The world mourned surprisingly fast.For the first two days, Eli watched it happen from behind a wall of encrypted screens hidden deep beneath New York. Every major network carried the same story. Different countries, different languages, different anchors, yet somehow every broadcast felt identical.The Death of Eli Aurelius.A photograph appeared on screen. A solemn voice followed. Footage of a destroyed aircraft over the Atlantic played on repeat.No survivors. No body recovered.Experts discussed his legacy. Economists debated the impact his death would have on global markets. Politicians delivered carefully crafted statements. Corporate leaders expressed their condolences with practiced sincerity.The world mourned. At least publicly.Eli sat alone in the hidden Aurelius residence, staring at a memorial dedicated to himself. The experience felt strangely unreal, like attending his own funeral while nobody else knew he was in the room.Phoenix projected dozens of live feeds around

The next morning arrived with a kind of peace Eli had almost forgotten existed.For the first time in years, he woke without being dragged from sleep by alarms, notifications, or crises demanding his attention.No emergency reports. No market disasters. No encrypted messages from Phoenix. No updates about Meridian.Just silence.Warm sunlight streamed through the towering glass walls of the island residence, painting the ancient stone and polished wood in shades of gold. Eli lay still beneath the blankets for a few moments, simply listening.The distant crash of waves against the shore.Wind rustling through the trees.Birds calling somewhere beyond the cliffs.Ordinary sounds. Human sounds.The sort of sounds that had disappeared from his life long ago.Then another sensation reached him.The smell of food.Something rich and savory. Something freshly cooked. Something incredible.His stomach immediately reminded him how little he'd eaten the day before.Following the scent, he left

Eli Aurelius returned to Rome without announcement.,not even Carlos knew. The information of the past few days had been reeling in his head so he knew he still needed time off from people, what he knew he couldn't escape from though was resetting the code Selene had soo often spoken about and Leonhart had made reference to once in his diary. So when he had been done going through his mother's diary, he knew it was time to return to Rome.No arrival logs were triggered under his real identity. No executive alerts rippled through the Aurelius network. No security detail greeted him at the private landing bay carved beneath the city.To the world, Eli Aurelius was still dead. To his friends and allies, he was still on some Island playing catch-up with his father.The plane explosion had done its job perfectly—clean, absolute, irreversible in the eyes of anyone watching the surface reports.That was exactly how he wanted it.The car that carried him through the underground access tunnels

Chapter 247 — The WarningThe chamber stayed silent long after the last words faded from its walls.“So that’s what I am now.”The glowing notification hovered in front of Eli like it was waiting for him to flinch. PRIMARY ALIGNMENT REQUIRED.He stared at it for a few seconds, then reached out and touched it. The notification disappeared, and the entire chamber dimmed—not because it had shut down, but because it had accepted him. For the first time since stepping into the Founder’s Code, Eli had the unsettling feeling that the system wasn’t testing him anymore. It was waiting for instructions.That realization sat heavy in his chest. For years he had chased answers. For years he had fought enemies. For years he had believed power was something people collected, something they took and held onto. But this was different. This wasn’t power. This was responsibility.The walls slowly folded back into darkness as Eli turned and headed for the exit. The Founder’s Code would still be there wh

Consciousness came back in pieces.First, there was the sound of metal groaning somewhere far away.Then the low, steady hum of machinery beneath him.Then the ache, spreading through every bone in his body.And after that, the cold.It wasn't the cold that came from weather or bad insulation. This was deeper than that. It felt old, almost alive, working its way past clothing and skin and settled into his bones making his bone rattle and his teeth clench.Eli opened his eyes.For a few seconds, nothing made sense.His vision blurred in and out, dark at the edges, until the ceiling above him finally came into focus.Black steel.Rows of recessed lights.A thin layer of frost gathering along the seams. He drew in a breath. The air burned on the way down. His wrists moved on instinct.Metal answered.Heavy restraints locked around both wrists and ankles, holding him in a reinforced chair bolted to the floor. They weren’t ordinary restraints either. Fine silver conduits ran through the al