"My brother...?" Dylan was doubtful at first because he truly believed that his brother wouldn't betray him. However, as he thought about it, it actually made sense.
His brother, Dale, his right hand man, his power in the company was only second to his. His wealth also reached billions of dollars. His connections in both the surface and the shadows were by no means weak.
'If he was the person behind this, it would make sense that he could make the Technology Administrator work for him. It would also make sense that he could hire those yellow-ranked masks and these purple ranked masks.'
'With his intel, he could easily find out about Rose and hire some white-ranked hitmen to kidnap her...'
'But it could also be that the person behind this is not him and their client just wants to sow discord between me and my brother so the internal integrity of the company would fall...'
Dylan's thoughts went haywire. Although he thought that his brother might not be the one to do it, he knew in his mind that his brother could really be the one who orchestrated this entire scheme.
His thoughts may be due to the tiny hope in his heart that his brother would never betray but his rationality was telling him otherwise.
"Confused? Hahaha, the truth is I, too, was confused when I heard about your relationship with one another. How could a brother plot his brother's death?" Purple Serpent suddenly spoke.
"Surprisingly, the client answered with 3 words which were vague yet also clear: love, pride and secrecy." Purple Dragon revealed with a grin.
"..." Dylan was silent. He knew what those words meant.
Love. Dale's true love was Rose, Dylan's wife. Dale was the first to meet Roselyn Collins, the blockbuster movie star and supermodel. He fell in love at first sight. He courted her for a year but all he ever received was polite rejection.
Dylan met Rose in a contract signing for a commercial for Omega Group of Companies. At their first meeting, the two were merely interested in each other.
Rose was curious what kind of person the Greatest Businessman was and invited him which is a privilege that no person had managed to avail up until that point. Dylan accepted and took it as a form of courtesy. That meeting caused their interest in each other to increase.
They soon started seeing each other. The two felt more comfortable and noticeably happier as love started budding in their hearts. Two years later, they married and have now been happily married for ten years.
Discovering this, Dale was infuriated and jealous of his brother. He felt that he was no way inferior in looks, in status and in wealth. He did not understand why his true love did not choose him instead of his brother. This fueled his inferiority complex towards his brother.
Pride. Being the brother of the Greatest Businessman, Dale was always compared with Dylan no matter what he did. In business, he lived under the shadow of his brother.
In sports, Dale led his team to win the national championship of his college basketball team and even snatched the award of MVP. In the end, he was overshadowed once more with his brother's talent as the youngest MMA legend who only took five years to reach the top of the world!
Upon entering showbiz, Dale managed to become a multi-award winning actor in his career and filmed many popular movies both nationally and internationally. Yet, he was still compared with Dylan.
Despite his brother not being an actor, Dylan was once invited to become a secondary male lead who had below average screen time for a blockbuster movie. Surprisingly, the movie went international and made billions due to fans shipping Dylan with the female lead and the second fenal lead.
Dylan received many offers for more movies but he only did the movie to repay a favor he had with the director so he rejected all of them.
In intellect, Dale knew that his brother was not someone who had proper education unlike himself as he spent his whole life fighting and business. However, Dylan's genius in engineering and technology actually helped produce one breakthrough after the other!
With such a disparity in achievements, Dale felt like no matter what he did he would always be inferior to his brother.
Secrecy. Dale thought that Dylan betrayed him because he broke their oath of never having secrets from each other. He hid the truth that they were not blood brothers.
Dale was sickly since he was an infant. By the age of 12, he had a car accident that caused him to lose a lot of blood. Dylan sent him to the hospital and asked the doctor that they use his blood.
But when the doctor tested his blood they were of different blood types, it was also then that Dylan said it was impossible since they were brothers.
Having no proper knowledge due to his lack of education, Dylan asked for a justification and it was then that the doctor produced the DNA Test which said that they were not blood related.
Dylan was depressed. He did not know what to do. He was only 16 years old when that happened and only knew how to fight after protecting his brother for all those years.
So, he became a local mafia boss after beating hundreds of gangsters and started extorting people for money to treat his brother's sickness. He later on became an MMA Fighter to provide the money for Dale when he was diagnosed with leukemia.
After his recovery, Dale was sent to school by Dylan. When he graduated, he worked for Dylan since the founding of Omega.
One month earlier, Dylan left his office for a meeting and left Dale for the company. Dylan forgot to close his biomatrix locked drawer so Dale went to close it.
But when he was just to open it, he saw the envelope of the results of their DNA Test twenty years ago when he had that car accident.
Dale trembled and his heart was crushed. He did not understand why his brother would hide this from him and break their code. His jealousy and his inferiority fueled with his sadness became hate!
Dylan entered the room and saw his brother reading those test results. He was afraid and wanted to explain. But his brother was already looking at him with eyes filled with hate and left without saying a word. The loving and cheerful brother he knew was gone.
Dylan knew that it should be then that Dale started planning all of this. Though he knew his brother hated him, he did not expect that his hatred would develop so much that it made Dale want to kill him.
...
"Look at him, he's so shocked that his brother wanted to kill him. He's already in despair. Why did the King even agree to send our team for this?" Purple Bear lamented.
"Stop with your babbling. You don't have the right to question our King's orders." A man with an Ox mask chided.
"Hmph, fine." Purple Bear snorted.
"It's not like you can blame the man. From what we have gathered, Dylan Ford spent his entire childhood and adolescence trying to protect his brother and providing for him. He considered his brother as his right hand man that he put him as the Vice-president for external affairs of both companies. Now, he learns he was betrayed by him? How tragic that is." Purple Bull surprisingly empathize.
"Are you saying that we should let him go?" Purple Bear harrumphed.
"Of course not, we have to do our job to maintain the prestige of our king. It's just lamentable that the fall of Asura is actually related to his brother..." Purple Bull sighed.
...
While Purple Bear and the others were talking, Purple Dragon already lost interest and wanted this mission to be over with. He called Yellow Rat and ordered, "We've already wasted too much time. Rat, command the robots to shoot on my mark."
"Okay, boss." Yellow Rat answered. He looked at the chief programmer within the Tech Admin and said. "Set the programs of the six in your control to fire at Boss's signal."
The chief programmer hesitated, "Maybe, this is not a good idea after all..."
"You're going to chicken out in the key moment? Dale Ford paid us big bucks to get this mission done. If the client could give it, he could also easily take it back. Don't forget that your family is still held captive. If you're not going to do it, then get out." Yellow Rat scowled.
"I... okay." The chief programmer trembled.
With a deep breath, he quickly revised the code and thought regretfully, 'I'm sorry for this boss. You were so kind to me and my family. I really don't want to do this but my family's life is on the line. I hope you can forgive me.'
"Good. I knew you would choose what's good for you." Yellow Rat nodded in satisfaction. He also revised everything on his end before returning his attention to his phone.
On the microphone, he said to Purple Dragon, "Boss, it's ready."
"Well done." Purple Dragon praised as he returned his attention to Dylan.
He looked at Dylan and recalled, "It was nice meeting you, 'Greatest Businessman'. But, you still have to die."
Purple Dragon signaled the robots, "Special Forces - Robo Squad Prime, fire on target on my mark."
Robo Squad Prime acknowledged, [Ready to Fire.]
Despite the hopeless situation, Dylan smiled, "Want to know a secret?"
"Tch, pathetic. Begging now? Telling us your true net worth? Too late! You have already angered us!!" Purple Bear said to Dylan with contempt.
"Don't bother with him. He's already pathetic enough." A person with the code name Purple Horse seemed to have scolded Yellow Rhino but was actually scorning Dylan.
"Are you going to grovel now?" Purple Dragon asked intently. If Dylan was truly going to beg for his life, he would naturally accept it. A simple video would serve as sufficient evidence that he could present to Dale Ford.
Dylan still maintained his smile. He held his winter coat and said a mysterious name with a smile, "Hades."
"?!" The hitmen were momentarily stunned when they heard that word. To add to their shock, Dylan's brown winter coat was changing color. It was turning black.
The fabric seemed to be moving on its own and was changing the entire design of the clothing. It became more fit to Dylan's body.
Dylan reached to the back of his head and surprisingly a hoodie was starting to appear from his back. He pulled the hood wanting to cover his head.
Purple Dragon saw this. He did not understand what was happening. But he knew that he should act before the entire coat transformed. He roared, "FIRE!!"
*Pssssuuwww*
Thirty-six electric bullets were fired at once! Twelve were aimed to the head, another dozen were heading to the heart and the last batch of the shots to Dylan's stomach.
Instead of being roasted by the electric discharging bullets, Dylan's body was sent flying back to the wall beside the elevator doors. Dust clouds formed from the crash and concealed Dylan's present state.
"Is he dead?" Someone from the hitmen nervously said.
"He should be..." Yellow horse tried to affirm but sounded unsure.
"HAHAHA, he's definitely dead! A hit from an electric rifle could kill you in one shot! He had thirty six blasts. There's no way he could still be breathing!" Yellow Rhino justified.
"This is strange..." Another hitmen spoke suddenly. His words attracted attention.
"Why?" Yellow Cobra asked.
"From what I have seen in weapon demos, these electrically charged ammunition should electrocute their target to the point that they should be charred black.. It should not blow the target away..."
His words caused the yellow rankers to be anxious. He was right. They have seen demonstrations of electric firearms during illegal firearms trade with the Hades faction of the Underworld.
Suddenly, a groaning sound was heard, "Ugh, my back sort of hurts."
"Who said that?" Yellow Tiger yelled.
"Me."
Yellow Tiger and his men faced the direction where they heard the voice. They saw something akin to a ghost which made all of them tremble. They were stupefied!
"Who?!"
It was none other than Dylan. However, he was no longer in his previous attire. His formal black suit was nowhere to be seen. His face was now covered with a one-horned white skull mask which seemed to have a streak of blood dripping out of its sockets.
The eye sockets were gleaming with a blood red light at the center. It was as if telling them that there was a soul of pure evil trapped inside of this skull.
His hands and feet seemed to have shed both skin and muscle as it only showed ash white bones of the hands but if seen with careful eyes, the bones had dark veins around them that seemed to be cracks. They were even cloaked with electricity that sparked incessantly.
The winter brown coat became black leather coat with a hood with blood red patterns that were forming flames with people which seemed to be screaming. It was as if the picture depicted the underworld flames burning sinful souls.
On his hood, the word "Hades'' was written in a menacing font. With the horn of the skull mask protruding out of the hood, a portion of the skull mask with a broken crown was shown. His current appearance was akin to the ruler of hell coming to the mundane world.
"Can't you recognize me?" Dylan asked but his voice suddenly changed, "Or... Should I use this voice instead?"
The group of hitmen shuddered when they heard that nauseating deep echoing voice which seemed to be the voice of the devil. They suddenly remembered the name,
"King Hades...?!"