Chapter 586: The Wolf Awakens

The rain came down harder now, soaking the cracked sidewalks and dimming the neon lights that fought to survive the night.

Jayden walked with his head low, the hood of his jacket hiding his face. But something inside him had changed—there was no more hesitation in his steps, no more fear dragging at his heels.

He was heading straight into the heart of the city's darkest corner — The Abyss District — a place where even devils whispered before speaking.

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Inside a blood-red lounge hidden beneath an abandoned train station, the true rulers of the underworld gathered.

Men and women who had never bowed to kings, who had bought and sold lives like trinkets.

At the head of the long marble table sat Alaric Vance, a man whose very name could silence a room.

He toyed with a black coin between his fingers, watching as the newcomers shuffled in — faces hungry, desperate, or cold.

But when the door creaked open and Jayden entered, even Alaric paused.

There was something in the boy's eyes.

A storm.

A reckoning.

"Who the hell is that?" whispered one of the lieutenants.

Alaric's eyes narrowed. "Someone dangerous."

Jayden strode to the center of the room and pulled down his hood, letting the broken light reveal his bruised face and burning gaze.

"I'm here," Jayden said, voice cutting through the low murmurs.

"Not to beg. Not to bargain.

I'm here to claim what's mine."

The room froze.

Guns shifted under jackets. Knives glinted in hidden belts.

"You have no standing here, boy," Alaric said lazily, spinning the black coin.

Jayden smiled—slow, dangerous.

From his pocket, he pulled out a small, ancient token — a symbol that hadn't been seen in decades.

The moment it hit the table with a soft clink, half the room gasped.

The Mark of the Silver Sovereign.

A title so feared that even the most powerful underground rulers bowed their heads in its presence.

"You..." Alaric said, voice low with disbelief. "You're blood."

Jayden said nothing.

He let the token speak for him.

He let the past — the bloodline he never wanted but could no longer deny — wash over the room like a silent tidal wave.

"I don't need your permission," Jayden said, his voice steady, cold. "You will follow. Or you will fall."

The weight of destiny crashed into the room like a freight train.

In the silence that followed, the world shifted.

---

Meanwhile, Gloria watched from a hidden screen, her wine glass trembling ever so slightly in her hand.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," she whispered.

Beside her, Nick frowned. "Should we activate Protocol Seven?"

Gloria hesitated. Fear. For the first time in years, real fear flickered behind her eyes.

"No," she said finally. "Let him rise a little higher."

She set the glass down with a sharp crack, a spiderweb of fractures crawling across its surface.

"Then we'll crush him so completely... there'll be nothing left to put back together."

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