SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

The golden dome of the Aegis Shield dissolved into a shower of harmless, glittering light.

Silence, profound and absolute, fell over the massive arena.

Every eye was fixed on the three figures standing alone in the center of the ruined cityscape.

Team Revenant.

The last team standing.

Miles stood there, his chest heaving, the last vestiges of the controlled overload humming just beneath his skin.

He felt drained.

Hollowed out.

But he was standing.

"Well," Leo said, his voice a high-pitched, shaky squeak that echoed in the sudden quiet.

"I think we made an impression."

He looked at the smoking craters and the unconscious bodies of the other teams scattered across the arena.

"A very, very loud impression."

"I don't think we're getting our security deposit back for this place."

The booming voice of the announcer finally broke the spell, declaring them one of the three finalists.

The crowd erupted, a roaring, deafening wave of sound.

They were led off the arena floor and back into the sterile, white silence of their designated prep room.

The door hissed shut behind them, cutting off the noise, leaving them in a silence that felt heavier than the roar.

Leo immediately collapsed into a chair, letting out a long, shaky breath.

"Okay," he said, running a trembling hand through his curly hair. "New rule."

"No more plans that involve our leader turning into a human supernova."

"My heart can't take the stress."

"I have a delicate disposition."

Miles didn't answer.

He walked over to the far wall and leaned against it, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor.

He closed his eyes.

The overload had been a success.

He had controlled it.

He had channeled it.

But it had been close.

He had felt the edge of that screaming, chaotic abyss, and he knew, with a terrifying certainty, that he had almost fallen in.

Clara watched him, her face a mask of quiet, serious concern.

She saw the tremor in his hands.

She saw the deep, bone-weary exhaustion in the set of his shoulders.

He had won the battle, but she could see the war he was fighting inside himself.

She walked over and sat down on the floor across from him.

"You almost lost it," she said, her voice a soft, simple statement of fact.

He didn't open his eyes.

He just gave a single, tired nod.

"But you didn't," she continued, her voice firm, unwavering.

"You held on."

"That was you, Miles."

"Not the system."

"That was your strength."

He finally looked at her, and the look in his eyes was one he was sure she had never seen before.

It was fear.

"For how long?" he asked, his voice a low, ragged whisper.

"How long until I can't hold on?"

"How long until I become the monster that Silas Cross thinks I am?"

The question hung in the air between them, a raw, vulnerable confession.

Clara looked at him, at this boy who carried the weight of a murdered family and a world-breaking power on his shoulders.

And she made a decision.

She had given him a piece of her secret.

Now, it was time for the whole truth.

"There's another way, Miles," she said, her voice dropping to an intense, conspiratorial whisper.

"A way to understand your system."

"A way to control it."

He just stared at her, a flicker of something, hope or suspicion, in his tired eyes.

"My family," she began, taking a deep breath. "The clan."

"We're not just scholars."

"We're refugees."

"My father," she said, the word catching slightly in her throat. "He knew your parents."

Miles sat up straight, every ounce of his exhaustion vanishing, replaced by a sharp, electric shock of pure adrenaline.

"What?" he breathed.

"He worked with them," Clara continued, her eyes locked on his, willing him to understand. "A long time ago."

"Before Cross."

"Before everything."

"He was their colleague."

"Their friend."

The system in Miles's head, which had been in a low-power, recovery mode, flared to life.

[NEW DATA DETECTED. HIGH-PRIORITY. CROSS-REFERENCING WITH MEMORY FRAGMENT ARCHIVES.]

"His name," Clara said, her voice barely audible. "Is Gideon Thorne."

The name slammed into Miles's consciousness with the force of a physical blow.

Dr. Aris Thorne.

That was the name he had seen on the encrypted list from Julian's phone.

The first name on the list of scientists his parents had worked with.

The list that had ended with their own names.

He had assumed the man was dead.

Another victim of Silas Cross's ambition.

"He's alive?" Miles whispered, the words feeling foreign in his mouth.

Clara gave a single, slow nod.

"When your parents realized what Cross was, what he was planning to do with their research, they warned him," she explained, her voice a low, sad murmur.

"They gave him a chance to run."

"And he did."

"He took our family, and he disappeared."

"He founded our clan, a community for system scientists who wanted to live outside the corporate machine, who wanted to study, not to build weapons."

"He's been in hiding ever since."

Miles's mind was reeling, a chaotic storm of a million questions.

"He knew," Miles said, the realization a cold, hard stone in his gut. "He knew what Cross did to them."

"And he did nothing?"

"He just hid?"

The accusation was sharp, bitter.

Clara flinched, but she didn't look away.

"He was scared, Miles," she said, her voice pleading. "He was terrified."

"Cross has eyes everywhere."

"He had a family to protect."

"He made a choice."

"A hard one."

"Maybe even the wrong one."

"But he never stopped watching."

She leaned in closer, her voice dropping even lower.

"He's been watching this tournament, Miles."

"From a distance."

"He saw what happened in the lobby."

"He saw your overload."

"He knows what's happening to you."

"He knows the Echo Protocol is unstable without the proper guidance."

She took a final, deep breath.

"And he has a way to get us out of here."

"After the finals."

"Silas has this entire arena locked down."

"But my father has a back door."

"A way for us to bypass Cross Corp's security and disappear."

"He can help you, Miles."

"He can give you the answers you've been looking for."

Miles just stared at her, the world tilting on its axis.

The man who held the key to his past.

The key to his parents' legacy.

The key to his own fractured soul.

He was alive.

And he was waiting for him.

It was everything he had ever wanted.

A way out.

Answers.

A connection to the life that had been stolen from him.

He looked at Clara, at the hope and fear that were warring in her beautiful, intelligent eyes.

He saw the escape she was offering him.

A life of hiding.

A life on the run.

A life of quiet study in some secret ninja village for super-geniuses.

And he knew, with a sudden, absolute clarity, that it wasn't what he wanted.

Not yet.

He had come here for a reason.

He had walked into this cage for a prize.

The prize that would give him the power to stop running forever.

He finally stood up, his body no longer aching with exhaustion, but humming with a new, cold, and deeply dangerous purpose.

He looked down at her, his expression a mask of calm, unshakeable resolve.

"Okay," he said, his voice quiet but firm.

"I'll meet him."

A wave of relief washed over Clara's face.

"But not yet," he continued, his eyes turning toward the door that led back to the arena.

"First, I have a tournament to win."

"First, I have to get that crystal."

"And first," he finished, his voice dropping to a low, predatory growl as he thought of the man watching from his glass tower.

"I have a debt to collect."