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Chapter 15 : Ice and Knives
The ice shelf wasn’t a place for human beings.It was a frozen wound in the side of the mountain, the kind that never healed. A fifty-meter crawl along a ledge no wider than a coffin lid, with nothing but wind and gravity waiting to collect your bones if you slipped.Jiang was still pale from his near fall. His breath steamed in short bursts, each one a reminder of how close he’d come to being a memory. Xue’er kept pace beside me, not saying a word, but I caught the way her gloved hand never strayed far from her harness buckle. Once bitten, twice ready to save someone again.Ember was behind us. I didn’t have to look to feel her presence.The thing about suspicion is that once it’s in your blood, it becomes a kind of fever. Every sound she made, every pause, every hitch in her breathing felt like an answer to a question I didn’t yet know how to ask.The wind howled through the chasm, carrying flecks of ice sharp enough to sting through the mask. My visor blurred with frost. I wiped it
Chapter Fourteen : The Devil’s Ladder
Some routes are chosen while others are forced upon you.The Devil’s Ladder was the kind of path you only took when every other option had already been sealed by fire, blood, or betrayal. It wasn’t an escape. It was a gamble. A coin toss in the dark where heads meant you lived long enough to regret it, and tails meant they never even found your bones.****Dragon’s Spine : North Wing, 03:45 HoursThe generator room still smelled of ozone and fear. Anzu was cuffed and unconscious, dragged to the far wall by Jiang and Duan Yu. His detonator sat in my palm, warm from the heat of his grip.“You really think this place can hold another hour?” I asked Jiang.“Systems are holding now, but the EMP fried half the auto-turrets. If Han’s people breach before we move, we won’t have perimeter defense.”Ember’s voice cut in from the comms. “Then we move now. We’ve got three junctions already in Han’s control. If he gets Junction Seven, the only way out is through the Ladder.”I looked over at Xue’
Chapter Thirteen: The Betrayer Among Us
Some betrayals come from your enemies. The worst come from those who once stood beside you in fire,Swore loyalty in blood, And waited years to slide the knife in. I built this war with ghosts. But one of them had already died inside me. **** At the Eastern Ridge The snow hadn’t reached the mountain yet, but the wind came cold and sharp like knives cut from memory. We stepped off the train of the Dragon’s Spine beneath a steel hatch, concealed beneath an overhang of boulders and moss. From the outside, it looked like a forgotten military station. Inside, it was something else entirely. A war room. A sanctuary. A tomb. “Is this one of your old bases?” Xue’er asked, pulling her coat tighter. I nodded, leading her past armored doors and motion-triggered lanterns. “Project Solstice used it during winter campaigns. We used to run satellite disruption and smuggling intercepts out of here.” “How long since you’ve been back?” “Not since the night I burned our records.” We pass
Chapter Twelve: Beneath the Ashes, a Spark
Some wars are won with bullets while others are won with silence and the people you buried before anyone knew their names. That was the war I had prepared for. **** Northern Jincheng in an Abandoned Industrial Sector The old textile plant hadn’t operated in over two decades. Broken windows gaped like empty eye sockets. Rusted conveyor belts sat buried under dust and poison ivy. But beneath its hollow bones was something else. A bunker. Built by my hand. Funded with money that had never seen a bank. Coded with biometric locks that only five people on earth could open. Two of them were dead. One had betrayed me. The last stood beside me now, Zhang Xue’er, no longer just a heiress, no longer a pawn. But a witness to everything. **** We entered through a false wall of crates, descending a spiral staircase carved into concrete. The deeper we went, the more the city faded. The noise. The fear. The name they’d plastered across the news like a curse. Here, I wasn’t “Li Tian” or
Chapter Eleven: Ghosts Beneath the Steel
The world didn't need truth. It needed spectacle. So when the news broke,when every major network flashed Li Tian's face across a dozen time zones with the word "fugitive" beneath it,the world didn’t ask why. They asked how long he’d been hiding it. And that’s exactly how the Circle wanted it. They didn’t just want to destroy me. They wanted to rewrite who I was. **** 6:00 AM : Jincheng Central News Network The anchor wore an expression too calm for the words she was reading. “Breaking this morning: Jincheng’s newest billionaire, Li Tian, founder of Dragon Holdings, is now under international investigation for alleged involvement in global arms trafficking and illicit asset laundering. Sources suggest his rise may be linked to off-grid military operations in North Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe…” They rolled the clips: stockpiled crates, black-market weapons, edited footage of foreign ports. Most of it fake. All of it convincing. Then came the final blow: “Aut
Chapter Ten: The King Steps Into the Light
I had spent the last five years building an empire behind the curtain, letting my enemies believe I had died in Marrakesh. Letting the world forget the name that once sent governments into negotiation rooms and corporate giants into panic. But now, it was time to return to the board and flip it over Power isn’t always taken in secret. Sometimes, the most devastating blow is dealt under the sun, while the world watches,too stunned to act, too afraid to breathe. That was the purpose of my announcement. The Circle had made their first open move. Now, I would make mine. **** Sky Eagle Tower : 11:00 AM The skyline of Jincheng was a grid of glass, steel, and silent ambition. And at its center stood Sky Eagle Tower,taller than all the rest, home to the corporate front of Dragon Holdings. It was there, in the thirty-ninth floor conference room overlooking the city, that I prepared for the press conference that would change the course of the region’s power structure. Duan Yu stood be
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