ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.
The firewalls buckled. Then collapsed like a house of cards.
Not just breached—the control they had been in the process of pulling back had slipped entirely out of their hands. Engineers scrambled, their keyboards clicking frantically. The IT team moved fast and ca back with one result: a single ssage burned across every screen in the facility, searing into the retinas of everyone watching.
They had been too slow.
{ I WILL KILL YOU CRUXIUS BLAC }
"Which one?" Cruxius asked, his voice eerily calm. His eyes moved to Darithi.
He had already known so of the subsidiaries would be hit—Lulu’s capability wasn’t sothing even a full lockdown could outrun if the window stayed open even a second too long. Beyond her, there were others. Won who had possibly regained their mories and were holding their timing, waiting for the right pressure point.
The truly dangerous ones—scarcely one or two—were likely still constrained by their own circumstances, unable to reach him directly unless he brought them forward. The psychopath who had killed Darithi. The other one he considered beneath his concern.
Six, perhaps seven won who might have woken up to what they knew.
Lira, Sugar, Nano—introduced. The rest would be handled in turn.
"The Dubai subsidiary. Auracron Robotics." Darithi’s voice was even, but the weight beneath it was heavy. She adjusted her glasses, her eyes scanning the reports. "Breached. All data erased. Malware distributed through update patches. Approximately 1.4 million high-tech drones turned on their own pilots—67 million GC in assets destroyed. Over 50,000 injured. The remainder..."
She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to.
A small war had taken place. The kind that governnts couldn’t ignore, that international courts would pull threads on, that the Hero Association—already prid against Cruxius after his remarks—would use as a weapon.
This wasn’t sabotage. It was an attempt at total erasure. Not just reputation—existence.
Cruxius sat with the car door open. Darithi stood outside in the alleyway, three hours of live reports feeding into her ear. The weight of it showed in the set of her shoulders, even if her face remained a mask of professional control. Ytrisia stood just behind them, silent in a way that ant she was absorbing sothing she hadn’t been prepared for—the sheer scale of the carnage.
"How many people died... and which countries were they from?" Cruxius asked.
It wasn’t indifference. It was prioritization. The casualties couldn’t be quietly absorbed—but the international legal exposure was what would move against his family first, and fastest.
"Somalia, Venezuela, and Syria," Darithi replied, scrolling the list.
’...How can soone be this evil!’
Ytrisia’s anger moved through her like heat, her chest heaving against the tight fabric of her suit. She had known—Cruxius had warned her—that a supervillain was involved. She had expected economic damage. Cold numbers. Not this.
People had died. Innocent people, in countries that had nothing to do with Cruxius Blac or the Blac Corporation or any of it. Caught in soone else’s revenge. That was what this was—revenge—and it had cost lives she had no connection to and no ability to help.
"...Ytrisia." Cruxius’s voice ca quiet, shifting toward her deliberately. He watched the way her fists clenched at her sides. "Can you do a favor?"
She straightened, her breathing shallow. "Just give the location."
She already knew what he was about to say—the supervillain, a target, a direction to point herself. Her blood was ready, her muscles coiled.
"...It’s in front of you," he said.
She followed his gaze.
The curry shop. Still open—24-hour service, the small sign said, which she hadn’t noticed before. Morning was beginning to suggest itself at the edges of the sky, a faint, pale blue light washing over the street, and the light inside the shop was still warm and inviting.
Is the villain inside? The thought ca and was imdiately replaced by confusion. She looked back at him, her brow furrowed.
"Go bring sothing to eat," Cruxius said, a blank, almost bored look settling over his face. He tossed her 10 GC in a flat arc. She caught it out of reflex. "That spandex suit can barely suppress the obvious, let alone hold money. So—olets, this ti."
"...Heh?" Her cheeks flared a bright red as she realized he was staring at the curves her suit did little to hide.
And then she was inside, the glass door sliding shut behind her with a soft chi, currency in hand, blinking at the empty counter.
The pink-haired owner—clearly still boiling from the dowry comnt—had apparently co outside to create a scene, been caught by the old woman, and dragged back in.
The shop was quiet.
"...Is soone here?"
"Your orders, Master?"
Darithi watched the door close behind Ytrisia and asked without ceremony. She already understood why he’d sent her away. She leaned slightly toward him, her perfu—sothing sharp and professional—wafting into the car.
Cruxius closed his eyes. Folded his hands. Let his head rest back against the seat, feeling the cool air of the alley.
Then he began.
"Start with Somalia. Pay off the ruling super-clans. Give them exclusive rights to the neural combat serums—even if they’re still unstable—and let them bla the attack on rogue enhanciles. They’ll fracture trying to control the narrative, and the serums will do the rest slowly from the inside. Then back the rogue enhanciles. Keep everyone busy."
"Venezuela—offer to restore their power grid using our quantum reactors, but only if they publicly denounce the attack as a failed internal coup staged by rebellious ta-militants. Use our dia connections to anchor the story."
"Syria..." He let the na settle. "Drop a crate of cloaked tech in the border zone. Let the insurgents and the governnt tear each other apart over it. Whoever cos out on top gets our support. And a leash to match."
"...Master..." Darithi’s composure bent, just slightly. Her eyes were wide behind her glasses. The precision with which he’d mapped all three countries—their political pressure points, their specific appetites, their fracture lines—was beyond what should have been possible off the top of his head. It was as if he had spent years studying their downfalls.
"Co on, Darithi. Be quick, or I’ll have to find another assistant," he said with a shrug, glancing sideways at her. She caught the faint edge of amusent in his eyes and steadied herself, a small, involuntary shiver running down her spine. He shook his head once, then added, sothing softer entering his tone, "Also—tell the butler I need access to the treasury locker. There are so things at the estate I’ll be needing."
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