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THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 137
The VoidI woke up.Or at least, I think I do.There’s no sensation, no weight, no breath—just a sudden awareness, like my mind was switched on without a body to house it. I don’t feel the warmth of skin, the pull of gravity, or even the rhythmic beat of a heart.There’s no floor beneath me. No sky above. No air to fill my lungs.There is only nothing.Not darkness. Not light. Not even an in-between. Just pure, endless absence.My thoughts drift, untethered. Where am I? How did I get here? Wasn’t I just—The Core.The fight.The Overseers.Darren—A sharp pang cuts through the void, more emotion than pain. Darren was—he was dying. I saw it.And then…I changed everything.I should be afraid. But fear feels distant. Like it belonged to another version of me. Another life.A ripple disturbs the nothingness. A presence shifts, subtle yet undeniable.Not a voice, not a sound—just a pressure.And then—"Tony…?"The whisper is faint, barely more than a ripple against my thoughts. But it’s e
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 138
Echoes of ExistenceI drift.Weightless. Formless. A whisper in the void.The world I knew flickers like static, pieces of reality breaking apart and reforming around me. Nothing stays solid for long. It’s like watching an old film reel catching fire, each frame dissolving into something new, something rewritten. But I’m no longer part of the story.Kane’s voice is distant and fractured. "Tony!"I try to turn toward her, but there’s no turning. Nobody to turn with."We’re losing him!"Her voice wavers, sharp with desperation. She’s reaching for me, but she might as well be a million miles away."Tony, don’t leave us!" Elias adds, but I can’t even tell if he’s speaking to me or the void that surrounds us.His voice, like Kane’s, fades into nothing, absorbed by the vast emptiness.Elias stands beside her, gripping the Core—what’s left of it—like it’s the last fragile thread holding reality together. His knuckles are white, his jaw locked tight. But even he knows.This is it.I glance at
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 139
The Final ResetEverything burns.Not in the way fire devours, but in the way existence itself shatters under an unbearable weight. I feel every fiber of reality stretch, bend, and break as Kane forces the override. The system fights back, resisting her command, but she doesn’t let go."Hold on, Tony!" Kane’s voice is raw and desperate, cutting through the static like a lifeline.I try. God, I try. But the void has its grip on me, something ancient and vast, something that knows me in ways I don’t understand. It doesn’t just want to keep me—it wants to make me part of it."Kane…" My voice is barely a whisper, lost in the unraveling fabric of the world."I’m not letting you go!" she snaps, and I can hear the strain in her voice. "Override: Full System Reversion. Manual extraction initiated—"The system screams. A high-pitched, electronic wail that burrows into my skull. The void around me writhes, furious, unwilling to release its claim."Tony!" Kane’s voice cuts through the noise agai
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 140
The New DawnI open my eyes, and the world feels… wrong.Not broken. Not chaotic. Just wrong.The light overhead is too white, too sterile. The air smells of something clean, artificial—like a place where nothing truly lives. My breath is steady and controlled, but I don’t remember taking that first gasp of air. My heartbeat is there, but it’s not mine.Kane is beside me, her sharp green eyes scanning my face with something close to desperation. "Tony?"I blink. "Yeah…" My voice catches. My throat feels strange as if it isn’t used to my words.She exhales, relief flashing in her eyes, but it’s short-lived.Elias is here too, standing a few feet away, arms crossed, his face unreadable. That’s never a good sign. He should be the one cracking jokes, throwing in some cocky comment to cut the tension. But he doesn’t.Something’s missing.I feel it like a hole in my chest, something crucial torn away. My mind scrambles to find the missing piece—Darren.My stomach drops."Where’s Darren?" M
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 141
A Ghost in the SystemThe world looks familiar. But I know better.Everything is slightly… off.The streets are too clean. The sky is too blue like someone adjusted the saturation of reality itself. The people move the same, but they feel different—like shadows of themselves, echoes of something real. I walk among them, but there’s no weight to my presence.It’s like I don’t belong here.Kane walks beside me, focused on her handheld device, her fingers moving too fast for me to follow. Elias keeps his hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable, but the way his eyes scan our surroundings tells me he’s on edge too.No one looks at us.No one sees us.I swallow down the unease creeping up my spine. "Say something good, Kane."She doesn’t. Instead, her brows pull together, her mouth set in a tight line. "There’s no record of you."I stopped walking. "What?"She keeps typing, then shakes her head. "Nothing. No birth certificate, no ID, no financial records. It’s like you were never bo
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 142
Traces of HimThe city is very quiet.Not just abandoned. Not just forgotten.Erased.Kane’s device flickers in her hand as she tries to stabilize the signal. The air around us feels off, humming with something unnatural. This place—it doesn’t belong to the world anymore. It’s a scar in the system, a place that shouldn’t exist but still lingers.Elias lets out a low breath. "This place is a dead zone." He kicks a loose chunk of pavement, watching as dust puffs up and then settles. "No signals. No cameras. Nothing.""Which makes it the perfect place to hide something,"* I say.Or someone.Kane taps rapidly on her screen, her brows furrowed in concentration. "I can’t pinpoint the source, but there’s definitely something here. An anomaly."I can’t wait. I move."Tony—" Kane calls after me, but I don’t slow down.Because I feel it now.A pulse in the air. A presence tugging at the edge of my senses. Something familiar.The deeper we go, the stranger it gets.Buildings loom overhead, their
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 143
The Forgotten Code"Did you hear that?" I demand, my heart hammering against my ribs.Kane nods, her eyes wide with disbelief. "It wasn’t just an echo. That was him."Elias stands rigid beside me, his jaw tight. "How is that possible?""Because he’s still here," I say, barely able to breathe the words. "Somewhere."Kane’s fingers fly over her device, her face flickering between hope and fear. "If Darren’s voice is coming through, then there’s residual data of him left in the system. He’s not completely gone.""Then we pull him out," I say. "Now."Elias shakes his head, exhaling sharply. "It’s not that simple. You don’t just rip pieces of code out of the system without consequences."I meet his stare with unwavering determination. "We’ve done worse. What’s one more impossible thing?"Kane barely blinks as she continues tapping, scanning through streams of encrypted text. Her brows knit together. "There’s a way."We all turn to her at once."It’s buried deep—an old fail-safe in the syst
THE ASCENSION SYSTEM CHAPTER 144
The Cost of Remembering "You’re saying I have to be his anchor," I say, the weight of the words pressing into my chest. Kane nods. "You knew him best. If anyone can hold onto him long enough to pull him back, it’s you." Elias crosses his arms, his jaw locked. "And what happens if Tony can’t handle it?" Kane hesitates. That hesitation alone is enough to make my stomach drop. "Then we lose them both." Silence clamps down on the room. No one moves. No one breathes. The answer is right there, staring us in the face. I already know mine. "We do it." Elias shakes his head, stepping forward like he can physically stop me. "Tony—" "Don’t waste time trying to stop me," I cut in, my voice sharp enough to slice through his arguments before they even form. "We’re doing this." His hands curl into fists at his sides. "Damn it, Tony—" "Enough," I snap. "Darren saved my life more times than I can count. If there’s even a chance I can do the same for him, I take it. No second-gu
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 190
The Unseen HandWe walked deeper into the broken building. The air had a low buzzing sound that made my teeth feel funny. It felt like we were getting to the center of everything. Kane’s light moved over walls with strange drawings, the same ones from the leather book. They seemed to glow a little.“This way,” Kane whispered, her voice tight. She pointed to a strong metal door behind some broken wall. It looked new in all the mess.Elias pulled at the door, and it made loud noises before opening with a bang. The room inside was round, with glowing lines on the walls. In the middle was a strange machine with metal rings and shiny parts. It made a buzzing sound, and the air around it shook a little.“What is this?” I whispered, walking closer. The drawing from the book was on the shiny part in the middle, glowing strangely. It felt alive.Kane walked around the machine slowly, looking at everything. “This has to be it. The thing that’s causing all this.”Elias reached out to
CHAPTER 189
The Fading AnchorI felt like I was falling fast. The colors around me spun and didn't make sense. Was this the floor? Or the sky upside down? A hand grabbed my arm, strong and familiar, but the face above changed. One second it was Darren, looking worried like always. The next, it was a scary person from a dream I almost forgot, with glowing eyes."Easy, Tony. Just breathe." It was Darren's voice, thank goodness. For now.I blinked, trying to see clearly. My head felt full of buzzing; each buzzed a different, mixed-up memory. Kane… where was Kane? Had she been here? Or was that just a whisper from another time?"Kane… the… the light…" I mumbled, the words feeling thick in my mouth. Light. Yes, there was a bright light, a tear in the world. And then… everything became a mess of broken pictures.Darren held my arm tighter. "Kane's not here now, Tony. It's just me. Remember? Darren."Darren. Yes, I remembered Darren. Sometimes. He was… real. Something steady in this craz
CHAPTER 188
The Tangled WebDust floated in the dim light through dirty windows. The air smelled old and a bit like metal and something sweet. Kane's light moved across the dark room, showing broken machines and glass. My stomach felt bad; this place felt very wrong."See anything, Elias?" Kane's quiet voice barely made a sound. She moved carefully, her hand near her gun. I stayed close behind, my heart beating fast. The drawing we found led us here, an old building outside the city that wasn't on any maps. That made me scared.Forgotten for a reason, I thought, looking at a table with broken bottles and strange tools – some for living things, others like machines mixed together. It was a gross mix."Tony, look here." Elias's voice was usually calm, but now it sounded worried. He was kneeling by a broken metal box. Inside were glass jars with weird things floating in liquid, with thin wires all through them. I couldn't breathe for a second. This wasn't just science; it was horrible.
CHAPTER 187
Darren's WatchThe room was dim, but I could see the tired lines on Darren’s face. He hadn’t slept much. He watched Tony all the time, trying to guess what Tony was seeing in his head. He told Tony old stories, showed him old pictures, played music they both knew – anything to help Tony remember. Sometimes, Tony’s eyes would focus, and he’d remember a joke or something fun they did. But these moments were quick, like flashes of light before a storm. Then, Tony would go back to being lost. Darren was getting more and more worried that he was losing his friend.Darren sat next to Tony, holding an old picture. It was the four of us – me, Elias, Tony, and Darren – smiling after we did something dangerous but got away with it. Tony had dirt on his face and looked happy.“Remember this, Tony?” Darren’s voice was quiet. He held the picture close to Tony’s face. “That old computer place? We thought we were going to die when the robots locked the doors. But you… you fixed that old
CHAPTER 186
The Shifting LandscapeThe air this morning felt wrong. Not just city dirt, but different. Like something familiar had changed a little. Elias smelled it too.“Did you feel that Kane?” he asked, looking around. “Something feels… heavy.”I checked my systems. The air was okay. But I knew what he meant. It felt like the world was holding its breath.We were following a clue, a small digital piece left in the Overseers’ broken computer system. It pointed to a secret lab outside the city. We knew the way. Or so I thought.The first thing that was really wrong happened after walking three blocks. A street we knew very well was just… gone. Instead, there was a tall, black wall, smooth and endless. It looked old and strange like it didn’t belong there.“What the…” Elias said, stopping. He touched the wall. “This wasn’t here yesterday, Kane. I’m sure.”My inside maps agreed. This street was important. It couldn’t just disappear. My brain couldn’t understand it. It was impossibl
CHAPTER 185
The Seed of DoubtThe quiet hum of the Overseer's secret room always bugged me. It felt cold and planned. Tonight, the air felt tight, like something was about to break. Elias, next to me, looked closely at the moving computer words.“See anything?” I whispered. The room was quiet, so my voice felt loud. I checked for hidden traps. This room was supposed to be impossible to get into. But we were inside.Elias made a noise like he was annoyed. “Lots of locks inside locks, Kane. They weren’t kidding.” He stopped, tilting his head. “Wait… something’s not right.”On the screen, one file glowed in the middle of broken computer stuff. It looked perfect. A soft light blinked inside it.When the picture on the file showed up, I held my breath. It wasn’t tech like I knew. The lines looked like they were alive. A soft light moved inside.Elias made a small sound. I looked at him. He looked worried. “Do you feel that, Kane? It feels old.”I did feel it. A little shake inside me.
CHAPTER 184
Listening to NothingTony was slipping away. Not like falling asleep, but in a broken, scary way. What was real for him was fading, like sand in a hand. The Architect's power was still there, like a poison inside him.His memories were like water, moving and mixing, past times all messed up. One minute he'd talk about a trip to a star we never went to, describing things we never saw. Then he'd ask about Joyce, a woman Kane and I never knew, his voice sad."She always loved the rain, Darren," he'd say, looking at nothing. "Said it washed away the noise.""Tony," I'd say softly, holding his hand. "There was no trip to that star. And I don't know Joyce. It's just you, me, and Kane."He'd look confused for a second. "But... the red deserts... the shiny trees..." Then he'd look away again like he was hearing something far off.He started seeing things. Faces would flash in the shadows, people I couldn't see. He'd point, handshaking. "Did you see that? By the door... the woman
CHAPTER 183
The World Playing TricksSomething felt wrong. Not just a little, but deep down. It started with small things that you could almost ignore. But that bad feeling in my neck wouldn't leave.We were walking back through a part of the Overseer place we had already checked. Kane was looking for any missed computer spots, and Elias was feeling for leftover mind energy."This room..." Kane stopped, looking confused. "I'm sure this room was empty."I looked around. It was a small, round room with dead computers. Nothing special. "Yeah, I remember. We checked for traps."But in the middle of the room now was something I had never seen. It was round, black like stone, and had a soft blue light inside. Thin, silver lines went across it and into the smooth surface."That wasn't here before," Elias said quietly. He moved slowly towards it, hand out but not touching. "I would have felt... something."Kane used her scanner. "The energy is... strange. Not Overseer stuff. Not anything I k
CHAPTER 182
Darren's PromiseThe lies were gone, like old skin peeling off. I saw the truth: they had made me a servant. This made me angry, wanting revenge.I found Tony in a broken room. He was my old friend, but now he seemed lost, not knowing what was real. I felt bad and also really loyal to him. He sat on a broken chair, smiling and talking nonsense. The bright Tony I knew was gone. He looked at me for a second, the old Tony in his eyes."Darren?" he whispered weakly. I felt a little hope."Tony, it's me," I said, my voice shaky. I knelt down.He smiled more, but his eyes didn't. "The stars are singing, Darren. Can you hear?"My heart sank. He was lost. The Overseers had messed with his mind. I felt guilty. I was so busy with my own problems, I didn't see how bad Tony was.I felt a strong loyalty to him. We were friends. I couldn't leave him like this.I took his cold hands in mine. "Tony," I said firmly. "The stars aren't singing. It's just me, Darren. I'm here."He looked
