Contrary to what I expected, it wasn't my arrogant, red-faced uncle who responded to my honeyed provocation. Instead, it was his wife, Mel Wade. She stepped forward, the shadows of the streetlamp clinging to her expensive designer coat, her eyes narrowing with a predatory, chilling coldness.
"Boy, you've been dipping in some pretty dangerous waters, you know?" she said, her voice a low, threatening purr that immediately made my newly upgraded supernatural instincts flare up like air raid sirens.
I tilted my head, feigning absolute, pristine innocence. "What are you talking about?" I asked, looking at them as if they were a bunch of escaped mental patients.
This time, it was my dear cousin Cole who took the bait. He sneered, taking an aggressive step toward me, puffing out his chest like a territorial pigeon.
"You think I am a fool?" Cole spat, his voice dripping with venom. "I saw you just two days ago at the café. You didn't have the appearance you have now. What is it? Witchcraft? Did you really think you could fool me? I have the True Sight, just like Mother. Have you been seeing a magus?" he asked derisively, throwing the accusation as if he were accusing me of buying counterfeit watches out of a trunk.
Click. Everything suddenly fell perfectly into place.
I finally understood what this midnight ambush was all about, and exactly why the mother-and-son duo gave me that deeply unsettling, otherworldly feeling. This 'True Sight' he was bragging about must be some sort of innate power allowing them to see through superficial illusions or perceive supernatural energy. They definitively knew there was something highly supernatural about my radical physical transformation, but their narrow, arrogant minds had jumped straight to the conclusion that it was magic-related. That I had paid some back-alley wizard to fix my face.
Now that my own senses were permanently upgraded to a monstrous degree, I could clearly feel the heavy, suffocating 'otherness' radiating from them. It was the distinct, buzzing signature of supernatural entities, the invisible line that separated them from the fragile, oblivious common folks of Nebula City. They were mages.
Taking my silence as a guilty confirmation, Uncle Thomas stepped up beside his wife, puffing himself up with false bravado.
"I don't know what sick, twisted tricks you used on my father to make him give those shares to you," Thomas threatened, pointing a trembling, manicured finger at my chest. "But you've messed with the wrong people this time, kid."
Oh. I see, I thought, suppressing a bark of laughter. They actually think the reason Grandpa included me in the succession was due to magical foul play or manipulation.
Even a blind man could see that my grandparents were practically drowning in a sea of mundane remorse over the tragic death of their eldest daughter. It was plain old guilt that got me that twenty percent, not a spell. But looking at Thomas's distorted, paranoid face, I instantly understood exactly where Cole got his staggeringly delusional mindset. The apple truly didn't fall far from the psychotic tree.
"What exactly do you intend to do about it?" I asked provocatively, my voice dropping to a dangerous, mocking whisper. I didn't intend to justify myself or explain my inheritance to this crazy, entitled family. If they wanted to play the villain, I was more than happy to oblige.
Thomas looked like he was about to blow a gasket, his face turning an alarming shade of plum. His wife, Mel, just narrowed her eerie eyes, remaining silently observant. But Cole... poor, stupid, impulsive Cole couldn't take my blatant provocations for another second.
Before his mother could even raise a hand to stop him, Cole pounced. He mumbled something under his breath—a rapid, guttural chant—and thrust his palm directly toward my face. A blinding, concentrated blast of pure kinetic energy erupted from his hand, hurtling toward my head like a glowing cannonball.
I was genuinely shocked.
First of all, I didn't think this spoiled brat actually had any real combat power. In retrospect, I should have been much warier and guessed that he was a combative mage because of the 'True Sight' he was flaunting. Even though I hadn't seen a mage in person before, Chloe had explicitly warned me about them.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, I didn't think he would be stupid enough to launch a full-blown magical attack in the middle of a public city street! What the hell?! Nobody had handed me a "How to Not Get F***ed by Supernaturals 101" handbook upon my resurrection.
So, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that my brain completely stalled. I didn't dodge in time.
The energy blast hit me square in the chest with the force of a speeding freight train. I was lifted entirely off my feet and sent flying backward through the air. I soared for a full ten meters before crashing violently onto the hard pavement, my body skipping like a stone across the asphalt. I rolled to a stop, violently coughing up a mouthful of warm, metallic blood that splattered onto the street.
"Cole! Are you out of your mind?!" Mel cursed loudly, her pristine composure shattering instantly. "How many times have I told you not to use your powers in a public place?! Do you want the Magic Council to 'judge' you?!"
His father, Thomas, stood frozen, completely stilled by the sheer surprise of witnessing his son commit casual murder on a sidewalk.
I groaned, planting my hands on the cracked asphalt, and slowly pushed myself up to my feet. Wiping a thick smear of blood from my chin, I looked at them. By the absolute, pale shock stretching across their faces, I guessed they had firmly believed I was dead. Hell, for a split second, I too thought this little family reunion was going to result in my third death. But it seemed my physical body had become infinitely more resilient after my second resurrection.
Mel Wade gasped, stepping back as if she had seen a ghost, her eyes wide with disbelief as she watched my continued well-being.
"What... what are you?" she stammered. "A regular human would have had his head completely blown off by a blast of that magnitude."
With their True Sight, they could clearly see the deep burns on my torso and the scrapes on my face knitting back together, my flesh healing at an abnormally, terrifyingly fast rate.
After my jaw finished popping back into its correct alignment, I cracked my neck and spoke, my voice cold and laced with dark amusement.
"Oh? You're talking about this?" I gestured lazily to my healing chest, offering a chilling, bloodstained smile. "Rest assured, Auntie. Even I didn't know I could survive that."
I was joking coldly, but it was the absolute truth. I had always been entirely one-shotted in my previous encounters with death. A bullet to the brain, a decapitation. I genuinely didn't know how monstrous my base vitality and durability had actually become until this spoiled brat decided to test it for me.
"It's payback time, though," I whispered, the amusement vanishing from my eyes, replaced by a lethal, glowing intensity.
In a literal flash, the asphalt cracking beneath my boots, I crossed the ten-meter distance. I appeared directly in front of Cole before any of them could even blink. He didn't even have the time to register the sheer terror of my speed.
I pulled my fist back and buried it deep into his stomach.
The impact sounded like a bomb going off. It was Cole's turn to be sent flying like a broken, stringless kite. He soared through the air, crashing heavily onto the pavement. When he hit the ground, a sickening, wet 'crack' echoed through the quiet street.
Mel screamed shrilly, a sound of pure maternal panic. Her hands lit up, and she instantly sent a much larger, infinitely more powerful blast of blinding white energy hurtling toward me.
This time, I was ready. I sidestepped, dodging the lethal projectile by a hair's breadth. The energy beam tore past me, slamming into the street behind me and utterly crushing the pavement, blowing a massive crater into the concrete and sending debris flying everywhere.
She didn't even care if the blast hit me or not. It was just covering fire. She sprinted to her son, dropping to her knees beside his broken, wheezing body. She spoke in a rapid, mysterious, rhythmic tone, her hands glowing with a soft, warm white light that she pressed desperately against his shattered torso. I watched as Cole's breathing stabilized, the magical healing taking immediate effect.
A few tense minutes later, she hauled him to his feet and practically dragged him toward their armored sedan, tossing him into the backseat.
Uncle Thomas scrambled after them, opening his car door. He paused, looking back at me with eyes full of deep-seated fear and venomous hatred.
"It's not over," he spat out, his voice trembling.
"I'll be waiting," I replied cheerfully, waving at him.
I stood perfectly still under the streetlamp, watching as their car violently sped up, tires screeching against the asphalt until they disappeared around a sharp corner.
After the adrenaline finally faded, leaving a heavy, exhausting weight in my limbs, I returned to my new apartment. I was so incredibly tired that I didn't even bother turning on the lights. I simply crashed face-first into my luxurious new bed and instantly fell asleep, my last coherent thought being that there were now even more enemies actively trying to kill me. I wasn't scared, though. At this point, it was just getting profoundly annoying.
I woke up the next day around 10 AM, groaning as I tasted the heavy, metallic tang of copper in my mouth.
Damn it. I was so exhausted last night that I completely forgot to take a bath before crashing, I thought disgustedly, realizing I still had dried blood caked around my lips and chin.
I dragged myself out of the tangled sheets and went straight to the sprawling, marble-clad bathroom, stepping under the steaming hot spray of the shower. As the water washed away the remnants of last night's magical brawl, my mind started to clear.
I stepped out, wrapping a fluffy towel around my waist, trying to decide how exactly I was going to spend my day. And then, the realization hit me like a physical blow.
Wait a minute. I am a billionaire now.
I stopped dead in my tracks, and then I started laughing. It started as a low chuckle and quickly escalated into the unhinged, roaring laughter of a madman. I rushed to my nightstand, grabbed my phone, and frantically opened my mobile banking app.
There it was. A string of zeroes so long it looked like a glitch in the matrix. My grandfather hadn't wasted any time; the liquid assets connected to my twenty percent had already been routed to a specialized black card account.
With a massive, predatory grin plastered on my face and my fingers practically burning with the desperate urge to spend, I threw on some clothes and hit the city.
I went completely, beautifully crazy. I walked straight into an exotic car dealership and pointed at a sleek, jet-black sports car that looked like a stealth fighter jet on wheels. It cost a cool $2,000,000. I bought it in cash without blinking. Then, I went on a rampage through the most exclusive high-end boutiques in Nebula City. I bought designer suits, limited-edition watches, custom leather jackets, and top-tier electronics. And just because I could, just because the sheer absurdity of my wealth allowed it, I bought everything in double. Two of every watch. Two of every jacket. It was absolute, unfiltered madness, and it felt fantastic.
Later that afternoon, I was sitting back in my comfortable, plush armchair, reading a web novel on my brand-new, top-of-the-line tablet, fully enjoying the decadent peace of my new life.
Naturally, the universe decided to ruin it.
My phone began to ring. I checked the caller ID. It was Chloe.
As soon as I picked up the call, she skipped the pleasantries entirely and got straight to business.
"It's time to respect your end of the deal," her melodic, serious voice commanded through the speaker.
"What? No 'Hello, Sam, how was your day?' or 'How do you do?'" I asked playfully, leaning back in my chair.
She stayed completely silent, the absolute lack of amusement radiating through the cellular waves.
"Fine, you're not funny at all," I sighed, rolling my eyes. "When?"
"Tomorrow night," Chloe replied crisply. "There is a massive grand ball being organized by my father to celebrate his 5467th birthday. A lot of highly influential supernaturals will be in attendance. Including Luke, and his father."
I choked on the air in my lungs.
"Wait, what?!" I exclaimed. "Your father still actually celebrates his birthday at his age? Who throws a party for turning five thousand, four hundred, and sixty-seven?!"
"Samsara." Her tone was dangerously sharp, carrying a thinly veiled warning to stop testing her patience.
"Fine, fine. I'll be there to play the dashing, immortal shield," I conceded, rubbing my temples. "Where is it?"
"Okay. Dress up nicely. I will come and pick you up personally," she instructed rapidly. "The ball is being held at the Green Hotel."
My brain violently short-circuited. "Wait... the Green Hotel..?"
But she had already hung up, the line going dead with a sharp click.
That girl... what is wrong with her etiquette? Doesn't a millennia-old vampire family teach you how to properly say 'goodbye'? I thought grumpily, tossing my phone onto the desk.
But my annoyance with Chloe's phone manners was rapidly overshadowed by a creeping sense of absolute dread and cosmic irony. The 'Green Hotel' was the single most luxurious, exclusive establishment in the entirety of Nebula City. And considering I had just sat in a living room and inherited twenty percent of the Green Financial Empire yesterday, I was ninety-nine percent sure that I literally owned the building where I was about to go play fake boyfriend to a vampire heiress and face off against a psychotic mage who wanted my head on a silver platter.
I stared blankly at the ceiling. I really, really need a vacation.