Novels by Hi.ayana

Chapter 108. The Train to Nowhere"Returning the favor!"She braced one combat boot against the door frame, leaning out into the driving rain with a compact submachine gun she had scavenged from the estate's armory. The pursuing SUV loomed large in the headlights, its windshield reflecting the harsh glare of their own high beams."Don't shoot the engine block!" Max yelled, leaning across the console to grab her belt. "We need them to crash into something else, not stall out behind us!""I'm aiming for the tires, Max! Have a little faith!" Arabella shouted back, her dark hair plastered across her face by the gale-force wind and pouring rain.She squeezed the trigger. A sharp, stuttering roar cut through the storm as a string of muzzle flashes lit up the dark highway. Sparks erupted from the front-left wheel arch of the trailing SUV. The heavy vehicle instantly lost traction, veering sideways across both lanes of traffic with a screech of tortured rubber. It slammed sideways into a conc

Chapter 107: The Platform at Gambir"I'm going as fast as the road allows!" the watchman shrieked back, wrestling the steering wheel as the sedan fishtailed violently on the slick asphalt of the provincial highway. "You want to drive, mister billionaire? Be my guest!""I'm not a billionaire anymore!" Max shouted, his hands gripping the frayed upholstery of the front seat as another burst of gunfire punched a neat row of holes through the passenger door. "And keep your eyes on the road!""Your financial status is deeply fascinating, but can we focus on the guys trying to turn us into Swiss cheese?" Arabella asked, sliding across the wet leather bench and kicking open the rear passenger door."What are you doing?" Max yelled above the screaming wind."Returning the favor!"She braced one combat boot against the door frame, leaning out into the driving rain with a compact submachine gun she had scavenged from the estate's armory. The pursuing SUV loomed large in the headlights, its winds

Chapter 106: The Dawn We Own"Get down!" the watchman yelled in Indonesian, his voice cracking with panic as he stomped the accelerator, spinning the sedan's rear tires deep into the mud of the Bogor estate's perimeter road.Max threw himself across the back seat, dragging Arabella down beside him just as a volley of automatic gunfire chewed through the rear windshield. Shards of safety glass exploded inward, raining tiny, crystalline cubes over their soaked shoulders."Not bad for a night watchman," Arabella shouted over the roar of the engine and the relentless drumming of tropical rain on the roof, wiping a streak of blood from her cheek where a glass shard had grazed her. "Does he know how to drive, or are we dying in a ditch after all?""Ask him yourself!" Max yelled, popping up slightly to check the side mirror. Another black SUV was barreling out of the estate gates behind them, high beams cutting aggressively through the dense sheets of rain. "Faster! They're right on our tail

Chapter 105: The Platform at Gambir"They're alive," Max snapped, grabbing her by the tactical webbing of her vest and hauling her through a side door just as a massive section of the ceiling collapsed with a thunderous roar of splintering timber and shattering glass. "Because I paid them twice as much as Lucius ever offered. Move, Arabella!"They burst out of the burning Bogor estate into the cool, damp night air, the torrential tropical rain instantly hissing against their heated skin and soaking their clothes to the bone. The downpour washed away the soot and ash, but the sharp smell of burning millions still clung to their hair and jackets. Max didn't slow down, dragging her across the muddy gravel driveway toward a battered black sedan idling near the tree line.The driver's door pushed open, revealing the wide, terrified eyes of the watchman Max had compromised weeks ago. The man slammed the gearshift into drive before they even slammed the back doors shut."Get down!" the watch

Chapter 104. The Platform at Gambir"We still have to get out of the estate," Arabella reminded him, her voice cutting sharply through the rising roar of the flames as the mahogany paneling crackled, sending up a dense, oily black plume that choked the upper foyer. "And unless you plan on growing wings out of the ashes, Max, your poetic exit is going to end with us coughing our lungs out in a police van.""The service gate on the western perimeter," Max coughed, shielding his face with a soot-stained forearm as a superheated gust of wind slammed against them, pushing the fire outward. "It's clear. I bribed the night watchman three weeks ago when we first scoped the grounds. He thinks we're just contractors leaving late.""Your faith in bribed watchmen is touching," Arabella muttered, her tactical boots sliding on the polished stone as she ducked beneath a falling sconce of molten brass. "Especially considering half of them are probably already on Lucius's payroll or dead in a ditch."

Chapter 103. The Smoke That Clears the Sky"We died the moment Lucius pulled the trigger on that first warehouse ambush," Max said, his thumb flicking the striker of a heavy brass lighter. A spark caught the vapor, and a wall of bright orange flame erupted along the mahogany baseboards, instantly swallowing the base of the imported Italian marble pillars. "And ghosts don't need a corporate portfolio."Arabella didn't flinch as the heat washed over her face, though she instinctively stepped back, her tactical boots crunching on charred drywall dust. "You're insane. You realize that, right? Absolute, textbook insanity.""Call it what you want," Max replied, tossing the empty canister into the spreading fire. The plastic melted with a sharp, chemical hiss, feeding the growing inferno. "Look at the flames. They're taking every single share certificate, every dummy corporation, every offshore paper trail Lucius spent a decade building. Move. The smoke's hitting the upper vents.""We still

Chapter 80: The Inverted Threshold of the Core"Pull us in, Evania! My arms are coming out of their sockets!" Rydan screamed, his voice straining to be heard over the deafening, bass-heavy roar of the fracturing reality around them. His fingers were locked in a vice-grip around Vane’s wrist, but the upward magnetic pull of the ceiling’s white-noise abyss was escalating with every second, acting like an invisible, ravenous vacuum cleaner.Evania spun through the air, her boots slamming hard against the underside of a mahogany writing desk that had plastered itself flat against the inverted ceiling like a bizarre piece of modern art. "I'm looking for a purchase! Everything in this room is bolted to nothing!" she shouted back, her chest heaving as she fought to keep her balance in the topsy-turvy nightmare."Don't look for furniture, look for the main structural beams!" Vane hollered, his eyes wide with stark terror as he stared down—or rather, up—at the swirling vortex of pixelated stat

Chapter 79: The Core’s Gravity"Catch him!" Evania shrieked, her voice cracking as the stone pillar base finally snapped in two with a sound like a gunshot. The sudden loss of her anchor threw her entire body sideways, her grip on Rydan’s trousers tearing away with a sharp rip of fabric."I've got him!" Rydan roared, violently twisting his torso mid-air and ignoring the agonizing wrench in his spine as he lunged upward. His fingers grazed Vane’s collar, slid off the fabric, and then clamped down hard around the man's wrist just as Vane’s last remaining finger slipped off the sheared rivets.Vane gasped, his legs kicking frantically into the howling white-noise abyss above them. "I'm floating! Rydan, I'm going up into the erasure zone!""Not while I'm tethered to the core!" Rydan snarled, his eyes flaring with an unnatural, blinding white light as he channeled the raw energy of the machine through his veins. With a tremendous grunt, he yanked Vane downward, defying the inverted gravity

Chapter 78: The Weight of the Ceiling"I can't anchor anything while I'm floating!" Rydan yelled, his voice tearing from his throat as his body drifted another foot toward the inverted ceiling. The entire Gilded District had flipped its orientation entirely, turning the plush salon into a vertical cliffside overlooking a boiling ocean of white-noise static. "The machine isn't just pulling us—it’s rewriting the vector coordinates of the room!""Then stop it from rewriting them!" Evania screamed, her grip on the stone pillar base slipping an agonizing inch as the granite began to fracture under the immense lateral strain. "Vane is losing his fingers! Look at him!"Vane let out a raw, desperate howl as his left hand lost its purchase entirely on the sheared steel rivets. For a terrifying second, he was airborne, suspended only by the frantic hook of his right fingertips. Chunks of gilded molding and velvet-upholstered chairs swept past him, tumbling upward into the ceiling’s yawning, pix

Chapter 77: The Inverted Threshold"The anchor is tearing in half!" Vane shrieked, his legs kicking wildly at the empty air as the floor beneath him vanished entirely into the roaring white-noise void. Chunks of marble tiling peeled upward, defying every law of physics to drift lazily toward the ceiling like falling snow in reverse. "Evania, pull me in! I can't keep my grip on these rivets!""I'm using every ounce of strength I have!" Evania shouted back over the deafening roar of the atmospheric collapse, her knuckles locked white around the stone pillar base while her other hand vice-gripped the coarse fabric of Rydan's trousers. Her face was flushed crimson, veins bulging at her temples as the tremendous magnetic pull of the central quartz crystal tried to rip her away as well. "Rydan! You have to ground yourself right now! The whole district is coming apart!"Rydan hung suspended horizontally in mid-air, his boots hovering three feet above where the floor used to be. His eyes were

Chapter 76: The Upward Abyss"The gravity is completely gone!" Vane yelled, his fingers slipping another precious inch down the sheared rivets of the steel support beam as the entire eastern wall of the Gilded District tore away into the howling white-noise abyss. Chunks of priceless antique art and gilded molding drifted lazily upward into the inverted sky, dissolving into pixelated static before they could even hit the horizontal horizon."Hold on to the beam, Vane!" Evania barked, her entire body strained like a taut cable as she clung to the hem of Rydan’s trousers with one hand while locking her other arm around a heavy stone pillar base. Her muscles trembled violently, every joint popping under the unbearable drag of the central quartz crystal's magnetic pull. "If you let go, you won't fall down—you'll float right up into the erasure zone!""I am holding on!" Vane screamed back, coughing as a cloud of choking, ozone-heavy dust swept through the collapsing salon. He squinted thro

Chapter 75: The Price of the Skyline"I'm slipping, Evania!" Vane screamed, his fingers digging desperately into the sheared rivets of the steel support beam as the entire eastern wall of the Gilded District tore away into the howling white-noise abyss. Chunks of priceless antique art and gilded molding drifted lazily upward into the inverted gravity, dissolving into pixelated static before they could even hit the horizon."Don't let go!" Evania barked, her entire body strained like a taut cable as she clung to the hem of Rydan’s trousers with one hand while locking her other arm around a heavy stone pillar base. Her muscles trembled violently, every joint popping under the unbearable drag of the central quartz crystal's magnetic pull. "Vane, if you let go of that beam, we go down with the floor!""The floor isn't there anymore!" Vane shouted back, coughing as a cloud of choking, ozone-heavy dust swept through the collapsing salon. He squinted through the blinding glare of the pulsing