"TEN SECONDS!" Brian shrieked from the floor, clutching his bleeding hand. "We're all dead! You arrogant fool!" Ethan ignored him. His eyes, cold as glacial ice, scanned the chaotic web of wires. Red, blue, yellow… a decoy system designed by a madman. His mind, a supercomputer honed by the dynasty's secret training, processed the schematics in a nanosecond. He saw the trap. He saw the solution. "FIVE SECONDS!" Brian sobbed, his face a mask of terror. "My father will avenge me! The Vance fortune will be his!" Ethan’s lips curled into a sneer of pure contempt. "Your father's fortune is a rounding error in my inheritance." With a surgeon's precision, his hand shot out, not for the obvious red wire, but for a thin, almost invisible black one hidden beneath it. *Snip*. The timer froze: 00:01. Silence descended, broken only by Brian's ragged gasps. The doors burst open and the black-clad soldiers of the Black Guard flooded the room, weapons raised. Their commander bowed his head. "Chairman, the perimeter is secure." "Take this trash to the Void," Ethan commanded, not even glancing at his whimpering cousin. "Ensure he never sees the sun again." As they dragged Brian away, Ethan's satellite phone buzzed. It was his grandfather's chief physician. "Mr. Vance… it's a miracle. The Old Chairman… he's awake. He's asking for you." Hours later, Ethan stood in the grand hall of the Vance estate. Gathered before him were the most powerful tycoons of the world, their faces etched with awe and fear. Elena stood by his side, her eyes shining. At the head of the room, frail but with an iron gaze, sat his grandfather. "My grandson," the old man's voice boomed with surprising strength. "You have exposed the traitors in our bloodline. You are the true heir to the Vance dynasty." Ethan's grandfather wakes from his coma and formally slides the Supreme Patriarch's ring onto Ethan's finger before the gathered tycoons of the world.

Chapter 17: Savior of the Empire