The worthless Ex-Convict returns to rule the world.

CHAPTER 3: The Death-Row Ration

The tray hit the floor before Eren even registered the guard's footsteps.

Metal clattered against damp obsidian, the sharp, hollow noise echoing down the narrow cellblock. A thin layer of grayish paste splattered across the grimy stone, steaming faintly in the cold air. It smelled like copper, ammonia, and something else—a sickly, artificial sweetness that had no right being in food.

Eren didn't look down at it.

He kept his gaze fixed on the far wall, where a hairline fracture had been inching across the rock over the past three months. He had watched it creep forward day by day, a silent testament to the sea's weight pressing down from above.

"Breakfast," a rough voice growled.

The guard’s name was Hobbs. He was a stocky, balding man with a face like an unshaped slab of meat. Six years on the Sub-Level Zero shift had given his skin a permanent gray tint, as if the damp obsidian wall was slowly absorbing him.

"Eat up, convict," Hobbs grunted, kicking the tray closer. The gray paste sloshed over the rim, leaving a viscous trail on the stone. "Warden's orders."

Eren didn't move.

Hobbs kicked the tray closer. The paste sloshed over the rim, leaving a trail of viscous residue on the floor. "I said eat."

The obsidian fetters around Eren's wrists hummed with their usual low, predatory frequency, but the internal fractures beneath the metal were already widening. Golden light flickered quietly inside his chest, drinking in the ambient toxicity of the cell.

"Not hungry," he said.

Hobbs laughed. It was a wet sound, phlegmy, like something rattling loose in his chest. "Not hungry? That's rich."

He crouched down, bringing his face level with Eren's. His breath smelled like rot and cheap liquor. "You know what that is, Strong?  That's premium-grade nutrient paste. Standard issue for high-risk trash. Warden Vane himself signs off on the supply logs." Hobbs reached through the barrier’s slot and scooped up a glob of the gray paste on two thick fingers. 

"Course, the Warden also signs off on the gas saturation levels. And the extra bio-inhibitors meant to make sure folks like you don't survive until the morning shift." He smeared the paste across Eren's cheek. "So eat what you're given before I decide to give you a personal beating."

Eren slowly turned his head. His dark eyes locked onto the guard's face.

Hobbs's smug expression faltered. For a fraction of a second, something shifted in the guard’s posture—a flicker of primal unease. He had spent six years around broken men in the dark, and some deep, animal instinct warned him that the man sitting in front of him wasn't broken anymore.

Then Hobbs stood, wiping his hand on his uniform.

"Two hours," he said. "That's how long it takes for the toxins to kick in. First comes the stomach cramps. Then your liver and kidneys shut down. By the time it hits your heart, you'll be begging for the gas purge to come early."

He tapped the control panel, sealing the barrier. "Enjoy the meal, or should I say, your last meal, Strong."

The barrier shimmered back into place. Hobbs's footsteps faded down the corridor, swallowed by the endless drip of condensation and the low hum of the prison's ventilation system.

Eren sat in the silence.

The paste congealed on the floor. It smelled worse now that it had been sitting, the floral undertone curdling into something like burned sugar mixed with bleach.

He knew what it was. He didn't need to be an alchemist to recognize the Tyrell Clan's signature methods. They had used similar sequential poisons during his initial interrogation, back when Bennett Tyrell was still trying to force him to sign away his family lineage without a fight.

It was a poison designed to kill slowly, organ by organ, ensuring maximum agony while leaving the victim completely conscious until the final system collapse. A death that could easily be filed away as a heart failure or organ rot brought on by black-site conditions.

‘’They want me to suffer, they want to make sure I die before the sun comes up, ’ Eren thought. ‘Even now. Even after three years. They want me to die in agony, alone, forgotten.’

He looked down at the key card Vance had dropped between his feet an hour ago, then back at the poisoned ration.

Slowly, Eren leaned forward. The cracked obsidian fetters groaned under the movement, small flakes of metal peeling away from his wrists.

Slowly, Eren leaned forward. The cracked obsidian fetters groaned under the movement, small flakes of metal peeling away from his wrists.

He scooped up a handful of the cold, slimy paste.

‘Two hours,’ he thought. ‘That's what Hobbs said. Two hours until the toxins reach my heart.’

He brought the paste to his mouth And swallowed.

The first wave hit him thirty seconds later.

It started as a violent, razor-sharp cramp in his stomach. Eren's body instinctively doubled over, his forehead pressing against the cold stone floor. The obsidian fetters sparked as his abdominal muscles spasmed, the anti-magic alloy reacting to the sudden spike in his body temperature.

The pain was immediate, savage, and familiar.

‘’They used this on me before,’’ he remembered. During the interrogations. The Tyrells' pet alchemist. He said it was a compliance aid. Something to loosen my tongue.’’

He remembered the Tyrell interrogator standing over him three years ago, watching him writhe on a metal table, telling him that no one could endure three doses without breaking.

He'd held out for six hours before they'd given up. Six hours of convulsions and vomiting and a pain so intense he'd bitten through his own lip. The interrogator had been impressed. 

The second wave hit.

This time it was his liver. A deep, throbbing ache that radiated through his abdomen and up into his chest. The paste was still in his stomach, still dissolving, still releasing its payload into his bloodstream. He could feel it spreading. A cold, creeping numbness that followed the pathways of his circulatory system.

His vision blurred. His breath came in short, ragged gasps.

‘This is how they kill me,’ he thought. ‘Not with a blade. Not with a public execution. With a tray of poisoned slop, delivered by a guard who couldn't even be bothered to remember my name.’

The rage stirred in his chest. Cold. Patient. A fire that had burned so long and so hot it had frozen solid.

Lyra Tyrell.

He saw her face. The smile she'd worn as the guards dragged him away. The silk robes are untouched by the rain. 

Then, Darius Kincaid who’s standing beside her while his arm was wrapping around her waist. Laughing as the transport doors sealed shut.

And Bennett Tyrell, the old snake himself. The man who had orchestrated it all. Who had ripped out Eren's Spirit Marrow and handed it to his granddaughter as a party favor. Who had used Eren's stolen foundation to buy a seat on the High Council.

The third wave hit.

His kidneys. The pain was different this time, A sharp, stabbing sensation in his lower back that radiated down his legs and up into his spine. His body was shutting down. Organ by organ. System by system. The poison was doing exactly what it had been designed to do.

Eren's fingers dug into the floor.

The golden light in his chest flared.

It happened between one heartbeat and the next.

One moment, the toxins were spreading through his bloodstream, shutting down his organs, dragging him toward the edge of death. 

The next, the golden core in his chest moved, a pulse of warmth that spread outward like ripples in a pond, racing along the same pathways the poison had taken.

The toxins met the light and the light consumed them.

Eren gasped. 

His back arched off the floor, the fetters shrieking in protest as the anti-magic alloy struggled to suppress the sudden surge of energy. The pain didn't vanish, it transformed. The cold numbness in his limbs became a burning heat. The cramps in his stomach became a spreading warmth. The ache in his liver, his kidneys, his heart, all of it dissolved into the golden glow that filled his chest.

‘It's eating the poison,’ he realized. ‘My core is eating the poison.’

The paste in his stomach dissolved. The toxins in his blood vanished. The organ damage reversed itself, cells regenerating, tissues repairing, systems rebooting one by one. It was like watching a machine rebuild itself from the inside out.

Eren stared at his bare wrist, where raw, golden aura was now visibly swirling beneath his skin, filling his scar tissue with refined power. His organ systems weren't shutting down—they were purifying, strengthening, and evolving.

He looked down at the remaining paste on the tray, a cold, ruthless realization settling into his mind.

The Tyrells hadn't sent him a death sentence.

They had sent him fuel.

Eren reached down, picked up the rest of the poisoned tray, and began to eat.