The moment Daniel and Clara stepped out of the negotiation chamber, a suffocating silence swallowed the room they left behind. World leaders stared at the empty space where Daniel’s hologram had vanished, each breath heavy with humiliation.Some could not lift their heads.Some clenched their fists.Some trembled with shame, rage, or fear.The German chancellor exhaled sharply.The American general wiped sweat from his forehead.Melissa sat frozen in her seat, unable to move, unable to breathe.What had the world become?And more importantly—Who had Daniel become?Far from the public eye, deep inside the secure bunker’s second chamber, the leaders regrouped, but this time, without cameras, without formality, without dignity. Their faces showed only raw fear.Turner, the aging economic advisor, slammed a folder on the table.“This is absurd! A single man cannot rule the world! We are presidents, chancellors, ministers—”“With no power,” the Russian adviser hissed, “because your comp

The leadership power remained untold to Daniel.He sat at the far end of the circular chamber, unmoving, eyes half-lidded as though the chaos before him bored him. Around the long obsidian table, the world’s most powerful leaders whispered, argued, and gestured sharply at holographic projections flashing failed strategies and rejected proposals.Confusion ruled the room.Nothing they had tried worked.Every plan collapsed under scrutiny. Every countermeasure Daniel anticipated before it even left their mouths.Finally, the murmurs died down when Melissa stood.Her heels clicked sharply against the polished floor as she turned toward Ethan, who sat stiff-backed across from her. The tension between them was no longer private—it crackled in the open like an exposed wire.“We plan with Ethan,” Melissa said flatly.The room stilled.Ethan lifted his head slowly. “You’ve already spoken, Melissa. Now you’re issuing commands?”She didn’t look away. “You presented rubbish to the global world.

The SolarGrid remained what it had always been since Daniel’s return—immovable, untouchable, almost mythic.From the moment his aircraft touched ground, Daniel did not simply reenter the world; he withdrew from it, retreating behind layers of protection so advanced that even the most sophisticated intelligence agencies failed to chart them completely. Satellites lost resolution when tracking his movements. Signal intercepts dissolved into white noise. Predictive models—normally frighteningly accurate—returned nothing but probabilities too wide to be useful.His convoys moved like sealed citadels. Each vehicle was reinforced with military-grade composite armor, capable of dispersing kinetic impact rather than absorbing it. Windows were layered with adaptive opacity glass—bulletproof, blast-resistant, and capable of turning black at the slightest anomaly. Engines were not designed to outrun threats, but to survive them.And his residence—His residence was no longer a house.It was a sy

Daniel’s fingers hovered above the holographic interface, streams of data flowing like veins of light beneath his skin. His system—an extension of his mind—scanned layers of security logs, behavioral anomalies, internal permissions.“There,” he said quietly.Clara, who had paused mid-step with a file clutched to her chest, turned sharply.“What is it?”“A ripple,” Daniel replied. “Small. Emotional. Not strategic.”His eyes narrowed. “Which makes it dangerous.”Clara felt a chill run down her spine.“Internal?” she asked.Daniel nodded once.“Jealousy is louder than ambition. And more reckless.”Before Clara could respond, the perimeter alert chimed—soft, almost polite.UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLE DETECTED.IDENTITY MATCH: MELISSA WARD.Clara exhaled slowly, a smile touching her lips—cold, amused.“So,” she murmured. “The ghost decided to knock.”Melissa ArrivesMelissa slammed her car door shut in the underground parking lot, fury vibrating through her bones. Her hands trembled—not from fear