2025-09-29 18:33:04The sun had just risen when Jake woke up. Golden light streamed through the tall glass windows of Damian’s penthouse, illuminating the Persian carpet and the luxurious leather sofa.
Jake jolted, as if his body still wasn’t used to sleeping somewhere this comfortable. A savory aroma teased his nose.
He turned toward the dining room and saw Damian already standing in front of a long table loaded with food: roasted meat, warm bread, fresh fruit, imported cheese—even coffee whose sharp scent filled the room.
“Wake up, Jake,” Damian said with a faint smile. “Today, you’re going to do something that will change your life.”
Jake rubbed his eyes, staring at the table hesitantly. “This… is for me?”
“Of course. A full stomach, a clear mind.” Damian pushed a plate toward him. “Eat. You’ll need the strength.”
Jake sat down awkwardly, his hand trembling as he reached for bread. “I usually just eat instant noodles,” he muttered.
Damian chuckled. “That was before. Now you’re in a different world. A world where instant noodles are nothing but a poor man’s memory.”
Jake lowered his head, taking a bite of roast meat. The taste was so rich it almost brought tears to his eyes. “Well, my stomach’s not used to this kind of food.”
“Get used to it,” Damian said, patting his shoulder. “If you succeed, this will be your breakfast every day.”
After breakfast, Damian led Jake into his study. A wall of glass revealed Ashborne still cloaked in morning fog. On the desk, a digital map glowed. Red and blue lines formed a complicated pattern: patrol routes, gates, camera points.
“This is your battlefield,” Damian said, pointing at the screen. “I’ll explain how their system works.”
Jake looked at him with unease. “The thing I’m most worried about is getting caught. I mean, if I’m shot on sight, fine. But if I’m tortured… that’s disgusting.”
Damian smirked. “You won’t get caught. I’ve arranged a team. They’ll disable the cameras, knock out the guards with colorless gas. But all of it means nothing without you. The vault can only be opened with biometrics. You have to get close to Colonel Reeves and steal his fingerprint.”
Jake frowned. “Colonel Reeves…”
“Yes. Simple, isn’t it?”
“Remember, Jake—you can’t back out. You already took the hundred grand.”
Damian’s hand pressed on Jake’s shoulder, his smile more threat than comfort. Jake just nodded in silence.
Ten hours later, they arrived at the city’s outskirts harbor. A battered truck with Food Supply painted on its side waited, the paint chipped but the engine humming smoothly. Two men sat in the cab while another smoked beside the tire.
“This your team?” Jake asked.
“That’s right.” Damian introduced them quickly. “Connor, the driver. Mason, the tech guy. And over there—Everett. You’ve met.”
Everett sneered. “So this kid is really doing it? Look at him. Still shabby, like some bum who wandered in.”
“Enough,” Damian cut him off. “We’re short on time.” He stared hard at Jake. “Remember—don’t overdo it. Stay quiet, get in, do what you need, get out. That’s it.”
Jake took a deep breath and climbed into the back of the truck. Crates of vegetables were stacked high, the pungent smell of onions stinging his nose. The engine roared, wheels rolling over rough pavement.
First checkpoint. The truck slowed. A guard’s voice barked, checking the driver’s ID. Jake held his breath inside. A drone buzzed overhead.
A sensor light swept across the back. For a split second, a red beam cut through the crates. Jake shut his eyes—but no alarm went off. The drone turned and drifted away. The system didn’t detect him. He was like a shadow that didn’t exist.
Second checkpoint. The guards were stricter, knocking on the truck’s side. “Open it!”
Connor cracked the door. Two soldiers peeked inside. All they saw were vegetable crates. No Jake.
In reality, Jake crouched only a breath away, staring at them. Yet no sensor, no eye caught him. The soldiers shut the door. The truck rolled forward.
Jake smirked. “They’re blind,” he whispered.
The truck stopped at the warehouse area of the base. Jake slipped out, weaving between containers. Damian’s voice crackled through the earpiece. “Head south. Reeves is in the barracks.”
Jake moved swiftly, his steps light, almost soundless. In the corner, Mason switched on a portable device.
In an instant, security cameras went dark. Corridor lights flickered dim. Thin vapor leaked from the vents—colorless, odorless knockout gas. One by one, soldiers staggered and collapsed.
Jake’s eyes widened. “You… drugged them all?”
Damian’s voice was flat. “I promised you a smooth path, didn’t I?”
Swallowing hard, Jake pushed forward.
Just as Damian described, Colonel Reeves was half-drunk inside the barracks, bottle in hand. Jake crept up and jabbed a small needle into his arm. The colonel slumped. Jake pressed his finger against a portable scanner. A beep sounded—fingerprint recorded.
“Good,” Damian said. “Now open the vault in the main hangar.”
Jake carried the device to a massive steel door. The fingerprint was scanned. A green light blinked. The door groaned open, echoing through the hangar.
Jake stepped inside.
The hangar was enormous, flooded with blinding white light. Rows of metal racks stood filled with military crates. At the center, a glass container glowed with blue light. Inside, a long metallic object gleamed—Vanguard-7. Its silver surface reflected the light like a weapon from the future.
Jake froze. His chest pounded. “God…” he whispered. “It’s real?”
Damian’s chuckle came through the earpiece. “Welcome to the future, Jake. That’s the thing that will bring the world to its knees.”
Jake stepped closer, his hands trembling, his eyes locked on the weapon’s gleam.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
55
Fear did not arrive with thunder, nor with the violent crack of earth splitting open beneath careless feet; instead, it arrived like a subtle pressure against the mind, a tightening sensation that crawled beneath the skin and whispered warnings with a voice too ancient to belong to any living creature.The First City of Light woke to this tension, its luminous towers flickering in unsteady rhythms that betrayed the calm façade its architecture tried desperately to maintain. There was no disaster yet, no visible threat on the horizon, but every person who stepped outside felt a tightening in their chest as if the world had decided to breathe through them whether they permitted it or not. This was not panic created by imagination; this was the world’s fear bleeding through its lungs.Mira felt it instantly when she stepped out from the central root-chamber, the ground beneath her boots vibrating with an uneven pulse that matched the thrum of an anxious heartbeat. The sky hovered in a su
54
The morning began with a taste of iron in the air, the kind that drifted across the landscape right before a storm decides to tear the horizon open. People in the First City of Light paused mid-stride, instinctively lifting their faces toward the shifting sky as it rippled with pale green threads. The sensation wasn’t quite fear and not quite awe; it sat somewhere in the space between, like a word unspoken but ready to burn on someone’s tongue.Mira stepped out onto her balcony, letting the cold wind rush across her face. She inhaled deeply, and her chest tightened. The city’s bioluminescent towers were glowing with an unusual intensity, pulsing like frantic hearts. It wasn’t the gentle rhythm she had grown used to since the world’s rebirth. It was sharper. Faster. Uneven.The city was feeling something it had never felt before.Rage.She whispered, “Elen… what are you doing?”But she already knew the truth.It wasn’t Elen acting out.It was the world itself responding to something bu
53
The dream began the way most dreams begin—softly, without edges, drifting through the mind of a child who still believed the world was a place where everything could be understood if one only stared long enough. Lio had always been quiet, the kind of Resonant boy who listened more than he spoke, sensing the faint whispers of the living earth with more ease than he understood his own thoughts. When other children played near the glowing terraces of the First City, he lingered near the roots, tracing their subtle vibrations with curious fingers.But this dream felt different.It began with light, pale and trembling, flickering like a candle trapped inside fog. Then the light bent inward, collapsing into a tunnel of crimson haze. Lio walked through it instinctively, drawn by a voice that wasn’t a voice, a warmth that wasn’t warm, a call that carried familiarity he could not explain.When the haze cleared, he found himself standing in an enormous cavern lit by threads of dark red luminesc
52
The dream began the way most dreams begin—softly, without edges, drifting through the mind of a child who still believed the world was a place where everything could be understood if one only stared long enough. Lio had always been quiet, the kind of Resonant boy who listened more than he spoke, sensing the faint whispers of the living earth with more ease than he understood his own thoughts. When other children played near the glowing terraces of the First City, he lingered near the roots, tracing their subtle vibrations with curious fingers.But this dream felt different.It began with light, pale and trembling, flickering like a candle trapped inside fog. Then the light bent inward, collapsing into a tunnel of crimson haze. Lio walked through it instinctively, drawn by a voice that wasn’t a voice, a warmth that wasn’t warm, a call that carried familiarity he could not explain.When the haze cleared, he found himself standing in an enormous cavern lit by threads of dark red luminesc
51
The first warning was not a sound but a distortion, a subtle warping of the air that sent a faint metallic taste across the horizon. It drifted above the southern ridges like heat rising from cracked asphalt, except it carried weight—an awareness pressing against the senses of everyone attuned to the living world. Even those who lacked Resonant abilities felt the change, pausing mid-step as goosebumps crawled along their arms, triggered by a shift they could not name but instinctively feared.Mira registered the disturbance seconds before the shockwave hit. She straightened sharply, her gaze snapping to the far south where the sky rippled with unnatural tension. The clouds bent inward, as though pulled by a gravitational breath from deep beneath the crust.She whispered, “It’s happening again.”A Resonant guard rushed toward her, eyes wide. “The southern plates are vibrating in fractured sequences. They’re not following Elen’s rhythm anymore.”Mira inhaled slowly and felt the strain r
50
The city did not rise from blueprints or scaffolding or human ambition; it grew, inch by trembling inch, like a luminous creature testing its limbs beneath the dawning sky. The earth shaped its walls from living stone that pulsed with bioenergetic veins, and every tower curved toward the sun the way flowers tilt for warmth. When viewed from afar, the First City of Light shimmered like a cluster of breathing lanterns—alive, watchful, and intimately aware of every heartbeat wandering through its corridors.Yet even in its beauty, something restless simmered beneath the surface.A hum threaded through the city streets, too rhythmic to be natural, too intentional to be dismissed. Humans and Resonants alike paused mid-step, drawn by the echo vibrating through the root-grown bridges connecting each district. Even the glowing archways, shaped from crystalline sap, brightened and dimmed in uneven intervals, as though responding to a pulse no one understood.Mira stood at the center of the mai
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