On my command, the floor-to-ceiling windows on the first level shattered under a hail of baseball bats. Servants and bodyguards scattered like rats, hands over their heads. I followed the pull of my Immortal Soul, striding toward the basement level of the Harding estate. The steel door to the basement was sealed with a combination lock. I stepped back. Bruno pulled out the hydraulic cutters he always carried. One clean crunch, and the lock snapped apart. I kicked the door open. The stench hit me first. Blood and antiseptic, thick enough to taste. The moment I saw what was inside, my vision went red. This was no storage room. It was a fully equipped sterile surgical suite. Thomas Harding. My brother. The man who had once stood tall in the Celestial Realm, untouchable and effortlessly elegant. He was strapped to a freezing operating table. His face was the color of ash. His eyes were shut. Each breath came so faint it barely counted as breathing at all. His back had been cut open. A tube as thick as a man's forearm was jammed into his spine. Dark, reddish marrow crept through the tube, draining out of him drop by drop. On a second bed beside him, a plush hospital bed fit for a hotel suite, lay the Harding family's pampered fake prince: Vivian Harding.
Vivian's cheeks were rosy. He was propped up with a tablet, watching some variety show, giggling every few seconds.
Irene Harding sat at Vivian's bedside, spooning bird's nest soup into his mouth one careful bite at a time.
"There you go, sweetheart. Eat up. Once they finish extracting your brother's marrow, you'll be completely cured."
The private doctor in his white coat frowned and spoke up. "Mrs. Harding, Thomas's vitals are dropping. The volume of marrow already extracted is far beyond the safe limit. If we continue, he will die."
Irene didn't even look up. Her voice dripped with impatience.
"His worthless life, traded for my Vivian's health? He should count himself lucky."
"Increase the dosage. As long as it cures Vivian, even if he dies on that table, consider it his filial duty to the Harding family."
Filial duty.
The last thread of reason in my skull snapped clean in two.
"Filial duty my ass!"
CRACK.
I brought the bat down on the extraction machine with everything I had. Sparks erupted. The thing shrieked with the sound of shorting circuits and went dead.