Novels by Chris Ahafa

The world was gone. Riley felt nothing, no heat, no sound, no pain. Only emptiness. His body floated in a vast, silent void. There was no up or down, no sky or ground. Just endless gray light stretching forever. He tried to move, but his limbs didn’t respond. He wasn’t even sure he had a body anymore. “Where… am I?” he whispered.His voice didn’t echo. Silence, then, faintly, a sound, like a heartbeat. Slow. Heavy. Distant. Thump. Thump.With each beat, faint ripples spread across the emptiness, and pieces of memory flickered in front of him, flashes of faces, battles, laughter, screams.Akira. Hogan. Doyle. Alira. The Titan’s roar. The Shadow’s eyes, then, the explosion. Riley gasped, his body snapping upright.He was lying on cold ground. The air was damp and thick with mist. Shadows shifted around him like living things, whispering faintly.His head pounded. His body ached all over, burned and broken, but somehow he was alive.He looked down, his armor was cracked, his clothes tor

Riley felt the power drain from his body like someone had ripped his soul away. His sword shattered into fragments of fading light, scattering into the molten air. His system’s voice, the calm tone that had guided him through every battle, went silent. For the first time since it began, he felt truly alone.The Titan’s massive hand swung toward him, the heat like a storm of fire. Riley tried to move, but his limbs were heavy, unresponsive. The infection burned through him, black veins crawling up his face.He fell hard onto the crumbling bridge, his breath ragged and short. Alira screamed his name, her voice echoing across the cavern. “RILEY!”The Titan’s molten eyes gleamed. “It ends.”The world slowed. Riley looked up, the reflection of the Titan’s blazing hand filling his eyes. Time felt thick, heavy, like he was sinking through it. His thoughts drifted back to his team, to Akira’s worried face, to Hogan’s stubborn loyalty, to Alira’s voice telling him he was chosen.He wanted to

The cavern shook with the Titan’s laughter, deep and cruel. Lava spilled down the throne, dripping into the chasm below. The heat was unbearable.Riley stood at the edge, sweat streaming down his face, his chest heaving. His body trembled from exhaustion, his infection burning like fire under his skin.Behind him, Hogan, Doyle, Miller, and Akira stayed close. Their weapons were drawn, but their eyes showed fear.The Titan raised its massive blade of shadow and fire. The flames licked the cavern ceiling, sparks falling like meteors.“You are weak,” the Titan rumbled. “You crawl, you bleed, and yet you think you can take what belongs to me?”Its furnace eyes glowed brighter, fixed on Alira. “She was always mine.”Alira lifted her head slightly, her silver eyes faint but defiant. Her voice, weak but steady, cut through the heat. “No. I will never be yours again.”Riley’s chest tightened. He gripped his broken, flickering blade tighter, though it barely glowed now. He muttered under his b

The cavern shook as the Titan’s molten body retreated into the darkness. Its burning chains dragged Alira across the floor, her silver glow flickering as she struggled against them. Her voice echoed through the heat and ash.“Riley!”Her cry pierced his chest like a blade.He tried to move, but his legs buckled. His arms shook violently, his blade gone, his vision swimming in red haze. The infection inside him surged like fire, tearing through his veins. His system blinked in frantic warning.SYSTEM ALERT: Collapse Imminent.HP: 45/500.Infection Progress: 94%.“Not yet,” Riley whispered through bloodied lips. He planted his hand against the molten ground, forcing himself up inch by inch. His breath came in ragged gasps. “Not, yet.”But the Titan was already gone, vanishing into the glowing tunnels with Alira bound in its grasp. The last echo of her cry faded into silence.Riley collapsed again, coughing hard. His blood hit the black stone, sizzling on the heated ground. He clenched

The Titan’s roar shook the cavern walls. Lava dripped from its body, glowing rivers running across the floor. Its molten chains dug into Riley’s skin, each link burning like fire pressed into his flesh.He gritted his teeth, pulling against them with all his strength. His system blinked in his vision:ALERT: Shadow Bind, Escape Chance 5%.HP: 110/500.Not enough. He was trapped. Alira stepped forward, her silver glow faint but steady. Her eyes never left the Titan’s burning face. “You still live,” she whispered.The Titan’s voice rumbled like a grinding stone. “And you still run. But not this time, Alira.”Riley’s chest tightened. The Titan knew her. He forced the words out through clenched teeth. “What, what are you to him?”Alira’s gaze flickered briefly toward Riley, then back to the monster. Her voice was calm, too calm. “He was my creation’s first host.”Riley froze. His stomach dropped. “What?”Alira’s eyes darkened. “Before you, before me, the Titan bore the system.”The chamb

The valley was silent. The screaming mist had gone. The glowing moss no longer pulsed. The ground lay broken, ash from the fallen Guardians scattered like gray snow.Riley stood on shaky legs, breathing hard. His blade had dissolved, his energy almost gone. His arm still throbbed with black veins, faint but stubborn, crawling beneath his skin like poison that refused to leave.Alira stood a few paces away, her silver hair glowing faintly in the dim light. She seemed calm, too calm for the destruction around them.Riley forced himself to speak, though his voice was hoarse. “You said, my team. They’re alive?”Alira turned her glowing eyes on him. “Yes. Alive. But held in a place worse than death.”Riley’s chest tightened. “Where?”Her gaze shifted toward the distance. Beyond the shattered valley, the horizon burned faintly red. There, a mountain rose, black and jagged, glowing with cracks of molten fire. “The Titan’s lair,” she said softly. “They are trapped within.”The name itself m

The shovel struck stone and stopped. Jonah leaned into it harder. His boot slid on the loose dirt. He adjusted his stance, pressed down again, and the blade cut through with a dull crack. Soil folded inward. He lifted the shovel and dumped the load to the side. No one spoke.The garden plot lay just outside New Crest’s eastern wall, where the ground had never fully healed. Old scorch marks ran through the dirt in uneven lines. Bits of warped metal still surfaced after heavy rain. This was where Serra fell. Not marked before. Not claimed.Jonah dug again. The wind carried dust across the open land. It hissed against the wall and died. Far off, towers hummed low, steady, controlled.Kevin stood several steps back, holding the sapling’s transport frame. His arms were stiff. His grip never loosened. The sapling stood taller than him, its thin trunk wrapped in stabilizing bands. Leaves shimmered faint gold and blue, shifting color as light moved across them. The roots were sealed in a c

The lights came on before the music did. They pulsed once across New Crest, low and soft, like a test. Towers answered with gentle bands of color that moved up their spines and stopped. No alarms followed. No warnings.People froze in the streets. Jonah stood at the edge of the central square, arms crossed, watching every shadow. Guards lined the rooftops, weapons slung but ready. Drones hovered high, quiet, their optics sweeping wide arcs.Lisa stood in the open. She wore no armor. No jacket. Just plain boots and a dark shirt with sleeves rolled to her elbows.The faint lines under her skin were covered, but Jonah could see the stiffness in how she held herself.She raised one hand. The music started. It was simple. Drums first. Real ones. Someone struck hide with steady hands. The sound rolled out and bounced off stone and metal. It did not trigger the towers.People shifted. A few stepped forward. Others stayed back, hands tight at their sides.Kevin stood near the fountain, eyes

The first child spoke to the wall. Jonah saw it from the watch platform before anyone else noticed. The child stood alone at the outer gate, too small for the rifle slung across her back, her boots caked with red dust. She pressed her palm against the concrete barrier and whispered.The wall answered. Not with sound. With light. Thin red symbols crawled across the surface like veins waking from sleep. “Hold,” Jonah said.The guards froze. Fingers stayed off triggers. The gate machinery stayed silent.More figures emerged from the haze beyond the perimeter. Slowly. Carefully. A line of people stretched back into the dust storm, heads bowed, hands empty or raised. They moved like they expected to be shot at any second.Kevin stood beside Jonah on the platform. He went still when the wall lit up. “They’re carrying pieces,” Kevin said.“Pieces of what?” Jonah asked.Kevin did not answer right away. His eyes tracked the symbols on the wall as they rearranged themselves, simplified, then f

Lisa dropped the cup. It hit the floor and split clean. Water spread in a thin line toward the door. She did not bend to pick it up. She stared at her hand instead.Light traced under her skin. It ran along the veins in her wrist, faint and steady, like a map drawn from the inside.The tower hummed. Not loud. Not constant. It rose and fell in slow waves that pressed through the walls and into bone.Lisa closed her fingers until her knuckles went white. The light dimmed but did not vanish. Jonah stood in the doorway. He did not step inside. She turned her head toward him. She did not answer.The hum rose again. Lisa’s knees buckled. She caught the edge of the table with her good hand and stayed upright. Her breath came short. She set her jaw and waited it out.Jonah took one step forward. Then he stopped himself. The hum peaked.Lisa slid down the table leg and sat on the floor. Her back hit the cabinet with a dull sound. She stayed there, head bowed, hair falling across her face.The

The ground opened without warning. Jonah felt the shift through his boots before he saw it. The earth beneath the crawler sagged, then split. Stone sheared. Dust punched upward in a thick column.“Brake!” Jonah shouted.The driver slammed the controls. The crawler skidded sideways, metal screaming as its treads dug in. The rear end dropped hard. The front hung over a widening dark gap.Silence followed, heavy and close. Jonah unlatched his harness and stood. He moved to the edge and looked down.The hole was clean. Too clean. Smooth stone walls curved downward, not jagged like a natural collapse. Faint lights glowed far below, steady and white.Lisa climbed up beside him. She did not speak. She scanned with her wrist console. “This isn’t erosion,” she said.“No,” Jonah said. He reached down and knocked on the exposed edge with the butt of his weapon. The sound rang hollow.Kevin stood a few steps back. His head tilted slightly. His hands were clenched behind his back.“It’s active,”

The stone moved before anyone touched it. It lifted one finger-width off the ground, shuddered, then held. Dust fell from its underside in a thin line. Every person in the square froze.A woman at the edge of the circle cut her hand signal short. The ropes went slack but stayed ready. No one spoke.The sound came next. It was not loud. It did not echo. It pressed forward in short pulses, steady and controlled. The air tightened with each pulse, like it was being folded.The Breath-Born architects stood barefoot on the cracked plaza stones. Six of them. Their chests rose together. Their mouths opened at the same time. The stone lifted higher.Jonah watched from the scaffold, one hand on the railing, the other wrapped around a coil of rope. He leaned forward without realizing it. Below him, workers shifted their weight but held position. Knuckles stayed white on rope fiber. Boots stayed planted.“Hold,” Lisa said from behind him.Jonah did not turn. “I see it.”The stone slid sideways i

A blast of white-silver light tore through the cavern. Xayn stumbled back, shielding his face as wind howled from the center of the chamber. Stones ripped from the walls, chains snapped, and the torches went out one by one. Dust filled the air until he could barely breathe. “Lia!” he shouted. “Stop!”But it wasn’t Lia anymore. The girl on the floor rose slowly, her hair floating around her as if underwater. The marks of the seal blazed across her skin like living fire. Her eyes glowed pure silver, no pupils, no warmth, just cold light. The ground trembled. Cracks raced across the floor, spreading like lightning.System: “Warning. Unknown energy detected. Intensity, catastrophic.”Xayn took a step forward, his voice trembling. “Lia, it’s me. It’s Xayn. You’re safe now.”Her gaze snapped toward him. The air shuddered. When she spoke, her voice was layered, two tones overlapping, Lia’s soft one and another deeper, older, filled with fury. “You should not have freed me.”The mask pulsed

The sky above the city was pale and gray, the first sign of dawn breaking through the night. A thin fog crawled across the streets, softening the edges of broken walls and burnt wood.Xayn’s footsteps echoed dully as he stumbled through the alleyway. His entire body throbbed with exhaustion. Dried blood streaked his arms. The Shadowglass still glowed faintly in his fist, pulsing like a dying heart. The mask was still on his face.No matter how many times he clawed at it, the iron refused to come off. The edges had fused to his skin, cold and hot all at once. He could feel it breathing, like something alive pressed against his soul.System: “Bond locked. Artifact stable at 99.9%. Warning: external removal impossible.”He ignored it. All he could think of was Lia. He had been gone for too long. Every second mattered.The streets looked different now. Quiet. Deserted. Even the stray market lights had gone out. He turned down the narrow road that led to the safe house, the one he and Ki

The world was black. Not silent, though. The mask laughed in the darkness, its voice echoing like a storm in his skull. “You’re mine now. All mine. No more pretending. No more fighting.”Xayn tried to speak, but his lips wouldn’t move. His body felt heavy, trapped, as if he had been chained in molten iron, then another voice cut through, smooth, steady, calm. “Not yet. He’s still useful.”Xayn’s eyes snapped open. He was no longer on the blood-soaked streets of the Black Market.Instead, he stood in a strange void. The ground was black stone, cracked with glowing veins of red. Shadows swirled like smoke, wrapping around him. Above, the sky was endless and empty, yet alive with whispers, and standing in front of him was the red-eyed man.The cloak around his body swayed though there was no wind. His hood shadowed his face, but his glowing eyes cut through the dark like twin blades.“You’ve walked far,” the man said softly. “Farther than I expected. Most who wear that mask don’t last a

The night was silent now. Too silent. The bodies of Sean’s soldiers littered the street, blood pooling around broken armor and twisted spears. The torches guttered in the breeze, their light flickering over the ruined stones. Xayn knelt in the center, his chest rising and falling heavily. The mask still clung to his face. It pulsed with heat, its hollow crimson eyes glowing faintly, each beat in rhythm with his racing heart.His hands trembled as he reached for the edges of the iron. He tried to rip it off, as he had before, but it didn’t move.His fingers scraped against the cold metal. His nails dug until they bled. Nothing.The mask laughed softly inside his mind. “I told you… this time, you don’t take me off.”The system’s voice crackled in his ear, weak but urgent.Warning: Host identity collapsing.Bond stabilizing at 99.6%.Immediate removal required.Xayn growled through clenched teeth. “Then help me! Tear it off!”Error: External override blocked. Artifact resistance too st

The stones cracked under Xayn’s feet as he lunged forward. The black iron mask clung to his face, burning hot, its hollow crimson eyes blazing with power. His blood-red vision tunneled onto Sean, every muscle surging with violent strength.Sean didn’t flinch. He didn’t raise his weapon. He simply stood there, smiling, and that smile made something deep inside Xayn shiver.The mask hissed in his mind. “Kill him. Crush his skull. Tear out his heart. He dares to laugh at you!”Xayn’s fist roared forward, the air splitting under its speed. At the last instant, Sean moved.Steel sang. Sean’s blade flashed like silver lightning, parrying Xayn’s punch with impossible precision. Sparks exploded as fist met steel, the shockwave rattling the buildings around them.Xayn staggered back a step, his crimson eyes narrowing. Sean had stopped him. The mask hissed with anger. “Impossible. No man can match this power.”Sean tilted his head, his smile never leaving. “So it’s true. The mask accepts you.

The night wind carried the faint smell of smoke and blood. Xayn stood at the end of the alley, his chest heaving, his body still trembling from the battle with the assassins. His hand clutched the Shadowglass tightly, while the satchel containing the cursed mask pulsed faintly at his side, and there, standing in the torchlight with his men, was Sean.Sean’s polished armor gleamed even in the dim night. His eyes were sharp, filled with amusement, as though the entire world was nothing but a game for him. His cruel smile widened when he saw Xayn’s bloodied form.“Well, well,” Sean drawled. “The rat returns from the gutter. I half-expected the Black Market to chew you up and spit out your bones. But here you are.”His soldiers chuckled behind him, the sound grating like metal scraping stone.Xayn’s jaw tightened. His body screamed at him to move, to fight, but exhaustion weighed on every limb.Sean’s eyes flicked to the satchel. “And look at that. You even brought me a gift. What’s in t