2025-10-31 20:50:30Anthony stood frozen for a moment, staring at Dr. Kenneth in disbelief. “What did you just say?” His voice trembled—not from fear, but from the boiling anger rising inside him.
The doctor folded his arms and gave a condescending smirk. “I said, if you want your mother’s body, you’ll have to pay double the amount. Or you can go home.”
Anthony clenched his fists. The last thread of patience within him was wearing thin. “Fine,” he said quietly. “Give me your account number.”
Dr. Kenneth chuckled, convinced he was bluffing. “You think this is a joke? That’s $800,000 in total.”
Anthony said nothing. Within seconds, he completed the transfer. The notification buzzed on the doctor’s phone, and his arrogant smile faltered. “Impossible,” he muttered, staring at the screen. “You actually—”
Before he could finish, Anthony said evenly, “Now release my mother’s body.”
Dr. Kenneth hesitated, then scoffed. “You know what? I don’t like your tone. You’ve wasted enough of my time. Pay another $1,000,000 for the delay.”
Anthony didn’t flinch. He pulled out his phone and transferred the money immediately.
The doctor’s jaw dropped as his phone buzzed again. His greed had pushed him too far, but the reality of what he was dealing with hadn’t yet sunk in. “Who are you?” he asked, voice unsteady.
Anthony’s expression was cold and unreadable. “Just someone who wants to bury his mother in peace.”
As Dr. Kenneth turned to make arrangements, his phone rang again. Seeing the caller ID, he smirked—it was Oscar. “Ah, Mr. Patrick,” he said smoothly. “Yes, your stepson just paid everything, even threw in a little extra. He’s about to claim his mother’s body.”
Oscar’s laughter echoed through the receiver. “Don’t let him,” he ordered. “I don’t care what he paid. Make sure her body is confiscated and handed to the organ harvesters. End of discussion.” Then he hung up.
Dr. Kenneth slipped his phone into his pocket and turned to Anthony, feigning pity. “I’m afraid it’s too late,” he said mockingly. “Even though you paid, we’re already finalising the deal with the organ harvesting firm. You can’t claim the body.”
Anthony’s eyes darkened. His hands trembled, not from fear but from fury. “What did you just say?”
“Security!” Dr. Kenneth called out with a grin. “Keep an eye on this one. He might do something stupid.”
The guards surrounded Anthony. The doctor turned to leave, but before he could take two steps, his phone rang again.
He glanced at the screen—and froze.
His arrogance drained from his face. Slowly, he answered, his voice suddenly submissive. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I didn’t know... No, no, please, sir, forgive me. It won’t happen again. I understand completely. Yes, sir.”
Every “sir” came out smaller than the last. Sweat formed on his forehead. When the call ended, he stood there shaking.
Then, before anyone could understand what was happening, Dr. Kenneth fell to his knees before Anthony. “Please, forgive me,” he begged, pressing his forehead to the floor. “I didn’t know, I swear. Please, sir, have mercy.”
The guards exchanged puzzled looks.
Anthony stared at him, confused but composed. “Stand up,” he said calmly.
Dr. Kenneth couldn’t even raise his eyes. “Please, don’t make me—”
“Stand up,” Anthony repeated, his tone sharper this time.
The doctor obeyed, trembling.
“Here’s what you’ll do,” Anthony said coldly. “Place my mother’s body in the best morgue available. Return every cent I sent you. And after that, I never want to see your face again.”
“Yes, sir,” Dr. Kenneth stammered. Within seconds, he pulled out his phone and transferred the full amount back to Anthony. Then he turned to the guards and shouted, “Throw me out of this hospital!”
The guards hesitated, confused. “Sir?”
“Do it!” he yelled.
Moments later, they dragged him out.
Anthony sat quietly in the hallway, his heart heavy but calm. The weight of his mother’s loss pressed on him, yet a strange strength filled him—a strength that wasn’t his alone. He remembered his grandfather’s words: You are never alone. I’m always watching from the shadows.
For the first time, he believed them.
As the new doctor prepared his mother’s body, Anthony’s phone buzzed. It was a text from Vionna: Are you coming to the party tonight? I saved your seat.
He looked at the message for a long moment before standing up. He had no reason to go to a party—but something in him whispered that he should.
When he reached home, Fenrick and Liora were waiting anxiously. “Anthony!” Liora exclaimed. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick!”
Fenrick added, “We saw everything online. Darren taking Olivia, the expulsion... Man, you’ve had the worst day imaginable.”
Anthony smiled faintly and set his keys on the table. “It’s fine,” he said simply.
Liora frowned. “Fine? Anthony, you lost your mother, your girlfriend, your scholarship, your job—”
“It’s nothing,” he interrupted quietly.
They stared at him, stunned. This wasn’t the Anthony they knew—the one who broke down over every setback. There was something new in his eyes now. Something deeper, calmer, and far more dangerous.
Without another word, he walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
Fenrick turned to Liora. “He’s... different,” he said in disbelief.
Liora nodded slowly. “It’s like something inside him changed completely.”
When Anthony emerged, he looked fresh and composed. He wore a clean black suit, simple yet elegant.
Liora tried to lighten the mood. “So, are you going to Vionna’s birthday party?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Can we come too?” Fenrick asked eagerly. “We didn’t get VIP invitations.”
Anthony smiled faintly. “You won’t need them,” he said, holding up the golden card. “Vionna gave me this herself.”
They exchanged astonished glances.
Half an hour later, Anthony’s car pulled up in front of the most extravagant venue in the city. Every inch of the place shimmered with luxury. Expensive cars lined the driveway, and laughter spilled from the grand hall.
Fenrick whistled. “This is insane. I feel like I’m breathing money.”
Anthony didn’t respond. He stepped out of the car and walked toward the entrance, his friends following behind.
Inside, chandeliers sparkled like captured stars. The hall was alive with music, perfume, and laughter. Fenrick and Liora found a seat near the back while Anthony moved toward the VIP section.
As he approached, two bulky security guards blocked his path. “VIP only,” one of them said sharply.
“I have a VIP card,” Anthony said, handing it over.
The guard barely looked at it before shoving it back at him. “Nice try. Get out.”
The push drew attention. Laughter rippled through the crowd.
Before Anthony could respond, a familiar voice cut through the noise. “He’s with me.”
Everyone turned. Vionna descended the grand staircase, her silver gown glittering under the lights. She walked straight to Anthony, ignoring the murmurs, and took his hand. “Sit beside me,” she said softly.
The hall fell into a stunned silence as she led him to her table.
Whispers spread like wildfire.
“Isn’t that Anthony Parker? The expelled student?”
“What’s he doing here?” “Look at his suit—did he rent it?” “Maybe he’s Vionna’s new charity case.”Anthony heard every word but didn’t flinch. He simply sat down beside Vionna, his expression unreadable.
Moments later, Jackson Derrick—Liora’s arrogant boyfriend—walked onto the stage, microphone in hand. “Well, well,” he said loudly, scanning the crowd. “Seems we have an unexpected guest tonight.”
All eyes turned to Anthony again.
Jackson sneered. “This is an elite party, not a shelter. Anthony Parker, stand up and leave before I make you.”
The crowd erupted in cheers and laughter. “Tell him, Jackson!” someone shouted.
Jackson smirked. “But hey, I’m generous. I’ll give him a choice. Either walk out now, or challenge me by paying for the most expensive wine in this hall.”
The laughter grew louder. Even Joanna, Anthony’s stepsister, stood up and joined in. “Pay for a drink?” she said mockingly. “He couldn’t even pay his mother’s hospital bills or afford to buy his girlfriend a bag! What’s he going to do—wash dishes for it?”
The crowd howled with laughter. Joanna basked in it, playing to her audience like a comedian. Only Vionna, Fenrick, and Liora remained silent, their faces filled with pity.
Vionna leaned toward him and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Anthony. Please don’t take it to heart. They don’t know what they’re saying.”
Anthony looked at her, calm and composed. “You don’t need to apologise.”
Then he stood up slowly, his chair scraping against the floor. The laughter faded slightly as he walked toward the stage.
Jackson smirked. “What’s this? You actually want to challenge me?”
Anthony’s gaze was cold, steady, and unshaken. “Yes,” he said simply. “I accept your challenge.”
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Chapter 163: The Fracture in the Symmetry
The return to the Highland Vault was not the homecoming of heroes that the planting team had envisioned. As the heavy-lift crawler hissed to a halt in the primary docking bay, the thick, pressurized doors groaned open to reveal an atmosphere that had soured in their absence. The humid, sweet scent of the Greenhouse had been replaced by the sharp, metallic tang of ozone and the underlying smell of unwashed bodies and rising panic. Anthony stepped off the ramp, his boots still caked with the gray, neutralized ash of Edinburgh’s ruins, and immediately felt the shift in the "Sum." The collective hum of the vault—the steady, rhythmic heartbeat of two hundred people working in unison—had fractured into a discordant mess of whispered arguments and sharp, defensive glances.Mark was the first to notice the digital discrepancy. He didn't even have to look at his handheld terminal; the wall-mounted status monitors in the docking bay were flickering with a rhythmic, amber pulse that shouldn't ha
Chapter 162: The Genesis Export
The vibration of the heavy-lift crawler was a low, rhythmic thrum that traveled through the soles of Anthony’s boots, a mechanical heartbeat in a world that had gone silent. Outside the reinforced viewing ports, the Highlands were a monochromatic blur of swirling white and jagged obsidian, but inside the hold, the air was thick with the scent of wet peat and the electric charge of a desperate hope. They were no longer just moving people or data; they were moving the "Hard Assets" of a new world. Secured in pressurized, climate-controlled pods at the center of the bay were the first thousands of "Bio-Shield" saplings—genetically reinforced white oaks, fast-growing tubers, and nitrogen-fixing shrubs designed by the Greenhouse team to survive the toxic, sulfur-heavy soils of the decaying coast.Anthony stood at the head of the hold, watching the twenty people selected for the "Genesis Export." They were a ragged mix of the original St. Paul’s survivors and the newly "audited" refugees fr
Chapter 161: The Solvency of Salt and Steel
The Firth of Forth did not look like a harbor anymore; it looked like a graveyard that had refused to stay buried. As the vault’s reconnaissance drone hovered over the slate-gray waters, the feed it beamed back to the Highland spire was a jagged collage of desperation. The leading vessel of the fleet, a massive, blocky container ship renamed the Aurelian, sat low in the water, its hull encrusted with the white salt of a cross-continental flight from the Mediterranean. Behind it trailed a chaotic tail of white yachts, rusted fishing trawlers, and even a few listing luxury liners, all huddling together against the biting North Sea wind. Anthony stood in the cold, salt-sprayed air of the observation deck, watching the screen as the first of the fleet’s shuttles detached and began its long, hesitant crawl toward the shore.The "Solvency Audit" was no longer a theoretical exercise in a ledger; it was a physical barrier. Mark had spent the night configuring the vault’s short-range transmitt
Chapter 160: The Horizon Scan
The air in the Observation Tier was several degrees cooler than the humid, oxygen-rich embrace of the Greenhouse, and the transition felt like a splash of cold water to Anthony’s senses. He climbed the spiral staircase of polished carbon fiber, leaving behind the earthy smell of the planting beds for the dry, metallic scent of high-altitude electronics. Here, at the peak of the mountain’s internal spire, the vault’s sensors didn’t look inward at the budding forests; they looked outward at a world that was currently tearing itself apart in the silence of the "Zero." Mark was already there, his face illuminated by the flickering blue radiance of the Omniscope—a massive, hemispherical projection table that mapped the thermal and electromagnetic pulses of the entire northern hemisphere.Mark didn't look up as Anthony approached. His fingers were dancing across a glass interface that was slick with the condensation of his own breath. On the map, the world was a sprawling web of darkness, p
Chapter 159: The Greenhouse Effect
The first morning of the new era didn’t begin with a bell or a digital alarm; it began with the humid, heavy drip of condensation falling from a philodendron leaf onto Anthony’s forehead. He woke up on a pallet of recycled shipping foam, his body aching with a bone-deep fatigue that no amount of artificial sunlight could quite cure. For the first time in months, the air he breathed didn't taste of London’s metallic soot or the high-altitude ozone of the transport flight. It tasted of photosynthesis—bitter, green, and aggressively alive.The Highland Vault was no longer a tomb for the elite; it had become a frantic, sweating laboratory of human necessity. Beyond the obsidian atrium, the "Indoor Valley" stretched for half a mile, a tiered landscape of terraced gardens and hydroponic bays that looked like a jagged scar of emerald across the mountain’s granite heart. The survivors—the "Surplus Personnel" who had spent their lives being audited—were now the architects of the planet’s resur
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The door didn't just open; it exhaled. As the massive triangular slab of white stone receded into the belly of Ben Macdui, a rush of humid, pressurized air collided with the Highland chill, creating a ghostly fog that swirled around Anthony’s knees. This air didn't smell like the sterile, metallic tang of the London vaults; it smelled of damp earth, blooming jasmine, and the heavy, sweet rot of a rainforest. It was the scent of a world that hadn't been allowed to die, preserved behind air-gapped logic and three meters of reinforced granite.Anthony stepped over the threshold, his boots leaving muddy smears on a floor of polished obsidian that was so clean it felt like an insult to the two hundred shivering souls behind him. Sloane followed close, her hand still resting on the hilt of her blade, though her eyes were darting toward the ceiling. Above them, a network of artificial suns—massive LED arrays—pulsed with a soft, golden light that mimicked a perfect Mediterranean noon. It was
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