The Bentley's door closed with a sound like sealing fate. Jayden stood on marble steps that cost more than most people's houses, electricity crawling across his armor in lazy patterns. The mansion loomed ahead, full of relatives who'd spent seventeen years sharpening their tongues on his existence.
But before he walked into that den of vipers, his mind ran the final calculations. The real reasons he was here, beyond Marcus's protection or family obligation.
Luther Cross wasn't just a name—it was his birthright. His blood. His DNA-encrypted ticket to power most people couldn't dream of. Why the fuck would he throw that away?
Join the Sterlings? Be their pet Apex Grade, trotted out for board meetings and battles? Diana Sterling would use him like a precision weapon, but he'd never be more than a well-paid employee. The Voughts? They collected powerful awakened like trading cards. He'd be acquisition number whatever, valued but never family.
Here? He was a Luther Cross, a son of the next patriarch. That meant more than any other Luther if not his sibling now that he'd awakened. Board seats with his name already on them. Political connections that came with his genetics. Swiss accounts that recognized his biometrics. Resources that were his by birth, not by negotiation.
Play the cards right—show value, demonstrate control, don't threaten Marcus directly—and he could access 98% of what the family offered. The other 2%? That was the shit that would get him killed anyway.
The Protection Mathematics were even simpler...
Luther Cross family umbrella = complete protection while building to Level 100+. They profit from him living.
Government faction? Maybe 40% of the resources, with surveillance, restrictions, and "accidents" when convenient. They'd use him up like a battery.
Heroes? 30% resources if he was lucky, plus moral chains that would strangle his growth. Save kittens, pose for photos, die heroically when the script demanded.
Villains? 20% resources, zero long-term thinking. Burn bright, die young, very profitable for whoever aimed the weapon.
Solo? The biggest fucking joke. 0% resources, dead in three months when someone Level 150+ decided an unaffiliated Apex Grade was too dangerous to exist. "Freedom" alone was just freedom to die without backup.
Stay family. Use the Luther Cross name like armor while building real power. Let Marcus think he was investing in an heir while Jayden invested in himself. Mozart's empire would grow in the shadows—Marcus had already admitted he didn't give a shit about "rounding errors."
Family civil wars? Melody's jealousy? Adrian's fire? Those were internal conflicts. Manageable. Predictable. Better to fight siblings for succession than fight the world full of hostile Lv 100+ for survival, that shit only happened in movies.
At least in family he knew their moves, their weaknesses, their breaking points. Seventeen years of observation had taught him the family playbook.
Every option was just picking a master. Government master. Hero master. Villain master. At least family master came with his name on the letterhead.
The "freedom" everyone romanticized? That was for Level 200+ monsters who could enforce their independence. For a Level 18 with Level 30 presence and Lv 150 potential? Freedom was a luxury he couldn't afford yet. He'd be dead or forced into anything if they captured him while he tried to play survival in a world of politics and economics and power ran by Lv 170+ monsters like Apex himself!
But family? Family he could afford. Family he could use. Family he could eventually rule.
Why leave to be someone else's weapon when he could be his own family's nuclear option? Why accept 40% from strangers when he could take 98% and later 100% from blood? Why fight the Luther Cross empire when he could inherit it?
The truth that nobody wanted to admit? In this post-Awakening world, there was no such thing as an independent powerhouse. That was fairy tale bullshit fed to children and idiots.
Look at the evidence: Apex, supposedly Earth's strongest hero? Backed by the Apex dynasty, government contracts, and corporate sponsors. Even at Level 175+, he wasn't "free"—he was the tip of an organizational spear.
Every Level 150+ "independent" villain? Dig deeper. Foreign government backing. Criminal syndicate protection. Corporate shadow funding. Nobody survived alone above Level 100 because the math didn't work. Too many resources needed. Too many enemies made. Too many people who'd rather see you dead than uncontrolled.
Let alone him, with the talent grade so rare that even some Legacy Families didn't have any in their young generation.
The last truly independent Level 130+ awakened? Rebecca "Wildfire" Chen of the Chens. Refused all factions. Dead within six months. Official cause: "Gate accident." Reality: Seven different organizations confirmed involvement in her assassination. Because unaffiliated power was everyone's threat.
Even Mozart, brilliant as he was and although unawakened, had immediately partnered with the Yakuza. Because he understood: in a world where power meant everything, isolation meant death.
You picked your faction or you picked your grave. Those were the only options above Level 50.
Marcus thought he was getting an heir. Victoria thought she was getting her son back. The relatives inside thought they were getting a prodigal to guide and mock.
They were all wrong.
They were getting a predator who'd calculated the exact minimum sacrifice needed for maximum gain. Who'd chosen his dragon not just out of love or loyalty, but because the math was beautiful.
Seventeen years as the family cripple had taught him patience and profitable calculations. Two weeks in dungeons had taught him power. Now he'd combine both, using Luther Cross resources to build something they couldn't control, couldn't predict, couldn't stop.
By the time other factions realized what he was really was, he'd be too powerful to leash even if they joined forces!
"Ready?" Marcus asked, shadows coiling with anticipation.
"Born ready," Jayden replied, and meant it.
He'd been preparing for this moment since the day they first called him cripple. Now, with lightning and Superspeed in his veins and calculations in his mind, he was finally ready to collect on seventeen years of compound interest.
The Luther Cross family was about to learn what happened when you invested in disappointment.
Sometimes it matured into something magnificent.
Sometimes it matured into something monstrous.
With Jayden Luther Cross, they were about to get both.
He walked toward the mansion doors, each step humming with controlled power and calculated intent. The dragon deal wasn't surrender—it was the first move in a much longer game.
And Jayden had always been excellent at long-term investments.
The Luther Cross estate didn't have a front door. It had a fucking portal.
Twenty feet tall, carved from a single piece of obsidian that had been pulled from a Level 200 gate at the cost of thirty-seven lives. The material existed in seventeen dimensions simultaneously, which meant sometimes you could see through it to yesterday, or tomorrow, or to the screaming void where failed architects went to die.
"Home sweet home," Marcus said, pressing his palm against a scanner that read DNA, soul resonance, and credit score simultaneously.
The portal shimmered, recognizing a Luther Cross patriarch. Then it hesitated, tasting Jayden's presence. For three seconds, reality held its breath as security systems worth more than the old Denmark's GDP analyzed the former null who now hummed with Apex Grade potential.
"Welcome home, Jayden Luther Cross," the house AI announced in a voice like silk fucking velvet. "Your clearance has been... updated."
Updated. From 'tolerated guest' to 'acknowledged heir,' probably. The portal dilated like an eye opening to truth, revealing the entrance hall beyond.
If God had money, He'd feel poor walking in here.
The ceiling started sixty feet up and kept going, supported by pillars of crystallized Genesis Energy that pulsed with their own inner light. Each pillar had cost approximately one mid-sized city to harvest. The floor was marble that had been quarried from a gate where gravity worked backwards—walking on it felt like floating, if floating came with a net worth requirement.
But it was the chandelier that made visitors understand exactly where they were.
Three thousand pounds of refined starlight, harvested from a collapsing dimension and frozen at the moment of supreme beauty. It didn't just illuminate—it made everything else look dim by comparison. Light from it hit differently, revealing truths, highlighting bone structure, making powerful people feel appropriately insignificant.
"Subtle," Jayden muttered, his electrical field making the starlight flicker nervously.
"Your mother's design," Marcus replied. "She said it sets expectations."
It set expectations all right. Expectations like: We could buy your entire bloodline as a conversation starter.
The entrance hall opened into the Grand Atrium, and here's where things got genuinely absurd. The space was large enough to host air battles—and had, according to family legend. The walls were living murals, painted with pigments that contained trace amounts of awakened blood. They moved, slowly, showing the Luther Cross rise to power in real-time.
Currently, they were updating to include a new figure crackling with fire.
"Is that a fucking dragon?" Jayden asked, pointing up.