Thunder cracked like a whip as the skies over Solano tore open above them. Clouds swirled, unnatural and thick with red lightning. The earth trembled beneath their feet as the two figures stood face to face—Javier Everhart, calm as stone, and the man who claimed to be his father, a living relic from an era of forgotten alchemy.“You have her eyes,” the man said, voice low, almost sorrowful. “Your mother’s.”Javier didn’t flinch. “You remember her now? After you abandoned her… and me?”“I never abandoned anything. I was sealed,” the man corrected. “By those who feared what I could become. What we could become.”“You became a monster,” Javier said coldly. “They weren’t wrong.”Silence settled between them. But it wasn’t the silence of peace—it was the silence before a storm.“You still don’t understand the truth,” the man said. “You are the last of our line. The only one who carries the perfected blood. I came back not to fight you, Javier, but to claim you.”Javier’s expression didn’t

The Hollow Citadel stood like a monument to forgotten power—built into the jagged cliffs that overlooked the Northern Abyss. It was ancient, its walls etched with runes no scholar dared translate aloud. The Alchemy Council rarely summoned anyone here, let alone a man like Javier Everhart.Valeria’s hand tightened around his as they approached the entrance on foot, the sound of their boots echoing off the stone. Guards with no insignia blocked the gate, their faces concealed behind iron masks. One stepped forward.“State your intent.”Javier didn’t stop walking. “You summoned me. You know why I’m here.”The masked figure hesitated for only a moment before stepping aside.Valeria glanced at him. “You knew they’d try to intimidate you.”“They always do,” Javier said. “It never works.”Inside, the chamber was vast, circular, and dimly lit by blue alchemical fire. Twelve robed figures sat atop thrones of obsidian, each carved with symbols of their house. The Council of Twelve—each one a ma

Valeria’s breath hitched as she studied Javier’s profile. That calm, resolute smile—that unshaken confidence—was both terrifying and magnetic. He didn’t ask why the heir of the Ashen Line had declared war. He didn’t even ask how the man had returned.Because none of it mattered.Only the end did.“Do you believe him?” she asked, slowly stepping closer. “That he’s truly the heir?”Javier’s gaze remained locked on the city lights below, the burning horizon where Ashbourne once stood now glowing like a second sunrise.

The quiet between them was broken only by the crackling of the hearth. Outside, the city of Solano celebrated its deliverance, but inside the tower, the weight of prophecy and power still loomed between Valeria and Javier.A soft knock echoed from the chamber doors.Javier didn’t speak, but his glance was enough.The doors creaked open and Serina, Valeria’s cousin, entered. Her expression was tight, composed—but her eyes betrayed something deeper: apprehension, and something else Javier instantly recognized.Jealousy.“Forgive the interruption,” she said coolly, her gaze sliding toward Javier, “but I thought it necessary to offer my... congratulations.”Last Updated : 2025-04-17

“You should’ve handled this before it reached my desk.”Javier’s voice sliced through the tension in the Everhart corporate boardroom like a blade through silk. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t shift in his seat, didn’t even look up from the document in front of him. Yet, the twelve directors seated around the obsidian table felt the temperature in the room drop by several degrees.One of them, a gray-haired executive named Dalton Vexley, cleared his throat. “With all due respect, Chairman Everhart, the acquisition of Helix BioCorp was executed according to protocol—”“No,” Javier cut in. “It was executed according to arrogance.”The room fell silent.Helix BioCorp was a mid-tier biotech company. Profitable. Ambitious. But behind its pristine façade was a web of corruption, falsified data, and undisclosed debts. The acquisition should have never passed Javier’s radar. But it had. Because someone wanted it to.He slowly lifted his gaze. “Who gave final sign-off?”No one answered.Javi