Chapter 003
1339 Words
Six years is enough time for most people to change jobs several times, move across cities, fall in and out of love, and reinvent themselves more than once.
For Matthew Powell, those same six years were a crucible—one that stripped the man out of him and reforged what remained into something far sharper, colder, and infinitely more dangerous.
A man shaped into a myth.
A myth sharpened into a weapon.
A weapon whispered about in the dark until the whisper became a name—
War God.
During those six years, his identity was overwritten again and again.
On paper, in the official archives of The Divine Empire, Matthew Powell had “died honorably in an undisclosed mission.”
No body. No ceremony. No burial.
In the shadows, however, he evolved.
His codename shifted from War Dog into a single title spoken with caution, fear, and grudging awe—
War God.
…
High in a mountain range where the air was thin enough to bite, a sudden avalanche swallowed an entire special-operations squad. Snow and boulders crashed down in a roaring torrent that muffled screams and crushed steel.
The captain’s final words crackled through the radio before the signal vanished:
“War God, the objective is yours.”
And so he crawled.
One man. One damaged leg.
Fifteen miles through snow that burned like acid in the forty-below wind chill, dragging a small encrypted chip pressed against his chest.
He delivered that chip to the border outpost—barely conscious, skin turning blue-black from frostbite.
That night, sprawled in the emergency room, he still clutched the chip in a dead-man’s grip. The medic had to pry his fingers open while shouting through red-rimmed eyes:
“It’s already with the commander! Let go! I’m trying to save your damn life!”
Only then did Matthew’s fingers loosen.
Only then did he black out.
…
During an anti-terror marine operation, he infiltrated an armed freighter alone—swimming beneath the hull, cutting its engines in freezing waters before scaling its frame with three bullet wounds burning through his side and shoulder.
Even bleeding into the ocean, he shot the suicide-bomber leader a split second before detonation.
The explosion that followed was contained.
Barely.
Days later, the public heard only about an “unidentified maritime incident.”
No one knew the entire coastline had almost vanished in a plume of fire.
…
In another covert border operation, a mercenary syndicate circulated a hit list of “world-class eliminators.”
One name appeared there that shocked even them—
War God.
Their assessment was chilling:
“Killing this man will cripple half of the Eastern shadow forces.”
The mercenary squad, along with the renowned killers they hired, vanished overnight.
The next morning, a remote canyon held a fresh mound of earth marked only by a jagged stone slab. In uneven handwriting, someone had carved four words:
“Those who s*******r innocents deserve worse.”
…
Mission after mission.
Line after line crossed.
Death after death brushed so close he could feel its breath on his neck.
The man once called War Dog became something else entirely.
A perfect instrument of execution.
He rarely smiled.
Outside missions, he spoke little.
His unit eventually nicknamed him “Dragon-Head”—a title spoken half in jest, half in awe. And soon, even in high-level meetings, the name slipped from the tongues of top brass as though it were official.
But in the dark, when the world finally quieted, he would reach into the inner pocket of his ballistic vest and pull out an old, worn photograph.
A couple stood against the deep-red backdrop of a civil registry office.
The man looked numb, dazed even, as though the moment barely registered.
The woman beside him pressed her lips tightly, gaze cold, stubborn, refusing to bend—even to the camera.
Her name was Sarah Lacy.
Their only photograph as husband and wife.
Matthew had kept that picture against his heart for six years.
Wind, sand, blood, saltwater, sweat—they had all scraped at that thin scrap of paper, wearing the edges into frayed threads and dulling the colors until it looked older than a lifetime.
Once, a teammate glimpsed him staring at the photo late at night and teased, “Dragon-Head, who’s that? Don’t tell me it’s your girlfriend.”
Matthew slipped the picture away with a calm that was almost frightening.
“A person I owe a great deal to.”
“You going to repay that debt someday?”
“If I’m alive, yeah.”
The man didn’t understand at the time and simply laughed it off.
But during a later mission—when he saw Matthew abandon a safer escape route and charge back into crossfire to save a teammate he barely knew—that man finally understood.
This wasn’t arrogance.
This wasn’t bravado.
This was Matthew Powell.
A man who valued “the debts he owed” more than he valued his own life.
…
Meanwhile, the world shifted under a thousand unspoken tensions.
Nations maneuvered, clashed, and negotiated through teeth-gritted diplomacy and covert sabotage.
And in the hidden world beneath governments and armies, a new storm gathered around eight names:
The Blood Reaper,
The Bone Collector,
The Smiling Executioner,
The Midnight Butcher,
The Poison Saint,
The Ghostface Devil,
The Hellborn Jackal,
The Crimson Judge.
Across different continents, in messy war zones and lawless cities, these eight figures left trails of c*****e.
Newspapers called them “modern war legends.”
Whisper networks called them “a global disaster waiting to happen.”
The first time Matthew Powell saw the full list was during a high-clearance briefing.
On the massive screen, blurred photos magnified one by one as the intelligence officer narrated calmly:
“These eight individuals represent the current apex of global combat power.”
“They maintain ties with several multinational arms corporations, extremist networks, and private military conglomerates.”
“They create chaos in different regions—sometimes as weapons, sometimes as bargaining chips.”
The room thickened with tension.
Someone murmured, “If they ever coordinated an attack… it would be catastrophic for The Divine Empire.”
“They won’t,” another argued. “It’d be mutual destruction.”
Matthew said nothing.
He simply studied each face—each pair of eyes on that screen.
Some burned with arrogance.
Some crackled with madness.
Some held a cold, clinical cruelty.
Some shimmered with a thrill for violence.
Those weren’t the eyes of ordinary people.
Those were the eyes of creatures shaped by endless s*******r.
Somewhere deep in his instinct, Matthew felt it—
One day, he would face them on the same battlefield.
That day arrived far sooner than anyone imagined.
…
During a top-secret briefing, the intelligence officer’s voice shook as he pushed forward a fresh stack of classified documents.
“Confirmed. The Evil Eight are mobilizing toward the Northern Desert.”
“This is a coordinated, premeditated joint operation—its objective is aimed squarely at our border.”
A suffocating silence fell.
Someone swore under his breath.
“All eight? For one borderline test? Are they insane?”
“They’re not testing the border,” the commander said quietly.
“They’re coming for a person.”
Every head turned—slowly, heavily—toward the man sitting at the far end of the table.
A young general—silent, steady, shoulders marked with three gleaming stars.
War God.
Matthew Powell.
“Are you ready?” the commander asked.
Matthew’s hand closed around the grip of his matte-black combat blade.
Six years of battlefields passed behind his eyes.
The red registry backdrop.
The stubborn woman beside him.
The marriage certificate shoved into his gear.
His disappearance the same night.
The debt he had never repaid.
For once, he allowed himself a private wish:
I need to live through this.
I still owe someone.
He lifted his gaze—calm, but edged with a blade’s resolve.
“Commander,” he said quietly.
“Send me.”
- Writer
