The room felt colder than it should have. Not physically—Max had seen worse conditions—but in that way where the air thickened with something unseen. Dread. Anticipation. A promise of war.Max sat at the head of the table, his team gathered around him. The glow from Molly’s laptop cast sharp shadows on her face, her fingers flying over the keys. Red Fang stood with his arms crossed, his usual easy arrogance dulled by the sheer scale of what they were up against. Elliot leaned back in his chair, staring at nothing, while Emily scrolled through endless financial reports on her tablet, her lips pressed into a thin line.They were quiet. Not because there was nothing to say, but because none of them knew how to say it.Max did.“This war isn’t like the last one.” His voice was sharp, cutting through the silence like a blade. “The Architects fought with control. They manipulated governments, economies, entire systems to keep their power intact. But The Omega Initiative? They don’t want con

The underground bunker was dimly lit, the soft hum of servers the only sound in the room. Max sat alone at the war table, staring at a map of the world—pins scattered across it, marking every possible location Reginald could be hiding.His mind was a battlefield.How do you fight a ghost? How do you outmaneuver a man who spent his entire life playing the long game?His thoughts were interrupted by the sharp buzz of a secure line.Red Fang.Max answered immediately. “Talk.”There was silence on the other end, just the faint sound of wind whipping through a comm.Then Red Fang’s voice, quiet, but heavy with something unreadable.“I found him.”Max’s grip on the phone tightened. “Where?”Another beat of silence.Then—“Antarctica.”Max frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”“It does if you think like him,” Red Fang muttered. “No one looks for kings in exile, Max. The bastard set up a fortress. Black-site level. Military-grade security. We’re talking an entire hidden compound in the middle o

The first explosion had barely settled before the fortress’ defenses roared to life.Spotlights cut through the blizzard like ghostly eyes, sweeping across the frozen wasteland, searching. Alarms blared through the compound, their shrill wails swallowed by the wind. The Omega Initiative’s soldiers—men bred for war, unseen in any official records—emerged from the stronghold like shadows made flesh.Max didn’t stop running.Snow kicked up in his wake as he sprinted across the ice, weaving between jagged formations of frozen rock. Gunfire ripped through the storm, red tracer rounds illuminating the battlefield in violent flashes.Red Fang was a blur beside him, moving with lethal efficiency, his rifle coughing out suppressed bursts. Two soldiers dropped before they even saw him. Another tried to pivot toward Max—only to be met with a blade to the throat.Max had no time to waste.“We breach in thirty seconds!” he barked over the comms. “Keep them off me!”Red Fang grinned, slamming a fre

Max’s heartbeat slammed against his ribs. His grandfather’s lifeless body lay at his feet, blood pooling beneath him, but there was no time to process it.Because the world was about to be wiped clean.Max spun toward the AI core—an enormous cylindrical structure of shifting holograms and pulsating code. The hum of its power vibrated through the walls, through the very air itself. It was alive, intelligent, evolving.Emily was still strapped into the mainframe.Her eyes flickered between reality and the digital abyss, her breath shallow. Wires pulsed beneath her skin, feeding the AI the final pieces of data it needed to destroy civilization.Molly’s voice cracked through Max’s earpiece, filled with barely controlled panic.“Max, listen to me! I’m inside their system, but I—I can’t override it!”Max gritted his teeth, rushing to Emily’s side. He grabbed the restraints, trying to pull them off—She screamed.Max recoiled as her body convulsed, veins darkening under the strain of the AI’

Max stood over Molly’s terminal, eyes scanning the empty data feeds. The endless networks, the financial grids, the black-market communication lines—Elliot had wiped them clean.His name was nowhere.His digital footprint, nonexistent.Max’s jaw tightened.Molly cursed under her breath, fingers flying over the keyboard. “This isn’t just some rich guy going off-grid—this is a complete system-level erasure.”Red Fang leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his expression grim. “It’s like he was never even here.”Emily stood near the window, arms folded. Her gaze was distant, calculating.“He knew we’d come for him,” she murmured. “He’s already three steps ahead.”Max’s chest burned with frustration.Elliot hadn’t just vanished.He had left nothing behind.No shell companies.No offshore accounts.No former contacts willing to speak his name.It was as if he had rewritten the world to forget him.But Max knew better.Elliot wasn’t hiding. He was waiting.A New Power RisesRed Fang’s