2026-07-16 18:21:34"Young Master." The words hit me harder than they should have. For a second, the noise of the banquet hall disappeared. The laughter. The music. The clinking glasses. Everything faded into the background.
I stood beside one of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Jiangzhou's glittering skyline, my phone pressed against my ear. The voice on the other end was old. Respectful. Familiar. A voice from a life I had buried three years ago. My jaw tightened. "Who is this?" A brief silence followed. Then the old man sighed. "It's me, Young Master." My fingers froze. Only one person called me that way. Only one person would dare use that title after all these years. "Elder Han." "Yes." The banquet hall suddenly felt too small. Too crowded. Too close. I glanced over my shoulder. Victor was watching me. Leon was watching me. Even Lillian's eyes lingered in my direction. Curious. Suspicious. I turned away from them. "What happened?" Elder Han remained silent. And that silence told me everything. A cold feeling settled deep inside my chest. The old man wasn't calling to exchange pleasantries. He wasn't calling to ask me to come home. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Finally, he spoke. "The Old Master is gone." The city lights blurred. For a moment, I forgot how to breathe. Gone. My grip tightened around the phone. The word echoed through my mind. Again. And again. And again. My grandfather. The man who raised me. The man who taught me how to fight. The man who taught me how to survive. The only person who truly understood why I left. Gone. "When?" My voice sounded unfamiliar. Even to me. "Three hours ago." I closed my eyes. Three years. I hadn't seen him in three years. Not because I hated him. Not because I blamed him. Because if I returned, I knew exactly what would happen. The same thing that was happening now. The throne. The responsibility. The endless struggle for power. Everything I had spent years escaping. I lowered my head. "When is the funeral?" "Seven days." The answer came immediately. As though Elder Han had been waiting for the question. I leaned against the window. The glass felt cold against my shoulder. Seven days. Seven days before I would have to decide whether to return. Or continue hiding. "Young Master—" "No." The word came out sharper than intended. "I already told all of you." Silence. "I left." Another silence. "I don't want the throne." The old man's breathing became audible through the phone. "Things have changed." "No." "They have." "Elder Han—" "The Dragon Throne is vacant." I closed my eyes again. There it was. The real reason for the call. Not grief. Not condolences. Not family. Power. The throne. Always the throne. A bitter smile touched my lips. Even death couldn't escape politics. "Find someone else." "There's no one else." "There always is." "Not this time." The conviction in his voice made my stomach tighten. Something wasn't right. "What aren't you telling me?" The old man hesitated. That alone was enough to raise alarms. Elder Han wasn't a man who hesitated. Not unless the situation was serious. Very serious. Finally, he spoke. "The Black Dragon Alliance is moving." My eyes snapped open. The smile vanished. The Black Dragon Alliance. A name I hadn't heard in years. A name I never wanted to hear again. People in Jiangzhou wouldn't recognize it. Neither would the Shen family. But there were places in the world where those words inspired terror. Entire organizations had disappeared because of them. Entire bloodlines had been erased. I pushed away from the window. "How much do they know?" "Too much." Not good. Not good at all. "What about the elders?" "Divided." Of course they were. Greedy men always revealed themselves when power became available. "And the inner council?" "Worse." I rubbed my forehead. The headache arrived instantly. Three years. Three years of peace. Three years of pretending to be ordinary. Now everything was collapsing. The banquet hall erupted into laughter again. Victor must have said something. I didn't turn around. I wasn't interested. Not anymore. Compared to what Elder Han was telling me, the Shen family's insults suddenly seemed insignificant. "Young Master." I hated how serious his voice sounded. "What?" "They know you're alive." My heartbeat slowed. Dangerously. "Who?" "The Alliance." The phone suddenly felt heavier. "They've been searching." I didn't respond. "Since the Old Master's death became known, the searches have intensified." My gaze drifted toward the banquet hall. Toward Lillian. She was speaking with one of her cousins. Composed. Elegant. Unaware. Completely unaware. The Black Dragon Alliance wasn't interested in ordinary people. If they found me... Anyone close to me would become vulnerable. Including her. The realization settled heavily inside my chest. "How long?" "What?" "How long before they trace me?" Elder Han didn't answer immediately. Which was answer enough. "Damn it." "Young Master—" "No." I forced myself to calm down. Losing control wouldn't help. It never helped. "Listen carefully." "Yes." "I'm not returning." The old man sighed. "Young Master—" "I'm not returning." My voice hardened. "I left for a reason." "The Dragon Palace needs you." "No." The words came automatically. Almost instinctively. Because if I admitted otherwise... If I admitted even the slightest possibility... Then the walls I'd spent years building would begin to crack. And once they cracked... Everything would come crashing down. The old man remained silent. I knew what he was thinking. That I was being stubborn. Maybe I was. But he wasn't the one standing here. He wasn't the one who had finally found a life outside of power. Outside of bloodshed. Outside of expectations. For three years, I had been free. Or as close to free as someone like me could ever be. Then Elder Han delivered the sentence that shattered that illusion. "The first team is already on its way." My heart stopped. "What?" "They left two hours ago." Every muscle in my body went rigid. "Who authorized that?" "The council." I almost laughed. The council. Of course. A room full of old men making decisions for everyone else. Some things never changed. "They had no right." "They were afraid." "Of what?" This time, Elder Han didn't hesitate. "Of losing you." The words lingered between us. Heavy. Uncomfortable. Dangerous. For several seconds, neither of us spoke. Then I looked across the banquet hall again. At the family that despised me. At the relatives who mocked me. At the woman who barely understood me. This life wasn't perfect. Far from it. But it was mine. And now people from my past were coming to drag me back. Whether I wanted it or not. I stared through the window at the city lights below. Something told me tonight was only the beginning. And for the first time in three years... I wasn't sure I could stop what was coming. "Young Master." I slowly tightened my grip on the phone. "What now?" The old man's voice became unusually grave. "The men heading to Jiangzhou..." A pause. Then "They aren't coming to invite you home." A chill ran down my spine. "They're coming to protect you." I frowned. "From what?" The answer came immediately. "The first assassin has already entered the city."
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 115
The operative's words stayed with me long after we'd left the room, settling into the same uncomfortable space in my mind where every other warning this year had taken root and grown. I didn't sleep well that night, and by morning I'd decided we needed answers no one in our immediate circle seemed equipped to give us."Convergence," I said, the word tasting foreign in my mouth as I laid it out for the team in our secured Singapore base. "He mentioned it like I should already know what it means. Like it's something everyone in this world understands except me." Han's expression had gone very still, the particular stillness of a man deciding whether to speak or to deflect, the same careful calculation I'd seen him make every time this year's revelations had pushed against the boundaries of what he was willing to share."You know what it means," I said. It wasn't a question.Han was quiet for a long moment, and when he finally s
Chapter 114
Vane's global network produced nothing useful in the first twenty-four hours, which told us almost as much as a positive identification would have. Contacts across three continents, martial and intelligence sources who'd spent decades cataloguing every faction with even a passing connection to this world, returned the same answer in different words. We'd relocated to a secured floor of a hotel Vane's people vetted personally, the aftermath of the auction still fresh enough that nobody had slept more than a few hours since, the events of that darkened warehouse replaying itself in the back of my mind every time the room went quiet."Nobody recognizes it," Vane said, joining us by secure video from wherever his network operated out of these days, his own exhaustion visible in the way he kept rubbing his eyes between sentences. "I've sent the insignia to sources I trust implicitly, people who've never once failed to identify
Chapter 113
The darkness wasn't empty. I understood that within seconds, the sound of movement all around us, careful and coordinated, the particular quiet of trained operatives who knew the layout of a room they'd built the ambush inside. Somewhere behind me, panicked auction guests scrambled toward exits that had suddenly become far less reliable than they'd assumed only moments earlier."Contact left," Cho said quietly, his voice steady despite the blindness pressing in on all of us. "Two, maybe three. Moving toward the display case." "They know this venue better than we do," Han's voice came through the earpiece, tight with the particular frustration of a man who'd planned for contingencies that hadn't included total darkness. "They built the trap into the architecture itself. We're fighting on their terms now, not ours. I should have anticipated this. I'm sorry."I felt rather than saw the first strike come toward me, s
Chapter 112
"We're not raiding this," I said, before anyone could suggest otherwise. "Not yet." The word hung in the room a moment, everyone waiting to see whether I'd hold that line under pressure or fold the way caution so often did once adrenaline entered the equation.Han looked at me sharply. "Zane, that's Zhao's own people bidding on weaponized memory technology. Every instinct I have says move now, before that apparatus changes hands." "And if we move now, we escalate into open conflict with a sitting Martial Lord based on an assumption we haven't confirmed," I said. "I want to understand what we're looking at before I decide how to respond to it. A raid tells the world Dragon Palace is at war with Zhao's territory. A quiet infiltration tells us the truth first, and truth has been worth more to me this year than speed ever was."Corvin, who had been quiet through most of the earlier argument, nodded slowly, weighing his own word
Chapter 111
I assembled the team for Singapore differently than anything I'd done before, and the difference itself felt significant, the first time in over a year I was building something as Dragon Lord rather than reacting as whatever I'd been before the title made it official. The safehouse table had become something like a war room over the past several days, maps and printouts replacing the earlier scattered financial records, everyone gathered around it with the particular focus of people who understood the deadline Han had given us wasn't hypothetical, that the clock had already started running the moment he'd laid that map on the table."Corvin, Han, myself," I said, laying out the plan in the same safehouse where we'd first seen the world map. "Cho, if he's willing." "I'm willing," Cho said from across the table, and something in his voice carried none of the calculation I'd once associated with him, just the flat readiness of a man who'd found
Chapter 110
Han spread the first set of intelligence reports across the table three days after Hong Kong, his expression grimmer than I'd seen it since the Trial itself. The safehouse we'd converted into a working command center for this had none of the ceremony Dragon Palace usually demanded, just a long table, too much coffee, and the particular tension of people who'd spent three sleepless days confirming something they'd hoped would turn out to be nothing more than a coincidence."The Black Dragon Alliance isn't Ashfall," he said, without preamble. "I want that stated plainly before we go any further, because I've heard people in the Council already conflating the two, and the conflation is dangerous. Treating them as the same enemy wearing a different name will get people killed, because the strategies that worked against Ashfall's ideology will fail entirely against an organization that has none." "How are they different," I ask
You may also like
The Almighty Landon
Princez78.8K viewsMy Sudden Rich System
M_jief124.9K viewsTRILLIONAIRE ON TOP
Sweet savage227.2K viewsI Made $900 Trillion In 24 Hours
Jericho Chase182.3K viewsThey Mocked the Homeless Veteran Until He Fought Back
ChubbyY18 viewsTHE MAN WHO RETURNED FROM RUIN
OmasPen295 viewsTrue North
Jasper pen142 viewsNobody Knew I Was the War God
Svard25 views