War God is Back for his Mother

Chapter 7: Behind the Scenes

The meeting point was a private lounge on the thirty second floor of a building downtown. No signs on the door. No cameras in the hallway. Just a locked room with blacked out windows and a single table.

Alex Crown walked in and found his subordinate already standing at attention. The man was tall, built like a wall, with a military cut and a scar running from his left ear to his jawline. His name was Voss. He had served Alex Crown for over a decade.

The moment Alex entered, Voss snapped a crisp salute.

"Commander. The documents you requested."

He placed a folder on the table. Alex Crown sat down and opened it. Inside was a divorce agreement. Clean. Professional. Every clause already filled in.

"Everything is in order," Voss said. "Full separation of assets. No conditions in her favor. All you need to do is sign, and we can file it within the hour."

Alex stared at the first page but did not pick up the pen. Not yet.

"How are your injuries, Commander?" Voss asked. His voice carried genuine concern beneath the military discipline. "It's been three years since the final war. Have the wounds fully healed?"

"The external injuries are fine," Alex said. "Everything on the surface has recovered."

He did not mention the internal damage. Three years ago, the battle against the enemy War God had nearly killed him. His organs had been shattered. His meridians had been torn apart. The external wounds healed within months, but the internal destruction required at least another half year of quiet recuperation. Once those injuries fully healed, his cultivation would break through to a level no warrior in history had ever reached.

But that was not something Voss needed to know right now.

"Should I arrange a military aircraft to escort you back to the Temple?" Voss asked. "The generals have been requesting your return for months. The entire organization is waiting."

"Not yet."

"Commander?"

"I still have unfinished business in this city. We'll discuss my return after everything here is completely resolved."

"Understood." Voss paused. Then he straightened his posture even further. "What are your orders?"

"Activate the Backup Supplier Plan."

Voss blinked. "Ahead of schedule, Commander?"

"Immediately."

"Yes, sir. May I ask the reason?"

Alex leaned back in his chair. His expression was calm, but his eyes were heavy.

"Selena Sterling's arms division supplies weapons to twelve military forces and nine mercenary organizations worldwide," he said. "What none of them know is that sixty percent of her weapons research, production data, ballistic parameters, and compatibility systems were designed by me. I built them in silence. Every blueprint. Every formula. Every adjustment. She thinks her engineers did the work. They think they're geniuses. The truth is that I fed them everything from behind a curtain."

"And the pharmaceutical side?" Voss asked.

"Same story. The remaining forty percent of her empire is pharmaceuticals. The foundational formulas. The research directions. The molecular structures that made her drugs viable. All of it came from me."

Voss was quiet for a moment. "So if you withdraw your support..."

"Her weapons production will start failing within weeks. Her engineers won't understand why. The data will stop making sense to them. The calibrations will drift. Quality will collapse. And the twelve military forces and nine mercenary groups depending on her supply chain will face critical shortages."

"That cannot happen," Voss said firmly.

"No. It cannot. Which is why I'm activating the backup factories. The ones registered under my name. They've been dormant for three years. Wake them up. Staff them. Begin parallel production immediately. When Sterling Corporation starts falling apart, our factories will be ready to absorb every contract without a single day of delay."

"And Dennis Doom?" Voss asked carefully.

Alex's jaw tightened at the name. "Dennis Doom will accelerate the collapse. He's already embedded himself deep inside her company. Once I pull out, he'll have free access to interfere with operations. He won't know what he's breaking because he never understood what was holding it together in the first place."

"Understood, Commander. I'll begin activation today."

Voss saluted again, turned on his heel, and walked out of the room. The door closed behind him with a soft click.

Alex Crown sat alone at the table. The divorce agreement lay open in front of him. The pen sat beside it untouched.

He lowered his eyes to the document and read her name printed in clean black ink. Selena Sterling.

Three years ago, he had not known that name.

Three years ago, he had been dying. The final war had broken him in ways that no doctor could explain and no medicine could fix. He had crawled out of that battlefield with his organs shattered and his blood poisoning itself from the inside. The War God he defeated had taken nearly everything from him in the process.

He came to this small city to heal in secret. No guards. No title. No temple. Just a wounded man sitting on a park bench trying to breathe without his ribs screaming.

That was where he saw her for the first time.

She was walking through the park with a coffee in her hand, talking on the phone, arguing with someone about shipping deadlines. Her hair was messy. Her heels were too tall for the cobblestones. She tripped on a crack in the pavement and nearly fell, and when she caught herself, she laughed at her own clumsiness so loudly that three pigeons took off from the fountain.

He fell in love with her right there. On that bench. In that exact second.

She used to tease him about how he looked. She said he had the face of a nobleman who stepped out of a classical painting, but the wallet of a street musician. She had no idea that the man sitting across from her at cheap noodle shops was the most feared warrior on the continent. That every slight movement sent pain through his body like bullets tearing through flesh.

They fell hard and fast. She loved him with a fierceness that overwhelmed him. She was possessive and overbearing and he loved every second of it. They talked about the future like it was already real. How many children they would have. Two boys and a girl. What they would name them. Where they would live.

Alex had secretly promised himself that after their wedding, he would take her to visit his mother's grave. He wanted to kneel before that headstone and tell the woman who had died protecting him that her son had finally found happiness.

But then Dennis Doom arrived.

Six months ago. That was when everything changed. Selena's attitude toward Dennis shifted from dislike to curiosity. From curiosity to admiration. From admiration to something she refused to name. The phone calls started. The late nights. The excuses. And every time Alex raised his voice, Selena shut him down.

One memory after another passed through his mind like poison. The airport. The banquet. The kiss. The hospital. And finally, the image that hurt worst of all. Selena Sterling's back as she walked out of the honeymoon suite, her coat thrown over her lingerie, choosing another man over her husband on the night that was supposed to belong to them alone.

Could everything still return to the way it once was?

He closed his eyes and hid the pain deep inside his chest where no one would ever find it.