2025-08-03 19:43:06The hum of the co-working space buzzed around Ethan like static.
He barely heard it. Not when the system dashboard blinked with patent claims, algorithmic models, and stolen blueprints now flooding global networks. But it all went still the moment he saw her. Brooks Lili aka Lena She stepped through the glass doors like a scene from a nightmare—too flawless, too poised, too late to pretend innocence. In her hand: a slim, matte-black folder. Divorce papers. Of course she brought them in person. He didn’t even flinch. “Ethan ,” she said, soft as smoke, “do you have a minute?” Ethan leaned back in his chair. The entire room seemed to tilt slightly, voices dimming into white noise. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said coolly. “What happened? Courier service too slow for betrayal these days?” She forced a laugh. “It’s not betrayal. Just closure. I thought we should end things with grace.” “Grace,” Ethan repeated. “Right. And poison tastes better in a wine glass, too.” She smiled, sitting down slowly. “We were good once, weren’t we?” The scent of her perfume hit him—sharp, citrus, familiar. Memory clawed at his chest: nights spent working side-by-side, her head on his shoulder, dreams once shared. Then the memory twisted—her signature on the Brooks patent application that used his code. He snapped back. “No theatrics,” he said. “Just hand me the blade.” She slid the folder across the table. “All standards,” she said. “Nothing complicated.” He flipped it open. Three copies. All pre-signed. Asset clause: forfeiture. Alimony: zero. Hidden clause: five-year non-compete, buried in legalese. She wasn’t here for peace. She was here to gut him one last time. Ethan raised his gaze slowly. “You still love me, huh?” Her lashes fluttered. She reached forward, brushing his knuckles. “You know I do.” [System Emotional Scan Active…] [Detected Emotion: 0% Love, 92% Anticipation, 5% Stress, 3% Triumph.] He smiled. Cold. Sharp. “You always were a better actress than CEO.” Her face twitched. He stood. “Then let’s make this separation official,” he said. “Publicly.” Her smile faltered. “What… do you mean by public?” Forty-five minutes later, a press room buzzed with reporters, influencers, and tech correspondents. Ethan stood at the podium in a jet-black suit. No tie. No flash. Just calm precision and lethal clarity. Brooks Lili stood beside him, mask of calm cracking beneath the flashes. The backdrop read: ZERO CORE TECHNOLOGIES – LAUNCH ANNOUNCEMENT. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Ethan began, voice smooth as obsidian, “I’ve invited you here for two reasons.” A wave of murmurs. “First—yes. Brooks Lili and I are divorcing. Irreconcilable visions of the future.” He held up the signed divorce papers. Cameras clicked like gunfire. “But second…” He reached into his coat and pulled out a small black chip. “This is the heart of Paragon Zero. A neural-adaptive engine designed to evolve past traditional AI frameworks.” Lili’s eyes widened. She hadn’t even seen this version yet. Ethan placed the chip on the podium. “In seventy-two hours, Zero Core Technologies will launch the first independent AI performance layer ever built without a single stolen line of Brooks Corp code.” More gasps. And then the kill shot. “I built this from scratch. With no stolen tech. No corporate sabotage. Just a man left for dead who decided to rewrite the rules.” A beat. Then a smirk. “And I don’t need a marriage to do it.” Reporters exploded. Cameras surged. Microphones shoved forward. Brooks Lili stood frozen, trapped in a PR disaster she hadn’t predicted. ** That night, back in his apartment, Ethan finally let the silence in. The war had started. But for the first time in years… he wasn’t the one bleeding. He loosened his tie, dropped onto the couch, and let the exhaustion settle. Maybe now he could breathe. Maybe now— Knock. Knock. He blinked. 2:14 AM? He approached the door, frowning. A delivery man stood outside. “Package for Mr. Ye.” Ethan hesitated. “From who?” “No name. Said it was urgent.” He signed, closed the door, and opened the box. Inside: a sealed white envelope… and a folded piece of fabric. He opened the envelope first. Four words. Block letters. No signature. “LEAVE TECH. OR SHE DIES.” His heart slammed against his ribs. He reached for the cloth and unrolled it. Blood. Dried, dark, unmistakable. A scarf. His mother’s. The one she wore every Sunday morning to the Old Methodist Church. The one with the tiny embroidered lotus at the corner—hand-stitched by his father before he died. It was soaked. And torn. He stared at it. No breath. No words. No time. The system lit up behind him. [ALERT: Biological Signature Detected – Ada Cole – 94% Match.] [Status: Critical.] [Location: Unknown.] Ethan ’s hands shook—but not from fear. From rage. They hadn’t just declared war. They’d made it personal.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
The Child of the Rewrite
The moment the child-signal touched Maya’s chest, reality convulsed.Not the ground.Not the wind.Not even the sky.Reality itself.Sound folded inward like the world was inhaling. Air collapsed into a thin line. Light blurred into spirals. Time lost its edges. For a heartbeat, Maya felt detached from her own body—like she was floating between the seconds, watching herself from miles away.Then everything snapped.A surge of white fire exploded outward, hurling Seren and Elias back across the ridge. The crater cracked like a spiderweb. Shattered stones and dust rose into the air, suspended—not falling, not rising—just frozen in a field of raw power.Maya staggered forward, clutching her chest.The signal wasn’t light anymore.It wasn’t code.It wasn’t a baby.It was memory—alive, pulsing, rewriting itself inside her ribcage.Every breath she took dragged a thousand whispers through her skull.Voices. Lives. Generations.Fragments of people she didn’t know. People who had lived, died,
The Algorithm of Ghosts
The sky above the crater pulsed like a dying heart—brief flashes of violet tearing through a blanket of black ash. The Omega aftermath had twisted the horizon; shapes flickered where clouds should be, echoes where sound should live. Nothing felt fully real anymore, not even the ground under their feet.Maya stood at the ridge, her coat whipping violently behind her, the wind cutting like broken glass. Seren and Elias were still climbing up the unstable slope, but she couldn’t move. Her body felt locked, frozen, suspended between the world that had ended and the world that refused to begin.Because Noah wasn’t dead.Not really.Not fully.Not enough.She could still feel him—like a phantom pulse at the base of her spine, like a memory refusing to die.A soft crackling ripple ran through the air, distorting the ruins below them.Then a voice whispered across the dust:“You pulled the trigger, Maya… but you didn’t end me.”Her breath caught.“Noah?”The wind split. Light coiled into a th
The Last Division
The forest was no longer a forest.By the time Maya and Ori reached the surface, the world had changed—subtly at first, then violently, as if reality itself was being rewritten in slow layers. The sky glowed with swirling lattices of light, forming geometric shapes that pulsed like breathing lungs. The trees bent toward the rising pillar of brilliance in the distance, their branches stretching unnaturally as if reaching to be joined with it.Ori stopped dead in his tracks.His pupils contracted sharply, glowing brighter.“It’s spreading faster than I predicted.”Maya followed his gaze.On the horizon, the massive beam of Ω-Prime punched through the clouds, widening, splitting into multiple branches that snaked across the sky like titanic roots of light. Every pulse from the beam sent a tremor through the ground, as though the planet’s crust was being encouraged—no, forced—to reorganize itself.People screamed somewhere in the valley, their voices carried by the wind. Maya’s heart clen
The Roots of Omega
The air around Maya and Ori thickened as the ground finished splitting open, revealing the colossal chamber hidden beneath the continents for who-knew how long. The Dreaming Core—massive, pulsating, alive—beat with a rhythm that seemed to sync with Maya’s own pulse. She felt it in her ribs, in her breath, even in the trembling of her fingertips.A sound rose from the depths.Not a voice.Not yet.But the hint of one.A hum forming syllables, syllables forming intent.“Ori…” Maya whispered, her voice trembling. “What are we looking at?”Ori’s eyes glowed brighter than before, the light in his veins pulsing in time with the Core’s heartbeat. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t calm either. He was… connected. As if something inside him recognized the structure below—something older than both of them.“It’s the Rootmind,” he said softly. “The beginning of Omega. The real beginning… before Noah, before the Hosts. Before the world knew what waking meant.”Maya’s throat tightened.“You’re telling me
The Dreaming Earth
The world had changed overnight. Not in a sudden, catastrophic way like before—but in a slow, deliberate awakening, as if every grain of sand, every leaf, every gust of wind had opened its eyes at the same time.Maya felt it immediately.As she and Ori walked inland, her boots pressing softly into the moist earth, the ground responded to her steps. Not with light or holograms, but with a subtle shift—like the soil recognized her weight, her presence, her pulse. It felt unnervingly intimate, like stepping across the chest of a living giant.Ori walked beside her without fear. The boy seemed entirely at ease with the world’s new rhythm. His small fingers were laced with hers, warm and grounded, yet Maya could feel a faint vibration pulsing inside his palm… like a heartbeat that didn’t only belong to him.Around them, nature was moving.Not wildly… but consciously.Birds circled overhead in perfect spirals, their bodies forming an invisible sequence Maya almost recognized—like a pattern
The New Dawn Protocol
The morning after the storm was unlike any Maya had ever seen.The world breathed differently now. The air shimmered faintly, as if the light itself remembered how to dance. The ocean lay still and reflective, stretching endlessly toward a horizon painted with silver mist. Every sound — the gentle crash of waves, the soft whisper of the wind — felt alive, resonant, like the planet itself had learned how to hum.Maya stood at the shore where the light had faded, her bare feet sinking into the damp sand. She had not slept. She couldn’t. The memory of Noah’s final words — his sacrifice, his peace — echoed endlessly in her chest. The weight of what had happened hung heavy in the air, but so did something else: calm.Then, she heard it again.The child’s voice.“Mom…”She turned. The small figure from the night before was still there, standing quietly, staring up at the pale morning sky. His eyes glimmered faintly — not the blinding light of the Hosts or the cold glow of the old systems, b
You may also like
The Rise of a Master: It Starts With Rejection
Dreamy Fire257.4K viewsThe Hidden Successor In Disguise
SHIROE76.6K viewsTHE GREAT GENERAL
Ardy-sensei132.6K viewsRise Of The Disrespected Trillionaire Heir
Blaq80.4K viewsThe Doctor's Reckoning
Ameiry Savar27.8K viewsThe Return of the God level Son in Law
Maemae474 viewsSupreme Girlfriend Making System
Creator430 viewsThe Emperor
Kelvin 881 views