Home / Urban / "The Phoenix Returns: From Prison to Power" / Shadows of the Phoenix

Shadows of the Phoenix

2025-11-01 13:59:29

When Natalie finally peeled her eyes open, everything was fire, drenched in silence.

Thick ash hung in the air; the ground beneath her cracked as the aftermath of Vale's fortress still smoldered in awful ruin. Smoke twisted into the rising sun, lighting the wasteland up in reds and gold.

She groaned, pulling herself up from the debris. Her comm buzzed faintly — static, broken signals, then a familiar voice.

“—alie… do you read me?”

“Jace?” she rasped. “I’m here.”

“Thank God. We thought—” Static swallowed his words.

Ghost was nearby, half-buried under a collapsed steel beam. She rushed to him, pushing the debris off with trembling arms.

“Still breathing. Guess I’m too stubborn to die,” he greeted.

Then he coughed and sat up slowly.

Natalie managed a weak smile. “You and me both.”

They gazed around at the devastation. It was a monument of control, having stood such that now it was a crater of solid metal and torn wires.

But something was amiss.

The air hummed faintly — alive. Sparks of

Continue to read this book for free

Scan the code to download the app

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Rebirth Protocol
The hours that followed were a blur of waiting, watching, and listening to the faint hum of the Memory Forge as the spark inside the vessel pulsed like a tiny heartbeat struggling to form.Natalie didn’t leave the chamber.Ghost kept watch at the entrance, pacing like a caged wolf.Jace worked furiously at the console, scanning every fluctuation, every anomaly.But Natalie stayed rooted beside the vessel — hand pressed to the glass, whispering Ethan’s name like a mantra the machine might understand.As dawn light filtered through cracks in the mountain ceiling, the spark inside the vessel flickered brighter.Jace sat upright. “It’s stabilizing — look.”The single point of light had split into branching threads — delicate filaments weaving patterns across the interior of the synthetic shell.Neural lattice forming.Data reconstructing.Consciousness trying to anchor itself.Ghost approached, arms crossed. “Looks like a brain growing on fast-forward.”Natalie didn’t smile. “It’s him… ri
After the Fire
Natalie awoke to darkness.Not the digital void of the Divide. Not the blinding gold of the purge.A quiet, human darkness.Cold air brushed her skin. Concrete. Earth. The faint hum of machines. Her vision blurred, then sharpened. She was lying on the floor of Vale’s mountain outpost — the Memory Forge.Real world.Alive.A hand gripped her shoulder.“Natalie. Hey — stay with me.”Ghost.He was kneeling beside her, bruised, dusty, but breathing. Relief flickered behind his stern expression.Jace stumbled into view, limping but conscious. “You’re back,” he whispered, voice cracking. “You actually made it.”Natalie pushed herself upright, every muscle trembling. “The purge… did it work?”Jace nodded slowly. “The network went dark for forty full seconds. No signals. No trace of Iris’s frequencies anywhere.”Ghost crossed his arms. “We checked the systems twice. Iris is gone.”Natalie exhaled — but it wasn’t relief.It was grief.She whispered, “And Ethan?”Silence.Jace lowered his gaze.
The Core Divide
There was no sensation of falling whatsoever.It felt as if the heart of Natalie, beating in the void, ripples of gold radiating across the tempest with each heartbeat, was one with light and unmade sound. Ghost and Jace appeared beside her, silhouetted forms vanishing in exquisite slow motion from some impending explosion.All snapped back together.They landed instead upon an immense field of shifting crystals with light quake-rippling across the ground with every step. Data towers floated around them twisting in spirals into a sky of shattered reflection. The atmosphere vibrated with lots of living currents.Jace gasped. "We made it. The Core Divide."Ghost scanned the horizon. "Looks more like a broken mirror factory."Ethan appeared ahead, tied to the environment by golden threads. Yet here, he looked different — more distinct, more corporeal. The fractured flickers in his form were nowhere to be perceived."This is the heart of the network," he announced. "The one place Iris can
The Mountain of Echoes
The mountains appeared like jagged silhouettes against the pale morning sky, with ridges cleaving the clouds and the winds carrying the cold whispers of a storm. Here, the world felt unnoticed, a stranger, an ancient, silent sentinel.Natalie stood by the edge of the treeline, gazing upward along the path ahead. The golden spark left behind by Ethan formed a symbol for this mountain range — unmistakable, undeniable.“This is where the Ember Line leads,” she murmured.Ghost adjusted the rifle slung across his back. “Vale didn’t pick easy places to hide secrets.”Jace checked the handheld scanner. The device flickered in flashing lights — faint golden pulses drawing towards a further point in the mountains. “Signal’s weak but alive. Something’s up there. Something big.”They began the climb.Every step made the terrain increasingly difficult. Loose rocks slid beneath their boots; the air was growing thinner as the path grew narrower. Fog curled across the cliffs like living smoke, makin
The Core Divide
Falling through the Core Divide felt nothing like falling at all.Natalie was weightless, suspended between shards of light and fragments of sound. Her heartbeat echoed through the void, each pulse sending ripples of gold across the swirling storm. Ghost and Jace appeared beside her, drifting like silhouettes caught in a slow-motion explosion.Then the world snapped into place.They landed on a vast expanse of shifting crystal ground — each step sending tremors of light across the surface. Towers of floating data rose around them, spiraling into a sky made of fractured reflections. The air hummed, alive with unstable currents.Jace gasped. “We made it. The Core Divide.”Ghost scanned the horizon. “Looks more like a broken mirror factory.”Ethan materialized ahead, golden threads tethering him to the environment. But here, he looked different — clearer, stronger. The fractured flickers in his form were gone.“This is the heart of the network,” he said. “The one place Iris cannot reshap
Into the Ember Network
The Memory Forge thrum-thrum-thrummed like a living heart, golden energy coursing through the chamber. Natalie stood before the neural dive platform clad in butterlike black, the flexible interface suit laced with glowing orange filaments. The fabric felt warm, almost alive — the Phoenix Code woven through its very fibers.Jace pulled the stabilizer cuffs taut on her wrists. "Once in, you won't feel your body. Everything you see, hear, feel, will be Code. Don't trust anything until you see it yourself."Ghost was putting on his neural gear, grumbling. "For me, jumping into an AI battleground is insanity."She slipped a faint smile. "When did that ever stop us?"Ethan's hologram came up next to the platform, more stable than before. "On the inside, I will await you. Just be careful — Iris will sense you the very moment you arrive. She will try to twist the Code against you — your memories...even your fears.""We've beaten her before," said Natalie."This time," murmured Ethan, "she's f

You may also like

The Rise of the Son-in-law After Divorce

The Heir's Revenge

Harvey York's Rise to Power

Trillionaire Ex husband's Revenge

Abandoned In Prison, Now They Regret!

MONEY MAKES THE WORLD SPIN

The Son-in-law

From Ex-Convict To General

Latest Chapter

Rebirth Protocol

After the Fire

The Core Divide

The Mountain of Echoes