Chapter 6: A Tiger Out of Its Cage

Words : 2047 Updated : Jan 8th, 2026

The driver slammed the gas. The SUV shot past a hundred, yet he still couldn't shake Salvatore Casson clawing at their tail. Salvatore didn't go all out. He simply kept his distance, hanging back. Ten minutes. Twenty. No matter how fast the car went, he held the gap at roughly a hundred meters. The people inside had no way to lose him. Liam Lapwood swallowed hard, pulled out his phone, filmed Salvatore's pursuit, and sent the clip to Brandon Gurnil. Forty minutes later, the car rolled into Highland Security. Anyone running a security firm had to be someone with clout and money in the area. When Highland Security was founded, they invited prominent figures in Yanos to be their face. One of them was Kenneth Ferdinando. Kenneth apprenticed to a boxing teacher as a teenager and mastered Neeson Martial Arts. He later bowed to an Ancient Martial Arts expert and kept grinding. For eighteen years, he trained at least six hours a day. At forty-two, Kenneth had long been one of Yanos's renowned martial masters. He arrived with more than a dozen men. Two carried shotguns; the rest gripped electric batons. Kenneth folded his arms and watched the gate. Seeing two off-road vehicles pull in, he smiled and strode up to meet them. The doors popped open. Liam Lapwood leapt out, panic in his voice. "Master Ferdinando, that kid is here-" Before he finished, a figure burst in like a gale and lightning. The masked men who had just disembarked, along with the gunmen, were hit as if by a primordial beast. They flew in every direction. Some slammed into the cars, some into the gate, and one even skidded across the rooftop. Silence fell. Salvatore stood before Kenneth like a god or demon come to earth, hair lifting without wind, eyes blazing. Kenneth had trained for years, but Salvatore's presence stunned him. He instinctively backed three steps and raised his fists. Salvatore glanced into the car. His parents were inside, unharmed. He looked to Liam Lapwood, coughing blood on the ground. In his fury, he had struck too hard. Liam's internal organs were shattered. He wouldn't live. "You did this to yourself." He turned his gaze back to Kenneth. Kenneth barked, "You're Salvatore Casson, aren't you? I've been waiting for you!" Before his words even landed, Salvatore vanished. Kenneth's scalp prickled. He shouted and spun to strike behind him-but too late. His shoulder only started to move when a palm chopped the back of his neck. Crack! His cervical spine snapped. The Yanos master collapsed, bladder and bowels letting go. The rest surged in with batons. Salvatore blurred into a streak, and in a few exchanges he knocked them all down. Even the lucky ones ended up with broken arms and legs. Salvatore first helped his parents out of the car to check them over. Paulina Yare's face was a bit swollen, but she was fine, just shaken. He settled his parents on the roadside nearby, then returned. He hauled up a man bleeding from seven orifices and asked, "Did Harry Hauk send you?" The man had more than a dozen fractures, and his organs were bruised. The terrifying Immortal Energy Salvatore unleashed in wrath wasn't something ordinary men could endure. Terror swamped the man's eyes. He stammered, "It was Brandon Gurnil, the Hauk family's steward. He ordered us. Don't kill me…" A muscle twitched in Salvatore's cheek. He asked, voice low, "Where is Harry Hauk?" "At Highland Manor," the man blurted. Salvatore slammed his palm into the man's skull, killing him on the spot, then set Highland Security ablaze. Minutes later, the fire spread. Hundreds of vehicles and a huge stockpile of equipment burned to cinders. Salvatore took a panel van and drove his parents home. The van had no plates, a black-market vehicle Highland Security used for dirty jobs. After settling his parents, he told them to rest while he slept on the couch in the living room. If anyone came again, he would be the first to notice. By daybreak, ten fire trucks pulled up outside Highland Security. The blaze was so fierce it took more than ten hours to put out. The entire company turned to a charred ruin, with losses on the books exceeding ten million dollars. Harry Hauk stood outside the ruins, face dark as stormwater. Behind him, house steward Brandon Gurnil kept his head down and said in a trembling voice, "Sir, the thirty-seven million in cash deposits and those antiques and paintings were all in the company vault. We couldn't save them." That thirty-seven million had been his father's dirty money. The value of the antiques and paintings was no less, at least another ten to twenty million. Harry's eyes bulged as if they might tear. He growled, "Who did this?" Brandon grit his teeth. "Other than Salvatore Casson, I can't think of anyone. But the cameras all burned. We have no evidence." He opened his phone and played a clip of Salvatore sprinting after them like a bolt of lightning. After seeing the video, Harry's eyes widened. A chill ran down his spine. "The car had to be going at least eighty, right?" Brandon's hand trembled. "I'd estimate at least ninety kilometers per hour-about twenty-five meters per second. That's twice as fast as the Olympic sprint record." Harry glanced at the fireground again and said through clenched teeth, "No matter how strong he is, he's still human. I don't believe he can dodge bullets." The next morning, Paulina Yare got up early and bought breakfast for Salvatore, all his favorites: ten soup dumplings, ten shumai, and a spread of other treats. While Salvatore ate, Nixon Casson said, "Xiao Fan, you graduate in half a month. What are you planning?" Salvatore attended a local college in Yanos. It wasn't a prestigious school, but the major was decent. Nixon hoped his son would graduate without hiccups and find a stable job. Salvatore smiled. "Relax. I'm heading back to campus today." After breakfast, he logged into his social account on the computer. In the class group chat, a few classmates were talking about him. "Any word from Salvatore?" asked a classmate named Colson Looske. He often played ball with Salvatore and got along well with him. "No idea. Do you think his disappearance really had something to do with Ruby Showyer?" a girl asked. Another girl chimed in, "Don't say that. Ruby Showyer isn't an ordinary person anymore. I heard she's about to marry Young Master Hauk. The Hauk family is a top clan in Jiangbei now. They're not people you can provoke." At that, the first girl immediately deleted her message. "What's there to tiptoe around? Salvatore disappeared because of Ruby. That girl is absolutely shady!" wrote a guy named Conrad Letherdale. He was a close friend of Salvatore. After Salvatore vanished, Conrad helped his parents search for him and got threatened and beaten twice. "Ruby said Salvatore stole her family's jewelry and fled overseas," a classmate noted. Conrad fired back, "You believe that brain-dead claim? I know Salvatore better than anyone. He'd never do something like that!" "A living person doesn't vanish for no reason." A girl named Miranda Thubron spoke up. She wasn't very close to Salvatore, but she clearly took his side. Miranda was one of the two acknowledged campus beauties, far prettier than Ruby Showyer, with a swarm of admirers. Her speaking up for Salvatore surprised many. "I believe Salvatore. He would never steal from anyone." Another girl chimed in-Brielle Casson. Half her face had been badly burned, but the other half was stunningly beautiful, so gossipers cruelly nicknamed her the Half-Faced Xi Shi. Brielle kept a low profile and rarely interacted with others, but her grades were the best in the entire school. Six months earlier, some thugs from off campus harassed her. Salvatore stepped in and chased the punks off, but he paid for it with two broken ribs and a long hospital stay. They had been on familiar terms since then. Salvatore felt deeply moved. He sent Conrad Letherdale a private pat on the shoulder, then posted a message: "Conrad, I'm fine. I'm already back home."

Chapter 6: A Tiger Out of Its Cage

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