When we finally arrived at the location, my heart sank as I saw them already standing there, waiting in a circle. They stood with an air of absolute confidence, as if they had known exactly when I would show up. My muscles tensed, and I instinctively clenched my fists until my knuckles turned white. The sight of their mocking smirks fueled the fire burning inside me, but everything shifted when my eyes landed on Yuan.
Seeing him covered in dark, painful bruises broke my heart and sent a surge of pure, unadulterated rage through my veins. It felt as if my blood was literally boiling; I wanted nothing more than to tear them apart for what they had done to him. However, I forced myself to suppress that urge. My priority wasn't revenge—not yet—it was Yuan's safety.
"Give Yuan to me. Right now!" I shouted, my voice echoing in the cold air.
For a split second, the group went deathly silent. Then, they erupted into loud, condescending laughter that echoed against the walls. The man who had been holding Yuan captive walked toward me slowly, his expression dripping with arrogance. He reached out and patted my shoulder in a way that was meant to provoke me.
"So, you're the famous Killan?" he asked, his eyes narrowing. "The one everyone is talking about? The one they say took down the entire Abby's group by yourself? You don't look like much."
I didn't utter a single word in response. I ignored his taunt completely, my vision tunneling as I stared at Yuan, whose body was curled into a ball on the hard ground, trembling in agony. The sight of my brother suffering made my jaw tighten until it ached. I could feel my patience hanging by a thread, and I knew that if I didn't act now, I might lose control entirely. I took a deep, steadying breath, fighting to keep my voice low, though every syllable I spoke carried the weight of a brewing storm.
"Tell me," I said, my voice dangerously calm and laced with lethal intent. "Which one of you hurt my brother?"
The man looked at me, completely unfazed, and chuckled as he puffed out his chest. "I did. What of it? Why are you—"
He didn't even get to finish his question. In a blur of motion, I shifted my weight, and my fist exploded upward in a brutal uppercut-cross combo.
The first part of the strike caught him right under the chin, snapping his head back with such force that his teeth clicked together with a sharp, sickening sound. Before he could even sag from the impact, I followed through with a heavy cross to his jaw. The connection was flawless. The force was so immense that he didn't just fall—he was launched backward, his feet leaving the ground entirely as he performed a mid-air rotation before crashing onto the cold concrete.
His body hit the floor with a heavy thud, and he lay there, completely motionless, his breath knocked out of him in a desperate, wheezing gasp—a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
His companions stood frozen, their mouths wide open in total shock. They stared at their leader, then back at me, their faces pale with terror. They hadn't expected me to be that fast, nor that strong. They realized in that single heartbeat that they weren't just fighting an opponent—they were standing in the presence of a predator who had just toyed with them. The silence in the room became heavy, filled only by the sound of their ragged, fearful breathing.
"WHOAAAAAAA!" Nerdy screamed out from the sidelines, his voice filled with genuine awe and disbelief at what he had just witnessed.
I didn't wait for them to recover from their surprise. I turned my head slowly, my gaze cold and calculating as I looked at each of the remaining men standing in my way. I straightened my posture, looking them dead in the eyes with a confidence that made them flinch.
"You all made a grave mistake," I told them, my voice icy. "You chose the wrong person to mess with."
I moved forward like a predator. One by one, they tried to rush me, but their movements felt sluggish and pathetic compared to mine. I dodged their desperate swings with ease and struck back with calculated precision. It was over in moments—I took them all down without breaking a single sweat, leaving them sprawled across the floor, completely incapacitated.
The air in the room suddenly felt heavy. Even though I had just taken down the rest of the gang, my instincts—the ones sharpened by years of killing—told me the fight was far from over. I sensed movement behind me. I turned around just in time to see two men standing in the shadows: one holding a jagged combat knife, and the other leveling a heavy pistol right at my chest.
To an ordinary person, looking down the barrel of a gun at point-blank range would be the end. But for me? This was nothing. I remembered my past life as an assassin, a time when I had to dodge fifteen guns aimed at me all at once. If you weren't fast enough, you were dead. But I was different. My master had seen a rare potential in me, something that couldn't be taught, and he spent years turning me into a literal "human weapon." My reflexes aren't human; they are cold, calculated, and faster than a blink.
The gunman pulled the trigger.
Time seemed to freeze. I didn't panic or jump; I simply shifted my weight by a fraction of an inch. The bullet whistled past my ear, grazing my skin and hitting the wall behind me. Before the sound of the gunshot could even echo through the room, I was already moving. I launched myself into a powerful spinning hook kick. My leg became a blur, and my heel connected perfectly with the side of the gunman's head. He didn't even have time to scream; he was lifted off his feet and slammed into the ground, completely knocked out.
The second man, fueled by panic, lunged at me with the knife. He was sloppy, swinging the blade in a wide, desperate arc aimed at my gut. I didn't step back. I stood my ground, waiting for the perfect moment, and then I drove my foot forward in a hard push kick.
My boot landed square in the center of his stomach. The impact was brutal—it sounded like a heavy sandbag hitting a brick wall. The force sent him flying backward through the air. He didn't just fall; he crashed into the wall with a sickening thud that shook the entire room. He let out a choked gasp for air, his body going limp as he slid down the wall and crumpled into a heap on the floor, unconscious before he even realized what had hit him.
I stood in the center of the room, surrounded by the men I had just defeated. I wasn't even breathing hard. I brushed a little dust off my shoulder, feeling absolutely nothing. My heart rate didn't spike, and I didn't feel a hint of adrenaline. To me, this wasn't a life-or-death battle—it was just a routine chore. I walked slowly toward Yuan, my eyes scanning the room one last time to make sure no one else was standing. The danger had passed, and my only focus now was getting my brother to safety.
*******
The chaos Craige had unleashed was not just a local problem anymore; it was a ripple that had turned into a tsunami. He walked through the streets unaware, but he had become a marked man. Unknown to him, his name was now whispered in every dark alleyway and every high-end boardroom across every district. The local gangs were terrified, but the people at the top of the food chain—the real power players who ran the city's underground—were now fully informed of his existence.
The mark he had left on that gang wasn't just a sign of a fight; it was a signature of violence so precise and brutal that it had sent shockwaves through the criminal underworld. Some of the major organizations were paralyzed by anxiety, terrified that this unknown variable would dismantle their operations one by one. Others saw him as the ultimate asset. Assassins, syndicates, and crime lords were suddenly scrambling; the ambitious ones wanted to recruit him, hoping to use his lethal potential to consolidate their power, while the fearful ones reached a single, desperate conclusion: he had to be eliminated before he became unstoppable.
Craige, however, was still trapped in his own reality, desperately trying to shed the title of "Craige the Great." Once a legendary assassin, he had walked away from the blood and the shadows, hungering for nothing more than the simplicity of a normal life. But how could he ever be normal when his every movement stood out like a beacon? He was a man defined by his lethal efficiency; he didn't know how to exist without being the most dangerous person in the room.
The most difficult part of his situation was his isolation. He had no mountains of gold to buy him security, no secret underground network to hide his tracks, and no political power to shield him from the consequences of his actions. He only had his own strength—the physical legacy of his training—to keep him and his family alive.
He was essentially a man trying to hide in a thunderstorm while carrying a lightning rod. He hadn't intended to declare war on the city's elite, yet by merely existing and protecting what was his, he had done exactly that. Now, he faced the ultimate question: in a world where everyone was coming for his head—some to own him, others to bury him—would his raw strength be enough to survive the storm he had inadvertently unleashed? Or would the very thing that made him "The Great" be the reason he could never truly be free?