MasukThe concrete floor echoed under Ronan’s heavy boots as he paced back and forth across the warehouse. His jaw was locked tight, teeth grinding, dark eyes fixed on the main door. Ara had left with the Smirnov twins four hours ago, and they hadn’t heard a single thing from her since. No messages. No signals. Just heavy, terrifying silence. He spun around and glared at the operations desk. "Silas," he barked, voice tight with anger. "Check the dashboard again. Anything from the emergency GPS wristband? A location ping? Anything at all?" Silas kept his eyes on the glowing screens, fingers flying over the keyboard. His face looked just as stressed under the bright lights. "I’ve checked it twelve times in the last ten minutes, Ronan. The signal is completely dead. No relay, nothing. Yelling at me won’t make it work." "Then try harder!" Ronan snapped, marching over to the desk, his big shadow falling across the technician. "You built the tracker. You said it was hooked straight into your ma
The dust was still floating in the air from the broken wall when a slim figure in armor stepped calmly through the jagged hole.Kayla stood on the second-floor landing, her cold eyes scanning the big room below. Then she jumped over the marble railing and dropped two full stories, landing without a sound like it was nothing.Kenan laughed loudly from the middle of the foyer, turning away from the shocked twins. "You really thought you were so smart, huh?" he sneered, straightening his fancy jacket. "We knew Sergey was dead before we even got to the gate. And we knew his kids had teamed up with Player 001 right away."Kayla stepped closer, staring straight at Ara, who was slowly pushing herself up off the floor. "Hand over the flash drive with the NexMind files, Ara," she said flatly. "You don’t have enough health left to survive this."Ara’s hand moved to her pocket without thinking. Right before Kayla had smashed her through the wall, she’d quickly hidden the drive there. She spat bl
The sleek sports car rolled to a stop just outside the tall concrete walls of the Smirnov estate. The police lights were long gone, and the big driveway sat in thick, heavy darkness. At the main iron gate, Milana glanced over at the passenger seat, her face tense."Ara, you gotta hide in the back footwell right now," she whispered. "The guards are still on high alert. If they spot a third person in here, the whole gate will lock down."Ara gave a quick nod. She tucked her big blade away into her inventory, then squeezed into the tight space behind the seats. She lay flat on the floor and pulled a dark tarp over herself to stay hidden.Maksim lowered the driver’s window as the heavy gate hummed open. The estate guards walked up, shining their flashlights inside, but when they saw the twins, they didn’t bother searching the car. The coupe rolled smoothly up the long driveway toward the big white mansion.Once they parked in the circular courtyard, the twins moved fast. They pulled the r
Ara and Ronan raised their weapons at the same time, ready for anything. But when Ronan yanked the heavy door open, they didn’t find an attack. Instead, they saw Daniel and Silas standing on the steps with their guns pointed inside, the twins caught right in the middle.The confusion was immediate. Ara and Ronan had no idea why the twins were here. Daniel and Silas had no clue who these two well-dressed strangers were. And the twins stood with their hands half-raised, equally confused.Silas broke the silence first, eyes darting between the twins’ expensive clothes and the blood on Ronan’s pants. “Who are these two?” he demanded, finger resting on his trigger. “And why are they at our base?”Maksim took a quick step forward, hands open to show he wasn’t using his powers. “We’re not here to fight!” he said quickly, voice shaky. “Ara and Ronan came to our estate. Everything went wrong, our father was killed by a sniper, and we have nowhere else to go. We want to join your team.”Ara und
"Daniel, step on it! They’re gaining on us!" Silas screamed, his fingers digging into the dashboard as he looked back through the shattered rear window in panic.Behind them, the dark industrial area lit up with the bright headlights of three sleek black NexMind security SUVs. The heavy vehicles tore through the tall grass, quickly closing the gap."I’m stepping on it!" Daniel yelled back, arms straining as he yanked the big steering wheel hard to the left. The engine roared and vibrated under their feet. "This is a slow utility tractor, Silas! It only goes about twenty-five miles per hour and was built for warehouses, not racing through muddy fields!""Well, drive smarter!" Silas barked. He leaned way out the side to keep an eye on the headlights. "If they ram us, this whole cab is going to collapse!"Daniel gritted his teeth and fought with the gear stick, swerving the clumsy tractor between rusted containers and piles of concrete, trying to lose the SUVs.It didn’t last long. The l
For long, painful minutes, Sergey Smirnov carefully danced around the truth. He avoided every direct question about his connection to Ramsdale Hawkins. Ronan’s jaw clenched tighter and tighter, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his weapon. He had spent years reading people in dangerous situations, and he could tell Sergey was stalling on purpose, trying to buy time with smooth talk.Ara stayed calm on the outside. Quietly, she ran a deeper scan through her LUS interface, focusing straight on the billionaire.> **TARGET IDENTIFICATION:** > **IDENTITY: PLAYER 009.** > **CLASS: OVERLORD.** > **LEVEL: 31.**A cold chill ran down her back. Sergey wasn’t just some rich guy who didn’t know anything — he was a high-level player hiding in plain sight. From the information Silas had found earlier, the Smirnov family controlled huge companies in food, energy, and technology. With that kind of power, he had to be involved in something this big. You couldn’t spread a virus like NexMin
Ara POV: The hideout had become a warzone in under two minutes. Three of Elena's players had made it through the lower entrance before Ronan managed to collapse the stairwell, and the fight that followed was loud and ugly and nothing like the clean action sequences she had seen in movies before th
Ara POV: The hideout was not what she expected. She had pictured something grim. Bare concrete, a single flickering light, maybe a bucket in the corner. What she got instead was a gutted storage room three floors underground with actual furniture, a generator humming in the back, and the smell of
Ara POV: "Do you accept your first mission?" "Absolutely not," Ara said out loud, to empty the air, in an empty lot, like a completely sane person. "No. Who even are you? Get out of my head." The voice said nothing for a moment. Then it said, pleasantly and mechanically and with absolutely no re
Chapter 2: The Day Before The End Ara POV: "Ara? Ara, wake up already!" She shot upright, gasping for air. Her hands flew to her throat first. Then her arms. Then her face. She noticed there were no bites, no blood, and no open wounds oozing something dark and wrong. She pressed both palms flat







