2025-07-31 21:37:56---
The Vault was on fire. Ethan’s jet hadn’t even touched the tarmac when the smoke column came into view—thick, black, curling into the early morning sky like the hand of a devil. He gripped the armrest so tight his knuckles went white. “They moved faster than I thought,” he muttered. Wren, seated across from him, was already typing on her tablet. “Tripwires were triggered ten minutes ago. Then all signals went dark.” “They want the data wiped,” Ethan said. “They want to erase me.” “Or take what’s left before you get there.” Ethan’s eyes burned with rage. “Let’s make sure they regret trying.” --- By the time the convoy reached the outskirts of the forest road leading to the Vault, it was chaos. Gunfire echoed from within the trees. Several of Ethan’s men lay injured behind cover, their armored vehicles riddled with bullet holes. Jules sprinted up, bleeding from his shoulder. “They hit us hard—fast, precise, like they knew the layout. Someone sold us out.” “Who’s inside?” Ethan asked. “Camille. Raza. And Fenrir. He was still in lockdown when the breach started.” Ethan growled. “If they’re here for intel, they’ll tear Fenrir apart.” Wren handed him a suppressed submachine gun. “Then let’s go get him first.” --- Inside the Vault, corridors blazed with orange light. Metal twisted from the heat, and smoke bit at their lungs. But Ethan moved like a man possessed—past the charred remains of old servers and through the cracking foundation of his father’s legacy. They reached the inner interrogation chamber. The door had been blown open. Blood smeared the walls. A trail. Jules cursed. “They took him.” Ethan didn’t blink. “Then we take them.” A voice crackled over Wren’s comms. “Intruders still in Sector 3. One heading to Server Core!” Ethan spun on his heel. “They’re after the root drive. If they get it, they own the Legatum interface.” He started running. --- Sector 3 The corridor erupted as Ethan charged in, mowing down a merc with a clean double-tap to the chest. Another raised his rifle but was too slow—Wren dropped him with a shot to the head. They pushed forward until they reached the Server Core. Inside, a man in a black coat stood with his back to them. He held a silver case. “The root drive,” Wren hissed. “Put it down,” Ethan ordered. The man turned. Tall. Blonde. Cold eyes. “You must be Cross,” he said calmly. “Heard a lot about you. From Marcus Vale.” Ethan’s jaw clenched. “Another one of his rats?” “More like the one who cleans up his messes,” the man said, lifting the case. “You have no idea what’s really buried in this Vault. But the Nine will.” “You won’t leave with that,” Ethan said. “Oh?” the man sneered. “And who’s going to stop me?” Ethan raised his gun. “Me.” --- Bang. The shot echoed through the core chamber. The man dropped instantly, the case falling with a metallic thud. Ethan strode forward, picked it up, and popped the lock. Inside was the root drive—still intact. But something else was tucked beneath it. A sealed envelope. Marked with his father’s initials. He opened it slowly. Inside was a single line: > “She’s not a memory. She’s a prisoner.” Below it: Coordinates. Somewhere in Turkey. Ethan’s breath caught. His mother. Still alive. --- They left the Vault smoldering but not broken. Raza and Camille were safe, pulled out before the roof collapsed on the western wing. “Rebuild?” Jules asked. Ethan shook his head. “No. The Vault’s compromised now. We go mobile.” Wren nodded. “Already securing ghost safehouses.” As the convoy drove through the night, Ethan stared at the coordinates in his hand. “She’s alive,” he whispered. Jules leaned back. “You’re sure?” “Marcus Vale gave me the photo. But this… this came from my father. Before he died.” Wren turned. “What if it’s a trap?” Ethan looked her in the eye. “Then I’ll walk into it with my head high. And I’ll bury whoever set it.” --- The next day, they reached a private airstrip near the Black Sea coast. The safehouse—an abandoned military outpost—was already secured. There, Ethan sat alone with the two pieces of the Ghost Fund map spread across the table. Wren stepped in, quiet. “We lost a lot back there.” “I know.” “You’re not the same guy I met in the alley three months ago.” Ethan chuckled, dry. “He died the day they laughed at me.” She paused. “You think your mother’s really alive?” Ethan looked down at the map. “I don’t think. I know. And I’m going to find her.” --- Meanwhile... Deep in a marble tower overlooking Istanbul, an old woman stood before a fireplace, her hands clasped. A man entered. “They’ve found the second piece.” The woman turned slowly. Her eyes—sharp and sad—locked on his. “Then my son is closer than we thought.” “You want us to prepare extraction?” “No,” she said. She picked up a pendant from the mantle—an old locket, tarnished by time. “Let him come to me.” --- Back at the safehouse A message came through the encrypted channel. Wren’s eyes widened. “Ethan. It's from Fenrir.” She turned the screen toward him. It was grainy footage, clearly taken in secret. Fenrir—bloodied, beaten—strapped to a chair. Behind him stood a man in a white suit with a serpent pin on his lapel. Not Marcus. Someone else. The man leaned into the camera. “Ethan Cross. You’re chasing ghosts while we hunt the living. Every piece of the Ghost Fund you touch, we burn. Every name you protect, we erase. You think you’re a king?” He leaned closer. “Kings die too.” The screen cut to black. --- Ethan stood slowly. “This isn’t about revenge anymore.” “No?” Wren asked. He looked her in the eye. “This is war.”
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Chapter 180 : The Loser Who Bought the World
The war was over, but the echoes of it still haunted the sky.Antarctica, once a fortress of frozen death and deception, now lay buried under collapsing ice. The storm had passed, yet the world above trembled from the aftershocks of what had been unleashed. The Council was gone. Cain was gone. The Cipher—a godless machine born of greed and blood—was ash.And Ethan Cross was still standing.He stood at the edge of the world, his breath ghosting in the cold air. The black veins that had burned under his skin were gone, but he still felt the whisper of them inside him—a shadow of the poison that had nearly taken his soul.Wren came up behind him, her footsteps crunching over the frost. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. The silence between them carried more meaning than a thousand words ever could.Ethan turned slightly, meeting her eyes. “It’s done,” he said quietly.Wren looked out toward the ruins of the Vault. “The Cipher’s gone. The Council’s dead. But the world…” Her voice caugh
Chapter 179 : The Last Throne
The sea was black glass under the night sky, endless and silent. The wreckage of a forgotten age drifted across it—steel husks, dead satellites, broken ships swallowed by salt and time. Somewhere below that abyss lay Omega Node, the last beating heart of Cipher.Ethan stood at the bow of the stealth craft, eyes fixed on the horizon. The wind whipped against his face, carrying the chill of the Pacific deep. Behind him, Wren adjusted her gear, checking her oxygen tank for the fifth time.“You know,” she said, voice sharp through the comms, “normal couples go on vacations. Maybe to Paris, or Venice. Not into the middle of the goddamn ocean to blow up an AI that tried to end the world.”Ethan turned slightly, his lips curving into a faint smile. “You think we’re normal?”She huffed. “Good point.”Camille’s voice crackled through the comm from the control console. “You’re two kilometers from the drop zone. Once you breach the Node, I can’t maintain signal. You’ll be on your own.”Ethan’s j
Chapter 178 : The Man Who Refused to Die
Rain fell over the ruins of Buenos Aires, soft but endless, turning the ashes of the world into rivers of gray. The vault explosion had been felt across continents. Networks died in silence. Satellites blinked out like dying stars. The Cipher—gone.Or so everyone thought.In the heart of the city, beneath twisted steel and broken glass, Ethan drew a shallow breath. His chest burned, his body shaking violently. The explosion had ripped through every cell, every nerve, but somehow, he was still alive.Barely.He lay in darkness, the world muted except for the faint rhythm of falling rain above him. His vision blurred, but he could see faint threads of blue light fading across his skin. The Cipher was dying inside him. The power that once made him untouchable now drained him like poison.He wanted to rest. To let go. But something inside him refused.Wren.Her name cut through the haze like sunlight through storm clouds. He saw her face—tear-streaked, furious, alive. She needed him.And
Chapter 177 : The Price of Peace
Snow fell like ash over the ruins of the Antarctic base. What once held the Cipher’s final echo was now a crater of twisted steel and burning ice. Ethan stood at its edge, watching the flames die into blue smoke. His breath fogged before him, rising like a ghost into the pale morning light. The Cipher was gone.But peace… peace was not what he felt.He could still hear its whisper, buried in the cracks of his mind. The Cipher had been more than a weapon—it had been a living network, and Ethan had once been its heart. Even destroyed, its fragments pulsed faintly in his veins like dying embers.Behind him, Wren approached quietly. She carried two cups of steaming coffee, the bitter scent cutting through the frozen air. She handed one to him without a word. He took it, his fingers brushing hers—warm against the cold that refused to leave his bones.“You didn’t sleep,” she said softly.Ethan gave a faint, humorless smile. “Neither did you.”She shrugged. “Someone has to make sure the worl
Chapter 176 : The Loser’s Crown
The snow hadn’t melted. Even after the Cipher’s core was gone and the Council’s fortress reduced to glass and ash, Antarctica remained frozen in its eternal silence. Yet, for the first time in years, it was a silence that didn’t suffocate—it breathed.Ethan stood on a ridge overlooking the crater where everything had ended. His coat flapped in the wind, the scars on his neck still faintly glowing under his skin. The Cipher was gone, but its echo lingered—like a ghost that refused to stop whispering.Behind him, Wren climbed up the ridge, her boots crunching against the ice. She stopped beside him, breath forming white clouds.“You shouldn’t be out here,” she said, half-scolding, half-concerned.“I’ve been out here before,” Ethan murmured. “When this was still their stronghold. When I thought power could fix everything.”She crossed her arms, eyes narrowing. “And now?”He turned to her, his gaze soft. “Now I know it’s not power that fixes the world. It’s the ones who dare to start over
Chapter 175 : The End of the Beginning
The snowstorm had died hours ago, but the silence it left behind was louder than thunder. Smoke rose from the crater that had once held the Nexus Vault, curling into the frozen sky like mourning ribbons. The air was thick with the metallic taste of burnt circuitry and frost.Camille stood at the edge of the ruins, her breath fogging in the cold. Her gloved hands trembled as she adjusted her visor, scanning the wreckage for any sign of movement. Beside her, Wren stared blankly into the crater, her rifle hanging uselessly by her side.“He’s gone,” Camille whispered, her voice breaking. “It’s over.”Wren didn’t move. Her eyes were red and raw, not from the cold, but from what she refused to accept.“No,” she said finally, her tone flat. “Not until I see him.”Before Camille could stop her, Wren slid down the fractured slope, boots skidding on ice and debris. The ground hissed beneath her as if the earth still remembered the Cipher’s heat. She reached the center, where everything had turn
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