2025-06-30 20:51:21The scent of bergamot tea filled the vast room like royalty’s perfume.
Kai sat on a velvet chaise that probably cost more than his entire neighborhood. Across from him, the man in the black suit, Mr. Thorne, stood like a shadow with perfect posture, hands clasped behind his back, eyes unreadable.
The room was silent, save for the soft ticking of a gold clock shaped like a lion.
“I need you to tell me everything,” Kai said, voice calm, but with an edge. “Now.”
Mr. Thorne nodded, stepped forward, and placed a small black box on the glass table. “This box belonged to your grandfather. He requested that it be given to you privately, before anything else is disclosed.”
Kai narrowed his eyes. “What’s in it?”
Thorne gave a faint smile. “Answers. And instructions.”
Inside the box, a pocket watch, still ticking A handwritten letter on aged parchment A silver ring engraved with a crest he didn’t recognize
A memory card labeled simply, "Watch Me."
Kai unfolded the letter, the ink curled like it had been written by someone who weighed every word. “Kai , if you're reading this, it means the vultures have begun circling. Be calm. Be careful. This empire is yours, but it is not safe. You will be hunted, from within and without. Trust no one completely. Not even Thorne. I didn’t raise you, but I watched over you. The world took your parents. I made sure it didn’t take you. Now, it’s time for you to take it back.” Lucian Everhart.
Kai stared at the signature for a long time. He didn’t know whether to feel warmth or betrayal. A man had watched over him his entire life… and yet never came. Why now?
He looked at Thorne. “Were you there the day my parents died?”
Thorne blinked. “Yes.”
Kai stood up. “And you let me grow up in the gutter?”
“I obeyed Lucian’s orders. You were safer unknown than protected.”
His voice didn’t tremble, but there was something tight in it. Guilt? Kai's fists clenched, then slowly relaxed. “And now?”
“Now you’re exposed. And the sharks smell blood.”
The tour of the estate was brief, but mind-blowing. A vault beneath the library. A panic room disguised as a wine cellar.
Monitors tracking news, stocks, satellites. A basement gym with bulletproof glass, A helipad with a chopper on standby. Private quarters for “strategic partners,” empty, for now.
Kai stopped outside a locked door labeled “Chamber 5.”
“What’s in there?” he asked.
Thorne hesitated. “That room is... restricted. Even for you. For now.”
Kai didn’t like the tone. “Why?”
But Thorne had already turned. “Your presence is required at the estate’s war room. The board will call within the hour. They’ll want to meet their new master.”
As Kai changed into fresh clothes, sleek, tailored, he stared at himself in the mirror. The rips and dirt were gone. But the rage remained.
These people had let him rot in poverty while they polished their silver. Now he would polish his vengeance.
But first… he had to understand the game. The war room was unlike anything he had ever imagined.
Three walls covered in massive screens: stock tickers, oil prices, political news, private video feeds. In the center: a round black table with chairs like thrones, each with a silver nameplate.
Only one seat had its name changed: “Kai Everhart.”
Thorne stood behind him, silent. A low beep. The lights dimmed. Ten screens flickered on, faces of men and women, some in shadows, others openly staring.
Kai recognized a few. A U.S. Senator, a tech mogul, a royal from the Middle East.
A woman in red lipstick and pearls leaned forward first. “So, the boy king arrives.”
A man with half his face in shadow said, “Let’s not waste time. Can he lead, or do we tear him down now?”
Another: “Lucian trusted him. That counts for something.”
The woman again: “Or it means nothing. We test him now. Immediately.”
Kai spoke, finally. Calm. Cold. “You want to test me?”
He leaned forward. “Let me be clear. I didn’t beg for this throne. But now that I’m sitting on it, you’ll need a goddamn army to take it from me.”
A silence fell. The woman smiled. “Good,” she said. “Let’s begin.”
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Chapter 227. The Analog Sanctum
The storm came without warning. It rolled across the dead plain in a hard gray wall, sand cutting sideways, wind tearing at anything not bolted down. The outer colonies had no warning systems left. No satellites. No alerts. You learned storms by feeling the air change.Kai felt it as he tightened the last bolt on the solar mast. He climbed down from the rusted scaffold as the first gust hit, boots slipping on cracked concrete. He pulled a tarp over the exposed panels and locked it down with steel hooks. The wind howled harder, slamming into the skeletal remains of the old facility.The structure had once been a weather research hub. Pre-digital. Built before full automation. Thick walls. Manual controls. It had survived because no one thought it mattered anymore.Kai shoved the door closed and sealed the latch. The storm battered the building. The lights inside did not flicker.A single generator hummed, steady and low. Kai stood in the center of the room and waited until the sound
Chapter 226. The Shattered Vault
The Vault died in pieces. Not in one purge. Not with a broadcast or a final stand. It broke quietly, node by node, person by person, until no one could say where it ended or what it had ever been.Kai learned this by walking. He moved under a new name again. The alias changed with each region. Clothes changed too. What stayed the same was his pace. Slow. Observant. Never first to speak.The first rumor reached him in a rail-yard settlement built from overturned freight cars.Two men argued beside a barrel fire. “You hear about the Vault people?” one asked.The other spat into the dirt. “Which ones?”“The ones who ran the deep code. Before the blackout.”“Yeah,” the second man said. “They’re gone. Or sold out.”Kai kept walking. That night, he slept in a maintenance tunnel with water dripping through cracked concrete. He wrote by lantern light, pencil scratching steady lines across paper. “Vault no longer cohesive. Names traded like currency.”He closed the journal and hid it under h
Chapter 226. The Shattered Vault
The Vault died in pieces. Not in one purge. Not with a broadcast or a final stand. It broke quietly, node by node, person by person, until no one could say where it ended or what it had ever been.Kai learned this by walking. He moved under a new name again. The alias changed with each region. Clothes changed too. What stayed the same was his pace. Slow. Observant. Never first to speak.The first rumor reached him in a rail-yard settlement built from overturned freight cars.Two men argued beside a barrel fire. “You hear about the Vault people?” one asked.The other spat into the dirt. “Which ones?”“The ones who ran the deep code. Before the blackout.”“Yeah,” the second man said. “They’re gone. Or sold out.”Kai kept walking. That night, he slept in a maintenance tunnel with water dripping through cracked concrete. He wrote by lantern light, pencil scratching steady lines across paper. “Vault no longer cohesive. Names traded like currency.”He closed the journal and hid it under h
Chapter 225. The Empire of Tenebris
The banners went up before sunrise. They were black, thick cloth reinforced with fiber, heavy enough to hang straight even in the wind. Crews worked in silence, fastening them to towers, bridges, and the skeletal remains of old Crest infrastructure. Floodlights came online one by one, turning the banners into flat silhouettes against pale concrete.By the time the sun crested the horizon, the city center no longer belonged to Crest. It belonged to Tenebris.Armored formations assembled across the Grand Axis Plaza. Rows of soldiers locked into position, boots aligned, rifles angled down. No insignia marked rank. Only the Tenebris symbol burned white on their chest plates.Civilians gathered at a distance first, then closer. Word had spread during the night. Power was returning. Water pumps had restarted in three districts. Food convoys had crossed borders without being attacked. People came because things were working again.They stood shoulder to shoulder, quiet, watching the platf
Chapter 224. The World Without Hands
The man called himself Rowan now. He answered to it when spoken aloud. He signed it on ration logs. He let it settle into his posture, his walk, his way of standing slightly off-center in any room. Rowan was forgettable. That was the point.Kai cut his hair short with a dull blade in a communal washroom two days after leaving the convoy. He shaved unevenly, then let stubble grow back wrong. He burned his old jacket and traded it for a patched coat that smelled of oil and rain. When he caught his reflection in a cracked mirror, he tilted his head, adjusted his shoulders, and nodded once.The face would pass. The settlement outside the dead zone called itself Haven Ridge. It was neither haven nor ridge. It was a sprawl of stacked shipping containers, collapsed prefab housing, and tents stretched between old highway pylons. Smoke drifted from cook fires. People moved constantly, but without flow. No rhythm. No timing.Kai walked in with a sack over his shoulder and nothing else. At th
Chapter 223. Smugglers of the Unseen
The alley smelled of damp metal and diesel. Rain dripped from broken panels, pooling in shallow rivulets across cracked pavement.Eren crouched in the shadows, hood pulled low, scanning the street. Digital overlays blinked on his portable terminal, false IDs, projected itineraries, simulated medical records. Everything pointed to a man who didn’t exist. A man who had to move without trace.A convoy waited at the far end: trucks, buses, and old passenger carriers patched with metal plates, their engines quiet beneath tarp coverings. Citizens shuffled in, faces pale and wary. Children clutched makeshift bags, some crying quietly, others staring with blank, calculated calm. Eren moved through them like a ghost, checking manifests, verifying holographic tags, and adjusting one by one.Kai lay beneath a tarp in the last bus, barely stirring. His arm was bandaged, a thick, dark stain running through the cloth. His breathing was shallow but steady. Every so often, he twitched, eyes flicker
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