Chapter 3: Too Many Questions.

“Seventeen, an orphan, a civilian. His profile shows nothing unusual. Wil, are you joking with us? Why would you adopt this boy? Are you having a mid-life crisis… Don’t tell me you regret that whole surgical hack thing and want to settle down and start a family?”

“You had better give us an explanation.”

“Even if you have regrets now, we won’t let you back out.”

“That’s right. You’d better give us a reasonable answer.”

“Don’t you dare try to pull any stunts.”

Within the secure network, a barrage of questions from high-ranking officials erupted. But Wil had already thought of his reasons.

“This kid has issues. First, he’s a civilian, yet he dared to run towards a danger zone.”

“Second, he’s connected to Bill Buffalo. You all know that black fellow, he’s got a long criminal record.”

“Third, he’s a cursed-angel kin. This type is exceptionally good at reading others’ psychology, making them perfect for intelligence gathering and espionage.”

Wil paused, letting the bigwigs digest the information before continuing.

“Fourth, his record is too clean. A seventeen-year-old orphan, grew up in New Era City, then moved to District F without a single criminal entry. It’s highly illogical.”

A hush fell over the secure network. A few officials furrowed their brows.

District F? A silver-bearded general mumbled in his head, trying to rummage through his memory of administrative designations. F… Finance? Foreign Affairs? Or perhaps… Festival? He vaguely recalled some lantern festival in the Seventh Ward.

Another minister thought of F-Division, an elite mechanised unit. Was this boy connected to the military?

Wil cleared his throat, a dry sound amplified through the communication system.

And immediately, like a forgotten memory suddenly rushing back, the officials remembered in unison.

Ah, District F.

The slum on the western edge of the city. The “tumour” they always tried to ignore in their urban planning reports. The place where container homes were stacked like cheap tombstones, where sunlight had to jostle with shadows in narrow alleys, and the only place in Trilium where police had to patrol in pairs, sometimes in squads. The crime rate there wasn’t measured in statistics, but by… scheduling. People didn’t ask “were there any thefts?”, but “whose house got robbed today?”.

One official shuddered slightly, trying to banish the image that had just appeared in his mind. He cleared his throat, attempting to regain his air of authority.

“Ahem… it is indeed a bit suspicious.”

“A bit?” Wil wanted to laugh, but he maintained a placid expression. “It indicates that either the target possesses an extraordinary ability for concealment and self-control, or some power has scrubbed his history clean. Both scenarios are red flags.”

“The other details, I have laid out in the 30-page report just sent to your devices for your bedtime reading. But the crux of the matter is this: the target may have a connection to Sol Dawn.”

Wil paused, letting the name “Sol Dawn” soak into the network’s silence.

“Furthermore, psychological analysis indicates the target has an intense longing for a family. This is an exploitable weakness. In the role of an adoptive father, we can approach the target and use him as bait or an intelligence channel. This is our best chance to break the stalemate in the Sol case.”

At this, a calculated silence filled the network. Dozens of brains were trying to figure out which side of the argument they should be on to avoid losing their seats later.

Kindness, as a concept, had long been filed under “Unverified Paranormal Phenomena” in the administrative handbooks of several people present. Therefore, the hypothesis that Wil was acting out of “kindness” was immediately dismissed for lack of certified paperwork.

That left only two acceptable possibilities:
Wil had gone completely mad.
Wil had a plan so sophisticated it looked exactly like going completely mad.

A general, whose beard was trimmed with more care than the national defence budget, spoke up on a private channel: “If he’s mad, we need a contingency plan. If he’s not mad, we also need a contingency plan for his plan.” This was a very safe and entirely useless thought, which was why he had become a general.

Another minister, who believed every problem could be solved with a meeting, responded: “We should form a committee to look into this matter.”

But in the end, the decision was made based on the oldest and most fundamental principle of bureaucracy: strategic laziness. Rejecting Wil’s plan meant they would have to come up with one of their own. And thinking, as we all know, is exhausting work that doesn’t pay overtime.

Therefore, approving Wil’s plan, however insane, was the path of least resistance.

The voice of the leader finally came through, tinged with the weariness of a man who had just had to make a decision he didn’t really understand.

“Very well, Wil. The plan is approved. But if there are any mistakes, you know, papers can get lost, quite accidentally.”

Wil disconnected.

The silence of the secure network was replaced by the familiar cacophony of the police station. He removed his earpiece, and the real world rushed in, with all its rumours and curiosity.

The atmosphere in the station had become bizarrely strange. People had started whispering rumours of unknown origin:
“Hey, Chief Wil got cuckolded.”
“Nonsense. Cuckoldry is a product of marriage. The Chief isn’t even registered, so where would the product come from?”
“Then it’s grey-market goods, unofficial import.”
“What are you people thinking? A state-level Hacker, a man who could crack a security system with a paperclip and a bad attitude, would leave such a personal vulnerability exposed?”
“I still feel sorry for him.”
“Quiet, the Chief’s back!”

Instantly, a change in the state of matter occurred. Chaos shifted to order. Gossiping faces became pensive ones. Everyone buried their heads in their work with admirable seriousness.

Wil walked in, bringing with him a personal low-pressure zone. Seeing the Chief’s grim face, the entire room held its breath. We’re done for, a collective thought echoed, we just bad-mouthed the boss. Murphy’s Law is never wrong.

“Everyone here who has children, raise your hand.”

Ah, so it wasn’t about what they’d just been talking about. The room let out an invisible, collective sigh of relief. But Wil’s question hung in the air, sparking a silent dialogue more lively than any of the previous rumours.

Old officer Davis glanced at Milo, his eyes full of doubt, as if to ask, “Is it really the Chief’s kid?”

Miller, who had worked with Wil the longest, just shrugged, a shrug that said it all: “You guys know how clueless the Chief is about these things. His mind is all military and murder cases.”

Then, as if by conditioned reflex, all eyes turned to Jean. A silent, pressurised delegation. Some jerked their chins towards Wil, others clasped their hands in supplication. A young female officer, a believer in romantic stories, looked at Jean with dreamy eyes, as if cheering on some touching love story.

Jean felt her cheeks burn. She knew what they wanted. She shook her head violently, her mouth moving silently: “No way… I’m too scared.”

But the pressure from those eyes grew stronger. They were like invisible drills, urging, begging. Finally, like a soldier pushed into battle, Jean took a deep breath, mustering all her courage.

Under the pressure from her colleagues, Jean felt like a sacrificial lamb, unable to advance or retreat. Whatever, she took another deep breath for courage, then opened her mouth:

“Chief.”

“Yes, Jean?” Wil replied, turning to look at her with a serious, expectant gaze, the kind of look that could make a liar confess to stealing cookies in first grade.

All the courage Jean had gathered in the preceding three seconds instantly evaporated like morning dew. She could feel dozens of eyes boring into her back, full of expectation, full of hope. But faced with the Chief’s gaze, all her questions about secret children, DNA tests, and paternity… coalesced into a very basic and undeniable physiological need.

Finally, she squeaked, her voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz:
“May I… use the restroom, sir?”

“Yes, you may,” Wil replied, probably not even bothering to wonder.

Jean scurried away, leaving behind a silent chorus of disappointment and glares that felt like bullets.

“What was that? Betrayal!” Davis’s eyes screamed.
“You’re dead to us!” Milo’s frown threatened.
Jean could only whisper in her mind: “I’m so sorry, boo hoo…”

Wil sighed, apparently accustomed to the incomprehensible pantomimes of his subordinates. He turned back, his voice decisive.
“Why isn’t anyone answering? Fine. The people I call out will step forward.”

Three hundred and fifteen kilometres away, where the authority of the Trilium police station was reduced to dry reports, the spring wind carried moisture from Backside Bay, weaving through ancient oak forests. This was once the land of old families, but now these hills belonged to a new power, those whose money was minted from technology and lucrative government contracts.

And no residence testified to this transfer of power more clearly than the Goodman Estate, perched atop Moonwatch Hill.

The name sounded romantic, but its history was not. It was once an old fortress of the Neutral Faction during the Civil War, a strategic position for observing the stars and the movement of armies in the night. The ancient stone walls had been torn down, replaced with reinforced glass and gleaming titanium alloy.

The road leading to the mansion snaked like a silver serpent, and at every turn, guards in grey composite armour stood watch. They did not wear the insignia of the Goodman Financial Group—a golden lion devouring a globe. They were armed with the latest energy rifles, weapons that even Wil’s special forces had to wait in line for budget approval to get.

Spring on Moonwatch Hill didn’t smell of earth. It smelled of roses watered by an automated system and the faint scent of polish from expensive wooden floors.

Peter tiptoed into his foster father’s bedroom, his heart still pounding from a nightmare. The room, or rather a miniature hall, was gilded from floor to ceiling. Moonlight pierced the bulletproof glass, reflecting and glittering as if he were standing in a treasure vault. This was Mr. Goodman’s world, a world built from things Peter never truly understood.

He passed through the living room, with its soft leather sofa he never dared to sit on comfortably. The eastern wall was replaced entirely by a gigantic TV screen, always silent like the black eye of a tech god. But Peter always tried to avoid looking at the oil portrait hanging opposite. The painting was overwhelmingly large, depicting Mr. Goodman on a non-existent throne, his gaze looking down with absolute power. It was rumoured that the fifty-two most famous painters in Trilium had collaborated to complete it, each painting a single detail, from a strand of hair to a perfectly manicured fingernail.

He knew life here was luxurious. The cool marble walls under his feet, the granite floors polished to a mirror shine. He had once seen his foster father use a diamond the size of a quail’s egg as a paperweight. Outsiders were curious about this wealth, but Peter was not. He knew that curiosity about such things was unhealthy in this mansion.

Finally, he reached the enormous bed. Mr. Goodman was fast asleep amidst silk sheets, his snores as steady as the rumble of a well-fed beast. Peter took a deep breath, trying to push away his fear.

“Father, I’m scared.”

The speaker was Peter, the adopted son. He wore a tight-fitting latex suit, an outfit that in more civilised places would be considered evidence in court. His face was pretty, flushed, a combination of art and embarrassment. Mr. Goodman, who believed that annoyance was an emotion not meant for the upper class, still managed to produce a gentle voice.

“Oh, daddy’s little darling. If you’re scared, you can sleep with daddy tonight,” he said, pulling back the silk sheet for the boy to climb in.

Peter, though somewhat hesitant, was about to get in. It was part of his unwritten contract. But then he froze, his eyes widening as he looked at a corner of the room where a hulking dark figure stood silently. Terrified, he scrambled into Mr. Goodman’s arms.

At this, the man became stern, his voice that of someone about to lecture on the rules.
“Did you forget something?”

Peter flinched. He understood. In this mansion, there were rules more important than not wearing slippers in the living room. He awkwardly removed the latex suit. Mr. Goodman nodded in satisfaction, the nod of a collector who had just polished his prized display piece. But seeing Peter trembling, he was displeased again.

“Come now, Peter. That’s your brother. Hound Dog, don’t you remember? He’s very well-behaved.”

“Well-behaved” was probably not the word most people would use to describe a killing machine nearly two metres tall. But in Goodman’s world, “well-behaved” meant “does exactly as told.”

To prove his point, Goodman stood up, displaying his beer belly as a symbol of prosperity. He opened an intricately carved cabinet and took out an ivory water pipe and a lacquered wooden box. Inside the box was thuốc lào, a type of tobacco banned in most countries but an effective personnel management tool here. This was the Wymfrey original, the kind of leaf rumoured to be grown with the tears of prisoners of war.

Now Peter could see Hound Dog clearly. He wore a suit of high-tech combat armour, pitch black, with red veins snaking across it that were actually energy conduits. Black hair covered one side of his face, but his remaining eye glowed with an icy blue light, a gaze that held more malice than emotion.

This was why Goodman could sleep soundly while the rest of the world trembled at the name Sol Dawn. National security was one thing, personal security was another, and the latter was often better funded.

“Peter, do you know why a mahout can tame an elephant?” Goodman asked, in the tone of a pedagogue about to dispense wisdom.

“Um… because they train the elephant from a young age, sir.”

“Very smart. Daddy’s Hound Dog is the same. Punish when bad, reward when good.” With that, Goodman handed the pipe and tobacco box to Hound Dog. “Go smoke outside.”

Hound Dog dropped to one knee, a mechanical gesture. He accepted the reward with an almost addict-like eagerness, then silently stepped out onto the balcony. A moment later, the sound of a gurgling pipe rip was heard, followed by a thick cloud of smoke and a hacking cough. It seemed even killing machines had their weaknesses.

Goodman continued.
“Peter, do you know what a truly powerful man is?”

“Is it someone who can fight a thousand soldiers, daddy?” Peter asked, the image of Sol Dawn tearing apart his 27th and 28th “brothers” a few days ago flashing in his mind.

“Wrong.” Goodman smiled, a smile that would make a shark feel insecure. “A truly powerful man is one who can command those you consider powerful. Like daddy, here.”

As he spoke, he buried his face in the boy’s chest and began to lick.

“Ah, this is the life,” Goodman thought. But his pleasure, like most pleasures in this world, did not last long. A loud explosion from outside made him jump, retracting his… probe.

Outside the mansion, the quiet night was torn apart by screams and fireballs. Sol moved through the energy blasts like a golden phantom, as if dancing in a rain of bullets. His logic was simple, the primal logic of a predator: anything moving towards him would stop moving. Permanently.

An armoured guard tried to fire a suppression volley. Sol didn’t even look. A streak of golden light passed by, and the top half of the guard slid off the bottom half, his insides spilling out and steaming on the hot marble. Another, perhaps braver, or simply stupider, drew a plasma sword and charged. Sol caught his wrist and twisted. The sound of bone snapping was dry and crisp. Then he used the broken arm to smash the guard’s helmet.

The carefully manicured garden was now “redecorated” with body parts and pooling blood. The smell of freshly cut grass mingled with the smell of burnt meat. A combination no perfumer would dare to imagine.

But Goodman wasn’t afraid. He was watching a play, and he knew his lead actor was about to take the stage. He didn’t believe in loyalty, nor in honour. He only believed in bloodlines.

Because Hound Dog wasn’t just strong. He was a product. An investment. The result of combining the bloodline of the demoness Sa Ti and Durin, the founding hero of Trilium. A combination of demon and deity, honed in a hell on earth since he was a child. Goodman had poured a fortune into his training. Now it was time to collect his returns.

Hound Dog launched himself from the balcony like a cannonball. His eyes were blood-red. From his hip, he drew a dao made of super-alloy, its blade so black it absorbed all light.

Sol sensed the threat. He stopped, his body becoming a brilliant golden streak, hurtling straight towards Hound Dog.

The space between them seemed to compress. Time seemed to stop.

Then they collided.

There was no conventional clash of weapons. Only a series of high-pitched pings, the sound produced only when two blocks of ultra-hard metal collide at incredible speed. The golden light and the black shadow entwined, a whirlwind of destruction, each impact creating a shower of bright sparks. In the blink of an eye, they had exchanged hundreds of blows.

But super-alloy was still super-alloy. Flesh, even when hardened by Ki to be stronger than diamond, still had its limits. The logic of matter began to assert itself. Every time Sol used his bare hands to block the blade, though he wasn’t cut, his flesh vibrated violently, and tiny, spiderweb-like cracks began to appear on its surface. Fresh blood seeped from those cracks, staining Hound Dog’s black armour red.

A single moment of distraction, a split-second of hesitation as the Ki in his body wavered. It was more than enough.

Hound Dog’s steel-toed boot slammed into Sol’s chest. A kick calculated to crush ribs and pulverise internal organs. Sol flew backwards like a kite with its string cut, crashing to the ground, tearing through a metal fence like a meteorite, leaving a deep crater and a nearly shattered body.

“Ha ha ha! That’s it! Hound Dog, bring me his head!” Goodman roared with laughter from the balcony, his voice echoing with glee.

Hound Dog received his orders. A feral howl escaped his throat. He leaped from the balcony, landing as lightly as a cat, then dashed towards Sol. The dao was raised high, ready for the finishing blow.

But Sol wasn’t dead.

He snapped awake, springing up like a cornered animal. He dodged the blade by a hair’s breadth, then spun around and threw a punch.

So fast. The thought flashed through Hound Dog’s brain. Faster than the masters who had taught him how to kill. Faster than the combat machines he had torn apart. A primal, instinctual speed.

I wonder what his flesh… tastes like?

The thought came as naturally as breathing. He unconsciously licked his lips, tasting the metallic tang of Sol’s blood that had splattered onto them.

The black-cloaked man’s punch grazed Hound Dog’s face. Peter held his breath. Even though it missed, the wind from the blow was enough to create a small, bloody gash on his brother’s cheek.

But Hound Dog did not retreat. He threw his head back and let out a long, piercing howl. A howl not of a man, but of a wild beast that had just tasted a true hunt. Peter saw his brother smiling, a savage, exhilarating grin.

Then the golden-cloaked man’s hand shot out, grabbing Hound Dog’s long hair.
CRUNCH!

Sol slammed Hound Dog into the ground. Peter felt the earth shake beneath his feet. Once. Twice. Three times. He lost count. He only saw the body of the brother he had both feared and admired go limp in the demon’s hands. The spot where they stood was now a crater tens of metres deep.

“Impossible!”

His foster father’s terrified scream pulled Peter from his stupor. He saw Mr. Goodman, the most powerful man he had ever known, scrambling away like a rat. Fortune, estate, all of it was meaningless in the face of approaching death.

“Impossible! It can’t be! No…”

The scream cut off abruptly.

Peter saw it. A hand, slick with red blood, had pierced his foster father’s chest from behind. The man in the black cloak stood there, his body covered in wounds that exposed blackened bone. Under the dim moonlight filtering through the shattered wall, he looked like a devil fresh from hell.

The thick, coppery smell of blood filled his nostrils. The wind whistled through the holes in the mansion. Everything was too real. Fear, a cold liquid, welled up inside Peter, causing him to wet himself uncontrollably.

“Anyone, please… save me…” he thought, unable to make a sound.

The devil turned, his glowing yellow eyes locking onto him. He began to approach. Each footstep was a hammer blow to Peter’s chest.

But then, from the deep crater of the battle, a deformed arm, bent at an unnatural angle, clawed at the edge of the dirt.

Hound Dog. He was still alive.

His body was almost destroyed, his face a mangled ruin, but he continued to crawl upwards, dragging himself towards Peter, inch by painful inch. Peter looked at his brother, the one he had just seen brutalised like a rag doll, now trying to rise like a hero from one of the cartoons he watched. Like a cockroach that couldn’t be crushed.

In his heart, the absolute terror suddenly transformed into something else. A strange emotion. A spark of insane hope. It became an invisible force, breaking the silence in his throat.

“Brother! Save me!”