Chapter 193 | Choose One…

Chapter 193: 193 | Choose One...

"There’s nothing you can do!"

There was a beat of silence before he spoke again.

"If that is all, I’m pretty sure the Ashford family will be very impressed with what I’ve done. I’ll gain a few favors from them. So I’ve got to say..."

He paused.

"Thank you very much for this."

He suddenly chuckled which grew into a mocking laughter as he need the call.

"Ding!" "Ding!" "Ding!"

Dexter stood in the street, phone pressed against his ear, listening to the dead tone of a disconnected call.

The man, the real owner, stood a few meters away. He had heard everything. His face changed sligrhtk as he looked at Dexter with uncomfortable pity.

He looked at Dexter the way people look at stray dogs in the rain.

Dexter lowered the phone.

He looked at the key in his hand expressionlessly.

One million Dollars.

His hard-earned money, money he had earned through sweat and labor and the systematic suppression of his own abilities. Money that was supposed to buy his family a home was now gone and stolen.

By a man who had done it on the Ashford family’s orders.

Dexter’s face was scarily blank.

He turned to the man and held out the key.

"I’m sorry for the inconvenience," he said in a mechanical tone.

The man took the key but didn’t say anything.

Dexter ignored the man and climbed into the SUV, started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

---

The Harvest Homes building looked the same as it had two hours ago. The cascading plants. The prismatic glass. The marble archway. The water features with their lazy koi.

Dexter didn’t see any of it.

He parked the SUV in the garage, killed the engine, and walked toward the building.

He entered the lobby.

The blonde receptionist looked up as he passed.

"Sir! Sir, who would you like to meet?"

Dexter ignored her.

He walked straight past the reception desk, past the waiting area, past the art displays and the living walls, and pressed the elevator call button.

"Sir, you can’t just go up without an appointment!"

The elevator doors opened. Dexter stepped inside. Pressed 24. The doors closed.

The elevator rose.

The doors opened.

Two men stood in the hallway.

They were large. Both taller than Dexter by several inches. Both wider. Both carrying the unmistakable physical density of peak Superhuman Realm cultivators. They wore dark suits that had been tailored to accommodate bodies built like refrigerators.

Their arms were folded across their chests. Their expressions were professionally neutral.

Marcus had called ahead. Of course he had. He knew Dexter would come back. One million Dollars was not a small sum, especially not to a man who had nothing. Marcus had expected this. Had prepared for it.

The first bodyguard spoke in a very deep tone.

"Mr. Dexter. Please turn around and leave. You have no business here. Go home before you embarrass yourself."

Dexter looked at them.

Then he smiled.

It was not a warm smile. It was not a friendly smile. It was the smile of a man who had spent the last hour compressing an overwhelming amount of rage into a space approximately the size of a fist, and was now feeling the quiet, focused clarity that came on the other side of that compression.

"Okay," Dexter said.

Then he activated Flame Burst Step.

The air ignited beneath his feet. A concussive bang echoed through the hallway as his speed multiplied fivefold. The world blurred as the marble floor cracked beneath the force of his launch.

He appeared in front of the first bodyguard before the man’s brain had finished processing the word "okay."

His open palm struck the bodyguard’s chest.

"BOOM!"

The impact was devastating. A shockwave exploded outward from the point of contact, shattering the overhead light fixtures and sending cracks spider-webbing across the marble floor. The bodyguard’s feet left the ground entirely. His massive frame became a projectile, hurtling backward through the hallway until he collided with the wall.

CRACK!

A human-shaped dent appeared in the reinforced concrete. The bodyguard slid downward, groaning, his suit torn, his chest caved inward by a palm strike that carried the full force of a Tenth Stage Superhuman with an Ancient Grade Flame Demon Bloodline.

The second bodyguard reacted faster.

His eyes widened and his body shifted into a combat stance as he threw a punch aimed directly at Dexter’s jaw, his fist cutting through the air with the insane speed and poer.

However, Dexter didn’t dodge and simply smirked coldly as he punched back.

Fist met fist.

"BOOM!"

The shockwave was enormous as the entire hallway walls shuddered, the ceiling panels rattled and a decorative vase on a nearby table shattered.

Even the air itself seemed to compress and rebound, sending a visible ripple of force radiating outward in all directions.

Neither combatant moved a single inch. The bodyguard’s eyes went wide, clearly stunned.

He was a peak Superhuman and had trained for years, fought monsters, criminals, and villains. He had never, in his entire career, met someone at a lower cultivation realm who could match his raw physical strength.

But this man had just stopped his full-power punch with an equal punch of his own eithout even changing expression.

The bodyguard was strong but Dexter’s body wasn’t made of foam either. One might even say he was stronger than him.

Before the bodyguard could recover from his shock, Dexter activated Flame Burst Step again.

He vanished.

The bodyguard roared as he activated his Talent.

His entire body turned silver, his muscles densified and his bones reinforced as he became a living statue of refined metal.

Dexter reappeared behind him. His fist drove into the bodyguard’s back.

"BANG!"

It was like punching a steel wall. The silver technique absorbed the kinetic energy, dispersing it across the bodyguard’s entire frame. The man barely staggered.

But Dexter wasn’t finished.

He smirked.

Blue lightning exploded from his knuckles.

The Thunder Manipulation talent, extracted from the dead assassin on the highway, activated at maximum output.

Crackling arcs of electricity poured from Dexter’s hand into the bodyguard’s body, bypassing the metallic defense entirely. Electricity didn’t care about physical hardness. It cared about conductivity. And the bodyguard’s silver-coated body was essentially one giant conductor.

The bodyguard screamed.

His entire body seized, his muscles locked as the silver talent covering his entire body flickered as his skin turned brown and then silver and eventually, it died as the electrical current overwhelmed his nervous system.

His eyes instantly rolled back and his jaw clenched unconsciously so hard that blood appeared at the corner of his lips as he collapsed to the ground.

"Thud!"

His bidy twitched involuntarily as residual electricity arced across his skin.

Dexter didn’t care and simply stepped over him.

He walked to Marcus’s office door, grabbed the handle and turned it.