Chapter 003
1458 Words
The engines screamed like wounded beasts.
Inside the cabin, the vibration was no longer subtle—it was violent, relentless, a pressure that rattled bone and metal alike. Thomas Reed had already pushed the throttle far beyond what was considered safe. Every indicator on the dashboard was flirting with red, every warning light silently protesting.
Yet he did not slow down.
Because every time he glanced back and saw Dylan Brooks, his heart clenched as if seized by an invisible hand.
This was not the man he knew.
This was not the figure who usually sat unmoved atop Empyrean Summit, calm as eternity itself, a presence so steady that even warlords and kings bowed their heads in silence. What stood behind him now was something raw, something fractured—rage and grief tangled together, tearing at the seams of restraint.
“What could possibly drive Teacher to this point?” Thomas Reed thought bitterly.
“He’s a man revered like a god… yet right now…”
He forced himself to look away.
Behind him, Dylan Brooks sat with his elbows on his knees, both hands covering his face. From between his fingers, thick droplets fell—dark, viscous, streaked with red. Blood mixed with tears, landing heavily in his palms before dripping onto the floor.
Each drop felt like a hammer blow to the cabin itself.
Every time the echo of that phone call replayed in his mind—his daughter’s trembling voice, the terror she could not hide—the murderous aura within him surged violently, rolling outward like a storm breaking free of its chains.
“They want to take my heart,” she had said.
His jaw clenched so tightly it felt as if his teeth might shatter.
“Gabby… wait for me,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, broken.
“Just hold on a little longer.”
“Wait until Daddy comes back.”
“When I’m there… no one in this world will ever dare to hurt you again.”
His breathing grew ragged, each inhale scraping his lungs raw.
“I don’t care who you are,” he said, the words bleeding into a vow.
“Heaven or hell, sky or abyss—I will hunt you down.”
“I will erase your entire bloodline, grind your bones to dust, scatter your ashes to nothing.”
The killing intent roared.
If Dylan Brooks were not forcing every ounce of discipline he possessed to suppress it, this private jet—worth tens of billions of dollars—would have been torn apart midair, reduced to a brief, catastrophic bloom of fire in the clouds.
The aircraft thundered onward.
At that moment, a phone began to ring.
Not just once—but incessantly.
To be precise, Thomas Reed’s phone had been ringing nonstop. Calls from the War Department of the Solaria Republic, encrypted lines, emergency channels—all ignored. He could not afford even a second of distraction. One second slower might mean arriving too late.
Then another phone rang.
A different tone.
This line was one only his fellow disciples could access.
“Speak,” Thomas Reed barked, snatching it up.
The voice on the other end was tight, controlled, seething beneath the surface.
“We’ve confirmed it. It’s the Madam and the Little Sister. They were taken by the Nolan family of Kingsley. The Madam is temporarily unharmed. But the Little Sister…”
Thomas Reed’s grip tightened. “What about her?”
There was a half-second pause.
Then, through clenched teeth, the voice answered, “They intend to drain her blood… and remove her heart.”
The world seemed to stop.
Even Thomas Reed—a man who had waded through battlefields soaked in blood—felt his mind blank.
Drain blood. Remove the heart.
Those words were beyond cruel. Beyond savage.
In that instant, he finally understood everything.
Why Dylan Brooks looked as if he were being torn apart alive.
Why this flight could not be slowed even by a heartbeat.
With a sharp c***k, Thomas Reed crushed the phone in his hand. Plastic and circuitry splintered, falling uselessly to the floor.
Rage surged through him like wildfire.
He shoved the throttle forward again.
Faster.
Even faster.
The jet ripped through the sky, cleaving the clouds, tearing open the heavens as it hurtled toward Kingsley.
Inside the cabin, Dylan Brooks’ voice was low, trembling, yet terrifyingly calm.
“Sophie… Gabby… nothing can happen to you.”
“If you do…”
“I will turn Kingsley into a dead city.”
“A city drowned in blood, stacked with corpses.”
His entire body shook—not only with fury, but with fear.
For the first time in decades, fear had found its way back into his heart.
The murderous aura he had suppressed for so long began to leak out in waves, distorting the air itself.
His breathing grew heavy.
“How much longer,” he demanded, his eyes glowing red, his voice sounding like it crawled out of the deepest pit of hell.
“How much longer until we arrive?”
Thomas Reed forced his voice steady. “Teacher—we’re already there. We’re descending now.”
“We’re landing. Little Sister… she’ll be fine. She has to be.”
Already there?
Dylan Brooks froze.
He lunged toward the window. The ground below was rushing closer—buildings already visible, streets and lights blurring into form. The altitude was still several hundred feet, but dropping fast.
“One minute,” Thomas Reed said quickly. “One minute and we’ll land safely—”
“I can’t wait.”
The words cut through the cockpit like a blade.
“Open the door.”
“Teacher, we’re still hundreds of feet up—”
“Open it.”
The command detonated.
The killing intent within Dylan Brooks exploded outward. Every glass surface inside the aircraft shattered simultaneously, spiderwebbing before bursting apart. Loose objects were torn from their places, smashed into fragments by invisible force.
If this continued, the aircraft would never make it to the ground.
Teeth clenched, Thomas Reed slammed the release.
The cabin door flew open.
What he saw next would be burned into his memory forever.
The instant the door opened, Dylan Brooks stepped forward—into empty air.
“Teacher!”
It was too late.
He was already gone.
From hundreds of feet above the ground, Dylan Brooks fell freely, his body plunging straight down like a meteor.
“This is… hundreds of feet…” Thomas Reed muttered, scalp going numb.
Behind them, dozens of private jets followed in tight formation. Inside them were thirty-six disciples who had boarded the moment Dylan Brooks left the hall, tracking him without hesitation.
They had already learned the reason for his fury.
They had contacted every brother and sister they could reach.
Justice would be demanded—for their master, for the Madam, for the Little Sister.
Even if more than half of them had been blacklisted by the Solaria Republic, f*******n from ever stepping onto its soil again.
They didn’t care.
If justice required standing against the entire world, then so be it.
Yet none of them had imagined this.
Their master, leaping from the aircraft before landing.
“Teacher!!”
Shouts erupted across the radios.
Below, Dylan Brooks struck the ground.
Boom.
The impact was cataclysmic.
A thunderous explosion of sound and dust tore through the courtyard of the Nolan family of Kingsley. Stone slabs shattered into powder. Cracks spiderwebbed outward for dozens of yards, walls trembling violently.
Windows throughout the estate burst simultaneously, glass spraying inward.
“What the hell was that?”
“An earthquake?!”
“There—there’s something in the courtyard!”
Ears ringing, people stumbled toward the noise.
Through the settling dust, a figure stood in the center of a massive crater.
The ground beneath his feet was fractured like a shattered shell, cracks radiating outward in dense, jagged lines. Even nearby walls bore fresh scars from the shockwave.
“Is… is that a man or a ghost?” someone whispered in terror.
There was no answer.
Because Dylan Brooks moved.
Another thunderous boom.
In less than a blink, a figure like a demon from the abyss crashed into the interior of the villa. His eyes streamed blood-red tears. The killing intent pouring from him was so dense it felt suffocating.
He raised one hand.
Seven or eight bodyguards didn’t even have time to scream.
Their bodies burst apart midair, reduced to clouds of red mist.
Silence fell.
Only three remained, frozen in place.
Dylan Brooks’ gaze locked onto them, cold beyond comprehension.
“Where,” he asked, his voice like ancient ice,
“are my wife… and my daughter?”
- Writer
