2025-07-29 22:33:17“He’s leaving today...”
The whispers slithered through the air like venomous snakes. They danced around steel bars and echoed off concrete walls, seeping into the ears of every soul trapped inside Fort-tight Maximum Prison—the very belly of the devil himself.
The news was more than gossip. It was war.
Twelve men stood in a straight line, like soldiers without a nation, each of them armed with makeshift weapons—a jagged pipe, a rusted blade, a thick chain wrapped tightly around knuckles swollen from bloodshed. Their eyes burned with desperation, pride, and foolish ambition.
“He leaves today,” the tallest one growled, “and when he does, we will be remembered as the last men to challenge the Almighty Master Ethan Northstrum.”
A wild murmur ran through the watching crowd. They were insane.
Because just a few yards away, Ethan was sitting cross-legged at his usual corner—an isolated slab of concrete under the shadow of a crumbling wall. His eyes were closed, body still as stone, breathing shallow like a monk in transcendence.
The wind fluttered his simple grey prison shirt, revealing nothing of the monster beneath. To the eye, he was just a slim, lanky 27-year-old with the soft, harmless features of a suburban librarian. A face that whispered innocence and a frame that suggested weakness.
But only fools looked with their eyes in Fort-tight.
The twelve came at once, weapons raised high.
The leader, a scar-faced brute with a crowbar, sneered. “Northstrum,” he growled, “heard you’re leaving today. We’re the last to challenge the Almighty Master. Beating you will make us legends.”
Gasps.
Shouts.
Cheers.
The crowd surged forward, banging on the steel fences that separated them from the unfolding spectacle. They had gathered to witness what they thought would be the final rebellion. A shot at glory.
The courtyard stirred—prisoners creeping from cells, guards peering from towers, their whispers a low buzz. “Fools,” one muttered. “They’re dead,” another hissed.
It lasted less than a minute.
Ethan’s eyes remained shut, his face serene, as if the men were flies circling a statue.
The brute lunged, crowbar swinging. In a blur, Ethan moved—fluid, precise, a shadow dancing through frost.
His hand snapped out, twisting the brute’s wrist; the crowbar clattered, followed by a scream as bones cracked.
The others charged, a chaotic swarm, but Ethan was a storm.
A kick shattered a knee, a palm crushed a jaw, a sidestep sent a chain-wielder sprawling.
In forty-seven seconds, all twelve lay sprawled, clutching broken limbs, their wails piercing the air.
Ethan exhaled. Calm. Silent. Deadly.
Then he sat back down, resumed his meditative posture, and closed his eyes again.
But their cries—God, the cries—wouldn’t stop.
He opened one eye, sharp and cold, and uttered one word:
“Silence.”
And like the entire world was muted, they obeyed.
Twelve men, in unbearable pain, biting down on their tongues to keep from crying out loud.
That’s the kind of power Ethan Northstrum commanded.
And then he came—the man no one would believe could ever bow.
Romelu Castello.
Once the king of global mafia circles. A man who had controlled continents from the shadows. A name that had presidents waking in cold sweats. For decades, the most wanted man in the world. And once upon a time, the undisputed king of Fort-tight.
Until Ethan arrived.
Before Ethan, he’d ruled Fort-tight, the warden his puppet, prisoners his pawns.
Now, he shuffled forward, a contraband phone trembling in his hands, his once-commanding frame hunched like a child caught stealing.
The phone was forbidden—Fort-tight, the world’s harshest prison, housed terrorists, mass murderers, mafia lords, the worst of the worst. Perched on a no-man’s-land peak, its icy isolation made escape a fantasy.
Yet here was Romelu, risking death to deliver a call.
Now, Romelu stood trembling, the phone in his hand, his 62-year-old knees knocking together like spoons in a drawer.
He did not speak.
He dared not.
The phone rang again.
Romelu’s hands shook violently. His lips quivered. He wanted to vanish, disappear, die even—anything but what he was about to do.
The phone rang a third time.
Ethan’s eyes opened.
Sharp.
Blazing.
Romelu collapsed to his knees, bowing until his forehead kissed the concrete. “Forgive me, Master Ethan,” he begged, tears sliding down the old man’s cheeks. “It’s urgent…”
Without a word, Ethan rose and plucked the phone from Romelu’s hand.
The onlookers held their breath.
No one looked at him.
No one moved.
He walked away slowly, lifting the phone to his ear.
“Speak.”
A familiar voice answered. Calm. Powerful. Fragile.
“Master Ethan,” said the President of the Republic, “I offer my congratulations. The world welcomes you back.”
Ethan didn’t reply immediately.
He looked out at the mountain peaks beyond the barbed wire. The fortress of stone and snow where he had reigned supreme for five long years. Where he had turned beasts into followers. Tyrants into servants. Where even the devil himself would hesitate to walk.
Within a year of his sentence, the world’s elite—presidents, tycoons, warlords—knelt to him from afar, begging him to leave. He’d refused, serving his sentence to the day, a choice that baffled them.
“I told you,” Ethan said quietly, “I would serve every second of my sentence.”
“Yes, sir,” the President stuttered. “But now, we await your return. The country… no, the world needs you.”
Ethan’s boots crunched through snow as he crossed the compound, prisoners bowing like reeds in a storm.
Whispers trailed him—“Devil in disguise,” one hissed. “Greek god, not human,” another muttered.
His slim build, shy demeanor, and delicate features—seemingly too weak to crush a fly—had fooled them once.
Now, they saw the truth: a predator cloaked in a leaf’s frailty. He ignored them, his focus on the call, his steps deliberate toward the warden’s podium.
Ethan ended the call without a goodbye.
He turned back to the compound.
And ordered the guards.
“Assemble everyone.”
Like an army summoned by a god, the entire prison population gathered within minutes. Over three thousand inmates. The worst of the worst. Murders. Crime lords. Traffickers. Mercenaries.
And yet, they stood like schoolchildren—silent, orderly, heads bowed.
Ethan walked toward the podium.
The prison warden stood at attention. So did Romelu and his lieutenants. The guards didn’t even pretend to be in control anymore. They knew who the true warden was.
“Announce me,” Ethan said simply.
The warden’s voice cracked on the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Fort-tight… I present to you… The Almighty Master Ethan Northstrum!”
“AMEN!” they all shouted in unison. The acronym of his name and title.
Then they bowed.
Ninety degrees.
The wind stilled.
The mountain seemed to lean in and listen.
“I am leaving today,” Ethan began, his voice calm, yet every syllable cut through flesh like a dagger. “But make no mistake—I am watching you. Always.”
There was a pause.
Whispers of joy and fear crossed faces like shadows.
Murmurs rippled—stubborn inmates grinning at his departure, others paling at his reach.
A bold voice muttered, “Devil won’t let us breathe,” and Romelu’s glare snapped toward it, his growl a warning. “Interrupt the Master again, and you’re done.”
Silence clamped down, not from Romelu’s threat but Ethan’s shadow.
“But I leave you in the hands of discipline,” Ethan continued, eyeing each of them. “If even one of you dares to disrespect the order I have established here…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t have to.
Romelu stepped forward. “Whoever disrupts the peace shall meet a fate worse than death. We swear it.”
Ethan nodded. “Good.”
The warden stepped forward, his hands clasped.
“Master Ethan, thank you—for keeping this place in order. Don’t abandon me to these… animals.” His voice quaked, eyes pleading.
He turned to the warden. “They will behave.”
The warden’s face beamed with gratitude. “Yes, Master. Thank you for your mercy all these years.”
Ethan walked away. The crowd parted like the Red Sea.
Outside, twelve black warship helicopters stood in formation—powerful, ominous, symbols of absolute state authority. The Four Gods of War stepped down—generals of supreme combat skill and mystical strength, handpicked by the President himself.
They all bowed.
“Welcome, Almighty Master Ethan Northstrum,” they chorused.
He walked past them as though they didn’t exist.
And when the choppers took off, another twelve rose from the mountains and joined them in formation. Twenty-four war helicopters, flying in honor of one man.
Not even the President moved like this.
Ethan settled into the lead chopper, the mountain shrinking below, his thoughts turning inward.
Prison had been a cage he’d mastered, but his mission loomed—an ancient family relic, stolen, sold at an elite auction.
He’d tried to reclaim it, only to be betrayed, arrested, locked away. In Fort-tight, he’d learned its new owner, and now, free, he’d hunt it down.
The relic wasn’t just heritage—his destiny was woven into its core. He craved an ordinary life, but this mission came first.
---
They landed at the Royal Military Airfield in Primus City, the most powerful metropolitan capital in the nation.
The reception awaiting Ethan?
Unreal.
The President.
The Prime Minister.
The Chief Justice.
The Minister of Finance.
The Defense Minister.
The nation’s wealthiest mogul.
The foremost scientist.
Ten of the most powerful men in the country stood like schoolboys awaiting inspection.
Each bowed deeply.
“Welcome home,” the President said softly.
Ethan raised a brow. “I don’t need noise. No cameras. No parades.”
They nodded frantically.
The President smiled nervously. “Yes, sir. But… the nation deserves to know—”
“No.”
Just one word. And they all shut up.
The Finance Minister stepped forward. “This card…” He handed over a sleek, shimmering black titanium card. “It draws directly from the national reserve. Unlimited.”
The Defense Minister bowed. “This device will summon every branch of the armed forces to your location.”
The billionaire mogul stepped forward next. “My $33 trillion empire is yours. I name you heir. My family owes you its survival.”
One by one, they presented him gifts—treasures, tokens, legacies. Each more absurdly powerful than the last.
Ethan received them with the grace of a silent god. He didn’t thank them. They didn’t expect him to. To serve him was thanks enough.
But in his heart, he didn’t care for power, or fame, or worship.
All he cared about...
...was a stolen artifact.
An ancient belonging.
A family heirloom, taken from him in betrayal. An item not just of history, but of destiny. One that bound his fate.
And now…
He was going to retrieve it.
One way or another.
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Chapter 207: Visions like memories
Ethan lowered himself onto the woven mat, the coarse fibers a tactile anchor in the surreal chamber. He crossed his legs, rested his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes. The weight of the stone room, the scent of earth, the profound silence—it all pressed in, not as an assault, but as an invitation to dissolve.This was the same thing he had run away from back then that he was now finding himself performing again.But what choice had he got? He needed to complete this before he could think of facing Nathan for the sake of Emma and his unborn baby.“Breathe into the stillness,” the Grand Physician’s voice murmured, not from across the room, but seemingly from within the stillness itself. “The Quieting is not an erasure. It is a re-ordering. You will see the tapestry of your life. The threads of joy, of pain, of choice and consequence. Do not cling to them. Observe them as patterns in the weave. You will have visions. Keep an open mind. The mind that judges is the mind that suffers
Chapter 206: The sanctuary of stillness
They passed through corridors Ethan vaguely remembered, places of instruction and meditation. But the Grand Physician led him deeper than he had ever gone before, to a part of the compound that felt less like a building and more like a natural cave system that had been gently shaped. The air grew cooler, the scent of stone and damp earth replacing the incense.Finally, they entered a circular chamber. The ceiling was a natural dome of rock, with a single shaft of muted light falling from a hidden opening far above, illuminating the center of the room. In that pool of light was a simple mat of woven reeds. Around the perimeter, in deep shadow, stood nine smooth stone pillars, each carved with a single, complex symbol that seemed to shift in the low light.This was the Sanctuary of Stillness. The air itself felt thick, heavy with intention, as if sound went to die here.The Grand Physician gestured to the mat. "The place of unraveling."Ethan moved toward it, the gravity of the room pre
Chapter 205: The ‘Quieting’ Ritual
As Ethan drove to the Grand Physician’s the following morning, his hands tight on the wheel, his mind was a million miles away—or rather, decades.He wasn't navigating by GPS, but by muscle memory of a journey taken in a different life. The towering pines blurred into a green-grey wall, and with them, the present dissolved.“The focus is not to feel nothing, Ethan. That is the crude aim of a brute. The aim is to feel everything… and choose which sensation becomes action. The rest, you relegate to a silent room and lock the door.”The Grand Physician’s voice, dry as ancient parchment, echoed in his mind. He could see the austere training hall, the smell of sandalwood and cold stone. He’d been young, arrogant, flush with the early successes of the skills he’d already learned. The ‘Quieting’ had been presented as the final masterwork, the capstone. Not a new weapon, but the forging of an impregnable armory for the mind itself.And he’d walked away just before he could even get to underst
Chapter 204: Back To The Grand Physician
Ethan didn’t answer for a long moment. He pushed back from the desk, the chair rolling soundlessly on the thick rug. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, his back to the room, his silhouette tense against the glittering, indifferent cityscape.“I know my brother,” Ethan said, his voice hollow, stripped of all its usual command. “I know that Elizabeth Robbins would swallow broken glass before calling me for help. The fact that she did…” He bowed his head, a hand coming up to press against the cold glass. “It means she has exhausted every other option.”Ethan gave a single, jerky nod. The weight of it—the dual loss, the compounded violation—seemed to press him physically into the floor. “My brother understands currency. He understands leverage. He has just acquired the only two things in this universe I would trade the crown for. Not that I would ever be given the choice.”He strode back to the desk, not with purpose, but with a frantic, caged energy. He picked up the dead phone, s
Chapter 203: What do we do now?
Elizabeth’s phone slipped from her nerveless fingers, thudding softly onto the carpet. She didn’t hear it. All she heard was the roaring silence of a timeline that ended at seven o’clock.She was leaving.Four hours ago.The chill from the balcony was nothing compared to the glacial fear freezing her from the inside out. Every terrible possibility—the kind she’d spent years as a corporate wife learning to suppress—flooded her mind. An accident on the winding coastal road. A mugging in the city garage. Or worse, something deliberate, something linked to the crown, to the viper’s nest Emma had just been thrust into.Her gaze swept the room, landing on the family portrait from a decade ago—Richard’s arm around her, a young, smiling Emma between them. A perfect, painful lie. She was alone. Utterly alone with this terror.And then, unbidden, the most complicated, infuriating face of all surfaced in her mind: Ethan.She recoiled from the thought. Emma’s fury at him had been absolute, scorch
Chapter 202: Four hours ago
"You're operating under the assumption that Ethan and I are still connected. That I am leverage." Emma's voice was cold and sharp. "You're wrong. What happened with my grandfather severed that tie completely. I am done with Ethan. There is no loyalty to exploit, no affection to manipulate. Keeping me here is a pointless risk. Your quarrel is with him. Let me go, and you eliminate a complication. He will still come for you, for the crown. But you won't have an angry, resourceful hostage who has zero stake in his survival cluttering your operation."She delivered the speech with icy precision, every word a calculated move on this new, horrifying board. She was a redundant asset. A liability. She painted the picture with clear, logical strokes.And of course, that was what she thought. There was no point in dragging her into a sibling rivalry that she had no stakes in, and much worse, dragging her unborn child into it as well.Nathan listened, his head tilted. When she finished, he didn'
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