Too Late to Regret: The Billionaire’s Unwanted Ex のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

Manhattan. Five Years Later.The New York skyline was now dominated by the Vance-Thorne Spire, a needle of sustainable glass that breathed like a living organism. Inside, the air was perpetually scented with a mild, focus-enhancing version of Renaissance.Lucian Thorne sat in the penthouse office, his hair touched with a distinguished silver at the temples. His right hand, though scarred, moved with fluid precision as he signed off on a merger that would effectively end fossil fuel dependence in the Tri-State area.He was the most powerful man in the city. And he was absolutely terrified."He’s doing it again, isn't he?" Elara asked, walking into the office. She looked timeless—authority suited her. She was now the head of the Global Bio-Ethics Council, a position she used to ensure no one ever repeated Beatrice’s horrors.Lucian looked at the security feed on his desk. "He’s been in the archives for six hours, Elara. He’s ten years old. He should be playing Minecraft or arguing about

For Leo Vance-Thorne, the world had stopped being made of brick, glass, and air. To his awakened senses, the Vance-Thorne Spire was a lattice of glowing gold pulses—a nervous system of fiber optics and wireless signals.Leo, they’re coming to your room, Meilin’s voice whispered in the back of his mind. The Federal monitors... they saw the power surge when you touched the door."I know," Leo said softly. He didn't look at the door. He looked at the air in front of him.His hand moved through the empty space, and to anyone else, it would look like he was playing an invisible piano. But in Leo’s vision, he was rearranging the security protocols of the entire floor. He wasn't typing code; he was feeling the "weight" of the encryption and simply sliding it aside.The Ghost WalkThe heavy titanium door to his suite slid open. Four Federal agents, led by a Zhao-loyalist commander, rushed in with kinetic-pulse rifles."Leo Vance-Thorne, step away from the window!" the commander barked.Leo di

The infirmary of the Thorne Interceptor smelled of sterile plastic and the faint, ozone-heavy scent of the bio-static field. Leo lay on the cot, his face ashen, his breathing shallow. He wasn't dreaming; he was "offline." For the first time in weeks, the constant hum of the world’s data had been silenced in his mind, leaving a void that felt like a physical ache."He's stable, but the neural pathways are frayed," Elara whispered, staring at the translucent monitors hovering over her son.Lucian stood by the armory locker, checking the charge on his kinetic-pulse rifle. "Stable isn't enough, Elara. Liling said the 'First Correction' starts at dawn. That’s four hours from now. If the Oracle goes live without Leo’s oversight, the global markets won't just crash—they'll be 'optimized' by a machine that doesn't care who starves.""I know," Elara said, her fingers flying across her tablet. "But we can't just throw him back into the grid. It would kill him. The bridge failed because it was m

The Server Room – 04:58 AMThe countdown on the primary monitor hit 99.9%. The air in the room hummed with the terrifying energy of a world about to be rewritten."You don't understand, Lucian," Liling Zhao said, her voice strained as she gripped the manual override key. "Humanity is a virus of entropy. Without the Oracle to prune the dead weight, the species will collapse under its own greed within a decade. I’m not a villain; I’m the gardener.""A gardener doesn't pull the flowers just because they haven't bloomed yet, Liling," Lucian countered, his rifle aimed steady. "You’re not pruning; you’re executing."The Digital Flood: Leo’s ChoiceInside the Oracle, Leo felt the "Vance Anchor" surging through his neural pathways. It wasn't just a chemical; it was a memory. It was the smell of his mother’s lab, the weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder, and the sound of Meilin’s laughter before the machines took it.“Meilin, take my hand,” Leo projected.“I can't... the logic is too he

The Swiss Alps were beautiful, silent, and currently a crime scene. A high-security armored transport lay on its side in the middle of a remote mountain pass, the reinforced steel doors not blown open, but melted at the molecular level.Lucian stood in the snow, his breath hitching in the thin air. Beside him, Isabella Thorne looked like a winter wraith in a long charcoal coat, her eyes scanning the wreckage with a clinical detachment that hid her simmering rage."She didn't use an army, Lucian," Isabella said, pointing at the asphalt. "Look at the tire tracks. Or rather, the lack of them."The Evidence of AbsenceThe guards weren't dead; they were in a state of stasis. Twenty elite Federal agents were frozen in place, their vitals stable but their consciousness entirely "paused.""It’s the same frequency as the Sanatorium," Lucian noted, checking his handheld scanner. "But it’s been refined. It’s not a blunt instrument anymore. It’s a scalpel."He pointed to the air-pressure readings