Kill

At first, the disruptions seemed minor.

A few business deals involving Chen Energy Solutions were delayed. Then, some contracts were inexplicably canceled. Payments that should have been processed were flagged for "review." And then, the lawsuits came.

Han Chen's parents had spent years focused on their research, unbothered by the politics of the corporate world. But suddenly, they found themselves under attack from multiple legal cases—one after another. Not just them, but their key researchers and personnel, too.

The official notice arrived at dawn. A process server knocked on the door and handed over a thick envelope.

Inside was a lawsuit. The accusation? Intellectual property theft.

Han Chen's father flipped through the documents, his jaw tightening. "This is absurd," he muttered. "We developed this technology ourselves!"

His mother scanned the pages, her expression hardening. Then, she stopped. "This isn't about the lawsuit."

She pointed to a particular clause buried in the plaintiff's demands.

"They want full access to our research and internal records for the next five years."

Han Chen barely reacted. He had already known this was coming.

His surveillance on the Han Family's movements, ~ the main branch, the true power behind their exile ~ had revealed the plan long before it reached their doorstep.

He sighed, setting the papers down. "They don't want money. They want to know what we're working on as our current products have seriously gained market interest lately."

His mother's voice dropped. "If they dig too deep… they might find out about the cultivation-linked prototypes." Those were the products Han Chen devised based on available physics and materials which could absorb internal qi and and discharging later removing the potent uncontrolled power. More like defensive equipment.

A heavy silence filled the room. Then, Han Chen exhaled slowly. His expression didn't change, but something cold settled behind his eyes.

"Then we don't let them dig."

Han Chen didn't look up from his laptop, fingers flying across the keys.

By noon, he had compiled everything: precedents buried deep even the opposing counsel wouldn't know where to look, narrow loopholes practically invisible, and most damning of all—the presiding judge's unpublished biases, meticulously documented from past rulings.

The players against them, how they trace back to his main family, Han family's entire litigation strategy, complete with timestamps, covert recordings, and even the judge's golf schedule. Many of them which are legally impossible to get unless venture into the grey area.

Then, he made the call; he is pursuing degree in the field, so he had considered the problem of who to contact and what to do early in case.

The woman who arrived that evening was not what his parents expected. Sharp-eyed, sharper-tongued, she carried herself with the lethal precision of a blade unsheathed. Her name was Lin Yulan, and she had once dismantled a Fortune 500 company with nothing but a subpoena and a smirk. He payed her very generously upfront.

Han Chen handed her the file. "They'll attack three ways. First, the patent timeline. Cite Lexis 14.3.9—it shifts the burden of proof. Second, the schematics. Our expert will testify they're forgeries. Third—" He slid a second folder toward her. "—the lead prosecutor's tells. Watch his left eye. It twitches when he lies."

Lin Yulan flipped through the pages, her expression surprise evident seeing all the black materials. Then, she smiled, no it was a grin. Slow, predatory. "This won't take long."

She was right.

The case dissolved in weeks. The Han family and other player's legal team, so confident in their maneuvering, never saw the counterattack coming. Lin Yulan eviscerated their witnesses, dismantled their arguments, and left the courtroom with the kind of victory that sent ripples through the corporate underworld.

Han Chen's parents celebrated.

He did not. Because he knew ~ this wasn't the real fight.

The Han Family had failed to cripple them legally.

Now, they would move to silence them physically.

He decided it was best to fight alone this time. Han Chen had been monitoring their communications for years. He knew their tactics, their patterns, the subtle shifts in their movements that signaled when something was about to happen.

And tonight, he saw the exact moment the decision was made.

The order came down from the main family from select few he met previously. This time, there would be no half-measures like in legal case.

Two Master-level cultivators had been assigned to ensure the job was done cleanly. His parents' deaths would be disguised as an accident—neatly wrapped, no loose ends. And if by some miracle they survived, there was a contingency.

Han Chen himself was marked. Not just for elimination.

For capture first for some bargain with his parents. But they didn't need him to remain alive later unlike in the previous world, as his Martial potential and academic achievements are too big of a trouble if left around.

A short living bargaining chip, a hostage to keep his parents in check—if they were alive to bargain at all.

He didn't waste time.

The moment his parents departed on their trip, Han Chen vanished.

A few days later, Han Zhong's father, Grandfather Han arrived unexpectedly at their destination.

He greeted them warmly, his weathered face full of pride as he congratulated them on handling the lawsuit. Even his tone carried a note of admiration, as if he were truly impressed by how decisively the case had been settled. He knows it has something to do with his younger brother current patriarch pulling some strings from behind.

It was an elaborate performance that was about to happen. Ending a branch lineage under the guise of an accident.

But Han Chen had already intercepted the orders. He already knew what would happen next.

******

The truck came out of nowhere.

Roaring down the road at ninety kilometers per hour, steep down hill.

A second vehicle moved in tandem, boxing them in ~ forcing their car dangerously close to the guardrail of a high mountain curve uphill. No surveillance. No witnesses.

A perfect kill zone.

It should have worked.

If Han Chen's spirit barrier hadn't flared to life a millisecond before impact. The car flipped, tumbling through the air as if weightless. Metal crunched, glass shattered, the world spun end over end.

Once. Twice. Five times. Ten.

It landed upside down, smoke hissing from the wreckage. Flames erupted, a hungry blaze consuming twisted steel. But inside remained stationary with a spherical shield remaining stable dampening every impact.

Not. A. Scratch.

Grandfather Han, who had barely managed to throw up a weak qi shield, gaped as his son and daughter-in-law stepped out of the burning wreckage. They moved untouched, unharmed, pristine ~ brushing invisible dust from their suits as though they had merely stepped out of an elevator.

A strangled noise escaped him. "What—?!" Is masters so common now a days?

Han Chen was already moving.

The truck driver, a Transform-level martial artist in disguise, barely had time to register the failed kill before his spine snapped under an invisible force. His meridians twisted, severed—his martial essence devoured as his body crumpled like a broken doll.

Then came the voice.

A single line, intercepted from a secure communication channel. Cold. Detached.

The Han Family Patriarch.

"Make it look like an accident."

Han Chen's gaze sharpened. The two Master-level martial artists still inside the second vehicle had yet to react. They had been waiting for confirmation, for the kill to be clean or interrogate before they moved.

They never got the chance. A flicker of qi fluctuation. A distortion in space. And then—

They were gone.

Sealed inside Han Chen's World Bead, locked away in the depths of his personal prison tower along with the vehicle.

One of them was a Han Family elder, who smiled at him last time he visited.

It didn't matter. The entire assassination team had vanished. No bodies. No evidence. No proof they had ever existed. To any outsider, it was simply a tragic accident.

His parents? Unscathed. The killers? Erased.

_________________

But there was something Han Chen hadn't accounted for.

As his family's would-be assassins were erased from existence—Another group was already moving. And this time, the target wasn't his parents. It was him. He knew he would have been targeted.

Or at least, that's what he had assumed—until he saw the shift in the pattern. The team sent after him weren't the usual hunters. They were cleaners. There would be no ransom. No negotiation. No leverage. Just a simple disappearance, another case added to the ever-growing list of unsolved missing persons. May be they changed the decision last minute.

But they never found him.

They found Hye Won through his background check. What a cooperative killers.