The explosion from the archive still rings in Adrian’s ears hours later.The city sleeps under a bruised sky as he slips into an abandoned parking garage, his temporary hideout. The concrete walls smell of dust and rain; the flickering fluorescent lights create ghostlike shadows that pulse with every flicker.He sets his laptop on the hood of a rusted sedan and forces himself to breathe.Somehow, despite the flames, despite the wiped servers, he recovered fragments—the remnants of corrupted files, half-erased caches, and bits of hidden directories he managed to copy moments before the archive detonated.He plugs the drive in.It loads.Slowly.Painfully.But it loads.Adrian scrolls through.More hidden folders.More secrets.More of him… but not him.He double-clicks the first file.A grainy surveillance image fills the screen.Adrian freezes.It’s a picture of him entering a building—a tall, sterile-looking facility with tinted glass and a logo he doesn’t recognize.The problem?He

Last Updated : 2025-11-30

CHAPTER 62 — The Past Surfaces

The garage is silent except for the faint hum of the ruined laptop. Smoke curls from the fried circuits, twisting upward like the remnants of a dead thought. Adrian stands still, jaw locked, heart slamming against his ribs as he stares at the black card left behind.O.Oracle.Prototype.Perfected version.His entire life feels like it’s collapsing in reverse—falling upward into a past he can’t remember and a future he can’t predict.He should walk away.He should disappear.But he can’t—not with the truth clawing at him from inside.He exhales, sets the charred laptop aside, and pulls out the one thing the masked attacker didn’t destroy—his separate offline decryptor.One backup drive.One last fragment of stolen data.He plugs it in. The tiny device lights up with a weak blue glow.“Come on,” he mutters.The files load.Slowly.Painfully.Then a folder appears.LOCKED_MEMORIES.Clearly not the original name—someone renamed it to hide it from casual searchers.But nothing about tonig

Last Updated : 2025-11-30

CHAPTER 63 — The Road to Sector Nine

Rain hits the pavement in sheets, turning the night into a silver blur. Adrian walks with his hood low, blending into the city like a shadow among shadows. Every streetlight flickers as if struggling to illuminate him—like even electricity is unsure he should be seen.Sector Nine lies on the far edge of the industrial district.A dead zone.A forgotten grave.A place the city pretends doesn’t exist.But tonight…The past calls him home.He reaches an overpass and stops under the concrete arch. The storm mutes the world, giving him a moment to think.Every bone in his body hums with instinct—alert, sharpened, ready.He isn’t hunting a gang.He isn’t hunting a man.He’s hunting truth, and truth hits harder than bullets.A car engine growls behind him.Adrian doesn’t turn.He listens.Two men inside.One nervous.One too steady—professional.The car creeps closer.Adrian moves the moment the headlights hit his back.He sidesteps.A muzzle flashes from inside the window.The bullet slams

Last Updated : 2025-12-02

CHAPTER 64 — When the Shadows Break

The storm didn’t start with thunder.It started with footsteps.Heavy. Rushed. Coming straight for Aiden.He was halfway through the dimly-lit west corridor of the academy when he felt it—a shift in the air pressure, that electric prickle crawling up his spine. Someone was coming. Not a student. Not a guard.Something darker.Aiden slowed, pretending to adjust the strap of his backpack while his senses sharpened like blades. He counted the steps. Six. Five. Four…They were trying to match his rhythm, to make their approach sound casual.Amateurs.He turned the corner—then stopped.A woman was leaning casually against the wall, arms folded. She wore the academy instructor coat, but the aura around her felt wrong. Too calm. Too calculated. Her eyes glittered with a type of awareness only killers possessed.“Aiden Cross,” she said, voice smooth and warm… but controlled, like someone talking through a mask. “You’re a hard one to catch.”Aiden blinked, expression perfectly confused. “Do I

Last Updated : 2025-12-02

CHAPTER 65 — Poison in the Veins

Aiden’s heartbeat thudded loud inside the metal vent—too loud, too fast.The poison was accelerating.His vision flickered at the edges as he crawled forward, each movement forcing the toxin deeper into his bloodstream. His fingers shook. His chest tightened. The instructor’s dying words echoed in his skull like a war drum:Your enemy is inside the school…But who?The Dean?A teacher?A student?This academy had always been a cage he tolerated—but now it felt like a killing ground.Aiden stopped, leaning against the cold metal. Sweat trickled down his temple. His breath grew shallow.He needed to purge the poison—now.He closed his eyes, focused inward, searching for the energy flow he’d spent years mastering. It was still there—dim, like a torch in a storm, but reachable.He inhaled sharply and clenched his fists.A wave of heat shot through his body.Pain.Real, burning pain.The poison resisted—an engineered compound designed to latch onto energy channels and corrupt them. A norma

Last Updated : 2025-12-02

CHAPTER 67 — THE DEVICE THAT UNMAKES HIM

The black device in the Dean’s hand looked small, unremarkable—no bigger than a pager.But the moment Aiden saw it, a chill carved through his spine.His instincts recoiled.His pulse spiked.Every part of him screamed—Danger.Mara stepped in front of him.“No—don’t touch him!”The Dean didn’t blink. “Move aside, Ms. Hale.”Mara stood her ground. “This is illegal. Even for you.”“Illegal?” The Dean laughed softly. “My dear, the moment Aiden Cross was born, the law stopped applying to him.”He raised the device slightly.Aiden’s brain throbbed painfully, like something deep inside was trying to crawl out.“What… is that?” Aiden growled.The Dean answered calmly.“A reset switch.”Mara’s voice cracked. “Reset… what?”The Dean turned his cold eyes on her.“Him.”Aiden lunged.The Dean pressed the trigger.FFFFFFSHHHH—Sound warped.Light twisted.The air vibrated violently.Aiden’s knees buckled.Images slammed into his mind—faces he didn’t know, rooms he’d never seen, voices echoing fr

Last Updated : 2025-12-02

CHAPTER 68 — The Storm That Chose Him

The night split open with a scream.Not a human scream—something sharper, like metal tearing through its own bones.Aiden spun just in time to dodge the black spear of energy that crashed into the ground behind him. The concrete exploded, sending dust and debris into the air like a bomb had detonated.From the shadows, the attacker stepped forward.Tall. Cloaked. Masked in a smooth chrome faceplate with no eyes—just a single glowing red slit.Aiden’s pulse slammed hard.He knew this presence.He felt it the way a wolf feels another predator entering its territory.“You finally showed up,” Aiden muttered.The stranger tilted his head.“You made it easy. The moment you used your power to save that girl by the river…”His voice was distorted, mechanical.“…the signal reached all of us.”Aiden clenched his fists.So that’s how they were tracking him.Before he could speak, the masked man raised a hand.The air folded. Literally folded—like reality was being pressed between invisible finge

Last Updated : 2025-12-02

CHAPTER 69 — Bloodlines of Fire

The explosion flung Aiden backward like a rag tossed into a hurricane.He hit the ground hard—air punched out of his lungs, ears ringing, vision fracturing into blurry shards of blue and black.Through the dust, two figures clashed again and again:Seraphine’s blue radiance slicing arcs through the night…The masked man’s void bending around him like living shadows.They moved at speeds Aiden could barely track.He tried to rise. His arms trembled.A wave of dizziness hit him—sharp, burning, wrong.Something inside him was still reacting to the masked man’s earlier grip… that horrible draining link that felt like it reached into his core.His power wasn’t stable.“Damn it,” Aiden muttered through gritted teeth, forcing his breathing to steady.Energy crackled faintly along his skin—flickering, struggling.Not listening to him.Not obeying him.Like something else was trying to take control.---A War Between Light and VoidSeraphine spun, launching three daggers—each glowing with blue

Last Updated : 2025-12-02

CHAPTER 70 — The Secret Seraphine Tried to Tell

The world returned in fragments.A heartbeat.A distant siren.The sharp taste of smoke on the wind.Aiden’s eyes flickered open to a sky that wouldn’t stop tilting.He groaned, pushing himself upright. Every bone in his body screamed. The shockwave had thrown him halfway across the courtyard.His vision wavered—then sharpened.Seraphine.She lay crumpled near the crater, unmoving.Aiden staggered to her, dropping to his knees beside her.“Seraphine—hey—” His fingers hovered over her cheek before he dared to touch her. “Stay with me.”Her eyes fluttered, barely open.Her breathing shallow.She whispered, broken, “Aiden… listen… I don’t have—time…”Her voice cracked. Then—A quick metallic click.Aiden’s instincts screamed.He grabbed Seraphine and rolled just as a bullet slammed into the ground where her head had been.More gunfire followed—silenced, precise, deadly.He pulled Seraphine behind a shattered stone wall and peered over the broken edge.Figures emerged from the smoke.Blac

Last Updated : 2025-12-02

CHAPTER 70 — The Secret Seraphine Tried to Tell

The world returned in fragments.A heartbeat.A distant siren.The sharp taste of smoke on the wind.Aiden’s eyes flickered open to a sky that wouldn’t stop tilting.He groaned, pushing himself upright. Every bone in his body screamed. The shockwave had thrown him halfway across the courtyard.His vision wavered—then sharpened.Seraphine.She lay crumpled near the crater, unmoving.Aiden staggered to her, dropping to his knees beside her.“Seraphine—hey—” His fingers hovered over her cheek before he dared to touch her. “Stay with me.”Her eyes fluttered, barely open.Her breathing shallow.She whispered, broken, “Aiden… listen… I don’t have—time…”Her voice cracked. Then—A quick metallic click.Aiden’s instincts screamed.He grabbed Seraphine and rolled just as a bullet slammed into the ground where her head had been.More gunfire followed—silenced, precise, deadly.He pulled Seraphine behind a shattered stone wall and peered over the broken edge.Figures emerged from the smoke.Blac

Last Updated : 2025-12-02