The future didn’t arrive with flying cars or world peace. It came crawling in with blood on its hands. Years of division tore the United States apart, until the second civil war split it into five fractured territories — the Regional States of America. Out of the ashes rose something worse: a patchwork of corporate fiefdoms where banks and megacorps carved the map like a carcass, and the stock market became the nation’s pulse.

The most profitable business of all was misery. Private prisons swelled to bursting, their ledgers fattened by slave labor and laws designed to make freedom itself illegal. Travel without an elite pass? Life sentence. Speak against an exec? Disappear forever. Eight out of ten citizens wore shackles. Then came Xi Jin Lee — quadrillionaire, genetic alchemist, and ruler of Region 2. Through his Lee Corporation, he played god, turning men into monsters with Titan serum, and played emperor with Deathmatch TV. The formula was ancient: gladiator pits reborn for a streaming age, where hundreds of prisoners were thrown into gauntlets until no one walked out alive.

In a year, DTV became the world’s addiction. By the second, the empire spread to all five regions under its new director, Prince Khan — an energy baron who had bled the lithium market dry. Together, they built towering arenas, exported the bloodsport to two continents, and crowned regional champions like warlords over their domains. For the corporate elite, it was perfect: entertainment, population control, and endless profit. For the rest of the world, it was just another way to die.

What follows is not a legend. It’s the final account of prisoner #R4-06071983 — John Murdoch. Former Grim Bravo operative. Accused murderer. Survivor of the pits. And a man with nothing left to lose.

EPUB Download