felt the complete absence of arterial pulse, the coldness already spreading through the microvascular vessels in her neck.

As the world's most revered master of medicine, known across the globe as the Divine Physician who could cure impossible diseases, Ethan knew human anatomy better than anyone alive. He could neutralize the deadliest biological toxins, repair severed microscopic nerves, and restore failing organs with a single acupuncture needle.

Her heart had not failed from disease or injury; her biological clock had simply run out of fuel. The human body had reached its natural, inevitable end, and no medical mastery in the world could reverse the irreversible law of aging.

"Ethan... we did everything we could," Dr. Miller said quietly, stopping the compressions and lowering his head in sorrow. "Her heart has completely ceased electrical activity. Time of death... ten past four in the afternoon."

The room fell into an agonizing silence. The nurses quietly turned off the screaming alarms, disconnected the monitoring leads, and bowed their heads before stepping out of the room.

Ethan stood completely still beside the bed. He reached out with trembling fingers, gently smoothing the gray hair away from his grandmother’s forehead. He carefully pulled the white sheet up over her shoulders, leaning down to whisper into her cold ear.

"I am sorry, Grandma," Ethan murmured, tears slipping down his cheek and falling on the linen. "I could not bring her to you. But you can rest peacefully now. Nobody will ever hurt you or look down on you again."

Three days passed in a blur of gray skies and cold autumn wind.

Ethan had finalized all the funeral arrangements entirely by himself. Because he was an orphan adopted by the old woman when he was only five years old, there were no distant relatives to notify, and no large crowds gathered at the modest memorial hall.

The Macy family, who had lived off the income from the cosmetics company Ethan had secretly helped build, did not send a single flower. Tina, Donald, and Evelyn never once showed up, nor did they send a single text message asking if the old woman was alive or dead.

On the afternoon of the third day, Ethan stood alone on the green hillside of the city cemetery. A fresh granite headstone stood before him, carved with simple, dignified letters: Beloved Saviour, Clara James.

A light, cold drizzle fell from the sky, soaking the shoulders of Ethan’s black wool coat. Ethan simply stood there in the quiet rain, staring at the gray stone.

In his hand, he held a small wooden box containing the ancient jade bracelet his grandmother had once given to Tina—a bracelet Tina had tossed into a dusty drawer on their wedding day, calling it worthless cheap glass.

Suddenly, the silence of the empty cemetery was broken by the sharp vibration of his mobile phone.

Ethan slowly took the phone out of his pocket. On the glowing screen, the name "Tina" flashed repeatedly.

Ethan’s face remained completely expressionless. He slid his thumb across the glass and brought the phone to his ear, remaining completely silent.

"Ethan? Where on earth have you been for the past three days?" Tina’s sharp voice demanded immediately, without a single word of greeting or concern. "You did not come home to cook dinner, you did not clean the living room, and my mother had to make her own tea this morning. What kind of useless husband disappears without saying a word?"

Ethan did not raise his voice. He stood firmly in front of the grave, his tone flat and devoid of any emotion. "What do you want, Tina?"

"What do I want?" Tina scoffed, sounding entirely self-righteous. "I want you to get your pathetic self back to the villa right this second. My mother and my brother are waiting in the living room. We need to talk about the company shares and your monthly allowance. If you are not here within thirty minutes, do not bother coming back at all."

"I see," Ethan replied calmly, his voice steady and even. "I will be there."

"Good. And make sure you buy some fresh groceries on your way back," Tina commanded before abruptly hanging up the call.

Ethan lowered the phone from his ear. He looked down at the dark screen, preparing to lock the device and walk down the hill.

Just as his finger touched the power button, a prominent breaking news notification popped up at the top of his phone screen from the city's leading financial and entertainment news outlet.

The headline blared in bold red letters:

"Macy Cosmetics CEO Tina Macy Spotted in Intimate Dinner with an handsome Heir at Starlight Sky Lounge!"

Ethan tapped the notification. The screen immediately loaded a photograph taken inside the most exclusive beautiful restaurant in the city.

In the picture, Tina was wearing an exquisite, shining evening gown, a gentle, enchanting smile on her face as she clinked a glass of vintage champagne with a handsome young man in a designer suit. The man was gently resting his hand over Tina’s fingers on the white tablecloth.

Ethan’s eyes moved slowly to the bottom corner of the photograph, where the journalist had stamped the verified timestamp of the exclusive sighting:

Date: October 14. Time: 4:08 PM.

Ethan looked at the numbers. It was the exact date, the exact hour, and the exact minute when his grandmother was taking her very last breath in the hospital ward—the exact moment Tina had claimed she was busy in an intense board meeting, hanging up on his desperate pleas to save a dying woman's final wish.