Obsidian Peak, Past Midnight
At the top floor of Obsidian Peak, the city glittered below like scattered diamonds.
Inside the glass-walled office, Zander didn’t look up once.
Screens surrounded him—news feeds, financial trackers, encrypted communications. The words Heiress Kidnapping flashed across trending columns like wildfire.
A blurry photo. A half-confird report.
That was all it took.
The capital devoured scandal like it was oxygen.
Sowhere along the chain, soone had leaked it, and his boss told him to handle it.
The phones in the Obsidian Peak rang relentlessly that afternoon as reporters vied for a chance at juicy news.
Zander’s jaw tightened.
"Trace the origin. Suppress everything," he ordered into his headset.
Within minutes, bots flooded tilines. Legal notices went out. Servers were pressured. Influencers were paid to pivot narratives. Hashtags disappeared.
In thirty minutes, it was as if the kidnapping had never happened.
Money erased mory.
But as the last feed went dark, a small notification blinked in the corner of his private encrypted chat.
Unknown sender.
He clicked it.
I claim responsibility for solving the Heiress Kidnapping case. I helped them escape through that tunnel.
Zander’s fingers paused above the keyboard.
Not many people knew about the tunnel.
Even fewer would dare to announce involvent.
He typed back.
Who are you?
The typing indicator blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then the ssage ca through.
I am The Phantom.
The temperature in the room seed to drop ten degrees.
Zander didn’t move at first. He just stared at the screen, fingers steepled beneath his chin. Outside the reinforced windows, Lanura’s skyline burned in neon and smog, but in this room—deep in Ares’ private tower—everything felt unnervingly still.
No digital footprint.
No IP trace.
The signal had ricocheted through so many dead nodes and abandoned servers that even elite cybercri units would’ve waved the white flag.
The phantom. Was he indeed the masked man described by Larissa Reyes as the one who saved them from the stronghold?
Zander leaned back slowly, the leather chair groaning beneath him.
Interesting. Very interesting.
Because in their world, there were only two explanations.
Either this "Phantom" was a reckless amateur hiding behind theatrics.
Or soone had just stepped into Ares Zuvel’s territory without permission.
And in Ares’ world—
Uninvited players didn’t last long enough to regret it.
Zander:What’s your purpose in saving them? Are you from the military?
The reply ca instantly.
Of course, it’s for ransom. What else?
Zander’s eyes hardened.
Too clean. Too obvious.
The wording wasn’t greedy—it was calculated. Like soone pretending to be greedy.
His fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard, launching silent counterasures. Encryption peeled back layer by layer as he stalled for ti.
Just a few more seconds.
Just a little closer.
A location ping flickered on his secondary screen.
He locked in.
And then,
The connection vanished.
His screen turned blank. The signal went dead, like it had never existed.
"Damn it!" Zander slamd his fist against the desk. "I lost him."
...
Across the city, beneath the cracked concrete ribs of Lanura’s central district, another room pulsed with cold blue light.
Monitors lined the walls.
Cables snaked across the floor like chanical veins.
In the center sat a man hunched over a laptop, sweat beading at his temple.
He wasn’t smiling anymore.
That man was faster than expected.
Too fast.
Phantom replayed the session in his head. The trace spike. The silent counterattack. The narrowing window.
He ripped off his headset and slamd his palm onto the tal table so hard the coffee mug beside him toppled, shattering against the cent floor.
"Damn it! He almost got ."
His fingers flew across the keyboard again, urgency replacing arrogance.
No theatrics now. Just survival.
The man leaned back, eyes drifting to the encrypted ssage he’d just sent.
Boss X. It’s confird. Ares Zuvel’s daughter was rescued by the military.
He exhaled slowly. He need not tell the boss that he almost got exposed.
Wouldn’t it be a sha that he, as the top hacker in the country, almost got beaten by soone unknown?
"Yes, why have I not thought of it before? Could he be the No. 1 hacker who disappeared from the online world a year ago? Only he could beat ."
He narrowed his eyes, his gaze fixed on the blurry photo of a group of people getting off a jet at Lanura’s Airport. His gaze zeroed in on that tall, imposing man carrying a little girl.
Did Ares Zuvel get an expert hacker on his side?
Because if that were true, the ga would beco more exciting.
Soone far more dangerous than Ares had just entered the board.
His boss and Ares Zuvel would be a perfect match now.
No, not perfectly matched. My boss is still more powerful.
Lanura didn’t belong to the governnt.
It didn’t belong to the corporations.
It belonged to Boss X.
From the outside, his empire looked legitimate—shipping lines, construction contracts, security firms. On paper, he was a visionary businessman.
In reality?
He was the reason judges retired early.
The reason rivals disappeared mid-sentence.
The reason entire districts went quiet when black SUVs rolled through.
And he, Hades, was his sharp blade.
Every digital war his Boss X fought, Hades won before the enemy knew they were bleeding.
Which was why that unknown hacker wasn’t just an inconvenience.
It was an insult.
...
Zander stood, walking toward the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city. Neon lights flickered below like a restless circuit board.
"Phantom, my ass," he muttered. "He thought he did not leave any trace. But his style, his signature, he must be Hades, the notorious top hacker that caused the downfall of several corporations."
No one slipped into Ares’ business without permission.
Not the politicians. Not even the military.
And definitely not so underground hacker with a dramatic nickna.
Unless...
Unless this wasn’t about ransom at all.
Unless soone was testing the periter.
Testing him.
That thought bothered Zander more than the failed trace.
Because if soone had kidnapped Ares’ daughter before, and if the sa group staged the rescue before they could leverage the situation, that ant Ares had been exposed.
And exposure in their world was weakness.
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