All Chapters of The Inheritance Protocol : Chapter 181
- Chapter 190
240 chapters
CHAPTER 170. THE FACE IN THE STATIC
Before dawn touched the clouds, before the markets opened, before Crest Tower even switched to day-cycle lighting, every screen across every city flickered at once.At first, it was only a glitch. A shimmer. A subtle tremble in the airwaves, then the silence grew louder, and then, it began.Rhea Caulder was still in the command center, reviewing the partial purge logs. Her eyes burned from staring at screens all night. Her coffee was cold. Eren had fallen asleep in a chair, his jacket pulled over his shoulders.Kai had gone to rest in his suite. Liora had left without a word.The world map in front of Rhea pulsed softly, each node showing whether its connection was contained, cut, or under observation.She leaned forward, rubbing her temples. “Just one hour,” she whispered. “One hour without another.”Every screen in the room blinked. Once. Twice. A third time. Rhea stood quickly. “What?”Eren jerked awake, blinking. “Did we lose power?”“No,” Rhea said, voice tightening. “This isn’t
CHAPTER 171. THE WORLD DEMANDS A FALL
Dawn never truly touched Crest City that morning. The sky was gray, heavy, pressed low over the towers as if the heavens themselves were watching, waiting. Storms gathered in the distance, silent but threatening, and Crest Tower stood in the center of it all like a blade pointed at the sky.Inside, Kai Vale stood alone on the executive floor, staring at a wall of flickering holograms. Not news. Not markets. Not internal reports, but government demands.And there were hundreds of them. Every nation. Every alliance. Every military network.Every council that had ever feared Crest’s power. Every leader who had ever prayed the Whisper Protocol would never return.Kai read the messages one by one. By the fifteenth message, his hands were already shaking. By the thirtieth, he felt cold sweat sliding down his spine. By the fiftieth, he understood something terrible. They did not see him as the CEO of Crest. They saw him as the host of something they feared more than war.Eren burst into t
CHAPTER 172. THE TRAIL THROUGH SHADOWED SKY
The storm had not rested since morning. Thunder rolled over Crest City like a warning, low and angry, echoing between the tall towers as if the sky itself wanted to shake everything awake.Rain streaked down the windows of the Crest analytics wing in long silver lines. Inside, the lights were dim. People moved with quiet urgency. No one spoke loudly. No one dared break the fragile stillness.Rhea Caulder stood at the center of a cluster of holographic screens, her body rigid with tension.Her hands were sharp, precise, almost violent as she typed. Her face was pale with exhaustion, yet her eyes were bright, burning with determination.Eren Vale entered the room quickly, wiping rain from his face. He carried two datapads under his arm. His steps were fast but careful, like someone walking toward truth while praying it wasn’t real.He approached her slowly. “Rhea,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “You found something?”She didn’t turn. Not yet. Not until the final command finishe
CHAPTER 173. THE WOMAN WHO REFUSED TO BOW
The blackout lasted only seven seconds. Seven seconds of complete darkness. Seven seconds where the world seemed to stop breathing. Seven seconds where Kai, Rhea, and Eren stood frozen in a room swallowed by silence, then, light returned in a violent surge, flooding the analytics wing with a pale, cold glow.The screens rebooted. The consoles hummed back to life, but the name the Whisper Grid had shown…That single terrible name…It did not come back.It vanished from the logs. It vanished from memory banks. It vanished as if it had never been written at all.Rhea stared at the blank screen, trembling. “Kai,” she whispered, “it erased itself.”Eren swallowed hard. “The Grid didn’t want us to see it twice.”Kai stood still in the center of the room, eyes unfocused, like he was listening to something far away, something only he could hear. His expression was cold, unreadable, rigid like a statue. “Kai,” Rhea said, voice shaking, “you need to sit. You’re pale. You’re trembling.”Kai didn
CHAPTER 174. THE SILENCE BEFORE THE SCREAM
Morning broke over Crest City like a dying ember. There was no brightness. No warmth.Only a faint, cold glow that painted the towers in pale silver, as if the entire city was holding its breath.Inside Crest Tower, the atmosphere was heavier than the sky. The Whisper Grid had gone silent.No flickering lights. No sudden pulses. No coded murmurs. A total, unnatural stillness.Rhea Caulder felt it the moment she stepped into the analytics wing. The air felt wrong, too clean, too empty, like something huge had left the room only seconds before she arrived.She stood in the doorway, breathing fast, eyes scanning the dark screens. “Why is everything off?” she whispered.Her voice echoed slightly, because there was nothing, absolutely nothing, responding to her.She touched the console. It did not hum. It did not react. It did not even acknowledge her touch.Eren Vale rushed in from the opposite door, hair disheveled, face tense. “Rhea,” he said, “the Grid’s silent across the entire buildi
CHAPTER 175. THE COUNCIL OF NO RETURN
The night came faster than anyone expected. Dark clouds swallowed the sky.The last traces of sunlight vanished behind them, leaving Crest City under a thick, suffocating shadow.Wind pulled at the tower walls like a warning. Lightning flashed without thunder, white, violent, unsettlingly silent.Inside Crest Tower, the boardroom lights burned bright, but the air was cold.The board of Crest Industries sat around the long black table like judges in a trial. Their expressions were sharp. Their voices were low and bitter. Their hands restless, tapping pens or gripping armrests, as if trying to hide their fear.Everyone had heard about the Grid’s messages. Everyone had heard about the blackout.Everyone had heard the rumor: Kai Vale is no longer fully in control.At the center of the room, the main seat, Kai’s seat, was empty. The board members exchanged glances. “He’s late.”“He’s avoiding us.”“He knows what this meeting is about.”“After last night? I don’t blame him.”But no one rea
CHAPTER 176. THE SHADOW IN HER SIGNALS
The night after Kai dissolved the board felt too quiet, unnaturally quiet, the sort of silence that made the walls of Crest Tower feel alive. It was the silence before a break, before something whispered from the dark.Eren Vale stood alone in the lower data vault, a place few people ever entered willingly. The cold metal walls rose like cliffs on all sides, humming with faint energy. Hundreds of sealed storage columns lined the chamber, each holding archives of Crest’s deepest secrets, logs, encrypted keys, forgotten experiments.Tonight, something in this room was wrong. Terribly wrong. He felt it before he saw it.A pull. A disturbance in the hum. Like someone breathing behind a closed door.Eren tightened his grip on the datapad in his hand. The Whisper Grid’s message from earlier still glowed on the screen: “ORIGIN: RHEA SOLD THE SYSTEM KEYS.”He didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to. But Kai’s face after reading that message… the fear in his eyes… the confusion… the trembling p
CHAPTER 177. THE EXILE OF THE ONE WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
The morning began with a storm that refused to move. Heavy clouds clung low over Crest Tower, gray and unmoving, as if the sky itself wanted to trap everything inside the building.Wind hit the windows in harsh bursts, like fists pounding to be let in. Inside, the halls were quiet, not peaceful, but tense, like a breath held too long.Rhea Caulder walked quickly toward Kai’s private command floor, her footsteps sharp against the polished ground. She held three datapads against her chest, filled with proofs, counter-proofs, system logs, and desperate explanations she had repeated a thousand times to herself since dawn.She rehearsed the words again: “It’s not me. I was framed. Kai, you know me. You KNOW me.”But fear twisted inside her. Ever since the Whisper Grid showed her name. Ever since the blackout that erased the signature. Ever since the satellites were traced back to her access…Nothing had been the same.Eren hardly looked at her. Security watched her every step. And Kai, Ka
Chapter 178. The New Monarchs Of Crest
Dawn came late to Crest City. A slow, heavy dawn that crawled over the skyline like a bleeding mark of gold. Clouds clung low, stained from the storm that had raged through the night. The air smelled of metal and rain and something else, something sharp, something dangerous.Inside the upper levels of Crest Tower, Kai Vale stood at the window of the private executive floor. He wore a dark suit, the kind he rarely chose unless a public appearance demanded it. His shoulders were rigid. His hands were clasped in front of him. His eyes, faintly gold beneath the dim lights, were fixed on the city below.A city that no longer trusted him. A city he swore to protect. A city now living under the shadow of the Whisper Grid.Behind him, the room door slid open with a soft hiss. Liora Tenebris entered. She did not walk so much as glide. Her long dark coat trailed behind her like a shadow. Her hair fell in perfect waves. Her expression was calm, composed, almost regal.She stopped beside him
Chapter 179. The Whisper Beneath The Crowns
The applause outside the grand hall continued long after the press briefing ended. It rolled across the entire building like waves crashing endlessly against stone, but inside the private corridor behind the stage, the noise felt distant, muffled by thick walls and heavy tension.Kai walked ahead with slow steps, his breath uneven, his heart still echoing with the strange pulse he had felt during the briefing. His mind felt too full, as if something inside him kept whispering beneath every thought.Beside him, Liora moved silently, her heels soft against the polished floor, her expression calm yet unreadable. She kept her eyes forward, but every part of her seemed aware of him, the stiff shoulders, the quiet breathing, the way he kept clenching his right hand as if something inside it trembled.The security doors slid open as they approached the private lounge. They entered.The lights dimmed automatically, leaving the room bathed in a warm, soft glow. A large black window overlooked