All Chapters of The Outcast: Michael Grey's Rise to the Top: Chapter 71
- Chapter 80
80 chapters
Chapter Seventy-One: Monsters at Midnight
The harbour was never quiet, not even at midnight. Ships groaned as they shifted with the tide, chains rattled against iron, and the smell of brine, oil, and sweat clung to the air. Michael walked the length of the pier at a measured pace, the hood of his jacket down, the cold night breeze brushing across his face.He had spent most of the past month beneath the Ocean View Hotel in the Libertas Aeterna headquarters, training until his body ached and his abilities pressed the limits of his control. What had once felt like a gift now revealed itself as an art form, one that demanded discipline as much as instinct. His fight against Crysta still burned fresh in his mind. He had thought himself strong but the truth had been quite humbling. He now knew that he would need to get a lot stronger if he hoped to be able to go against heirs who would no doubt be on Crysta's level or most likely even higher.Training had sharpened him, but the city never waited for a
Chapter Seventy-Two: The Frozen Truth
The street was silent now, save for the slow hiss of melting ice. The last of the twisted bodies lay scattered across the asphalt, frozen mid-scream. Michael stood in the center of the scene, breath calm, eyes fixed on the one mutant he hadn’t destroyed. It was trapped inside a thick pillar of frost, encased from neck to toe. Its mangled chest rose and fell weakly, steam rising from its mouth with every rasping exhale.Michael flexed his fingers, lowering the frost energy still pulsing faintly around his palms. His System window glimmered faintly at the edge of his vision.[Objective Active: Investigate and Stop the Human Mutations.]He stared at the message for a moment, then exhaled. “Guess I need you alive then,” he muttered, turning his gaze back to the mutant.From this close, it was easier to see the details. Patches of hardened growth ran along its arms and neck — bone? No, not bone. The texture was all wrong. Under the frozen gla
Chapter Seventy-Three: Rose Armitage
“Rose Armitage,” Michael repeated the name under his breath, tasting it as though the syllables themselves might give him meaning. “Who is she?”Commander Cane folded his arms. “I'm not surprised you haven’t heard of her. She’s not from Whitewood.”Erin’s Data Sphere drifted closer to her shoulder, flickering to life in slow rotation. Its pale purple glow illuminated her sharp features as she spoke.“Rose Armitage,” she began, “is the only daughter and heiress of Lord Vernoux Armitage — head of the Armitage Family. They’re not a local power; their roots are in Europe, mostly operating through the old Families’ consortium over there. They’ve made their fortune on biotechnological and botanical research. I would even say over a third of the breakthroughs the Families, and the world to some extent, enjoy today came from their labs.”Michael tilted his head slightly. “And what’s someone like that doing here?”Cane answered this time, his voice low. “They arrived in Whitewood about four ye
Chapter Seventy-Four: The Garden of Rebirth
The hum of the car was steady and soft as it moved beyond the Southern Sector’s border, gliding effortlessly along the night highway. The flickering streetlights cast amber streaks across the tinted glass, and for a while, there was silence inside, until Rose Armitage spoke.Her voice was gentle, even pleasant, yet every syllable seemed measured.“You were right,” she said, turning slightly toward the man seated beside her. “Michael Grey has changed far more than I expected.”Victor Grey regarded her without expression. In the low light, the sharp edges of his features made him appear older and harder for someone who was of the same generation as her. “Changed?” he asked. “That’s one word for it.”Rose’s lips curved faintly. “I remember hearing he was a soft-hearted idealist once — desperate for approval, chasing validation in the name of family duty. But now…” She turned her gaze to the window, watching the passing city lights blur together. “Now he’s something colder.”Victor exhale
Chapter Seventy-Five: True Purpose
The hum of machines filled the sterile silence of the laboratory with a constant, low vibration that seemed to echo inside the glass walls and inside Erin Lassette’s mind. It was past dawn, but the underground levels of the Libertas Aeterna headquarters were untouched by daylight. Erin stood before the containment cell, her lavender hair glowing faintly under the sterile lights as her strands extended outward like the cords of a living instrument. Each filament shimmered with faint static pulses as she guided the machines with perfect telepathic precision. Her eyes were fixed on the restrained mutant that lay before her.The mutation had not only reconfigured its anatomy but had fused mechanical elements deep within the organic mass. She had already mapped out three distinct technological augmentations — all crudely bonded at the cellular level with plant matter that had grown from inside the body itself. It was grotesque, and yet, fascinating.
Chapter Seventy-Six: The First Wave
The alert spread through the Libertas Aeterna headquarters like an electric pulse. Red emergency lights flared across the underground corridors, their glow pulsing rhythmically with the rising tension of the command center. Commander Cane stood at the central console, the holographic map of the Southern Sector projected before him. Dozens of crimson markers dotted the map’s surface, each one representing a mutant signature picked up by the orbital scans above. They were moving in clusters that were fast, chaotic, and unnervingly deliberate.Cane’s expression hardened as he read the data. He had seen battlefields where soldiers bled and screamed and cities fell in hours, but this was something else. This was not a conventional offensive, it was like a tide of pure violence. With steady precision, he began issuing orders to the field captains through his comms. “All combat teams, mobilize immediately. Lock down all civilian exit routes from the Southern Sector. Alph
Chapter Seventy-Seven – Genesis of the Tide
The air around the water tower shimmered with the haze of early sunlight and industrial dust. The skyline of the area stretched below like a fractured skeleton of concrete and steel, the morning fog tinted with faint green light from the mutated growth spreading across the lower industrial districts. Rose Armitage stood at the tower’s edge, the breeze teasing the strands of her red hair as her eyes swept across the distant horizon. Below her feet, the cracked surface of the tower hummed with vibration. From the vast cavity beneath her facility—the “garden”—came a chorus of movement: the sound of claws scraping metal, of heavy bodies pushing against one another as they poured into daylight. The mutants she had cultivated for months now climbed from their birthing chambers in a steady, coordinated surge, spreading outward like roots from a wound in the earth.Victor leaned on the railing beside her, his arms crossed, a look of strained admiration shadowing his
Chapter Seventy-Eight – The Root
Michael moved through the streets at full speed, his footsteps echoing over the cracked pavement as the Southern Sector blurred around him. Every few seconds, the ground shook from distant explosions. Gunfire and screams overlapped like static in the air, but he kept running, keeping his eyes forward and ignoring everything that wasn’t directly in his path. Mutants appeared on rooftops and out of alleys, their shapes irregular and wrong—some had exposed muscle that glowed faintly under the morning light, others dragged distorted limbs with metallic growths attached. Michael cut through one that leapt too close, freezing its midsection with a burst of frost before shattering it apart. Throughout the entire sequence, he didn’t slow down.“Erin,” he said, voice steady despite the wind rushing past his ears. His Biz-Watch blinked faintly on his wrist, static breaking for a moment before her voice came through.“I’m here,” she answered. “You’re still heading t
Chapter Seventy-Nine – Michael vs Rose
The ground where Michael had fallen cracked under him as he stood again, dust still rising in faint clouds around his feet. His clothes were torn at the shoulder and along one arm, but he hardly noticed. His eyes remained fixed on the shape moving behind the tree line, on Rose who had her hand extended outward, guiding the movement of the giant wooden construct that had struck him moments before. The air around her shimmered faintly with life energy, and every motion she made caused the earth to stir and the vines to twist more violently.The construct shifted, its tangled limbs reconfiguring into something far larger. The creaking of wood filled the air as branches fused together, forming a massive torso and long arms that scraped against the ground. Its head emerged last, carved from the bark itself, with hollow eyes that glowed green. In moments, the treant stood twice the height of the nearby trees, roots digging deep into the soil for stability.Mich
Chapter Eighty – The Shadow That Answers
The dragon’s wooden jaws slammed shut around Michael, its body twisting as it dove into the ground. The impact detonated with the force of a localized explosion, the forest shaking from the pressure. Soil, stone, and splinters of shattered bark scattered in all directions, painting the air with brown haze. Rose watched the cloud rise, the deafening echo of the collision slowly fading into the distance.For a few long seconds, she didn’t move. The battlefield was still. The ground beneath her vibrated softly from the residual shockwaves, and the cocoon of vines surrounding her lowered on command, letting her step out into the open air. She surveyed the destruction — the splintered terrain, the uprooted trees, the streaks of frozen earth and shattered vegetation marking every place the fight had torn through.It was over.Rose exhaled slowly, her confidence returning in a calm rhythm. “Persistent, but predictable,” she said under her breath. Her to