At the top of a skyscraper in downtown Fancheng.

A man stood in the cool night wind, a cigarette hanging from his lips as smoke curled lazily around his face. He looked down over the city below.

Neon lights flickered. Traffic streamed endlessly through the streets. The whole city was alive, loud, and glittering.

But his eyes were cold.

Those eyes had once stared down armies without the slightest tremor. Even facing mountains of corpses and seas of blood, they had never wavered.

And yet right now, they were filled with raw, bone-deep hatred.

His name was Dominic Thornfield.

Six years ago, he had been drugged and set up. Under the effects of that drug, he was forced into a relationship with a strange woman, and in the end, he was thrown into prison.

That should have been the end of him.

Instead, inside that prison, he met a death-row inmate and received a mysterious inheritance.

Later, he was drafted to the northern battlefield as nothing more than cannon fodder, sent there to resist the foreign invasion.

But fate had other plans.

With that inheritance, Dominic cut down thousands of enemies and crushed tens of thousands more. In a single campaign, his name exploded across the battlefield.

Now, six years had passed.

He had returned in triumph.

He was honored as one of the world’s four great War Gods. He was the pride of Huaxia, a figure worshipped by countless people like some untouchable legend.

Very few knew his real name.

But everyone knew his title.

Dragon God.

At that moment, a woman in a fitted black combat outfit walked over. Her figure was sharp and neat, her bearing crisp and heroic. She stopped behind Dominic and bowed respectfully.

“Dragon Lord.”

Dominic did not turn around. His voice was low. “Did you find out?”

“Yes.” Vermillion East straightened slightly, then continued in a steady tone, “We got the full picture. Six years ago, the person who drugged you was your wife, Christy Harrington.”

She paused for half a second, as if even saying it aloud felt disgusting.

“Her goal was the Thornfield family’s property. Not long after you were forced out of the family, she poisoned your parents to death. She also forged matters around the inheritance and took everything for herself.”

The night wind swept past, but Dominic remained motionless, like a mountain rooted above the city.

Vermillion went on quietly, “And the child you once believed was yours with Christy Harrington… he was never your son. He was born from her affair with a man named Arthur Collins. That child has already changed his name. He is now called Horace Harrington.”

When she finished, she slowly lifted her head and looked at Dominic’s back.

That broad, upright figure had stood in front of her more times than she could count.

He had saved her life again and again.

In Vermillion’s eyes, Dominic was the kind of man who kept rewriting the impossible. A living myth. A god of war who never lost, a man who could hold up the sky with one hand if he had to.

She had always assumed a man like him must have come from some extraordinary background, someone born above ordinary people, the kind who would stand out anywhere.

Only today did she learn that behind all that glory, he had once walked through a past so dark it was hard to look at directly.

Seeing that he stayed silent for a long time, Vermillion finally spoke again, her voice softer now.

“Dragon Lord, the wind is strong up here. You should head back and rest.”

Dominic still did not move.

After a moment, he asked in an even colder voice, “What about the other matter?”

“Did you find anything?”

“Not yet, but there should be word from Xuanwu’s side very soon.”

Vermillion East lowered her wrist and glanced at her watch. “Dragon Lord, today happens to be the day Christy Harrington is throwing her son Horace Harrington’s twelfth birthday banquet. It starts at eight tonight.”

“Is that so...”

Dominic Thornfield drew on his cigarette again, slow and deep. A light breeze brushed past him, and the ash at the tip trembled before falling away in soft flakes.

Vermillion pressed her lips together. After a brief pause, she said quietly, “Honestly, there’s no need for you to handle this in person. If you just give the order—”

“No need.”

Dominic cut her off, his tone calm, but there was no room for argument in it.

“I’ll deal with this myself.”

With that, he crushed the cigarette butt out, turned around, and walked off.

Seeing that, Vermillion lowered her head slightly and stood where she was, silently watching him leave.

Fancheng, Dihao Five-Star Hotel.

At the entrance, luxury cars were parked one after another, almost filling the entire frontage. Men and women dressed in expensive suits, gowns, jewels, and designer labels moved in and out in a steady stream, all heading into the hotel. The whole place looked drenched in money.

A grand birthday banquet was being held here tonight.

Many of Fancheng’s wealthy families and influential clans had been invited.

And the host of it all was Christy Harrington.

Over the past few years, she had lived off the Chen family’s fortune in obscene comfort. Every day was fine food and rare delicacies, every outing came with a convoy of cars, and every detail of her life screamed luxury. She lived like some untouchable queen.

Not only that, she had spent years cozying up to the rich and powerful, building ties everywhere she could. By now, in all of Fancheng, Christy Harrington had become someone ordinary people simply could not afford to cross.

At the hotel entrance, a male greeter stood checking invitation cards one by one.

Just then, a young man with sharp features and a straight, imposing build walked over from a distance.

The greeter noticed him at once and politely stepped forward. “Sir, may I see your invitation?”

“I don’t have one.”

The greeter frowned faintly, though he still kept his tone courteous. “Then I’m sorry, sir. The Harrington family has booked out the entire hotel for today’s birthday banquet. If you don’t have an invitation, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Dominic acted like he hadn’t heard a single word. His face didn’t even change as he walked straight toward the hotel.

“Hey— hey, wait!”

The greeter hurried after him, reaching out to stop him.

Dominic merely turned his head a little and shot him a glance.

That one look hit like a mountain crashing down.

The greeter’s whole body stiffened on the spot. A terrifying pressure seemed to slam into his chest, so heavy he could barely breathe. Cold fear rushed from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head. Instinctively, he stumbled back several steps, his face turning pale.

“Y-you... what are you trying to do?!”

“I’m in a bad mood today. Seriously, don’t test me…”

With that, Dominic Thornfield stepped into the hotel.

The male greeter watched his back disappear into the building, his brows knitting tighter and tighter, like he had just seen something he really shouldn’t have.

Inside, the hotel’s grand banquet hall was already packed.

People filled the place shoulder to shoulder. Young masters and rich girls from every notable family in Fancheng stood in their own little circles, glasses clinking, laughter rising and falling, conversations flowing nonstop. The crystal lights overhead spilled a soft golden glow across the room, making the whole scene look glamorous on the surface.

But under that polished shine, it all felt fake.

The banquet clearly hadn’t started yet. Dominic glanced around, then casually walked to a side table and sat down.

The moment he took his seat, a pretty woman sitting across from him instinctively looked over. Then her eyes widened on the spot.

“Dominic Thornfield? You’re Dominic Thornfield, right?”

Dominic looked at her and gave a calm, faint smile.

“Cora Ashford. Long time no see.”

Cora was visibly stunned.

“It really is you? You got out of—”

Halfway through, she suddenly stopped herself and covered her mouth.

She and Dominic had been high school classmates. Back then, everyone knew about the scandal that sent him to prison. What she had wanted to say was, You were released from prison, but the words felt too harsh the second they reached her lips, so she forced herself to swallow the rest.

Dominic didn’t seem bothered at all.

“Yeah,” he said lightly. “I’m out.”

Cora pressed her red lips together, her expression turning complicated.

“About what happened back then… I still don’t believe it. Even if you really did it, it couldn’t have been what you actually wanted. There had to be more to it…”

Before she could finish, the man beside her let out a cold laugh.

“Of course it wasn’t his intention. Guy got ruled by his hormones, that’s all. I heard that woman was one of the famous beauties in Fancheng. In that situation, if he could’ve held himself back, that would’ve been the weird part.”

The man was Alaric Whitmore, also Dominic’s high school classmate—and their class monitor back then.

Alaric had always liked Cora.

But Cora had clearly seemed interested in Dominic all through their school days, and because of that, Alaric had long treated Dominic like a thorn in his side, pure eyesore material. So when he heard Dominic had gone to prison for rape, he had practically been over the moon.

Now he clicked his tongue and looked Dominic up and down, his face full of mockery.

“Wow, Dominic. You’ve actually got the nerve to come back. What, couldn’t make it out there, so you came crawling back to squeeze some money out of your ex-wife?”

His eyes were dripping with contempt.

“Too bad for you. Your parents were so ashamed of having a son like you that they took poison and killed themselves. Then they handed the entire Thornfield family estate to Christy Harrington. A rapist like you? Don’t even dream about getting a single cent.”

Dominic’s brows snapped together.

“My parents killed themselves because of me?”

Alaric gave a sneer.

“Obviously. Everyone in Fancheng knows that. When your parents died, they left a will and gave all the Thornfield family assets to Christy Harrington. They even made it clear that even after you got out, you wouldn’t get one penny.”