Martha Miller stared at the paper on the table in the way people normally looked at venomous snakes. Her hands clawed at the polished wood, scratching it with her nails.
"Fake..." she whispered. Her voice was tinged with a trembling quality. And then she screamed, "FAKE! This is a forgery! You typed this up in a basement! You think you can come in here and steal my company with just some paper?"
She had an absolutely wild look in her eyes as she scanned the room.
"Don't just sit there!" she screeched at the stunned directors. "He's lying! Security! Chief Wilson! Get in here!"
The boardroom doors swung open again.
In walked a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in a uniform. It was Chief Wilson, the head of corporate security. He was on the Miller payroll for the last ten years, mostly doing their dirty work.
Martha's face flashed with that triumphant malice of hers. "Wilson! Thank God! Arrest this intruder. Break his legs! Toss him out of the window!"
Wilson walked past the shuddering directors. He strode straight for the head of the table where I was seated.
Martha smirked at me. "You're done, Ethan. Wilson's ex-Special Forces. He'll snap you like a twig."
Wilson stood before me. He looked over the seal of "Dragon Capital" on the document. Viper was behind me. Then, he looked at me.
Wilson was a smart guy. He understood the meaning of "Dragon Capital". He knew that Miller Corporation has been bought out just five minutes ago. His paycheck, now, comes from me.
Click.
His heels clicked. He bowed at an angle of forty-five degrees.
"Mr. Wright," he said resonatingly, "Welcome to the building. We have the perimeter secured according to your instructions, sir."
Martha's smirk was wiped clean off of her complexion and shattered across the ground with the rest of her sanity.
"Wilson? What are you doing here?" she gasped. "I pay your salary! Arrest him!"
Slowly, Wilson turned to Martha. His gaze was a frigid stone.
"You paid my salary, Ms. Miller," Wilson corrected her. "As of 9:05 A.M. Mr. Wright is the sole owner of this building. You are currently trespassing."
"Intrusion?!" exclaimed Martha. "I built this company! This is my office!"
Tap. Tap. I tapped my finger against the table.
''Wilson,'' I said quietly, admiring the ''annoying noise level''.
''Understood, Sir.''
Wilson grabbed his radio. ''Team Alpha, get in here. Escort the intruder out.''
Martha would not relent, though. She was immediately met with a flurry of noise created from two muscular guards rushing in to intercept her. No hesitation in her command; one guard was commanded to grab her left side, while the other took off her right side.
"Have me released immediately!" Martha kicked and screamed like a banshee. "I am Martha Miller! You can't do this! I’ll sue you! I’ll kill you all! Ethan, you ungrateful bastard!"
I did not so much as cast a glance at her. I picked the financial report up off the table and began to read it.
"Drag her out," ordered Wilson. "She resists, call the cops, and charge her for embezzlement."
"NOOOO! MY COMPANY! MY MONEY!"
Martha's screams were drowned by the final echo down the corridor when she was dragged away. Her feet dragging aimlessly on carpet.
The boardroom fell into deathly silence. The remaining eleven directors were sweating profusely; all looking toward where Martha had sat, then at me. Terrified. They all knew they had supported David in the past, and had all laughed when I was imprisoned.
I shut the file.
Glancing upward, I said, "Now that the trash is over with, let's think about the future."
I scanned the respective faces of the directors.
"Director of Finance," I said.
The balding man jumped out of his seat. "Y-Yes, Mr. Wright!"
"Didn't you approve the transfer of funds to David's personal account for his 'business trips' to Vegas?"
The man had become starkly pale. "I... I had orders to do so..."
I said, "Fired. Get out."
"But—"
"Viper."
As the Viper stepped up, the finance director flew out of his chair, never looking back.
"Director of Operations, you cut the safety budget for the factory workers to maximize profit margins. My wife worked at that factory. She inhaled toxic fumes for three years because of broken ventilation."
The lady in gray shook unceremoniously. "Please, Mr. Wright, I have a family..."
"The workers did, too," I said, coldly. "Fired. Get out."
And I went one after the other.
Fired. Fired. Fired.
In five minutes, the room was by and large empty. Only one person was left.
A young girl sat at the far end of the table. She was not a director but a secretary taking minutes. Her head was bent so low as to fade into insignificance.
"You," I said.
She shuddered, looking up while nervously adjusting her glasses. "M-Me? I’m just a minute-taker, sir. I... I’ll pack my things."
"What is your name?"
"Linda, sir. Linda Chen."
"Linda," I looked at her. System Diagnosis: Highly Intelligent. Honest. Suppressed ambition. "Three years ago, you submitted a proposal to modernize the logistics chain. It was thrown in the trash and laughed at by David. Correct?"
Linda's eyes widened. "How... How did you know this?"
I offered no explanation as I knew all.
"It was a good proposal," I said. "It would have saved the company ten million dollars."
I rose from my seat.
"Linda Chen. From this instant, you are the new CEO of Miller Corporation."
Clang.
The pen dropped from Linda's hand. "C-C-CEO? Me? But I'm just a secretary!"
"Not anymore," I said, advancing toward the door. "You have absolute authority. Re-hire the factory workers. Fix the ventilation. And liquidate all of David and Martha's personal assets linked with the company-car-and-house package."
I halted at the door and turned slightly.
"Do not disappoint me."
I left the room with Linda stunned, sitting there holding the keys of a billion-dollar empire.
Location: Sky Garden Villa.
The noontime sun was warm.
Sarah sat in the private garden and stared at a rose bush. She was clad in the silk robe that cost more than everything she had worn over the last five years put together.
It felt like a dream. The servants called her "Mistress." The chef would ask her what she wanted for lunch.
But something else was racing through her mind.
Ethan... just who are you really?
The man who used to catch bugs and let them go outside without harming them came to her mind. Gentle was the man who came back... this one broke bones without even blinking, buying companies like he was buying groceries.
Bzzzt.
The intercom at the main gate buzzed.
"Mistress," the voice of the head butler came on the speakers in the garden. "There is a... visitor at the gate. He claims to be from the Imperial Capital."
"The Capital?" Sarah frowned. River City was just a small pond compared to the Capital. The powerful families of the Capital were real monsters.
"Who is it?"
"He says his name is Elder Mo. He says... he has information about your husband biological parents."
Sarah's heart skipped a beat.
Ethan was an orphan. He never knew who his real parents were. The Millers had adopted him just to access a small trust fund.
"Let him in," Sarah ordered.
A few minutes later, a black limousine descended the winding driveway. An old man in a traditional Tang suit emerged, with long white hair and a cane made of black dragon wood.
He looked ancient, yet his eyes were penetrating.
He walked into the garden and slightly bowed to Sarah.
"Mrs. Wright," Elder Mo said, with a raspy voice. "Or should I say... Young Mistress of the Yeager Family."
"Yeager?" Sarah was confused. "My last name is Wright. Ethan's name is Wright."
Elder Mo chuckled. It was a dry, mysterious sound.
"Wright is a fake name given to him to hide him from his enemies," Elder Mo said, putting his hand up the sleeves of his robe to retrieve a wooden box.
"For twenty years, my Master—Ethan's grandfather—has been looking for him. Just yesterday, we finally pinpointed the energy signature back to River City."
Elder Mo handed the box to Sarah.
"Give this to him. Tell him... the Yeager Family faces a calamity. We need the Dragon to return."
Before Sarah had any chance to ask something more, Elder Mo turned.
"Wait!" Sarah called. "Who are you? Why did you leave him?"
Elder Mo paused and turned back; a shadow of sadness reflected in his eyes.
"We did not leave him. We hid him. Because if the world knew who he really was...the sky would burn."
He entered the limousine, which departed without any sound, like a ghost.
Sarah remained in place, clutching the heavy wooden box. A strange vibration emanated from it.
Ethan... just what kind of world have I stepped into?
Latest Chapter
The Weight of the Quiet
Deep Space. The Sanctuary Cluster. High Orbit.Time: 80 Hours Post-Ambush.Ethan opened his eye.The environment lacked both the presence of a blaring proximity alarm and the overwhelming force of Progenitor mathematics and the explosive sound of superheated plasma. The universe reached total silence for Ethan who had been restrained to the operating table since his arrival at Zenith-Prime.He lay on the bioluminescent moss bed in the Root-Ship’s med-bay. He blinked while his cybernetic optical system started to adapt to the low-intensity calming emerald illumination.He reached up with his charred right hand and touched his bare chest.He still had the neutronium black crater attached to his sternum while the Dissonance Core remained in total silence. The fire which had existed within him as a storm of crimson and blue plasma had vanished. The only sensation he experienced was a very light feeling which made him feel vulnerable at the same time.Heathen Eugene pushed his body upward.
The Genesis Forge
Deep Space. The Sanctuary Cluster. Sanctuary Prime.Time: 52 Hours Post-Ambush.The Ravager drop-ship was as much like a rusted iron brick falling through a painting.Looking through the smeared, broken viewport, Elena could see the atmospheric bridges of Sanctuary Prime flying by. The capital world was a hectic, breathtaking outburst of uncontrolled biology. Mile-high trees, their violet canopies piercing the cloud formations, their huge branches held complete suspended cities made of living vines and living silk. The drop-ship was followed by flocks of huge, many-winged birds whose minds were not organized into form, wondering at the unsightly, smokeless, and smoke-polluting machine in their sky.Vael, making it hard to manage the rough pirate ship, announced: "We are nearing the position of the Genesis Forge. The Grand Archivist was seriously offended at the manual flight stick in his hands, far much preferring the conductive sap of the Root-Ship which was instinctive.Behind Vael
The Sanctuary of Chaos
Deep Space. The Sanctuary Cluster.Time: 48 Hours Post-Ambush.The Sanctuary was not a single planet; it was a sprawling, chaotic tapestry of life.The primary bridge viewport showed a scene that contradicted all Harvester reasoning when the Root-Ship with severe damage and the last remaining Ravager junk-dreadnoughts emerged from slipspace. The cluster contained seven terrestrial planets which revolved around a massive warm yellow sun. The planets were not arranged in a straight line because giant atmospheric bridges made of natural gases and zero-gravity plant life formed paths between their locations. The massive space-faring leviathans which had yet to be formatted and existed in their natural biological state drifted between the worlds in a peaceful manner. The orbital lanes contained thousands of satellites and habitats which were not alike in design because they had been constructed by one hundred different alien species.The environment presented itself as disorganized. The
The Crystallized Tomb
Deep Space. The Tartarus Nebula.Time: 09:12 Hours Ship-Time.The Tartarus Nebula was dying, not in a fiery explosion, but in a wave of absolute, terrifying silence.The Harvester monolith created pale grey light which moved through the space with precise mathematical calculations. The light didn't destroy the chaotic crimson gas and dark matter particulates; it overwrote them. The light caused the nebula's violent storms to freeze instantly, turning them into solid dark matter blocks.The Order faction constructed a wall which resulted in the allied fleet becoming trapped in the enclosed area."Vael's hands flew frantically through the conductive sap of the navigation console, his pale blue face illuminated by the harsh warning lights. "The expansion rate reaches an exponential growth pattern!" The vacuum space began to crystallize because of the vacuum! The formatting wave will reach our location within four minutes at the current speed!The tactical hologram displayed a vast crim
The Extrication
Deep Space. The Tartarus Nebula.Time: 09:08 Hours Ship-Time.The lead World-Builder was dying.The merciless kinetic bombardment of Warlord Krax transformed the moon-sized sphere into a destructive, explosive disaster which collapsed. The ship's internal matrix was exposed as flawless dark matter sheared off in continent-sized pieces. The crimson gas of the Tartarus Nebula entered the jagged craters, which initiated a sequence of chain reactions.The Root-Ship flew into the center of the destruction.Vael shouted, "Two minutes until total structural collapse!" as he battled the navigation console during the violent ironwood hull shaking from shockwaves. The World-Builder's localized gravity field showed unstable movement patterns. "The explosion will kill us before we can escape."Elena gave the order to hold the ship steady while she secured her helmet and racked the bolt of her sniper rifle.Ethan stood in the airlock with his chest heaving while his body dripped with cold sweat.
The Siege of the Moon
Deep Space. The Tartarus Nebula. Time: 09:05 Hours Ship-Time.The World-Builder's surface presented an untouched barren field which extended into the nebula's crimson fog through its black dark matter boundary.Jarek's magnetic boots created a loud metallic sound as they attached to the clean ship surface. The Progenitor architecture which he saw should have taken him more time to appreciate. The geometric surface around him erupted into motion at the moment he landed.The deployment hatches which had been perfectly hidden opened up with a hissing sound. Praetorian defenders who wore dark matter armor exited the area in a way which resembled an angry insect swarm. They maintained complete silence. They proceeded without any delay. The Praetorian defenders moved silently toward the Titan-Class dreadnought while lifting their heavy kinetic hammers and singularity axes.Jarek's synthesized voice roared through his external speakers to produce vibrations which disturbed the dark matter h
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