Chapter 78 clean up
Still fuming from what he had seen in Shee's memories, Philip sat alone in the darkness of his basement. The images still burned in his mind the protests twisted, the lives destroyed, the foreign hands funding Nigerian bloodshed.
The Triad wasn't just a local criminal syndicate.
They were part of something bigger a web that extended far beyond borders.
Philip stood up. His breath slow. Controlled.
He'd had enough.
He walked out of his penthouse balcony, eyes glowing. Then he rose ascending into the sky like a judgment made flesh and turned his gaze eastward.
Toward Ikoyi.
Triad Base –Apapa Lagos
Inside the marble-floored conference room, the three Triad brothers Tope, Tolu, and Tayo sat tense, awaiting news from the ten siege-level assassins they had sent to Philip's house.
Their silence stretched thin as minutes passed with no updates.
Tolu leaned forward.
"Still no word?"
Tope scowled.
"They should've reported by now."
Then
BOOM.
A sudden pressure crushed the compound a wave of pure aura descended like a mountain falling from the sky.
Walls cracked.
Glass shattered.
Men dropped to their knees.
Even their trusted right-hand man, a battle-hardened sage, let out a strangled gasp.
Tayo stumbled backward.
"What the hell is that?!"
And then, through the rolling thunder of power, a voice echoed like a blade across the air:
"Tope. Tolu. Tayo. Come out. Now."
Their eyes widened in horror.
They had just been staring at his file.
The same Philip Egboluche they had labeled a 'potential threat.'
Now he was here.
At their doorstep.
And he wasn't knocking.
They scrambled out of the compound with the remaining Triad members faces pale, hearts racing.
The sky quieted. The aura retracted.
And then, slowly descending from the heavens, came Philip.
Tolu squinted upward, trying to see the face of the figure glowing with authority.
"E–Expert…" he stammered, bowing deeply. "If we have offended you in any way, we beg forgiveness. We're prepared to compensate you for any wrongs our organization may have committed "
Philip landed.
The moment they saw his face, the three brothers froze.
Tope dropped to one knee.
It was him.
Philip Egboluche.
They had underestimated him.
Assumed he was some talented upstart. Someone they could quietly erase.
Now they knew the truth.
He wasn't just stronger than their assassins he had wiped them all out. And the Grandmaster they sent to observe?
Gone.
Tayo's lips trembled.
"He's… not a Monarch… He's "
"A Demigod," Tolu whispered, eyes wide with disbelief.
Sweat poured down their faces.
For the first time in years, the three Triad brothers felt true fear not of losing money, not of the police, not of rival gangs
But of being erased.
Right here.
Right now.
By one man.
Philip hovered above the Triad compound like a storm paused in the sky.
Below him, the three brothers knelt, trembling. Their pride, their titles, their power all meaningless in the face of his presence.
He could end it.
Right now.
Rid Lagos of the rot.
The thought lingered in his mind like a blade begging to be drawn.
For years, they had spread poison funding chaos, fueling riots, twisting justice into a currency. Even he, back when he was still a normal man, had unknowingly lived in the shadows of their actions. He had lost friends to the violence they nurtured.
And yet
He paused.
Because to kill them... would mean crossing a line he hadn't crossed before.
He clenched his fists.
"You deserve to die," he said quietly, his voice echoing through the still air.
"But I'm not ready to become like you."
He descended.
In the next instant, power surged through the compound bones cracked, screams rang out, and one by one, he shattered their arms and legs. Each brother. Each member. Every soul hiding in the house.
But he wasn't done.
He reached inside their spiritual cores and sliced into their souls. Not enough to kill, but enough to ensure agony, paralysis, and a healing process that would take years and resources they could barely afford.
"You will live… but you will never forget this day."
He turned to the rubble.
Then leveled the entire Triad base with a single strike a silent quake followed by crumbling stone and burning rebar.
As smoke curled into the night sky, Philip looked down one last time.
"If I ever see another Triad member near my compound… I will finish what I started."
And then he was gone.
Back in the sky, flying silently over the city lights, Philip wrestled with the silence in his heart.
He had held back.
He had spared them.
But something inside him asked why.
Why spare monsters?
The truth gnawed at him.
He wasn't the same man anymore.
Every day, his body grew stronger. His mind sharper. His soul deeper more ancient than he understood.
And with it came something else:
A growing sense of distance.
From people.
From pain.
From humanity.
And he was scared
Was this what it felt like… to ascend?
To approach godhood?
To feel everything, but be detached from it all?
He looked at his hands steady, glowing faintly.
"Is this how God feels?" he whispered to himself.
The wind didn't answer.
But his soul pulsed.
And far beneath him, Lagos held its breath.