All Chapters of The Son-in-law: Chapter 71
- Chapter 80
127 chapters
THE FIRST STAR-POINT
CHAPTER SEVENTY_ ONE: — The night before they left, nobody slept. Not properly.The vault’s dead screens kept replaying in Billy’s head—those blinking relic nodes, the constellations forming behind his eyelids every time he closed them. Tyla paced half the hideout like she was waiting for a countdown only she could hear. Owen tried shutting his eyes on the couch but kept jolting awake, mumbling curses at the universe for dragging him into another chapter of nonsense.By morning, the tension had settled into a kind of uneasy teamwork. Everyone pretended they weren’t shaken. Nobody bought it.Tyla stood over the table they’d spread the vault’s copied data across. Shards of holographic projections flickered above her wrist tablet—maps, old Luoshen patterns, coordinates that kept shifting whenever the tablet tried to interpret them. And in all that mess, one location refused to disappear.A monastery in a desert that wasn’t supposed to exist.At least not anymore.When she finally spoke,
THE CHAMBER THAT SHOULD'VE STAYED DORMANT
CHAPTER SEVENTY :The desert didn’t stop shaking.Even after they made it out of the sinking monastery, the tremors kept rolling under their feet like something alive was turning over beneath the sand. The sky had already swallowed half the structure behind them. The last standing arch groaned before sinking into a whirlpool of dust.None of them spoke until the rumbling finally eased.Tyla bent over, palms on her knees, catching her breath. “That was not supposed to happen.”Owen wiped his forehead dramatically. “Oh, really? The collapsing death temple wasn’t part of the brochure?”Billy didn’t hear either of them.He still felt the burn of the relic shard in his hand—the pulse beneath the surface, faint but steady. It wasn’t hurting him now. It was… reacting. Almost as if it were aware.Tyla noticed the way he kept looking at his hand. “Let me see it.”He hesitated before handing it over. The shard’s light dimmed the second it left his skin, like a heartbeat slowing.Tyla studied it
THE DEPTH OF FORGOTTEN SECRETS
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE :The monastery’s silence was deceptive, as if it were holding its breath for the inevitable chaos to come. The air smelled faintly of sand and stone, and the broken arches cast elongated shadows that danced eerily with the weak afternoon sunlight. Billy adjusted the strap of his backpack and let his gaze linger on the relic fuse chamber. Its intricate mechanisms hummed faintly, almost alive, waiting.“Billy… do you feel that?” Tyla’s voice cut through the quiet, low and urgent. She crouched near a partially collapsed wall, brushing dust off a carved symbol. “This place… it’s more than a monastery. It’s a vault, a library… maybe both.”Billy frowned, trying to make sense of the tremor he’d felt in his chest since they arrived. “It’s definitely been engineered to protect something. Not just relics… knowledge.” He ran a hand along the chamber’s metallic edge, feeling vibrations pulsing faintly through the floor.Owen, inspecting a crumbling stairwell, muttered, “I’
BLOODLINES AND BETRAYAL
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR :The desert wind whipped sand into ragged curtains that lashed against the monastery walls. Billy’s boots crunched over broken stone and scattered debris as he followed Tyla and Owen through the skeletal remains of what had once been a grand corridor. Every step echoed, a stark reminder that this place had seen secrets the world wasn’t meant to know. The air smelled of sun-baked dust and decay, and beneath it all, a faint metallic tang hinted at something far older, far more dangerous.“They’re watching us,” Owen muttered under his breath, not for the first time. He always said that, but this time, the warning carried weight. The air itself felt heavy, like the building itself was holding its breath. Billy’s instincts told him it wasn’t paranoia.Tyla stopped abruptly, holding up her hand. Her eyes, sharp and piercing, had caught something in the dim light—a mural half-buried under sand and rubble. She brushed the layers away, revealing figures etched in ochre an
SAND AND SHATTERED STONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE:The desert sky darkened unnaturally fast. One moment it had been a pale blue, the next a roiling ochre mass that twisted with the promise of violence. Billy squinted against the glare of dust swirling at eye level, a foreboding tremor running through the monastery walls. The ancient stones groaned under the force of a wind that felt almost alive, carrying sand in thick sheets that cut at skin and clothing alike.Tyla tightened the strap of her backpack and pressed her scarf over her face. “This isn’t natural,” she shouted over the rising roar. “Something’s triggering it!”Owen, already bracing against the gust, looked to Billy. “Did you touch anything? Did the vault—?” His voice cracked with tension, swallowed halfway by the screaming wind.Billy shook his head, though a flicker of doubt gnawed at him. “No. But the patterns… the relic network—it’s reacting. Like it knows we’re here.” His words hung in the dust-choked air, almost lost to the desert’s fury.The tea
AWAKENING THE SILENT ENGINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX :The desert wind still howled behind them, but inside the ruined monastery, a deeper, quieter hum began to pulse—an almost imperceptible vibration beneath the sand and shattered stone. Billy’s boots sank slightly into loose rubble as he stepped back toward the vault chamber, drawn by the faint resonance that seemed to reach out specifically to him.Tyla and Owen followed, eyes wide with caution, their every movement calculated. “Billy,” Tyla called over the wind, brushing dust from her goggles. “Do you feel that? Something… underneath. Like it’s alive.”Billy’s jaw tightened. He crouched by the central mechanism that had once been dormant, the metal and stone plates etched with strange Luoshen symbols. The relic grid they had uncovered days ago had been a mere projection—this, this was the engine itself, buried beneath centuries of stone, its energy dormant but far from gone.“I do,” Billy whispered, placing a hand lightly over the carvings. The symbols flickered
FROSTBOUND SECRETS
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN :The desert sun had long vanished, leaving the ruins of the monastery bathed in an eerie twilight. Billy, Tyla, and Owen trudged through the shifting sand outside, their boots crunching over debris that still smoldered from the prior chaos. Even with the relic engine stabilized, the air felt charged, thick with unspent energy, as if the desert itself had been holding its breath.Tyla’s gaze was fixed on a small, portable device she had retrieved from the vault chamber, her fingers flying across its interface. “This… this is a partial map of the relic grid,” she murmured. “I think I can trace the next activation point.”Billy’s brow furrowed. “Partial?”“Yes,” she replied, her voice tight with focus. “The mechanism in the monastery only allowed a temporary link. But there’s enough data here to predict the next site.”Owen leaned in, squinting at the device. “And where is it? Don’t tell me it’s in another desert. I swear, my legs are still screaming from this one.
UNSAID
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT :The jet hummed beneath their feet as it sliced through the night sky, leaving the desert far behind. The cabin lights were dimmed to a soft amber glow, but the tension inside made the air feel sharper than the altitude. Billy sat near the back, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might give him answers. Tyla was across from him, headphones on, eyes glued to her tablet as she refined the Arctic coordinates.Owen hadn’t said a word for almost an hour. For him, that silence was an earthquake.He stood finally, cracked his knuckles once, and walked down the narrow aisle toward Billy. Tyla didn’t look up; she sensed the storm and knew better than to step into it.Billy heard Owen’s footsteps, but he didn’t move. He already knew what this was about. Knew it had been coming since the monastery. Since the moment that relic mechanism answered him without hesitation.Owen stopped in front of him.“Stand up,” he said, voice low.Billy didn’t. “Owen, not now.
FRACTURE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE :The Arctic wind punched through the temporary shelter like it wanted in. Owen cursed at the rattling metal frame, tightening the bolts with numb fingers while the generator stuttered behind him. Inside, the only steady sound was the low hum of Tyla’s tablet as she sifted through corrupted data logs.Billy stood a few feet away, hands in his pockets, watching the silent storm through the cracked window. His mind wasn’t on the weather. It was on the Curator. On the way the man spoke like he knew Billy’s father better than Billy ever had. On the way Tyla’s face had fallen when she heard her own name encoded inside the Luoshen engine.And underneath all that, the nagging sensation that something else was coming for them.Tyla exhaled sharply. “I’m telling you, this file wasn’t here before.”Owen turned from the generator. “Which one?”She tapped the glowing screen. A document opened—clean, formatted, organized—too polished compared to the corrupted fragments around
VORTEX
CHAPTER EIGHTY :The storm started before anyone noticed it — not wind, not rain, but a pressure, the kind that folds itself into the bones and whispers move. Billy felt it first. His shoulder blades prickled as though unseen fingers were tracing symbols he didn’t recognize. Tyla caught the look on his face and didn’t bother pretending she wasn’t worried.“Don’t tell me that’s the cult again,” she muttered, hugging her jacket closer even though the air was warm.Billy didn’t answer. The warehouse behind them hummed with generators; leftover tech from the raid lay scattered everywhere. Wires. Screens. A dozen cryptic sketches. And that one sigil — the one etched into the crate they’d dragged out earlier — pulsed faintly as though the wood itself had a heartbeat.Owen stood over it like someone supervising a crime scene. “If this thing lights up again, we’re done,” he said.“It’s already lighting up,” Tyla shot back.They all turned at the same moment. The sigil glowed a soft red, the c