30-minutes before.
Simon stood in the center of the carnage.
Blood pooled around his boots—think, dark, and fresh.
To his left—
A decapitated corpse, the headless body still twitching, blood pulsing from the neck like a fountain. The pool beneath it spread slowly, inching toward Simon's boots.
To the right—
A man embedded into the wall.
Literally.
His chest had collapsed inward, crushed with such brutal force it no longer resembled a human torso. His arms hung limp; bones snapped at unnatural angles.
The look frozen on his face wasn't pain—
It was fear.
Not from the impact.
But from the man who dealt it.
Simon.
He stood motionless. His face, Nothing.
No guilt. No fear. No regret.
Because this was war.
The time he'd spent surviving in the wilderness didn't just prepare him for war—
He didn't flinch at gore. He didn't stumble at killing.
Simon pulled his phone from his pocket, thumb stained with blood, and dialed a number.
Dialing… connecting…
"Brother, I'm on the way. I'll be there in fifteen minutes," Olivia said her voice light, unaware of what waited at home.
Simon looked around at the blood-soaked room, the silence heavier than the bodies on the floor. He let out a quiet sign.
"Olive," he said, his voice calm but firm. "Listen carefully. I called to tell you—don't come home tonight."
There was a pause on the line.
"What? Why?" she asked, suddenly alert.
"Father and I… we've got somewhere we need to be. Just stay at your friend's place until I call, alright?"
Her tone sharpened. "Stop calling me Olive, I told you—"
"Not now," Simon interrupted gently. "This is important."
She hesitated, then softened. "Where are you and Dad going?"
"Something important. Business that needs both of us," he said eyes drifting to the shattered remains of the last assassin. "I'll explain later."
Another pause.
"I sent you some money," Simon added. "Get a nice gift for your friend and her family, for letting you stay."
"…Brother, where did you get this mon—"
Click.
The call ended.
Simon exhaled slowly; His face hardened.
There was work left to finish.
Simon looked up at the glowing screen of his phone.
An app icon blinked softly— "Glympse."
Not just any app.
It was his father's greatest invention; the heart of the company Mathew had built from the ashes of personal tragedy. A real-time location tracker—born from the pain of losing his family in the disaster thirty years ago. That loss had carved a hole in Mathew's soul, and in trying to fill it, he created something to ensure no one else would ever have to feel that same helplessness.
Glympse was designed to trace people anywhere—even outside civilization. Using a hybrid network of satellites and relay drones, it worked where no normal signal could.
Even in the deepest wilderness.
Even when the rest the world couldn't find you—Glympse could.
But after the company collapsed –ripped apart by sabotage and corporate betrayal— Mathew salvaged what he could. Using this unrivalled hacking skills, he created a private backdoor to the network. Then silently, he embedded it into his family, Downloaded directly into Simon and Olivia's Systems. A permanent tether.
It wasn't connected to any server now.
Only to Mathew's personal network.
Only for his family.
So, he'd never lose them again. Not ever.
And now, watching the blinking signal—buried under complex building that had families living in it.
a second later he vanished from his house.
Under the building complex.
Simon dismembered every guard in his path, leaving every one of them crying in pain on the ground.
Some with their leg and others with their arms, sometime both of them cut off.
As he marched forward. He was welcomed by iron door behind it he felt a distinctive familiar presence, with his astral energy Simon scouted the inner room.
And what he saw froze the air in his lungs.
Mathew. Injector in hand. Arm raised. Ready to stab himself.
Simon didn't hesitate.
He exploded forward, his leg arcing back—then slammed into the door with bone-shattering force.
BOOM!
Present time.
Mathew stared at the figure standing between him and death.
the shape he'd dreamed of. Hoped for. Feared would never come.
Simon.
His back straight. His stance firm.
In that moment, every weight that Mathew carried –
The guilt. The fear. The endless torture—
Vanished.
Replacing them was a sense of relief and confront, so intense that he broke from within.
Mathew collapsed.
Not from pain. Not from weakness.
But because for the first time in what felt like forever—
He felt safe. As his son was still alive.
Simon caught his father just before his body could fully hit the ground, cradling him with a gentleness that sharply contrasted the carnage still fresh on his hands.
His eyes, once blazing with fury, now burned with something else—urgency… fear.
Without hesitation, Simon reached into his space belt and pulled out sleek silver injector, the vial inside glowing faintly blue.
An instant-heal serum.
Standard for high-level Astral Lord Hunts.
He drove it into Mathew's chest with precision.
The serum hissed as it entered his bloodstream. But the change… wasn't immediate.
Simon's jaw clenched.
He already knew why.
Human metabolism.
What worked on Astral Lords in seconds—regenerating torn flesh, restoring bones, even halting internal bleeding—took far longer in ordinary bodies.
Hours maybe even days.
Still the serum stabilized his condition by a huge leap. His breathing though rough was stable, his wounds stopped leaking blood, his skin complex gained some color.
Seeing his father's condition stabilize, Simon gently lowered him to the floor, making sure his head rested against a discarded cloth.
Then he stood.
And turned
his eyes looked onto Thane— the man in the suit, the one who'd orchestrated every ounce of this pain.
Thane didn't move, or should we say he couldn't.
He stood frozen, a thin sheen of sweat glistening across his forehead.
His once-confident posture now crumbled into something far smaller, weaker. His eyes darted to the mangled bodies of his guards—both killed in less time than it took to scream.
Simon's expression was unreadable. Cold. Calm. The kind of calm that comes just before a storm tears the city apart.
"Si..sim..Simon let talk this through!" Thane said his voice trembling in fear.
"I… I ..ca..can… fi..fix—" before he could finish Simon disappeared and appeared Infront of Thane. Catching him by the mouth.
With strength so strong that we could hear sound of his Jaw cracking.
Thane's eyes bulged in fear.
Before his muffled scream barely escaped.
Ripping!...
In one brutal motion, Simon tore his hand back—
And with it, Thane's lower jaw came off, ripped clean from his face.
A spray of blood exploded from the ruined mouth.
Thane staggered back, gurgling and twitching clutching at the mangled, gaping hole where his jaw had been.
Simon stood still, Jaw clenched, his breathing slow and cold.
The image of his father—broken, humiliated, tortured—flashed again in his mind. And because of that, he did not flinch.
Thane dropped to his knees, writhing like a dying insect, blood pooling fast around him.
his eyes pleaded, full of agony and terror—
but Simon's gaze cold as ice.
Unforgiving.
Only after a long, drawn-out moment, when thane's sobbing and gurgled cries filled the heavy silence, did something inside Simon shift.
His breathing slowed.
The ruthless machine that had controlled him— the pure, mechanical instinct to eliminate all threats—finally began to power down.
For the first time since he stormed into the underground, Simon's mind cleared.
And when it did, he finally looked beyond just killing.
He saw the bigger picture—
Simon finally saw Thane for what he truly was.
A puppet.
Nothing more than a trembling pawn shoved to the front line.
Thane wasn't an Astral lord.
He wasn't someone who could stand against Simon and his family on his own.
He didn't have the strength. He didn't have the spine.
Simon sighed quietly, watching Thane gurgle on the floor, blood pooling beneath him. Because of a single, split-decision, it had now became harder for Simon to get any useful information about the puppeteer.
Still, he wasn't one to waste time.
Simon scanned the room with a sweep of his Astral energy, his senses slicing through walls and floors like a hot knife through butter.
Behind a large painting, hung above the main desk, he found something— metal and heavy.
He walked over, moved the painting aside, and revealed a vault embedded into the wall and it required a voice command to open.
Simon didn't bother.
By casually applying a little bit of his strength, he grabbed the door's edge and ripped it clean of its hinges.
Inside were neat rows of jewelry, rare antiques, and, right in the center— a black box filled with documents labelled in bold gold letters: Crown Family.
Simon's brows furrowed.
The name stirred something in his memory, but he couldn't quite place it.
Tucking the document under his arm, Simon turned and casually walked back to thane's lavish chair, sitting down heavily.
He flipped open the first file, starting to read.
Muffled screams.
Choked sobs.
Simon frowned, raising his head.
Across the ruined room, thane writhed, whimpering pathetically— his mutilated month leaking blood and broken sounds.
Simon exhaled sharply through his nose, annoyed,
Raising a single finger to his lips, he said, coldly.
"Shhhh… Silence."
"I don't mind ripping your skin off too."
The words were quiet. Almost gentle.
But the threat in them made Thane freeze instantly, trembling harder.
Simon turned back to the documents, flipping the pages without another glance.
15 minute later.
"Sigh…"
Simon closed the document with a heavy breath and placed it in his space belt.
The pages were filled with Crown family's shady dealings— some so vile and disturbing that, even Simon found himself thinking that wilderness, with its savage Dreadbeasts and brutal laws, was a far better place than human society.
Darkness, greed, betrayal.
it was all laid bare in black and white.
Simon pulled out his phone from his space belt and dialed a number without hesitation.
His eyes were cold. His aura simmering with restrained violence.
Because now…
It was time to send a message.
No—
A warning.
A declaration to anyone foolish enough to even think about touching his family.