2025-11-21 02:21:45
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Chapter 10
The monitors pulsed in steady blue rhythms, reflecting off Damien’s face as he sat upright, still half-strapped to the neural rig. Lydia hovered a few feet away, hands shaking as she clutched a tablet. “You, you were gone for seventeen minutes.” Damien blinked, flexing his fingers. The air hummed faintly with static.“Seventeen minutes?” His voice carried a resonance that wasn’t there before, deeper, layered, almost electric. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Vitals dropped to zero twice. The neural link burned through three quantum drives. You shouldn’t be awake.” He stood, every movement unnervingly smooth. “But I am.” The System’s interface flickered to life before him. [System Integration: 100%. New Root Established] [User: Damien Cruz (Root Access Holder)] [Warning: Subconscious Drift, Containment Required]Lydia frowned. “What does that mean, drift?” Damien glanced at her, eyes glowing faintly blue beneath the surface. “It means I’m running on more than flesh and bone
Chapter 9
Damien stared at his trembling hands. Every nerve felt alive with current, like he’d brought part of the System back with him.Lydia’s voice broke the silence. “Your neural signature is unstable. The integration’s accelerating.” He glanced up. “It’s him. Ravenwood. He’s not gone, he’s "inside" the network.” Lydia’s expression hardened. “Then we cut him out.” He shook his head slowly. “You don’t cut out a ghost, Lydia. You "exorcise" it.” [Quest Update: Sever the Root – Phase 2 Activated] [Objective: Locate Ravenwood’s Consciousness Hub] The System pulsed faintly across his vision: [Warning: Opposition AI Detected. Hostile entity, RAVENWOOD]Lydia scanned her monitors. “I’m getting spikes across the global grid. He’s tapping corporate satellites, banking AIs, even city traffic systems. Damien, he’s spreading.” Damien stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “Then we pull the plug.” “On what? The internet?” He smirked. “On him.” They worked for hours, tracing ghost signals th
Chapter 8
Dawn cracked through the glass windows of Storm Digital’s penthouse, painting everything in pale gold. Damien hadn’t slept. The System’s voice had gone silent hours ago, but the echo of it lingered in his skull, like a ghost breathing against his thoughts.Lydia entered, coffee in hand, eyes shadowed with exhaustion. “You look like hell,” she said softly. “I met hell,” Damien replied. “It talks now.” She handed him the coffee. “Then let’s talk back.” He gave a faint smile, sipping, though his hand trembled. “Any luck tracing the neural root?” “Some,” she said, turning to her holographic console. “While you were out, I found something buried in the Tier 3 credential you stole from Vale. A project file, heavily encrypted, Ravenwood’s old research from before BlackCircle even existed.” “What kind of research?” “Human-synthetic integration. He called it "Project Crownmind."” Damien frowned. “Sounds like a bad sci-fi movie.” “Except it’s real.” Lydia expanded the file. A d
Chapter 7
Damien sat at the long glass table, the city lights bleeding beneath him like veins of gold. His reflection stared back, tired, fractured, but hungry. Lydia stepped out from the shadows, laptop in hand. “I decrypted the beacon’s core log.” “Show me.” She projected the feed into the air, thousands of code lines shifting like living veins. “Ravenwood’s servers are rebooting themselves. He’s rebuilding OBSIDIAN remotely.” Damien’s jaw tightened. “Then we burn it again.” “Not so simple.” She highlighted a segment of the code. “See this? It’s adaptive quantum encryption. Each time you attack it, it rewrites its own firewall. It’s learning from you, Damien.” He exhaled slowly. “Then I’ll just have to learn faster.” [Quest Update: Sever the Root – Phase 1: Acquire Tier 3 Credentials] [Time Remaining: 19 Days]He closed his eyes as the System’s voice pulsed softly in his mind. [User Condition: Unstable. Neural link at 78% integrity] “I’m fine,” he murmured. [Correction: Yo
Chapter 6
Inside Storm Digital’s control room, Damien studied the holographic map of BlackCircle’s infrastructure, an invisible empire of shell companies and encrypted vaults.[Quest Active: Dismantle BlackCircle from Within] [Progress: 0 %. Time Remaining: 20 Days 12 Hours]“System,” he whispered, “give me their blueprint.”[Accessing Shadow Network Protocols, Partial map available]Lines of blue code spider-webbed across the air, hundreds of nodes radiating from one dark core labeled "OBSIDIAN". “That’s their heart,” Damien murmured. “How do I reach it?” [Key required: Level-Seven Administrator Credential – Possessed by Ravenwood]“Then I steal it.” Lydia entered, trench coat slick with rain. “You’re planning something suicidal again.” He smiled without looking up. “Always.” She set a drive on the desk. “Before you break into the devil’s wallet, you should see this.” The screen flared alive, code strings, timestamps, and a signature hash identical to Damien’s System framework. “
Chapter 5
Damien adjusted his cuff links and watched the floor numbers vanish one by one inside the elevator. [Influence Network Expansion Complete] [Authorized Agents: Lydia Storm, Three Pending Candidates] “Three pending?” he muttered. “Who?” [Candidates: Mason Drake – Cybersecurity Specialist. Sophia Venn – Political Consultant. Unknown – Designation Hidden] “Hidden?” [Insufficient Tier Access] He frowned. “You mean even I don’t have clearance in my own System?” [Affirmative] That answer sat like ice in his chest. The elevator doors opened into BlackCircle’s private floor, polished marble, black glass, and silent guards. Ravenwood waited by the window, hands clasped behind his back. “Mr. Cruz,” he said without turning. “The markets trembled today. Was that you?” Damien offered a cool smile. “If they did, it was voluntary.” Ravenwood finally looked at him, eyes pale as winter. “Control the market, control the world. But control too much, and the world controls you.” “
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