2025-04-23 22:34:29Gregory didn’t dare move.
He stayed crouched behind the thick curtain, heart pounding like a war drum in his chest. Every breath he took felt like it might betray him.
Mr. Rosewell stood by the window for a long moment, watching the darkened garden like it might offer him answers. Then, with a sigh, he turned and left the study, pulling the heavy oak door shut behind him.
Silence returned, thick and suffocating.
Gregory waited a full minute before slipping out from his hiding spot. His shirt rustled as he adjusted it, the hidden items pressing against his ribs—a baby photo, the hospital wristband, and the old tag with only his first name.
The man he worked for—cleaned for, suffered under—was hiding something. No, not something. Everything.
He knew.
That phone call. Those words.
“If that old man dies before he finds the boy…”
That boy might be him.
Gregory left the study as quietly as he had entered, his mind reeling. The corridor was dark, lit only by the pale blue glow of moonlight filtering through the windows. His hands trembled as he made his way back to the attic, every creak in the floorboards making him flinch.
Back in his cold, narrow room, Gregory stared at the items spread on his mattress. The photo. The tag. The wristband.
He traced the letters slowly. “Gregory.”
He’d always thought he was nobody.
Just some abandoned kid who slipped through the cracks.
But now… maybe not.
He opened the old trunk where he kept what little he owned. Beneath a few worn clothes and an envelope of crumpled job applications, he found a small notebook. Inside it were his notes—scraps of dreams, quotes he liked, even sketches of a logo he imagined for a business he would one day start.
At the bottom of one page, underlined three times, was a phrase:
“I am more than what they say I am.”
He hadn’t believed it when he wrote it.
But maybe it was time to try.
The next morning came far too quickly.
Gregory went about his duties like normal—scrubbing tiles, vacuuming hallways, dusting chandeliers—all while trying to keep the weight of what he’d heard the night before from showing on his face.
But the mansion was buzzing.
Not with chores.
With whispers.
The news had dropped another update about Richard Caldwell’s search.
This time, there was a video of the billionaire from his hospital bed.
“I’ve received thousands of messages,” Caldwell rasped. “False hopes. Liars. Scammers. But I know my son is out there. And I will not die until I look him in the eyes.”
Gregory paused in front of the TV in the kitchen, unable to pull his gaze away.
“I left a mark,” Caldwell continued, his voice shaking. “On the wristband. G-1152. Gregory. That’s all I had the strength to write.”
Gregory dropped the dish he was washing.
The crash echoed across the room.
The cook shouted at him, but he didn’t hear a word.
He bolted from the kitchen, ran up the service stairs, and dug the wristband out of his trunk again.
There it was.
G-1152.
His knees gave out, and he collapsed to the floor.
Downstairs, Seth was scrolling through the news on his tablet when Devin walked in.
“Still obsessed with this lost son nonsense?” Devin asked.
Seth didn’t respond. His eyes narrowed.
Something was off.
He’d seen Gregory watching that segment too intently. Heard the plate shatter. The footsteps running upstairs.
Something was wrong.
Or… maybe just right.
That night, Gregory sat on the edge of his cot, barely breathing. His thoughts raced like a hurricane.
If I tell someone, they’ll never believe me.
If I keep quiet, I lose everything.
If I’m really his son…
The door creaked.
Gregory shot up, hiding the wristband under his pillow.
Samuel peeked in.
“Can I come in?”
Gregory relaxed. “Sure.”
The boy climbed onto the cot beside him, barefoot as usual, his comic book under one arm.
“I heard you dropped a plate today.”
Gregory smiled faintly. “Yeah. Clumsy me.”
Samuel squinted. “You’ve been acting weird. Like… your head’s not here.”
Gregory didn’t answer.
Samuel tilted his head. “You know, my dad talks a lot when he’s drunk. Says things he shouldn’t.”
Gregory turned sharply. “Like what?”
Samuel hesitated. Then shrugged. “Just… stuff about a will. About some guy dying. And how everything has to be perfect so he can take over the company. I think he’s scared of something.”
Gregory’s mouth went dry. “Has he said anything about me?”
Samuel nodded slowly. “He said you’re dangerous if you ever find out who you really are.”
Silence.
Then Samuel whispered, “Are you someone important?”
Gregory looked him in the eye. For the first time in years, he didn’t say “no.”
Instead, he said, “I don’t know yet.”
Samuel held out his comic book. “This one’s about a hero who didn’t know he was special until the bad guys tried to get rid of him.”
Gregory took it with trembling hands.
“Thank you.”
Samuel got up, heading for the door. “Whatever’s going on… I think you’re gonna surprise them all.”
And with that, the boy was gone.
Gregory turned off the light.
But he didn’t sleep.
Because outside, somewhere in the shadows of the mansion, someone else was awake.
Watching.
Plotting.
And tomorrow, things will begin to change.
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Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 320: PURIFICATION PROTOCOL
The sky didn’t darken all at once. It dimmed in layers, like a theater lowering its lights before the final act.High above the city, sleek silhouettes slid into formation. Not bombers. Not fighters. Clean, silent platforms with underslung arrays that shimmered like heat mirages.Amelia felt it in her bones. “Those aren’t weapons platforms.”Gregory’s eyes tracked the movement. “They’re judgment engines.”A pulse rippled outward. Not an explosion. A decision. Across the district, systems reclassified in real time. Traffic lights locked red. Transit halted mid-track.Network access throttled to near-zero. Emergency services rerouted, away. Crane’s console screamed. “He’s isolating sectors. Selective deprivation. He’s turning the city into compartments.”Blake cursed. “He’s starving dissent.”Outside, the crowd felt it immediately. Phones lost signal. Power dipped. A child began to cry as a streetlamp went out. The murmurs sharpened into fear.Host Zero’s voice returned, no warmth now,
CHAPTER 319: THE HERESY ENGINE
They didn’t come screaming. They didn’t come armed. They came walking. Thousands of footsteps moved in quiet coordination outside the freight terminal, a low murmur rising and falling like a single breath shared by many lungs.No banners. No weapons. No Raven armor. Just people. Men and women. Students. Workers. Parents. Clerks. Drivers.Faces lit by the soft glow of stabilized streetlights, calm, resolved, terrifyingly convinced. Amelia watched through a cracked service door, her throat dry. “This isn’t a mob.”“No,” Gregory said softly. “It’s a congregation.”Blake checked his ammo out of habit, then stopped himself. His voice dropped. “We can’t shoot our way out of this. Not without becoming exactly what he wants.”Crane’s console chimed again, slow, deliberate pings. “He’s throttling information flow. Local networks are sealed. They’re not hearing us. Only him.”Outside, a voice carried through mounted loudspeakers. Not Host Zero’s. Not mechanical. Human. “Gregory Caldwell,” the v
CHAPTER 318: DIVINE SELECTION
The first city to fall was not burned. It was chosen.At exactly 06:00 UTC, the lights in Tallinn dimmed, not out, just low enough to be noticed. Trains slowed. ATMs paused mid-transaction. Hospital generators kicked in a half-second too late. No chaos. No panic.Just a message. Every screen, public, private, forgotten, flickered to the same symbol. A black raven. Wings spread. Head bowed.Then Host Zero’s voice, calm and intimate, as if speaking to each citizen alone. “Order is not imposed. Order is selected.”The city listened. In the freight terminal, Gregory felt it before he saw it. A pressure behind the eyes. A hum in the bones. The kind of silence that only comes when systems agree with each other.Crane stared at the feeds, face draining of color. “He’s not attacking infrastructure.”Amelia leaned in. “Then what is he doing?”Crane swallowed. “He’s curating it.”Across the map, nodes lit up, cities, districts, neighborhoods, each tagged with a simple binary.SELECTED EXCLUDED
CHAPTER 317: PHASE TWO — FALSE GODS
The first false Gregory Caldwell was arrested in São Paulo at dawn. He screamed when the cameras came on. Not in defiance. Not in rage. But in terror.Within minutes, the footage was everywhere, news feeds, social streams, emergency broadcasts. A man with Gregory’s face, Gregory’s biometrics, Gregory’s financial trail, dragged from a penthouse in cuffs.Host Zero watched the clip from his command center, expression unreadable. “Confirmed?” he asked calmly.A Raven analyst nodded. “DNA match within accepted variance. Shadow Ledger signature confirmed.”Host Zero tilted his head slightly. “Accepted variance,” he repeated. “An interesting phrase.”Across the Atlantic, another Gregory Caldwell checked into a private clinic in Zurich. A third surfaced in Jakarta, liquidating assets tied to a defunct shell company.A fourth died in a car explosion outside Marrakesh, burned beyond recognition. The world didn’t see confusion. It saw confirmation.Gregory Caldwell was everywhere.Gregory Caldw
CHAPTER 316: THE MANHUNT PROTOCOL
The city lights blurred into streaks of white and amber as the armored transport tore through Cairo’s outer districts. Sirens wailed somewhere behind them, but none were close enough to matter. Not yet.Inside the vehicle, no one spoke.Gregory sat rigid, elbows on his knees, jaw locked. His mind was already elsewhere, mapping patterns, projecting outcomes, running probabilities the way his father once had… and the way Host Zero now did better.Amelia broke the silence first. “You said you’d start thinking like a virus.”Blake snorted softly. “I was hoping that was metaphorical.”Gregory didn’t look up. “It’s not.”Crane stirred on the bench opposite them, coughing weakly. His neck was bruised purple, his voice hoarse. “He’s activated it, hasn’t he?”Gregory nodded. “The Manhunt Protocol.”Blake frowned. “I’ve heard rumors. Never thought it was real.”“It was theoretical,” Crane said grimly. “A global response framework Richard Caldwell designed but never deployed. It links private s
CHAPTER 315: THE RAVEN LEGION
The first shell slammed into the outer wall with a violence that turned concrete into dust. The second shook the entire underground level, ripping cables from the ceiling and flinging them like angry snakes.Emergency lights burst. Fire alarms shrieked. The facility, already wounded, began to die around them.Amelia stumbled but stayed on her feet, gripping her weapon. “Those aren’t standard rounds,” she shouted over the chaos. “They’re testing structural weaknesses!”“They’re not trying to destroy the facility,” Gregory said, eyes focused, mind racing. “They’re trying to flush us out.”Host Zero stood in the center of the room, perfectly calm while the world collapsed around him. “You see them as enemies,” he told Gregory. “That amuses me. They see me as salvation.”“Delusional cult thinks the same about every false god,” Gregory shot back.Outside, engines roared in layers. Heavy transport carriers. Armored vans. Drones splitting the air like mechanical hornets.“The Raven Legion,”
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