Across the city, in a penthouse, Jade delivered her report to Damien Silvercrest.
"The man who defeated Captain Reeves and his enforcement squad has been identified," she said, her tablet displaying surveillance photos from multiple angles. "Facial recognition confirms he's Ethan Cross. Released from Irongate Maximum Security Prison yesterday after serving fifteen years."
Damien's wine glass slipped from his fingers, shattering against the floor in a splash of red that looked like blood. "Ethan Cross is alive? That's impossible. I specifically paid someone to eliminate him five years ago."
"Your assassin reported success," Jade said carefully. "However, it appears his report was either fabricated or he was mistaken about the target's death."
Damien's hand moved faster than thought, the backhand strike catching Jade across the face with enough force to send her sprawling. She hit the floor beside the broken glass, her cheek already swelling. "Do not tell me things I already know. Tell me how a man who should be dead is now powerful enough to humiliate Gold-rank enforcers"
Jade wiped blood from her split lip with the back of her hand. "The prison records show nothing unusual. He served his time in isolation and there's no incident reports. But something clearly happened that the official records don't reflect."
Damien moved to the window, staring out at the city."If he's alive and cultivating at levels that shouldn't be possible, we need to know how. Contact our sources in Irongate. Find out what happened in that prison. And prepare contingencies. If Ethan Cross is somehow dangerous now, we will eliminate him before he becomes a real problem."
The memory hit Damien like a fist to the gut. Five years ago, he had paid a fortune to have Ethan killed inside Irongate. The assassin was professional, and experienced. The man had sent an encrypted message confirming success: Target eliminated in Cell 9. Clean execution.
But when Damien demanded photographic proof, the assassin had gone silent. His body turned up a week later in the prison's sewage system, every bone in his body broken in patterns that suggested he had been systematically dismantled by someone.
Damien had assumed the guards had killed the assassin for attempting murder on their watch.
"Contact every mercenary cultivator we have on retainer," Damien said. "If Ethan Cross is coming for us, I want enough firepower to level a city block. And reach out to our contacts in the demon realms. Tell them the Celestial Physician has emerged and we need power sufficient to kill a legend."
At Blackwood Estate, Victor Blackwood assembled his top five mages in the war room. The footage of Ethan's victory over Captain Reeves played on screens covering an entire wall, each angle showing the same impossible result from different perspectives.
"Find his weaknesses," Victor commanded.
The mages nodded and scattered to their tasks. All except Scarlett, who remained seated at the back of the room with her tablet displaying information that made her eyes narrow with interest.
She waited until the others had left before approaching her father. "I've been reviewing the prison records. Ethan Cross entered Irongate as an ordinary young man with no cultivation ability whatsoever. Fifteen years later, he emerges as something that can defeat six Gold-rank enforcers without apparent effort. What happened to create that transformation?"
"That's what I've tasked the others to discover."
"I think I know where to start looking." Scarlett's fingers moved across her tablet, pulling up architectural diagrams of Irongate Maximum Security Prison. "Cell 9. It appears in exactly three documents across fifteen years of prison records, all of them heavily redacted by Council order. Whatever was in that cell, the Council wanted it to be kept secret."
"Then find out what it was." Victor turned back to the screens showing Ethan's impossible victory. "If he gained power from something in that cell, we need to understand what it was and how to counter it."
Scarlett left her father's war room and returned to her private office, where she conducted research her family would have forbidden if they knew its extent. Her fingers flew across her keyboard, accessing databases that required passwords she had stolen from her father's files years ago.
The warden of Irongate answered her encrypted call on the third ring. "Miss Blackwood. How can I help you?"
"I need information about Cell 9 and what was imprisoned there during Ethan Cross's incarceration," Scarlett said.
The warden's breathing became audible over the connection, panic making him forget to hide his fear. "Cell 9 is sealed by Council order. I cannot discuss it. I will not discuss it. If you're intelligent, you'll forget you ever heard that designation."
"But I'm not interested in being intelligent tonight," Scarlett said, her smile sharp. "I'm interested in the truth. What was in Cell 9?"
"Something old." The warden's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Something that shouldn't have existed. The Council sealed it there three hundred years ago and gave strict orders that it was never to be disturbed. When Ethan Cross was assigned to that cell, I protested. But Victor Blackwood himself overrode my objections, said it would be fitting for the boy to rot beside a legend."
"What legend?"
"Master Tian." The name came out like a prayer or a curse. "The cultivator who reached heights that made the Council itself afraid. They sealed him in Cell 9 rather than execute him because they feared what his death might unleash. And when Ethan Cross left Irongate, Master Tian was gone. Cell 9 was empty. Draw your own conclusions and leave me out of them."
The line went dead. Scarlett sat back in her chair, her mind racing through implications that both terrified and fascinated her. Master Tian had been imprisoned in Cell 9 for three hundred years. Ethan Cross had been assigned there for fifteen years. When Ethan left, Master Tian was gone.
"He didn't just survive in there," Scarlett whispered to her empty office. "He was trained by a legend. That's why he's so powerful, making it impossible to be stopped."
She pulled up every file she could find on Master Tian, reading accounts of his cultivation prowess that sounded more like mythology than history. The Celestial Medicine God Arts. The Heavenly Dragon Combat Style. Techniques that had made him feared across the cultivation world before the Council had managed to seal him through treachery.
And now those techniques belonged to Ethan Cross.
Down the hall from Scarlett's office, Tyler Blackwood practiced proposals in front of his bathroom mirror. .
"Claire, I've always loved you," he said to his reflection, then shook his head. "No, that's too desperate." He reset his expression. "Claire, marry me and I'll make you happier than you ever imagined." Better, but still not perfect.
He pulled the vial of compulsion elixir from his pocket, holding it up to the light. The liquid inside swirled with colors that suggested consciousness, demonic alchemy. One drop in her champagne, and Claire would believe she had always loved him. She would beg for his touch, and marry him willingly.
"After the Gala, you'll be mine," Tyler said to the photographs surrounding him. "You'll finally understand that we're meant to be together and that I'm the only one who truly loves you."
He practiced injecting the elixir into champagne glasses, his hands steady despite the giggling that kept bursting from his throat. Tomorrow night, everything would be perfect. And by tomorrow night, Claire would be his forever.
Back at the warehouse, Ethan stood with Claire and Brick, planning their approach to the Autumn Gala.
"Margaret provided forged identification for both of us," Ethan said, spreading documents across one of the lab tables. "We'll be Doctor William and his assistant. Respected enough to gain entry, and unremarkable enough not to draw immediate attention."
"Until you shatter Tyler's world in front of three hundred witnesses," Brick said with grim satisfaction. "I'll have my people positioned around the hotel".
Claire touched the data crystal Ethan had shown her earlier, the backup Margaret had maintained for fifteen years. "This has everything? All of Victor's crimes?"
"Everything," Ethan confirmed. " Enough to destroy him ten times over if the Council actually enforced its own laws."
"And if they don't?" Claire's question hung in the air like smoke.
Ethan's smile was cold enough to freeze blood. "Then I will enforce justice myself. One way or the another, Victor Blackwood and everyone who helped him destroy my family will pay for what they've done."
He moved to the center of the warehouse, settling into a meditation posture. His breathing slowed as he began circulating qi in patterns that made the air around him shimmer with power.
"What's he doing?" Claire asked Brick quietly.
"Refining the Heavenly Dragon's essence," Brick said. "My father told me about it once. It's the ultimate technique of the Heavenly Dragon Combat Style. By tomorrow night, he'll be strong enough to face whatever Victor has prepared. Maybe strong enough to take on the entire Council if it comes to that."
Claire watched Ethan cultivate, golden light beginning to seep from his skin as celestial qi built to dangerous levels.
Claire's phone buzzed with a new message. She pulled it out, her face paling as she read Margaret's text. "They know you're coming. Victor threatened my granddaughter. I'm sorry. So sorry. Run."
Before Claire could speak, another message arrived. This one was from Victor himself. "See you tomorrow, Claire. We've prepared a special welcome. Do come along with Ethan Cross. It wouldn't be the same without him."
Claire's hand shook as she showed the messages to Brick. He read them, his jaw tightening, then he looked at Ethan still deep in meditation.
"We're walking into a trap," Brick said flatly.
"I know," Claire whispered. "Should we tell him?"
Brick was quiet for a long moment, then he shook his head. "He knows".
Claire looked at Ethan again, watching golden light pulse around him in waves. By tomorrow, one way or the another, the blood debt fifteen years in the making would finally come due.