"I'll beat the life out of you, you ungrateful brat!" Suddenly, a furious roar echoed across the campus as an elderly man stormed over, brandishing a heavy walking
cane.
Having caught the tail end of Wyatt's pathetic defense, he didn't hesitate to swing the cane right at his grandson's head.
Wyatt shrieked in pain, throwing his arms over his head as he scrambled backward. "Grandpa!" he yelped, dodging another blow. "What are you doing here?!"
General Walter Hudson stood there in his crisp, vintage military uniform, the medals on his chest glinting menacingly in the sunlight.
He swung his cane with the lethal precision of a seasoned combatant.
Wyatt was utterly horrified; he never expected the old man to actually show up and ambush him.
Dressed in full regalia, Walter continued his relentless thrashing, cursing a storm.
"Lusting after a girl from Sundara?! I'll execute you right now and save our family the disgrace of treason!"
Wyatt scurried like a cornered rat. "Grandpa, wait! Let me explain!"
"I'm not committing treason! It's the modern era! You can't keep holding grudges from a war that ended decades ago!"
"You little punk, you dare talk back to me?!" Walter wasn't about to be reasoned with.
"I sent you to college to get an education, not to learn how to disrespect your commanding officer!"
"You might be blind to history, but I haven't forgotten a damn thing! She's the descendant of the enemy! I can spot their kind from a mile away!"
Walter leveled the tip of his cane straight at Melanie.
Melanie shrank back, looking like a wrongfully accused saint.
"Sir, I might be from Sundara, but I only came to Solenia to make genuine friends. Wyatt simply appreciates my company. He didn't do anything wrong, please—"
She tried to play the peacekeeper.
While that delicate vulnerability always worked on Wyatt, it only fueled Walter's absolute rage.
"Shut your mouth!" The veteran, who used to take out hostiles with a single shot, still radiated an overwhelming, predatory aura.
He glared at Melanie with a gaze that could peel paint off the walls. "I have no intention of striking a civilian, but you can drop the innocent act. You carry the blood of Sundara in your veins."
"I will never, under any circumstances, allow my grandson to court someone from that country."
"Unless he wants to sever all ties with the Hudson family right this second and take your surname instead!"
Melanie actually felt a chill run down her spine. Walter's features weren't overly grotesque, but he was missing an eye.
It had been permanently blinded by enemy shrapnel during a brutal mortar strike.
A visceral reminder of the carnage that Walter would never forget.
The raw, undisguised hatred in his remaining eye made her instinctively recoil.
"I..." Melanie's eyes welled with tears, and she bit her lip, shooting Wyatt a desperately helpless look.
Seeing his goddess in distress triggered Wyatt's misguided savior complex. Even though his body was bruised and he was terrified of his grandfather's wrath, Wyatt foolishly threw himself into the line of fire. "Grandpa, this is pure prejudice!" "Melanie has a pure heart! She's nothing like the invaders you fought!"
"You can't judge an entire nation based on the past!"
"It's been so many years—"
"Aargh!!!"
Wyatt actually thought his grandfather would listen to his profound logic.
He genuinely believed his speech would soften the veteran's hardened heart and force him to accept Melanie.
Instead, he caught another vicious swing of the cane before he could even finish his sentence.
This time, Walter swatted him right
across his backside The pain was
excruciating, but the
umiliation w
infinitely worse.
Every impassioned argument he had prepared vanished from his brain.
He was a grown college student getting a public spanking from his grandpa—his social life was officially over!
Walter couldn't care less about his grandson's shattered ego.
As far as he was concerned, if the
boy fell for a Sundaran woman, he was no longer a Hudson; he was enemy sympathizer
The fact that he hadn't pulled out his sidearm and shot Wyatt on the spot was already an act of immense mercy.
Having caught wind of the commotion, university administrators came sprinting across the lawn.
They scrambled desperately to de-escalate the situation.
Considering Walter was an honored veteran wearing his military medals, they couldn't afford a PR disaster where he dropped dead from tage right in the middle of The Cabinda University campus.