The blood-red neon insignia of the Crimson Syndicate Headquarters flickered irregularly before dying completely, casting the top-floor executive suite into a deep shadow.
Grant Cross walked out of the ruined glass facade of the skyscraper, his boots clicking sharply against the wet asphalt of the private rooftop landing pad.
The heavy storm clouds overhead hung low, swirling in a violent vortex that perfectly mirrored the structural chaos rolling through the Capital Core District’s financial markets.
Two of the Three Supreme Pillars had been thoroughly erased from the digital ledgers in less than six hours, leaving the city’s underground hierarchy completely destabilized.
He stopped at the edge of the reinforced concrete pavilion, his dark linen shirt drifting slightly in the cold mountain wind.
He willed his thoughts inward, checking the status parameters of his newly integrated system seals.
The blood-red jade emblem of the Crimson Syndicate was currently resting inside his soul-bound Spatial Vault, its network codes actively transferring ownership of three hundred underground training hubs directly to his master profile.
« SYSTEM INTELLIGENCE MATRIX: CONSOLIDATION »
• Active Territory Controlled: 66.6% of Capital Core Assets
• Current Cultivation Realm: Tier 2: Astral Vein Monarch (Stage 4)
• Active Baseline Combat Strength: 25,000
• Proximity Detection: 1x Familiar Kinetic Signature approaching via the express elevator shaft.
• Status: High-density energy shielding detected around the incoming target.
The reinforced titanium elevator doors at the back of the landing pad slid open with a soft, clean hiss.
Violet Vance stepped out onto the wet concrete, her pristine white business suit completely drenched by the driving rain.
She didn’t carry her digital ledger tablet this time; her hands were tucked tightly inside her jacket pockets, her breath catching as her eyes recorded the smoking ruins of the Crimson war room behind Grant’s silhouette.
Her high-level cultivation senses recoiled instantly from the crushing, mountain-like weight of Grant’s baseline 25,000 Combat Strength pulsing passively through the dark air.
“Lord Crimson’s core has been completely dismantled,” Violet said, her voice dropping into a low, trembling whisper that was almost swallowed by the wind.
“The news just reached our family’s ancestral estate.
My aunt Seraphina has already fled the central sector, realizing that her five-hundred-million-dollar bounty was nothing more than an open invitation for you to execute their entire lineage.”
“They wanted to measure the cost of my skull,” Grant replied smoothly, his low voice cutting through the storm with absolute, unbothered calm.
“But my father isn’t like Marcus Aurelius or Tyron Crimson, Grant,” Violet pressed, taking two rapid steps forward, her beautiful eyes wide with a mixture of profound desperation and intense, protective urgency.
“You are marching straight toward the House of Vance, believing that their Stage 10 boundary is the final limitation of this city.
You are severely underestimating what my father has been hiding deep within our family’s subterranean vaults.”
Grant slowly turned his body around to face her, his golden draconic pupils igniting with a cold, blinding ring of incandescent radiance through the midnight darkness.
“A thousand-year legacy is still just brick and stone, Violet.
Your father’s financial group signed a pact to suppress my bloodline.
That debt is due before sunrise.”
“My father isn’t a Stage 10 Astral Vein master!” Violet finally screamed, her corporate shell completely breaking apart as she reached out, her fingers trembling as she pointed toward the monolithic, silver-tinted skyscraper of the Vance Financial Group towering in the distant skyline.
“Three years ago, he secretly consumed a raw, forbidden Giga-Grade Dragon Heart Core plundered from the southern rifts.
He didn’t just maximize his master parameters—he successfully broke past the mortal ceiling entirely!
He is an active Tier 3: God-Realm Cultivator!”
The entire landing pad seemed to lose its gravity for a fraction of a millisecond as the weight of her words settled into the space.
« SYSTEM DATABASE PARSING: IMMINENT THREAT »
• Target Evaluation Update: Patriarch Vance (Head of the Final Pillar)
• True Hidden Cultivation Realm: Tier 3: God-Realm (Stage 1 – Astral Deity)
• Estimated Active Combat Strength: 45,000 Minimum
• Tactical Advisory: Target’s physical output exceeds host’s current baseline parameters by 80%.
Immediate resource investment or strategic level-up stabilization mandatory before initiating direct combat.
To any ordinary cultivator in the province, finding out that the final boss of the metropolis was a genuine Tier 3 God-Realm entity with an unholy 45,000 Combat Strength would cause their spirit to instantly collapse into absolute despair.
A Tier 3 deity didn’t just fight with weapons; their ambient spiritual domains could flatten an entire city sector simply by releasing their breath. This chapter was copied from novelping dot com without permission.
But Grant Cross didn’t flinch.
He didn’t drop his shoulders, nor did his expression betray a single thread of psychological panic.
Inside his chest, the re-forged Primordial Dragon Core spun with an intense, predatory speed, the ancient gold lines across his heart cavity vibrating with a wild, hungry anticipation.
The level-up loop of the capital wasn’t a wall designed to trap him—it was a ladder engineered to elevate his draconic lineage to the absolute summit of the empire.
A 45,000 combat strength target was exactly the mountain he required to force his first official Tier 3 ascension sequence.
“A Tier 3 Astral Deity,” Grant murmured softly, a cold, deadly smirk gradually touching the sharp corners of his face as he willed his mind into his system inventory.
“Your father hid his true realm to keep the other two pillars from uniting against him, using his corporate financial group as a shield to mask his divine transformation.”
“Yes,” Violet whispered, her breathing ragged as she stepped closer to his heated frame, the raw ambient heat radiating from his Stage 4 body instantly drying the rain tracking down her skin.
“The moment you step past the primary gates of the Vance Monolith, he will activate his Deity Suppression Array to lock your spatial coordinates.
Let me use my position as majority CEO to legally merge the assets of the two fallen pillars under your name.
We can buy out thirty percent of the capital’s private resource vaults, forcing a diplomatic stalemate before he can mobilize his divine core.”
“A dragon doesn’t sign mergers with insects to survive a storm, Violet,” Grant whispered, his low voice vibrating with the faint, terrifying resonance of distant cosmic thunder.
He reached into his soul-bound Spatial Vault, the translucent crimson crystal blade of the Sovereign Blood Eclipse materializing smoothly into his right hand.
The light-devouring gold glyphs etched down the center groove of the blade ignited with a blinding violet radiance, the weapon humming with a clean, hungry frequency that cut through the atmospheric air pressure of the roof deck.
“Your father wants to drain my bloodline to secure his family’s thousand-year dominance,” Grant said smoothly, his heavy leather boots advancing toward the elevator bank as his golden pupils flashed with an unstoppable hunger for absolute conquest.
“Tell him to prepare his divine array to its absolute maximum capacity.
Because tonight, I am marching straight into his boardroom to see if a capital god can bleed.”
Chapter 24 is complete!
Violet Vance has just dropped the ultimate tactical bombshell—her father is actually a hidden Tier 3: God-Realm Astral Deity with a massive forty-five-thousand combat strength rating!
Grant’s system has flagged the extreme threat level, but the Sovereign refuses to run!
He has drawn the Sovereign Blood Eclipse and is marching straight into the Vance Financial Monolith for the ultimate clash of Volume 2!
Can Grant’s Stage 4 Monarch form shatter a literal capital god?