Chapter 152The front lawn of the Black Estate looked like the site of a very expensive, highly illegal alien landing. Aegis Satellite Prime, the multi-billion-credit orbital weapon that Adrian Black had yanked from the exosphere, was currently resting in a smoldering trench that used to be a prized rose garden. The black, radar-absorbent hull hissed as the morning drizzle evaporated against its superheated armor. Cora Vance was practically vibrating with excitement. She was standing on top of the downed spacecraft with a heavy plasma torch in one hand and a diagnostic tablet in the other, her electric-blue hair plastered to her forehead. "Adrian, this is a masterpiece!" Cora yelled down to the porch as she scanned the hull. "The sub-routines on this thing are lightyears ahead of what Silas had in the Spire! The quantum processors alone are worth more than the entire gross domestic product of Sector 1!"Adrian stood on the porch, leaning against a shattered marble pillar. He was h

Chapter 154 Adrian didn't get up as sweat poured down his face. Holding a satellite was like lifting a boulder; holding a million microscopic robots in suspension inside a living human body was like trying to thread a needle while riding a rollercoaster. "Cora!" Adrian yelled into his comms. "I'm here! I heard everything!" Cora’s voice panicked. "Get the medical extraction rig down here right now!" Adrian commanded, his arms trembling from the sheer concentration. "Bring the localized EMP dialyzer! We need to scrub his blood!"Lena didn't wait for Cora, her programming overrode her shock. Whatever concerned cleaning was her job. Blood scrubbing or whatever. She sprinted up the stairs with terrifying speed, returning thirty seconds later pushing a heavy, state-of-the-art medical cart from the estate's infirmary. "Hold him still, you brute," Lena barked at Adrian, her hands flying over the medical equipment. She jammed a thick IV needle into Jonathan’s arm, hooking the tube up

Chapter 157Adrian closed his eyes. He didn't see lines of code. The System translated the digital battlefield into a spatial reality his mind could process. He was suddenly standing in a vast, infinite expanse of white space. Towering above him were massive, shifting walls of pure, solid light, the encryption labyrinth Cora had described. The walls were moving, spinning at blinding speeds, crushing anything that dared to step between them. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED, a voice boomed from the white sky. It was a chorus of a dozen voices speaking simultaneously, the ruling members of the World Council, speaking through their orbital AI. "ABORT CONNECTION OR FACE IMMEDIATE NEURAL TERMINATION."Adrian stood in the white void, wearing his leather jacket, his hands shoved in his pockets. "You guys need a new receptionist," Adrian hissed. "The customer service here is terrible.""ADRIAN BLACK," the Council’s voice was cold and they sounded pretty furious. "YOU HAVE CAPTURED ONE SATEL

Chapter 158When Adrian took off, a lot of things happened. First, the concrete of the Spire’s plaza didn’t just crack when he jumped, it freaking liquefied. The raw, unfiltered geothermal energy of the three Foundation Nodes surged through his boots, converting the solid ground into a launchpad of pure kinetic force. With a sonic boom that shattered the remaining windows for three city blocks, Adrian rocketed upward. He was a golden missile cutting through the morning smog, aimed directly at the black underbelly of High Councilor Seraphina Cross’s dreadnought. "Adrian! The dreadnought is heavily shielded!" Cora’s voice shrieked in his earpiece, barely audible over the roar of the wind. "It’s running a repulsor-field! If you hit that at Mach 3, you’ll splatter like a bug on a windshield!""I’m not a bug, Cora," Adrian yelled back, the wind whipping his leather jacket. "I’m the windshield."Two thousand feet in the air. Three thousand. The massive, angular hull of the warship blot

Chapter 160Adrian dropped a mercenary with a spinning back kick, sprinted across the deck, and slid perfectly through the narrowing gap of the blast doors just a fraction of a second before they slammed shut, locking the remaining Vanguard soldiers in the hangar bay. Adrian stood up. He was in a sleek, dimly lit, hexagonal corridor. The hum of the massive dreadnought’s engines vibrated through the floor plates. [ SYSTEM ALERT: FOUNDATION NODE UPLINK DEGRADING. ][ SIGNAL STRENGTH: 4%. ][ ADVISORY: RETURN TO THE SURFACE IMMEDIATELY. ]"I'm not leaving without the keys to this ship," Adrian grunted, shaking out his bruised knuckles. He jogged down the corridor, following the schematic the System was piecing together from the ship's ambient electrical layout. He encountered two patrols of Void-Knights, heavily armored elites guarding the elevators. Without his wide-area gravity powers, the fights were brutal. He took a glancing blow from a shock-baton to the ribs that made him bi