Hades Has Returned

Chapter 010

The gymnasium was engulfed in an uproar that bordered on hysteria. The collective gasp of the spectators sucked the oxygen out of the room. No one—absolutely no one among the social elite of Northriver—had expected the outcome, nor the sheer audacity of Jack Brooks.

Connor Shaw, the feared Bullbane, stood trembling. His face was a mask of dark, thunderous fury. In all his years enforcing the will of the Myriad Dragons Chamber, he had never apologized to a soul. To bow his head was to slit his own throat in the underworld.

However, the logic of survival warred with his ego. If he reneged on a public bet witnessed by scions of the Wolfe Group and the Bailey Family, his reputation would be shredded. He would be known not as a fearsome enforcer, but as a liar with no honor. How could he command respect in the Northriver underworld if his word meant nothing?

The seconds ticked by, agonizingly slow.

"I..." Connor’s voice rasped like sandpaper. He squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body shaking with the effort of suppressing his murderous rage.

"I'm sorry!"

The words were shouted more than spoken, laced with venom.

In a fit of impotent rage, Connor ripped off his protective body armor and slammed it onto the canvas with a deafening thud. He shot Jack Brooks a look of pure, unadulterated hatred—a look that promised a future reckoning written in blood—before turning on his heel and storming out of the gym, his entourage scrambling to follow him like frightened rats.

The tension broke, but the drama was far from over.

Tia Sutton had received the apology she demanded, yet there was no joy on her face. Instead, her features were twisted with frustration and anxiety. She rushed over to Jack, her heels clicking sharply on the floor.

"Jack, are you out of your mind?" Tia hissed, her voice rising in pitch. "You are completely devoid of humility! How could you strike him so hard? How could you humiliate him like that?"

She gestured wildly toward the exit where Connor had disappeared. "Do you have any idea how hard it was for Perry to arrange this meeting? I needed to get close to Director Shaw to discuss the outstanding debts owed to the Sutton Group. Now? You've humiliated him! That debt is as good as gone! You’ve ruined everything!"

Jack looked at her, his expression unreadable. To him, her priorities were laughably skewed. She was worried about money while standing next to a man who could level the city.

"Too hard?" Jack asked calmly, adjusting his cuffs. "I used less than one percent of my strength. If I had been serious, they would be scraping him off the walls with a spatula."

He turned away, bored. "In the future, don't call me for these childish games. It's a waste of my time."

With that, Jack walked out of the boxing gym, his hands in his pockets, leaving a stunned silence in his wake.

"You..." Tia choked on her anger, her face flushing red. The rush of blood made her dizzy. She wanted to scream, but the words caught in her throat.

Ruby Jordan stepped in, patting Tia’s shoulder soothingly. "Forget it, Tia. Let it go. Technically, he was standing up for you. Don't waste your breath scolding him now."

Perry Bailey, standing nearby, watched Jack's retreating figure with cold disdain. He felt his own status threatened by the interloper. "Ruby is right, Tia. There is no need to get angry over a low-life like him. He's a loose cannon."

Perry adjusted his tie, regaining his composure. "Don't worry about the debt. I'll give Director Shaw a call later. I'll smooth things over. With the Bailey Family's influence, it won't be a problem."

Meanwhile, outside the exclusive VIP entrance of the Skydream Club.

The evening air was cooling, but the city's neon lights kept the atmosphere electric. Ted Wolfe, the richest man in Northriver, walked out accompanied by Winter Lacy.

"Mr. Wolfe," Winter said politely, her demeanor shifting from arrogant to respectful. "Would you like to grab a bite to eat?"

Ted shook his head, smiling. "No, thank you. Victor Zane returns tomorrow. We will have plenty of opportunities to gather then. I have preparations to make."

As they stepped onto the curb, the chaotic noise from the general parking lot drifted over. Ted squinted, his eyes catching sight of a figure getting into a silver Volkswagen Lavida.

His body froze. His eyes widened.

"Is that... Mr. Qin?" Ted muttered under his breath, his heart skipping a beat. He knew Jack Brooks by reputation and face, a figure of terror and awe in certain circles.

Winter Lacy frowned, noticing Ted's sudden hesitation. "Mr. Wolfe? Is something wrong? Isn't your car in the underground garage?"

Ted blinked, snapping out of his trance. He looked again. The man was driving a cheap Volkswagen and had just come out of a scuffle involving the younger generation of socialites. It didn't fit. The Hades he knew of wouldn't be playing in the mud with children.

He let out a self-deprecating chuckle. "Ah, my apologies. I thought I saw someone familiar at the gate. But I must be mistaken. How could a dragon be playing with a bunch of little brats?"

"Please, Miss Lacy, stay here. I’ll head down."

Ted turned and walked toward the elevator to the underground garage.

The crowd of socialites, still loitering outside, buzzed with excitement as they watched the interaction.

"Oh my god! Did you see that? Winter Lacy came here specifically to meet Tycoon Wolfe! Should we go over and pay our respects?"

"Stop dreaming," another sneered. "With her status? She wouldn't even glance at small potatoes like us."

"Hey," one of the young men mused, "I heard Miss Lacy is a master of both medicine and martial arts. If she fought Jack Brooks, do you think she could defeat him in one move?"

"Are you joking?" his friend scoffed. "Winter Lacy fighting that ant? That's an insult to her. If she even deigned to look at him, I'd count it as his victory. He's beneath her notice."

Winter Lacy overheard the whispers. Her gaze drifted to the silver sedan pulling out of the lot. She saw Jack inside, staring straight ahead, looking isolated and grim.

She shook her head, a faint, pitying smile touching her lips.

"It seems my assessment was correct," she thought aloud, her voice soft but carrying the weight of judgment. "Jack Brooks can't even integrate into the circles of the second-tier wealthy. He is truly a pitiful worm, destined to crawl while others fly."

Jack Brooks drove away from the Skydream Club, the noise of the city fading behind him. He steered the car toward Moonview Mountain, the exclusive residential area where the air was cleaner and the energy more potent.

However, halfway up the winding mountain road, something shifted.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. It wasn't fear—it was the primal instinct of a hunter sensing prey. Or rather, sensing a trap.

He abruptly turned the steering wheel, veering off the paved road and driving toward a dense patch of forest near the cliff edge. He killed the engine and stepped out into the darkness.

The silence of the woods was heavy, broken only by the rustle of leaves in the wind.

"You can stop hiding," Jack said, his voice calm, echoing slightly in the stillness. "Come out."

Swish!

From the shadows of the ancient trees, four figures materialized.

They were dressed in black tactical gear, their faces obscured by black cloth masks. On their backs, they each carried a long, curved blade—traditional weaponry modified for modern s*******r. The killing intent radiating from them was palpable, chilling the night air.

Jack frowned slightly, scanning their attire.

"Looking at your gear... you must be from the Temple of the Night," Jack deduced. "What are you doing here?"

The Temple of the Night was the largest underground criminal organization in The Northern Frontier. Their influence was absolute in the frozen north, but they rarely ventured south of the river.

"Heh," one of the assassins chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "Bad luck for you to run into us, kid. But since you're about to die, we might as well let you be an informed ghost."

The assassin stepped forward, his hand hovering over the hilt of his blade. "A certain young warlord from the North has taken a fancy to Winter Lacy. He offered a bounty of ten million dollars to kidnap her and bring her to him. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Die!"

Clang!

In unison, the four assassins drew their long blades. The steel shimmered with a cold, blue light under the moon. These were the Four Heavenly Kings of the Temple of the Night—killers who had slaughtered their way through the underworld for decades.

They moved as one, a coordinated kill squad.

Swish! Swish!

The blades sliced through the air, creating a vacuum that whistled with deadly promise. They were fast—superhumanly fast. In the blink of an eye, the cold steel was mere inches from Jack's neck.

Jack didn't move. He stood there, hands at his sides, a look of utter boredom on his face.

"Is this it?" he scoffed. "Just this?"

He had faced the Hall of Asura, the world's most terrifying organization, and crushed them. Why would he care about a regional g**g like the Temple of the Night?

Just as the blades were about to make contact, Jack lifted his right foot.

It was a simple motion, lacking any fancy technique. He stomped down on the ground.

BOOM!

The earth screamed.

It wasn't just a stomp; it was an eruption of Internal Force. The ground beneath Jack's foot cracked, sending spiderwebs of fissures racing outward. A shockwave of compressed air and kinetic energy exploded from his position, expanding in a ten-foot radius.

The force was cataclysmic.

The four assassins, mid-lunge, were hit by a wall of invisible force. Their momentum shattered. They were blasted backward as if they had been hit by a bomb, their bodies flailing like ragdolls in a hurricane.

They crashed into the trees, coughing up blood.

Jack didn't wait. He leaped into the air, soaring fifteen feet high, silhouetted against the moon like a demon god.

He descended on the first assassin, driving his foot into the man's chest.

CRUNCH.

A cloud of blood mist erupted. The assassin's chest cavity collapsed instantly. Instant death.

"Second one."

Jack moved like a phantom, blurring out of sight and reappearing above the next target. Another stomp. Another life extinguished.

"Third."

Snap.

"Fourth."

It was a m******e. It wasn't a fight; it was pest control. Jack moved with ruthless efficiency, stomping them out like moles in a garden. Within seconds, the Four Heavenly Kings of the Temple of the Night were reduced to broken corpses scattered among the leaves.

Jack stood amidst the c*****e, not a drop of blood on his clothes. He dusted off his hands.

"Is Winter Lacy really that special?" he mused, looking at the bodies. "Someone spent ten million just to kidnap her? I don't get it."

He shook his head, dismissed the thought, and walked back to his car. He drove away, leaving the scene silent once more, as if nothing had happened.

Ten minutes later.

A figure in red rushed through the forest, moving with the grace and speed of a martial artist. It was Winter Lacy.

She had sensed a massive fluctuation of energy—a burst of True Energy so potent it felt like a localized earthquake—and had rushed over to investigate.

When she arrived at the clearing, she froze. Her eyes widened in genuine shock as she pulled the mask off one of the corpses.

"This is..." She gasped. "This is one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Temple of the Night!"

She checked the others. All four were legendary killers who had dominated the Northern Underworld for decades. They were monsters who had survived countless battles. And yet, here they lay, in the quiet backwoods of Northriver, utterly destroyed.

"They are all dead," Winter whispered, analyzing the scene with a trembling hand. "And looking at the wounds... it was brutal. Crushing force. I didn't hear any prolonged fighting on my way here. This was a one-sided s*******r. A massacre."

She stood up, her heart racing. "Who has this kind of power? To treat the Four Heavenly Kings like insects?"

Her gaze drifted up the mountain, toward the peak of Moonview Mountain.

At the very top, the lights of the Capital Grand Manor were blazing, shining like a palace in the sky.

"Tyler Jennings," she breathed, the name hitting her with the force of revelation. "The War God of the North."

It made perfect sense to her. The Capital Grand Manor was the property of Tyler Jennings. Only a War God of his caliber could execute such powerful assassins with such ease. He must have returned.

"It has to be him," Winter murmured, her eyes shining with admiration. "It's late now, but I must find a time to visit him. To be so close to such greatness..."

She stood there, worshipping the empty villa, completely unaware that the man she despised—the "worm" Jack Brooks—was the actual god of death she was admiring.

The next morning, the Zane Estate was buzzing with activity.

The sprawling mansion had been scrubbed clean. Every surface gleamed. The servants moved with hushed urgency, terrified of making a mistake.

Today was the day. The Zane Family was welcoming Jack Brooks.

Frank Zane, the elderly patriarch of the family, wore a brand-new Traditional Tunic Suit. He stood at the main gate, his posture rigid, ignoring the aches in his old joints. Beside him stood his eldest son, Tom Zane.

They had been waiting for over an hour.

The sun beat down on them, but neither dared to complain. To the Zane Family, Jack Brooks wasn't just a guest; he was a savior, a terrifying force of nature that demanded absolute respect.

Finally, a figure approached. Jack arrived, looking relaxed and unhurried.

"Mr. Brooks!" Frank Zane bowed low, his voice trembling with reverence. "Welcome! Please, come in!"

The entire Zane Family swarmed around him, treating him like an emperor, ushering him toward the inner sanctum of the estate.

Just as the heavy gates were closing behind Jack, a luxury car pulled up to the curb.

Perry Bailey stepped out, adjusting his suit, followed by Tia Sutton and Sophie Sutton.

They stared at the imposing gates of the Zane Estate, unaware that Jack was already inside, being served tea by the patriarch.

"Tia, don't worry," Perry said, flashing a confident smile. He patted his chest. "My family has some friendship with the Zane Family. We brought gifts. If I explain the situation, they will definitely let us in."

He picked up a heavy gift box and walked up to the formidable wooden doors.

"Watch this," Perry said, and began to pound on the door.

"Open up! It's Perry Bailey!"