Rise to Power: The Miraculous Liam Regan.

Chapter 9

His forefathers had spent generations improving that land, turning dust into a home. For him to reclaim even half of it… it would take two hundred years years he didn’t have. Regular people never lived that long.

Some did now but only the wealthy. Those who could afford divine medicine or rare magical tomes that expanded life by decades. Not full immortality, but enough to keep power growing. Those relics were the most expensive treasures in the world, worth more than cities.

An E‑level citizen like Liam could never dream of touching a single pills of the drugs , let alone buying one to extend his age.

The life expectancy of an E‑level citizen was barely that of an ordinary human seventy years, if the gods were feeling generous. And even that was a curse disguised as mercy.

By seventy, most could no longer lift a tool or stand through a single workday. In this world, if you stayed home idle if you stopped producing, stopped paying, stopped serving you were already marked by death. Within a year, the system would erase you as easily as it deleted names from the registry.

Liam stood among the ruins of his home, the wind whispering through the debris like ghosts of those who once lived there. He wiped the dust from his face but couldn’t stop the tears that welled up again.

His mother.

How was he going to tell her all of this?

The thought alone broke something inside him. He steadied himself, forcing his trembling legs to move. There was only one place left to go the hospital where she was supposed to be recovering. He had to see her, even if he didn’t know what he would say.

The walk felt endless. By the time he reached the hospital, the afternoon lights had already dimmed. He pushed through the sliding glass doors, the scent of antiseptic filling his lungs.

Behind the counter, a woman in uniform looked up politely. Liam’s voice came out hoarse, unsteady.

“I’m here to see my mother,” he said. “Lora Gael.”

Hearing what he just said the attendant nodded and typed the name into her computer. For a moment, there was only the quiet tapping of keys. Then she frowned slightly.

After a few seconds, she looked up and her eyes softened, not with sympathy, but with the weary distance of someone used to delivering terrible news.

“Mr. Liam,” she said carefully, “your mother was transferred to the mortuary ten days ago.”

Liam froze. His lips parted, but no words came out.

“No… that’s not she was supposed to be here—”

The attendant shook her head gently. “I’m sorry. Since no one came to make any additional payments, we had no choice but to move her. The bills have been accumulating. As of now, you owe the hospital two hundred thousand dollars.”

Her tone turned purely procedural then, detached, as though she were reciting a policy. “You have ten more days to settle the debt, or a charge will be filed. You’ll be held responsible for all associated fees.”

Liam stood there as if the ground had disappeared beneath him.

Two hundred thousand.

Ten days...Mortuary.

The words slammed into him, each one crushing what was left of his heart. His vision blurred as tears spilled freely down his cheeks.

His mother had been dead for ten days.

And Emily… Emily had lied to him all this time. She hadn’t visited. She hadn’t paid. Not a single dollar of the thirty thousand she once promised had ever reached the hospital’s hands.

He swallowed hard, staring ahead through a haze of grief and rage.

She hadn’t just betrayed him like he thought she had let his mother die alone.