Of course, Jack didn't want to lay a hand on his father.

Although this man had never fulfilled the responsibilities of a father in his life, lived like he described himself—as a dog and a bird in a cage...

His final act, however, earned Jack's approval and the respect from his eldest son.

It was hard for Jack to take action against this man, even if it was just a corpse.

Yet, at the same time, Jack could not just surrender and accept his fate.

He wasn't afraid to die, but he would never let Soya die here with him.

"That child has great ideals, she should have a bright future, not rot in the sewers and birdcages like me... like father."

This was Jack's exact words.

He was caught in a struggle, as if his consciousness and soul had become a bird with broken wings, trapped in a cage called "choice," much like his father's soul.

But just as he couldn't make a decision...

Soya, his little red-haired elf, suddenly spoke.

"Hermano..."

A word Jack was all too familiar with, yet had never heard from Soya.

Its meaning...

Brother.

At that moment, Jack's mind felt like it had been hit by a hammer, groggy, his vision somewhat blurred.

But inside, he felt an unprecedented clarity.

A new choice, different from "obey" and "die," emerged in his heart.

Jack suddenly knew what he needed to do, understood what his father truly hoped for him to do.

He didn't follow the patriarch's order to harm Joe's body with a knife, nor did he plead guilty and face execution.

At 24, Jack Carlos made the most reckless and free choice of his life.

With that knife, he shattered all the weapons in the hands of the guards, and in their incredulous eyes, cut open the patriarch's chest.

Jack had planned to directly kill the patriarch to avenge his father... but after struggling, he decided not to act impulsively, focusing on rescuing and escaping.

So, he carried his father's remains on his back, holding Soya, and fought his way through layers of encirclement, tearing open the "birdcage" that had once trapped him and his father.

In fact, Jack was already recognized as a rare combat genius in the Carlos Clan, stronger than his peers from a young age, with extremely rich combat experience, and also possessing an experimental prototype prosthetic body—[Nanometer Vajra Bone], making him one of the best fighters in the clan.

The family was already optimistic about him; the reason for having him kill his father was just to erase his excess emotions, to turn him into a war weapon at the Carlos's disposal.

But the family miscalculated.

Jack ultimately broke out by force and disappeared from the Carlos family's sight.

The bird longing for freedom finally escaped that damned cage.

Afterward, the enraged Carlos family mobilized all personnel, starting a carpet search for Jack and Soya.

The patriarch even considered issuing a sky-high bounty for Jack's head.

But after some internal conflict, he gave up on that idea.

As mentioned before, the Carlos family always values reputation. Publicly offering a bounty for their own genius youth would be like slapping their own face.

So, the patriarch ultimately only had family members search for Jack without using external forces.

But the problem is that the "Underground Group" thrived and grew under the protection of the underground shadows.

Once outside the underground domain, in the open world, the Carlos family no longer had the ability to capture a warrior with police experimental prosthetic capabilities.

Just like that, Jack and his sister regained their freedom.

Jack buried his father, then chose to become a mercenary, using the money he earned to support his sister's education.

The name "Moscow Mule" gradually gained fame in the lower-tier mercenary market.

Meanwhile, Soya slowly began studying medicine and occasionally, with Jack's company, would provide free medical consultations in the slums, helping elderly and children who had lost their families.

Everything seemed to be moving in a better direction.

Yet, fate is fickle...

The happy days lasted barely half a year before being shattered by a diagnosis report.

Soya Carlos eventually contracted Blood AIDS.

Or strictly speaking, it wasn't really contracted.

"Blood Instability Syndrome" had been passed to her through her mother's blood the moment she was born.

It hadn't manifested in the past simply because it was still in its incubation period.

She would eventually fall ill; the only difference was the timing of the onset.

Soya was relatively lucky, as her living conditions had been decent, she didn't contract any other complications, and Jack had some spare money to afford her stay in a sterile ward.

But the monthly cost of 30,000 Silver Cannon rapidly depleted Jack's savings.

He had to start frequently taking on missions, finding various ways to make money, even resorting to insurance fraud at times.

Sometimes he wondered, if he hadn't betrayed the family back then, could Soya now receive better treatment...

But thinking about it carefully, it seemed impossible.

As mentioned before, a noble family like the Carlos clan despised illegitimate children the most.

Providing these children with a job within the family was considered a huge favor.

Expecting the family to treat an illegitimate daughter's illness? Especially to spend a fortune on special medicine research? It was absolutely impossible.

They would prefer to bury and execute diseased illegitimate children rather than spending money, thereby preserving the family's reputation.

In the gardens of the Carlos family estate, buried beneath beautiful flowers, are countless bones of "traitors" and illegitimate children.

In the family's eyes, they have no right to live, only fit to become fertilizer, contributing their insignificant strength to the family's growth.

So from start to finish, Jack could only rely on himself.

Luckily, the mercenary income wasn't low, and the monthly hospital fee of 30,000 was barely affordable... and Soya's will to survive was strong enough that her condition never worsened.

A series of good fortune piled together allowed Soya and Jack to endure those challenging years.

During these years, Jack suffered, labored, got injured... and several times narrowly escaped death.

But he never thought about giving up.

Because Soya was still holding on, because this girl still called him "Hermano (Brother)."

This one reason alone was enough.

Enough...

As for the story after that, Jack met Frost Moon and also met Yun You.

This was Jack's first task from the Apprentice Death God, and the mercenary keenly realized that this might be one of the few opportunities in his life.

Having a police experimental prosthetic was indeed something to be proud of, but compared to an Apprentice Death God, it was nothing.

If he could become friends with an Apprentice Death God, get aboard the rising ship that was Yun You, he might really earn enough money to order genetic drugs for Soya.

That is the story of Jack Carlos.

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