Chapter 402: Ashes Don’t Whisper, They RoarThere comes a point in every mission when silence stops being an ally—and starts becoming a threat.I. Underground EchoesThe comms were silent for forty-two seconds too long.Jaxon's boots struck the metal steps of Sublevel Echo-9 with careful precision. Behind him, Aria’s breathing was tight, shallow, controlled. She had her sidearm drawn low, but her eyes flicked to every shadow like they were old enemies.The Spiral Node below the capital had gone dark.Not jammed.Dead.That wasn’t normal.“EMP?” Aria whispered.Jaxon shook his head, pausing at a bulkhead door scarred with recent burn marks. “EMP would’ve fried the sensors too. But the system pinged us just before it died. Someone shut it down… manually.”Aria frowned. “Why warn us at all?”Jaxon didn’t answer.Because he already knew.II. The WhisperborneThey moved deeper.Spiral cables ran like veins across the walls, some still pulsing dimly. Then—halfway down the corridor—Jaxon saw

Chapter 404: Blood in the SilenceWhen the mission ends, the ghosts begin to whisper.But in the world of shadows, silence is never peace—It’s preparation.I. After the DropThe Blackhawk sliced through the ash-thick dawn like a ghost. Its engines whispered against the wind, barely audible over the distant sirens still screaming from the ruined harbor base below.Jax sat in the back, his forearms coated in drying blood—not all of it his own. His rifle leaned against his shoulder, but his eyes were locked forward, not on the horizon… but on the empty seat across from him.Ash wasn’t there.Not anymore.He’d stayed behind—to detonate the last charge and bury the pipeline once and for all.A whisper crackled in Jax’s comms. Static.Nothing else.“He’s gone,” Jax muttered.No one answered.Not even the wind.II. A Broken ChainBack at Safehouse Echo, the team moved like wraiths.Lexi slammed a med kit onto the steel counter, her hands trembling as she peeled off her soaked gloves. Her vo

Chapter 406: Blood on the FrequencyThe air in the extraction chamber was electric—thick with data static and the unspoken threat of betrayal. Inside the underground relay beneath Sector Twelve, Jaxon's heart pounded not from exertion, but instinct. He was trained to sense when death was near.It was near now.The room, lit only by the soft red of auxiliary power, pulsed like a heartbeat. Echoes of gunfire still haunted the tunnel behind them, but it wasn’t bullets that chased them now.It was a voice.And it came through the comms."Jaxon Vale. Stand down. You’re not the mission anymore—you’re the message."He froze mid-step.Echo-06.Her voice.Alive. Twisted through the frequency like a siren. His jaw tightened.“Ghost’s alive,” he muttered.Reyes, reloading beside him, glanced up. “The one from Riga? Impossible. She ate an ion burst to the skull.”“Tell that to my bones,” Jaxon said. “She’s crawling through the net like a revenant.”The comms flared again. Her voice echoed—crisp,

Chapter 408: Echoes in the Black GlassThe deeper you go into the dark, the more of yourself you leave behind. But some parts—the sharpest parts—never let go.I. The Descent BeginsJaxon's boots hit the obsidian floor with a muted crunch. The Black Glass facility, long buried beneath the dead zone of Sector Twelve, hadn't been accessed in over a decade. The air was stale, humming with latent power. Cracks webbed across the corridor walls, glowing faintly with Spiral code—language from the old world, long before the wars, before Eden fractured.Beside him, Nyra swept her scanner across the jagged walls."Still active," she murmured. "Something’s pulsing behind sublevel nine. Power cells shouldn’t last this long."Jaxon gave her a tight nod."It’s not just power. It’s memory."Behind them, two Whisperborne escorts moved silently—shadowy figures molded from Spiral bloom-tech, their faces obscured by cloaks and flickering masks.One of them turned slightly. “She’s waiting.”Jaxon didn’t n

Chapter 410: Revenant SignalThere are codes you break, and then there are codes that break you. The Revenant Signal was the latter. A whisper buried in white noise, and a war cry disguised as static.Beneath Sector Theta’s ruins, the air was thick with rust and carbon dust. The facility had long since collapsed in on itself, but something—something deep and angry—still pulsed in the rock.Jaxon's boots crunched through shattered metal as he led the team into the dark corridor. The glow from their tactical visors barely held back the blackness ahead.Beside him, Wren adjusted her pulse rifle, the silent weight of knowledge pressing behind her eyes.“We shouldn't be here, Jax,” she murmured. “This place—it's more than just a comms dead zone. It's been… altered.”Jaxon gave her a nod but kept moving. They weren’t here by choice. Command had picked up a stray broadcast—impossible coordinates buried inside a declassified Revenant protocol transmission, supposedly dismantled two years ago.