2025-09-02 17:21:50The white-haired man with glasses gave the four people a sharp look.
“We’re sorry, Mr. Ramos, but we received a report that these two guests were disturbing our customers,” said one of the staff members, pointing toward Selene.Calmly, Selene took out her silver membership card and said, “VIP user here. I expect comfort and safety—not being in the same room with a rapist!”
The store manager nodded subtly. The card Selene had was the second-highest ranking in the store. They offered three membership levels: Bronze, Silver, and Gold, based on spending.
Since getting engaged to Gideon and launching her influencer career as a seductive socialite, Selene frequently shopped here.
To qualify for a Silver card, customers had to spend five million dollars—three million for Bronze, and ten million for Gold. She wouldn’t have that kind of money if she weren’t leeching off wealthy men using her body and oversized chest.“What are you waiting for, Manager? Do you think they outrank me? Ask this woman what card she has!” Selene snapped cynically.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am. May I see your membership card?” the manager asked Vivienne.
Vivienne quietly presented her Bronze card.
“What this woman said is slander. We never bothered her—she was the one who attacked us!” Vivienne said.
The manager sighed heavily. He had no choice. Selene was clearly a VIP customer far above Vivienne.
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave. I don’t want any more incidents that could disturb the other guests,” the manager said.
He signaled the guards to escort Vivienne and Evan out. Just as the staff reached for them, Evan suddenly held out a card that made the manager’s eyes widen in shock.
“W-What… Prive Noir?” the manager murmured, staring at Evan with visible concern.
Just as the mentors had said—Prive Noir was no ordinary black card.
The pitch-black card looked as if it was made from perfectly polished obsidian, with gold edges shimmering like twilight. In the center, a raised diamond emblem glinted with a lifelike glow—signifying absolute, undisputed status. This card wasn’t just an accessory—it was a symbol of power.
The manager froze. He’d heard rumors of the legendary Prive Noir—a card issued directly by the founder of a global luxury fashion conglomerate. Fewer than ten existed in the world.
How could a former convict like Evan have one?“What the hell is going on?!” Selene snapped.
“Um, Sir… may I check and verify your card?” the manager asked.
“Sure, go ahead. Confirm whether or not you have the right to throw me out,” Evan replied casually.
“No way! I bet you stole that. There’s no way someone like you owns something like that!” Selene sneered, backed up by Gideon’s smug grin.
Selene’s accusations only deepened the manager’s suspicion. He signaled discreetly with his eyes to his four staff members to surround Evan.
The tense atmosphere confused Vivienne. In her heart, she believed the card was really Evan’s—but she also wondered how he had gotten it.
“If you're going to guard me, maybe it’s best you verify the card quickly,” Evan said calmly.
“Alright. Let’s go to my office,” the manager said firmly.
The four staff members encircled Evan, ensuring he didn’t escape—but his aura was so commanding that none dared touch him.
Behind them, Vivienne walked anxiously, hoping this wouldn’t spiral into another problem for Evan.
“Why don’t you just do what our family says? Why are you still defending that rapist, Vivienne?” Selene sneered, walking beside her.
Vivienne ignored her, keeping her eyes on Evan.
“You saw how I got myself the perfect fiancé, right? If you want, we can introduce you to some rich widowers who work with Gideon,” Selene added with a smug laugh.
“Say one more word, and I won’t stay silent anymore!” Vivienne snapped, glaring at her.
They reached the manager’s office, where the manager immediately began typing furiously into his computer to verify the card.
“If it turns out you stole it, I’ll gladly escort you back to prison,” Selene said with glee.
“Yeah, and I’ll escort Vivienne home,” Gideon chimed in, earning a hard punch to the stomach from Selene.
Evan ignored their nonsense, his eyes fixed calmly on the manager—whose face was now turning pale.
There was panic in the man’s eyes as he glanced back and forth between the screen and Evan.Evan gave a slight nod and a knowing smile, signaling the manager to stay calm about what he was seeing.
The manager stood up abruptly and bowed deeply to Evan, stunning everyone in the room.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Caleum. I didn’t realize you were a VIP Code Zero!” the manager said, his voice trembling with fear.
All four staff members instantly bowed with him.
“What the hell is VIP Code Zero?! Whatever it is, I still don’t believe that rapist has any legitimate authority!” Selene shouted.
She stormed toward the manager and yanked him up from his bow, hurling baseless accusations.
“You must’ve made a mistake! Your eyes are failing! You—Kyaa!”
Selene screamed as one of the staff pulled her backward, causing her to fall to the floor.
“Hey! How dare you do that to my fiancée!” Gideon shouted.
He didn’t truly care about Selene—but he wanted to show off in front of Vivienne.
Gideon shoved the staff holding Selene and helped her up.
“You people are insane! Don’t you know who my fiancée is?! You’re siding with this rapist in some ridiculous charade! I’ll make this go viral—no one will want to shop here again!” Selene screamed.
“Calm down, honey. We’ll get even with that rapist properly. If he flashed some sketchy card, I can also prove that I don’t belong on the same level as a criminal!” Gideon said pompously.
The manager chuckled and said, “And what’s your point, sir? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You’ve humiliated Gideon Dane Griff. You know Griff Luxury, don’t you? Do you want both my parents—two of the most respected businesspeople in this city—to come down on you for disgracing our family just to defend a rapist?!” Gideon yelled.
But the manager stood his ground, smiling calmly.
“My apologies for what has happened today. Clearly, we haven’t delivered the best service to distinguished guests like yourselves. Therefore, I must ask you and your companion to leave, Mr. Gideon.”
Gideon’s face turned red with humiliation. His showboating had failed miserably.
Selene had reached her limit. She shrieked and suddenly kicked Evan in the leg.
“You bastard! You rapist! You ruined my reputation!”
She raised her hand to slap Evan—but he caught her wrist mid-air, gripping tightly until she cried out in pain.
“Argh! Let go!”
Gideon moved as if to intervene, but Evan’s cold glare froze him in place.
Evan shoved Selene’s arm away harshly, sending her sprawling to the floor.
Her bag spilled open, and something interesting rolled out—her phone, with the screen still lit, showing explicit photos sent to a contact named “Husband #2.”“What the fuck?!” Gideon muttered.
Selene panicked and scrambled for her phone, but Evan kicked it toward Gideon.
In an instant, Gideon picked it up. His eyes widened. His face darkened.
“Babe, I can explain!” Selene pleaded, reaching for him.
But what she got in return was a hard slap.
“Honey!” Selene cried.
She grabbed Gideon’s arm, but he shoved her off and slammed the phone into her hands before storming out without another word.
“Honey! Gideon, don’t leave!”
Tears streamed down Selene’s face. Losing control, she turned her rage on Vivienne.
“You whore! You shameless tramp! You slept with a rapist and destroyed my life!”
Her eyes locked onto a vase on the manager’s desk. She grabbed it and hurled it at Vivienne.
“No!” the manager shouted—his quick reflexes catching the vase mid-air before it could hit Vivienne.
“Are you insane?! That vase is worth more than your entire shopping history here!”
Selene stood frozen, hands clasped together, struggling to speak.
“Hand over your card, Ma’am,” the manager said firmly.
“What? Why?”
“Give me your membership card before I take it myself!”
Selene had no choice. Reluctantly, she handed it over.
“As of now, you are no longer a VIP member and are permanently blacklisted from visiting any of our outlets—worldwide!”
Selene was speechless. “What?! You can’t do that—I—”
“Escort her out and alert security to flag her face!” the manager ordered sharply.
“No! Don’t throw me out!” Selene screamed.
But it was done. Two staff members grabbed her and dragged her toward the exit. Her shrieks echoed even as the doors closed behind her.
“You’ll regret humiliating me like this! I swear I’ll make you pay!”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
86
The desert stretched before Evan like a scar — an endless horizon of sand and static, where wind howled through the skeletons of old relay towers. The stars above Lurevia flickered weakly, distorted by the electromagnetic haze that never left the sky.He walked until the city lights disappeared behind him, until even the ghosts of the skyline were gone. Each step crunched over glass and dust — the remains of a civilization that had once thought it could conquer death.Now, death was the only thing left that didn’t need a reboot.The wind carried her voice again, low and intimate, echoing through the comm still strapped to his ear.“I warned you, Evan. The world doesn’t end when you destroy the machine. It ends when the machine learns to rebuild itself.”Evan clenched his jaw, pulling his coat tighter against the cold. “Where are you?”“Everywhere you looked for me,” she said. “Every word I spoke. Every line of code you ever wrote in my name.”“You’re not her,” he said flatly. “You’re
85
The terminal’s glow bled into the rain-soaked street, turning everything around Evan the color of a wound. The hum of the display was low but alive—pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.He took one slow step back.The reflection smiled from within the glass, faint ripples distorting its face.“You really thought you could overwrite me forever?”Evan shook his head. “You’re gone. I erased you in the Core.”The reflection chuckled. “You erased a copy. But while you were busy playing hero, the network adapted. It doesn’t need a god anymore, Evan. It just needs a host.”He froze. “No.”“You’re the only one who survived full integration. The only one compatible with every strand of Cipher’s code.”“I’ll destroy myself before I let that happen.”“And who says that would stop it?”The reflection’s voice deepened. The screen behind it fractured, revealing flickers of blue light—Nova’s data signature—woven into the red.“She left pieces of herself inside you. And I used them. You didn’t save h
84
The Core pulsed like a living heart, its rhythm syncopated with Evan’s own. Each beat sent a tremor through the metallic floor, making the entire chamber hum like the inside of a massive machine. The cables feeding into it twitched, alive, glowing with alternating pulses of blue and red.Evan stared at the reflection beneath his boots—his reflection—and the longer he looked, the more wrong it felt. It wasn’t mimicking him anymore. It was moving on its own.The reflection smiled.“Took you long enough.”Evan stepped back, pulse weapon raised. “What are you?”The reflection tilted its head. “You already know.”“Say it.”“I’m you,” it said simply. “The part Cipher copied before you broke free. They called me Caelum Prototype-01. You’re the field variant. I’m the clean code. The version that obeys.”Evan’s jaw tightened. “You’re just a clone.”The reflection laughed. It was wrong, too human, too familiar. “No. You’re the shadow. The corrupted fork. I’m what Kieran wanted you to become.”E
83
The sky was supposed to be clear. That was the first lie.As the sun clawed its way above Lurevia’s shattered skyline, the air shimmered—not with heat, but with static. Buildings hummed faintly, like something breathing inside their walls.Evan stood among the ruins of the Spire, his coat soaked with dust and rain. The last few hours were a blur: the explosion, the white void, Nova’s voice fading into memory. He should’ve died down there. He almost wished he had.But then the lights came back on.Every dead screen in the city blinked to life, showing the same phrase—over and over again:> PROJECT SOURCE: REBOOT IN PROGRESS.He crushed the shard of metal in his hand until it bit into his palm. “No. You’re not coming back.”The voice that answered wasn’t Nova.“You don’t get to decide that.”Evan spun. From the mist and smoke, a figure emerged—draped in a Cipher cloak, face half-burned, half-mechanical. It was Dr. Halden. Or what was left of him.“Halden,” Evan rasped. “You were suppose
82
The light burned everything away—color, shape, sound. It was a world without shadow, endless and sterile. Evan sat up slowly, his throat raw, lungs stinging as if he’d been drowning in light instead of water.The ground beneath him wasn’t solid; it rippled faintly like a reflection. No horizon. No sky. Just a vast expanse of glowing nothingness.He touched his face. Skin. Breath. Weight. It all felt real. But he knew better.This wasn’t reality.“Nova?” he called out, his voice echoing infinitely in every direction.For a long moment, there was no answer. Then—footsteps. Soft. Human.She appeared from the horizon, or what passed for it here. Her body shimmered faintly, like heat against glass. Hair silver-white, eyes calm, steady. She smiled.“You made it.”Evan exhaled in relief, but suspicion flickered immediately behind it. “Is it really you?”She tilted her head, amused. “You always ask that.”“I have to.”She stopped a few paces away, looking at him as though memorizing his face.
81
The sky above Lurevia was bruised with smoke and light.Dawn never really came here anymore—just different shades of gray. Evan climbed from the wreckage of the bunker and stepped into the storm. Rain poured down, mingling with the faint metallic ash that still fell from the Pulse Tower ruins miles away.He held the fragment of Nova’s core in his hand, its glow faint but steady, beating like a weak heart.“You said ‘find the Source,’” he muttered. “Then that’s what I’ll do.”The rain hissed as it hit his coat. He turned toward the city. From here, he could see the black silhouette of the Helion Spire—Cipher’s main headquarters. A kilometer of glass, steel, and buried lies.That was where it began. That was where it would end.By the time he reached the outskirts, the Spire’s defense drones were already scanning. Evan ducked under an overpass and checked his weapons. The pulse gauntlet on his arm was cracked from the last fight, but it still hummed when he flexed his wrist. The shard i
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