Novels by Papichilow

Jace Varn climbed out of the undercity muck, water streaming off his jacket like the last tears of a dying system. The final shard's implosion still rang in his ears, a digital scream cut short, leaving silence heavier than the bay's fog. Level 10 surged through him, HP maxed at 500 feeling godlike, Fracture Rule perk humming with infinite bends, but victory tasted bittersweet. The cavern collapse had buried the remnants, but Kira's crew dragged her out barely breathing, arm a mangled wreck of shard metal and flesh. Lena leaned on her crutch, shock rifle slung, face smeared with grime and blood. Milo fiddled with his sparking eye, muttering curses at the water damage."Shards gone," Jace said, voice rough over the drip-drip of tunnels. His HUD, fully his now, a clean slate of blue overlays, scanned the team: Allies Stable, City Fractures Stabilizing. No more Architect pings, no purge threats, just the raw pulse of New Cascadia clawing back to life. Players across the slums felt it too

Jace Varn trudged through the bay's muddy outskirts, water sloshing in his boots from the bunker flood, the hijacked elite's chip shard tucked safely in his jacket. Level 9 hit like a stim rush, HP capped at 400, mastery Lv. 2 letting him twitch player signals like puppet strings but the weight dragged. One shard down, two left, per the fractured maps, but New Cascadia was waking meaner. Blackouts lingered in patches, holo-ads sputtering back to life with corp emergency bullshit, while players, free or glitching, formed packs in the ruins. Some hailed Jace as the breaker, others hunted for scraps of the old power. Lena limped beside him, crutch digging ruts, her shock rifle slung low. Milo trailed, rig backpack humming as he scanned for tails."Second shard's in the old factory district," Jace said, voice gravel from the swim. HUD, his remastered beast, pulsed the spot: a derelict corp plant turned Architect hideout, buried under rusting assembly lines. "Heavier guard now. They know w

Jace Varn hit the rubble-strewn street hard, the escape pod's crash jolting his bones like a bad landing from a rooftop chase. Level 8 power coursed through him, HP steady at 360 despite the dents, chip mastery perk turning the System from cage to toolkit but the sky-tower's collapse lit the night like a bonfire. Chunks of glass and steel rained down, smashing into the slums below, while New Cascadia howled in full blackout panic. No more glowing holo-ads, no drone hum, just screams, fires, and the crackle of shorted implants. The core was toast, Architects' AI heart shattered, but freedom? It tasted like ash and blood.Lena groaned beside him, leg twisted badly from the elite's crush, shock rifle smoking in her grip. "We... we fucking did it, Varn." Her voice cracked, pain mixing with that fierce grin. Milo scrambled from his own pod crash nearby, cyber-eye fritzing static, yelling over the chaos. "Core's dead! Feeds gone, players dropping like flies, quests wiped!"Jace staggered up

Jace Varn crashed through the squat's door, lungs burning from the tower sprint, the elite's fried chip smell still clinging to his jacket like bad luck. Level 7 surged through him—HP maxed at 320, purge resist perk humming like a shield against the inevitable wipe—but the win felt hollow. Tower feeds crippled meant system blackouts hitting hard: holo-ads frozen mid-pitch, drones dropping from the skies like dead bugs, players screaming in the streets about glitched quests. Architects were reeling, but that meant desperation. Cloak down to 6 hours, bounty screaming Ultra High - Purge Imminent. No more small hits; the AI core squatted in the sky-tower penthouse, heart of the beast."Core's next," Jace rasped, slamming the looted node shard on the table. It pulsed faint, data scraps teasing overrides. Lena winced, nursing her bruises with a stim patch, while Milo jacked into a rig, cyber-eye spinning wild. "We cracked their eyes—now rip the heart. End this chip nightmare."Lena shot him

Jace Varn slumped in the squat's corner, the fresh burn from that plasma graze throbbing like hell under his armor. Level 6 hit differently—HP at 280 felt like he could take a truck, error cascade skill buzzing in his veins like extra coffee—but the high crashed quickly. Outside, Bay Market riots raged on, screams and booms shaking the walls, players and gangs tearing into each other over the blackout chaos. Architects' eyes were half-blind from the node fry, but that Level 9 elite? He'd be back with friends, and the cloak timer blinked down to 10 hours. No breathing room."Next hit's the tower edge," Jace said, voice rough, tapping the looted map. Sky-tower fringes loomed in his HUD—NeoTech's lower spire, a mid-level relay node pulsing data to the big AI core up top. "Sabotage there, we cripple their recovery. Quests stay glitched longer."Lena snorted, wrapping fresh bandages around her arm, blood spotting the rag. "Sky-tower? That's corp heaven, Varn. Armed drones, bio-scans, elite

Jace Varn leaned against the squat's grimy wall, the weight of fresh loot pads pressing into his side like guilty secrets. The underhive collapse still echoed in his ears—screams cut short by glitch storm booms, players fried in their own game. Level 5 buzzed through him, HP at 240 feeling like armor plating, but the bounty tag burned hotter: High Priority Anomaly - 10k Credits. New Cascadia's underbelly was whispering his name, rivals sniffing for the payout. Outside, the slums churned wild—relay glitches making holo-ads flicker crazy, drones dropping like drunk flies. Architects were scrambling, but that meant elites closing in fast."Bay Market's our shot," Jace said, spreading the decrypted maps on a rickety table. Lena hovered close, her breath sharp with leftover adrenaline, while Milo poked at a looted chip with his multi-tool. The market was a beast—sprawling black-market maze under the bay overpass, stalls hawking everything from bootleg stims to neural hacks. Underbelly hid

The forest swallowed the last echo of their footsteps as Tharos and Lyra pushed deeper into the northern wilds. The air grew colder, sharper, like the land itself was holding its breath. Needle-thin branches clawed overhead, blotting out the final scraps of dusk.Tharos slowed.Something inside him shifted.A memory, no, not a memory, a wound, cracked open beneath his ribs.A whisper slid through his skull like a heated blade.“Awaken, Heir of Ash.”Tharos staggered. His breath catch­ed, turning to frost in the air. Lyra turned sharply.“Tharos? What’s wrong?”He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His heart slammed against his chest like it was trying to escape.The voice grew louder. Heavy. Ancient.“You wander half-born…Power locked…Truth sealed…”Tharos’s knees hit the forest floor.His vision ruptured into red light.Lyra lunged toward him. “Tharos!”But the ground itself reacted first, shuddering, cracking, pulsing with a deep tremor that rolled outward like something buried miles beneat

The night wind hit Tharos and Lyra like a slap.Cold, bitter but real.The portal behind them sealed shut with a hard metallic slam, echoes rolling across the dead forest. The twisted stone labyrinth, once shifting, alive, crushing their minds, vanished as if it had never existed. Only a faint shimmer stained the air where Varik’s magic had been.Tharos stood breathing hard, chest rising and falling with ragged anger. Lyra stayed close, one hand lightly touching his arm, grounding him, guiding him back into himself.He still trembled.The aftershock of the memory loss spell sat heavy in his skull, a fog full of broken voices and scattered flashes that didn’t fit together. His name felt like it was written in smoke.But Lyra’s voice…Her voice had cut through the madness.“Tharos,” she said softly. “It’s okay. You’re here.”He blinked, eyes adjusting, mind still rebuilding. A dull ache pulsed behind his temples.And then he remembered the last thing he saw as he escaped:Varik smiled.

The first creature hit the ground like a collapsing star.Its claws carved trenches through the stone as it screeched, sharp, metallic, wrong. Its body was a twisting mesh of divine bone and corrupted shadow, shifting in and out of shape as if it had never decided what it wanted to be.Lyra choked back a curse. “That’s not a god.”“No,” Tharos said, voice low. “It’s something they made.”More of them fell from the tearing sky, dozens, then hundreds, spiraling downward, shrieking as their bodies warped in midair.The ground trembled under the swarm.Tharos planted his foot forward. “Stay behind me.”Lyra muttered, "This is not happening”But the creatures lunged first.Three rushed in at once. Tharos moved faster.He grabbed the first by its skull, crushed it under his boot, and hurled the second into the third so hard they shattered against the cliff wall. Their bodies dissolved into black dust and crimson sparks.Lyra darted in beside him, blades flashing, slicing through the joints

The spear fell like lightning.Tharos caught it. Bare-handed.His boots skidded across the cracked stone as the impact sent a shockwave tearing through the clearing. Red sparks rained around him like burning rain, his muscles screamed, tendons stretched, but he held the spear in place.Varik’s eyes widened, not with surprise. But with memory, with recognition and with something dangerously close to fear.“You shouldn’t have been able to stop that,” Varik muttered.Tharos tightened his grip, burning pain slicing across his palms where divine metal seared into flesh. “You shouldn’t have tried to kill me.”Varik twisted the spear, the weapon burned hotter, pushing him back. Tharos gritted his teeth, holding the weapon with both hands now.Lyra sprinted up the slope. “Tharos! Move!”Varik didn’t even look her way. A flick of his wrist sent a pulse of red light exploding outward.It hit Lyra like a hammer.She flew backward, crashing into a cluster of rocks. Dust exploded around her body,

The forest was ruined.Trees lay snapped like broken bones. The smell of burned earth clung to the air. Smoke curled upward from the crater Seraxis had blasted into the ground. Everything was quiet now, too quiet. Even the birds had vanished.Tharos stood in the middle of the wreckage, breathing hard, sweat dripping down his spine. His hand, burned moments ago by divine light, was already healing. Flesh knitting back together. Bone warming as it reset.Lyra watched him with a mix of awe and fear. She didn’t bother to hide it.“Tharos,” she whispered. “You healed from a god’s attack. That’s… insane.”He didn’t answer. His eyes remained on the crater, jaw clenched tight, thoughts twisting like a storm.Seraxis was gone.But his threat wasn’t.The pantheon will come.Not one god.Not one hunter.Not one warning.All of them.The rage that lived in Tharos’s chest, the ancient, buried thing, twisted harder.Lyra stepped closer. “We should move. Others will feel that blast.”He finally look

The forest didn’t just glow, It split.A vibrating tear cut through the darkness like a blade slicing cloth. Trees bent away from it, leaves shaking as if afraid. The air thickened, humming with pressure strong enough to make Tharos’s bones ache. Light poured out of the crack in the world—white, gold, burning.Lyra instantly moved in front of Tharos.“Stay behind me,” she hissed.He almost laughed. “You think I’ll hide?”“I think you barely survived the last damn attack,” she shot back. “Don’t be stupid.”Before he could answer, the tear widened with a thunderous snap. Light blasted across the clearing. The ground trembled. Birds screamed as they burst out of the trees, fleeing blindly. Even the wind backed away.Something stepped through.A tall figure, wrapped in a glow that hurt to look at. Not mortal. Not spirit. Not a beast.A god.Tharos felt it instantly, his blood boiling, his old power stirring like a beast hearing a familiar enemy. His heart hammered against his ribs. Memori

Dominic Vance didn’t like being ignored.He liked being obeyed.So when the monitors in his private control room flashed ALERT: STANFORD SITE PURGED, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth almost cracked.The room around him buzzed with panic, technicians typing frantically, screens flickering, AI nodes attempting to reconnect to the destroyed lab. But Dominic stood perfectly still, calm in a way that made everyone else even more terrified.A tall man in a gray suit approached him carefully. “Sir… the entire archive was wiped in less than eighteen seconds. Whoever did it knew your protocols.”Dominic’s eyes twitched. “Of course they did. It was Stanton’s system. And now his bastard son has access to what belongs to me.”He turned slowly, voice low and venomous. “Pull up every trace of Alex’s signature.”The nearest tech swallowed hard. “We’re trying, sir, but the purge scrambled”Dominic slammed his hand onto the console, causing the man to jump.“Try harder.”He was losing patience.He h

The drive from Boston to California felt endless.Highways blurred past in streaks of gray and gold as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. For the first time in days, Alex and Claire weren’t running, they were chasing.The rain had stopped somewhere around Chicago, but the air still felt heavy, like the calm before another storm. Alex drove in silence, the faint hum of the car engine filling the void. Claire sat beside him, laptop balanced on her knees, the glow of the screen painting her face blue in the dim light.“Any luck?” he asked, eyes fixed on the road.“Maybe,” she muttered. “Zephyr’s message wasn’t just a direction, it was an encrypted coordinate. I’ve been tracing it through old Stanton databases.”Alex shot her a glance. “And?”She hesitated. “The Stanford Archives your father used weren’t just academic. He built a private server beneath the engineering lab — off-record, unregistered. No one’s supposed to know it exists.”Alex frowned. “So how did Zephyr know?”Claire lean

The storm hadn’t stopped by morning.Rain lashed against the windows of the safe house, a rented warehouse on the edge of the old industrial district. The place smelled of oil and metal, but it was off-grid, no cameras, no tracking signals.Alex hadn’t slept. He sat at a metal table littered with coffee cups, hard drives, and open notebooks, eyes fixed on the flickering screen of Claire’s laptop. Lines of code streamed down, tracing back through the remnants of Stanton’s old internal network.Claire walked in, hair damp, holding two mugs. “You look like you’ve been staring at that thing for hours.”“I have.” Alex’s voice was hoarse. “I keep thinking about what he said. Zephyr listens to me now.”She set the mug beside him. “You think Dominic’s bluffing?”“No,” Alex said quietly. “I think he’s already using it.”Claire took a sip of coffee, watching him. “Then we hit back first.”He looked up. “You have something?”She smirked, sitting down across from him. “Always. The good news? When

The drive north was quiet, tense, and wrapped in darkness.Highway lights cut across the windshield like flashes of memory, his father’s voice, the betrayal, the sudden inheritance. Everything that led him to this moment.Claire drove while Alex sat in the passenger seat, laptop open, eyes scanning the encrypted map coordinates again. “We’re close,” he murmured. “It should be right past the ridge.”“Stanton Research Facility,” Claire said softly. “Your father’s old playground.”Alex glanced out the window. The city lights had long vanished behind them, replaced by dense woods and endless black. The rain started again, thin and cold, whispering against the glass.They turned onto a narrow dirt road. The car jolted over broken asphalt until a faded sign came into view, half-buried in weeds:STAN— RESEARCH FACILITY. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.The rest of the letters had been burned away.Alex stepped out first, the wind biting at his face. “We’re here.”Claire joined him, flashlight in h

The next morning broke gray and heavy, like the city itself knew secrets were about to rise from the dark.Alex didn’t sleep. The anonymous call kept looping in his mind, each word sharper than the last: “Dig too deep and you’ll end up where he did.”He stared at the computer in his penthouse office, the file Claire had sent him flashing on screen. PROJECT ZEPHYR: CONFIDENTIAL.At exactly 7:00 a.m., Claire entered, holding two coffees and a laptop under her arm. Her hair was tied back today, all business, no warmth. “You’re up early,” she said.“Didn’t sleep,” Alex muttered, eyes locked on the file. “You said Zephyr was one of my father’s ghost projects. How deep does this go?”Claire sat beside him and opened her laptop. “Deeper than you think. I traced the money. Stanton Industries wasn’t the only one funding it. There’s another investor. Private. Hidden behind layers of offshore companies. My name shows up again and again, Dominic Vance.”Alex’s jaw tightened. “And who the hell is

The morning sunlight barely pierced through the thick glass of Alex’s new office. It was a fortress in the sky, sleek black walls, panoramic city view, and a silence heavy enough to make any man feel powerful or paranoid. For Alex Stanton, it was both.He stood by the window, coffee in hand, staring down at the pulsing veins of New York. Cars zipped below like silver ants, unaware that empires could rise and crumble in the hands of a single man watching from above.He had won, for now.The board had voted in his favor the previous night, naming him Acting CEO of Stanton Industries. It was a title that carried both prestige and danger, power made you visible, and visibility painted targets on your back.Claire entered quietly, the soft click of her heels echoing against the marble floor. Her presence had become a constant, steady, graceful, sharp as glass.“Not bad for someone they once called a nobody,” she said, her lips curving into a half-smile as she placed a file on his desk.Ale