2025-05-30 23:41:24
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 197: GREAT FORGE
The entrance to Furnace One was buried beneath a condemned waste treatment facility at the edge of the city’s industrial graveyard...a place long forgotten by zoning committees and law enforcement. Rusted gates, concrete husks, and gutted machines marked the surface. But beneath, deeper than sewers and metro tunnels, was the real skeleton: a blacksite that hadn't appeared on any satellite scan for the last twenty years.Luka crouched by the stairwell as the rest of the strike team assembled in silence. Marco checked his gear twice. Vesper wore a mask of studied calm, though her fingers tapped against her thigh in tight rhythm. Arden and two ex-Foundation defectors, Juno and Marek, scanned the schematics they'd reassembled from a scrambled cache weeks ago."You’re sure this is it?" Luka asked quietly.Marek nodded. “It's the mouth of the serpent. Once we go in, the systems inside will know we’re coming.”“No silent entry?” Marco asked.Juno gave a humorless grin. “Not unless you can te
CHAPTER 196: THR TANGLED CROWN
The city bled information.Screens flickered in pawn shops and penthouses alike. Talk radio hosts screamed theories, back alleys buzzed with disbelief, and the dark web ignited like a struck match. Mirelle’s secrets...her simulations, her fabricated minds, her predictive constructs...were out. Not leaked. Not rumored. Broadcast.And in the midst of it all, Luka Gale stood in the shadow of a crumbling viaduct, hands clenched around a burner phone, listening to silence on the other end. The Foundation hadn’t responded. Not yet. But he knew what silence meant. Preparation. Retaliation. The coiled breath before the storm.“You really did it,” Vesper murmured beside him, her voice taut with something between awe and dread. “You reached into the dragon’s throat and stole a tooth.”“I didn’t do it to make a point,” Luka muttered. “I did it because they were playing god with us.”She tilted her head. “You think gods don’t bleed? That’s cute.”A black SUV pulled up, tires cracking glass. Marco
CHAPTER 195: THROUGH THE BROKEN MIRROR
Gunfire erupted like thunder in a sealed tomb.The chamber flashed with muzzle bursts, casting shadows like specters across the concrete walls. Luka dove to the side, bullets sparking off metal piping as he rolled into cover behind a rusted breaker box. Vesper dropped low, firing a tight burst from her sidearm, forcing the man to duck back behind the node access panel.“Who the fuck is this guy?!” Vesper yelled over the ricochet of shots.Luka’s mind raced. The man was fast...too fast. Not Foundation black-ops, not military-grade mercenary. He moved like someone... trained to mimic threat response. Precise. Mechanical. Almost predictive.“He’s not normal,” Luka barked. “Keep him pinned!”The stranger moved again...a flicker, a smear of motion, suddenly at the far end of the hallway. He didn’t take cover. He didn’t blink. He just walked, methodical and unshaken, like the bullets didn’t matter.Luka’s gut turned to ice.“He’s stalling,” Luka muttered.“For what?” Vesper asked.Luka’s mi
CHAPTER 194: SHATTERPOINT
Rain drilled the city like nails from the sky. The roads shimmered with slick oil-sheen, and steam rose from gutter vents like breath from a dying beast.In the basement of an old theater Luka had once used as a meeting point for Gale family operations, a new kind of war council was forming.The room was dimly lit, humming with backup power. Peeling posters from forgotten plays adorned the brick walls. Vesper, Viktor, Alessia, and Luka were gathered around a stripped-down operations board...maps, names, faces, routes...all changing by the hour.“You’re bleeding operatives,” Viktor growled, slamming a folder onto the table. “Salvi’s people are peeling off. Some flipping back to Mirelle. Others disappearing.”“They smell the fire coming,” Alessia said without looking up. “Rats don’t stay on burning ships.”Vesper circled the table like a panther. Her fingers danced over an uplinked tablet. “We’ve had five confirmed breaches across the southeast corridor. Grid comms went dark at midnight
CHAPTER 194: BURN LEDGER
The lights in the old observatory flickered weakly, casting warped shadows across walls papered with maps and red-threaded diagrams. Once a monument to stargazers, now it served as the nerve center for something far grittier: Luka’s rebellion.The White Key sat on a steel tray between them...still humming faintly, its glow oscillating like a living thing.Marco’s voice crackled through the satellite uplink, projecting from the terminal on the far wall.“I’ve isolated the primary code tree. The White Key gives us master-level override on Cinderlight protocols. Deployment, identity targeting, algorithmic strike filters...all of it.”Alessia leaned forward on the table, arms crossed. “Which means what exactly? We own their surveillance? Their kill lists?”Marco paused. “More than that. We own the engine. The Foundation used it to determine who lives and dies in this city. We can reshape that equation.”Luka stared at the cube. “Can we shut it down entirely?”Another pause.“You can,” Mar
CHAPTER 192: WHITE KEY
The warehouse at the edge of the Ransom District was colder than expected...more server farm than hideout, its walls pulsing faint blue with embedded heat-dampeners. The hum of hardware beneath concrete vibrated the soles of Luka’s boots.“Ten seconds out,” Alessia said over comms, crouched behind a burnt-out delivery truck just down the road. “No visible patrols. Could be automated security.”“Count on it,” Vesper replied from a rooftop above. “I’m seeing infrared grids. Motion-based. If we breach wrong, it cooks us alive.”“Good thing we’re not breaching wrong,” Luka said calmly, nodding to Viktor beside him. “Let’s move.”They approached low and silent, cloaked in dark jackets and dirt. The four-person strike team was lean...Luka, Alessia, Viktor, and Vesper...no distractions, no expendables. This wasn’t war. It was surgery.They reached the southern wall, where Viktor pried open a rusted maintenance grate.“Vent access,” he muttered. “Tight fit. No direct camera lines inside.”“Pe
You may also like
Ethereal Adventure System
Dark Crafter39.3K viewsThe Golem Mage
Destiny Foromeh78.3K viewsVillain steal the Heroines
Autistically17.8K viewsThe Trillionaire System
Tyqun Nla36.2K viewsDUNGEON CONQUEROR SYSTEM: I transmigrated into a Mosquito
Prince Clover3.7K viewsFist Emperor Of The Universe
CrazeNovel46.5K viewsSystem for you Darling!
CrazeNovel19.3K viewsHEAVEN'S GATE
VKBoy1.8K views