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The Forgotten Heir
By: FavvyOngoing
Language:
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Chapters: 36
views: 221
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Ethan Ward had nothing. A broken career, a betrayed life, and a world that seemed determined to crush him. When his wife abandoned him, his father-in-law ruined him, and the courts branded him a fraud, Ethan’s existence was reduced to shadows and survival. But the truth was far stranger than anyone could imagine. A dragon-shaped mark on his shoulder was no ordinary scar—it was the sign of a lost heir, a hidden power, and a legacy that could shake the foundations of the world. Identified by a mysterious mentor, Ethan is thrust into a secret empire—the Aurelian Order—where advanced technology, hidden energy, and untold influence await. Here, he must endure brutal training, unlock dormant powers, and navigate a web of betrayal, deception, and dangerous allies. As he rises, one goal drives him: reclaiming what was stolen, exposing the corrupt, and rewriting the rules of a world that once crushed him. But every step forward reveals new mysteries, new enemies, and a power far greater than he ever imagined. Ethan Ward is no longer just a man; he is Aurelius Kael, the dragon heir, and his rise has only just begun.
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Chapter 1
The Downfall
The sun beat hard against the half-finished construction site, turning steel beams into scorching metal and the air into a wavering haze. Ethan Ward wiped sweat from his brow with the back of a dusty hand, forcing himself to stay focused as he inspected a crooked support frame. He could see the mistake instantly, something any competent foreman should have caught.
But Ethan wasn’t a foreman anymore.
He wasn’t anything.
Not after the last few months.
“Hey, Ward!” a young supervisor barked from across the concrete slab, waving hastily scribbled blueprints. “You’re doing the grunt work today, remember? Leave the thinking to people who still have reputations.”
The men around him snickered.
Ethan didn’t answer. He just tightened the loose bolt and stepped back to check the alignment. He used to be the one giving orders, designing structures, coordinating multimillion naira projects. Now he hauled bags of cement and tightened bolts like a day laborer barely trusted with tools.
One signature destroyed everything.
Well… it wasn’t just a signature. It was the name attached to it.
Malcolm Drake.
The moment Ethan’s mind brushed over that name, something cold, sharp, and familiar scraped down his spine. His jaw tightened. He forced himself to breathe evenly.
Malcolm Drake, his father-in-law. The man who had smiled in his face for years, pretending to support him. The man who had stepped in, “out of concern,” when Ethan’s business hit a rough patch. The man who had made sure the world believed Ethan was a fraud, an embezzler, a liar.
And the man who had made sure Ethan had nothing left.
Not a job.
Not a home.
Not a marriage.
Not a future.
“Ward!” The supervisor stomped toward him, red-faced. “Are you deaf? I said...”
“I heard you,” Ethan replied calmly, though his pulse was starting to hammer.
He had learned to swallow pride. Pride didn’t feed him. Pride didn’t get him work. Pride didn’t erase the headlines branding him a thief.
He turned away to pick up a toolbox, but a sudden burn seared across his right shoulder sharp, quick, deep like someone pressed a heated blade into his skin.
Ethan sucked in a breath.
Not again.
The pain pulsed once… twice… then settled into a simmering ache.
He tugged his shirt collar lower, checking the mark he had hidden his entire life. A dragon-shaped symbol, sharper than any tattoo, almost carved into the skin itself. He never remembered getting it. His adoptive parents claimed it appeared when he was three months old. Doctors couldn’t explain it. As he grew older, it grew with him almost alive. And sometimes, like now, it burned without warning.
“Ward? You good?” a coworker asked skeptically, watching him straighten up.
“Yeah,” Ethan lied. “Just a muscle pull.”
The man shrugged and walked off. No one cared enough to ask further. No one ever did.
Ethan exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulder to shake off the lingering sting. He couldn’t afford to draw attention not after everything that had happened.
But as he lifted the toolbox, a shadow fell over him.
A shadow he recognized instantly.
“No wonder this site is behind schedule,” a cold voice said. “They’ve hired criminals now.”
Ethan froze.
Malcolm Drake stood a few feet away, polished shoes untouched by dust, designer suit crisp and immaculate, as if the world bent itself to avoid staining him. Two of his assistants flanked him, both of them sneering in quiet amusement.
Ethan didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
“Look at you,” Malcolm said, stepping closer, voice dripping satisfaction. “Used to sign contracts worth tens of millions. Now you tighten bolts with day workers.”
Ethan felt the heat in his shoulder spike. The dragon mark throbbed sharp, angry.
He clenched his fists to steady himself.
Malcolm circled him slowly, like inspecting a broken piece of equipment.
“Your fall was spectacular, Ethan,” he mused. “You lost your company, your home… your freedom. And you still haven’t figured it out, have you?”
Ethan turned his head slightly. “Figured what out?”
Malcolm smiled, cold, razor thin.
“That I was the one who buried you.”
The words punched the air out of Ethan’s lungs.
Not a guess.
Not an implication.
A statement.
A confession disguised as mockery.
Malcolm leaned close enough that only Ethan could hear the next sentence.
“And I’m not done.”
Ethan finally met his eyes, the mark on his shoulder flaring hotter and hotter almost reacting to Malcolm’s presence.
Malcolm’s smile widened, pleased by the reaction.
“Whatever you think you have left,” Malcolm whispered, “I will take. Until there’s nothing. Until you understand you were never..."
A violent jolt of heat surged through Ethan’s shoulder, cutting Malcolm off. Ethan winced, hand darting instinctively to the burning mark.
Malcolm’s eyes flicked downward.
And for the first time ever, Ethan saw something in the man’s expression.
Not arrogance.
Not disgust.
But fear.
A flash quick, buried instantly but real.
Malcolm straightened abruptly.
“We’re done here,” he said to his assistants, voice tighter than before. “Let’s go.”
He turned and walked off quickly, leaving Ethan standing in the dust, breathing hard, the burn searing deeper beneath his skin.
The mark pulsed again hotter this time, almost alive.
Ethan stumbled back against a beam, gripping his shoulder.
What was happening to him?
Why had Malcolm looked afraid?
And, what exactly was this mark reacting to?
The question echoed in his skull.
And for the first time, Ethan wondered:
What if the downfall of his life wasn’t the end… but the beginning of something far more dangerous?
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Latest Chapter
The Forgotten Heir Mastery In Motion
The next morning, the headquarters felt heavier than usual, as if the weight of hidden alliances and unspoken betrayals lingered in the air. Kael moved through the corridors deliberately, noting the subtle posture shifts and half turned heads of employees who had no idea they were under observation. Each step, each glance, each breath was carefully measured; he was learning not just to see, but to anticipate. Shen Gao trailed him, quiet as a shadow, observing not only Kael’s interactions with the staff but the subtle pulses of his sigil beneath his skin, faint yet persistent.“Your focus is splitting,” Shen Gao remarked in low tones as they entered the training chamber, a secluded area designed for both physical and mental conditioning. “The sigil reacts to emotion as much as thought. If you divide attention, you weaken its effect.” Kael nodded, muscles tensing, and allowed the room to fall silent. The chamber’s walls, lined with
Last Updated : 2025-12-05The Forgotten Heir Shadows Within
The aftermath of the assassination attempt weighed heavily on Kael, though he did not show it. He moved through the empire’s headquarters with deliberate calm, each step measured, each gesture controlled. Staff observed him as usual, seeing nothing more than their young leader returning from the late hours of his work; yet beneath his composed exterior, Kael’s mind churned with silent calculations. Every glance, every casual smile from a colleague was now under scrutiny, filtered through the lens of suspicion.Shen Gao shadowed him closely but at a discreet distance, his presence both a reassurance and a warning. “You cannot afford to trust anyone fully,” he murmured as they passed through the central atrium. Kael’s jaw tightened. The words were not new, but the resonance of their meaning had deepened after the narrow escape. Every person in this empire, he realized, was either a potential ally or a hidden enemy, and distinguish
Last Updated : 2025-12-05The Forgotten Heir The First Strike
The anonymous message on Kael’s screen burned into his eyes long after the terminal powered down. Look deeper… not at the enemy, but at those you call allies. The words echoed through him, each syllable sharp enough to cut. The sigil beneath his skin stirred uncomfortably, a faint vibration radiating up his arm as though reacting to the unseen threat implied by the message.Shen Gao stood silent beside him, his calm expression masking a storm of questions. Kael felt the tension between them, thin and tight like a drawn wire, though neither voiced the thoughts swirling in their minds. “We lock this down,” Kael said finally. “No one else sees any of it until I say so.” Shen Gao nodded in agreement, but his eyes held a flicker of concern that Kael chose to ignore.As they left the secured analysis room, Kael felt something shift in the air, a subtle pressure, almost a whisper at the edge of perception. The corridors were qu
Last Updated : 2025-12-05The Forgotten Heir Fractures In The Foundation
Kael sat at his desk long after the supervisor left, the black USB drive resting in his palm like a silent threat. The casing felt cooler than it should, almost unnaturally so, as though whatever it contained was steeped in the coldness of buried truths. His sigil pulsed faintly beneath his sleeve, not with danger this time, but with a subtle sense of anticipation. He exhaled slowly, steadying himself before placing the drive into a secure terminal built for classified data.The screen flickered once, twice before loading an encrypted vault of files dense with code. Shen Gao lingered beside him, arms folded behind his back, expression unreadable. “This is not ordinary tampering,” Shen Gao murmured. “Someone went to great lengths to leave this trace.” Kael nodded, his attention fixed on the rotating cipher rings unraveling on the interface.As the first layer of encryption dissolved, Kael’s gut tightened. The folder wasn’t abo
Last Updated : 2025-12-05The Forgotten Heir Sabotage In The Shadows
The morning after Kael’s volatile experiment with merging sigil energy and technology began with an unusual stillness. A faint hum still lingered in his senses, the echo of last night’s unstable surge, but he pushed it aside as he prepared for the day. Shen Gao had left him with a final warning echoing in his mind restraint brings survival, recklessness brings exposure. Kael understood that better now, yet the sense that something larger was approaching refused to fade.He stepped out into the corridor, adjusting the cuffs of his jacket, and instantly sensed tension in the air. Assistants whispered in corners, security personnel moved with stiff urgency, and even senior staff seemed unusually alert. Kael’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward the elevator, instinctively picking up on the subtle shift in atmosphere. Something had happened, something big enough to rattle the entire building.By the time the elevator doors opened into the
Last Updated : 2025-12-05The Forgotten Heir The Web Beneath The Throne
Kael walked through the dim hallway of the executive wing with slow, deliberate steps, his mind still replaying the anonymous warning on his phone. The message hadn’t unsettled him, it had sharpened the edges inside him, as though fear and determination were blending into one dangerous alloy. The sigil beneath his skin pulsed once, reminding him that he wasn’t moving blindly into the dark, he was being watched.He entered his private office and locked the door, a habit that had become instinct in only a few weeks inside the Aurelian empire. The room was silent except for the faint hum of the city beyond the glass windows. Kael took out his phone again, reading the last message: “Quiet power is still power and someone always notices.”He placed the phone on the desk and exhaled slowly, letting his thoughts sharpen. The warning implied surveillance deeper than internal corporate politics. It suggested an observer with long reach
Last Updated : 2025-12-05
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