Chapter 9: Chapter 9: The Ghost in the Network
Late night. The city was quiet, its glittering skyline humming beneath a starless sky. The Argent estate had gone still, the servants retired, and Lyra's footsteps no longer echoed down the halls.
But Aeron wasn't asleep.
He sat at the far end of the study, hood drawn low over his face, screen glowing faintly in the dark. His fingers moved with practiced calm—searching, learning, shaping.
The servers of Eon Vale Technologies were live now. Still small. Still quiet. But growing.
> "Stage Two begins."
He had launched the beta version of an AI-integrated scheduling system. Simple. Elegant. Marketed toward small business owners, and, ironically, school administrators. Its neural net was designed to adapt quickly, improve itself with minimal human input.
It was all from the novel he once read. The yuri web novel where he used to laugh at how clueless the background characters were. But now, he was the background character. Or so they thought.
In the original timeline, this tech exploded in popularity during the school arc. A shy omega side character developed it after being bullied—and sold it to a corporation for pennies.
But not this time.
This time, Eon Vale would own it first.
And this time, Aeron would never be bullied.
---
Meanwhile, on the other side of the estate, Selene stood at her window.
Her arms were crossed behind her back, long white hair illuminated by moonlight, red eyes narrowed.
She hated this feeling.
> Why did her thoughts keep circling back to him?
He never bowed. Never stuttered. Never clung to anyone. Every other omega in her world did all three.
But not Aeron.
He looked her in the eye with that cold, dull gaze like she wasn't a threat to him at all.
> "Who the hell are you really…?" she whispered.
Was he acting? Was it some kind of reverse psychology? Or was he… like her?
A predator in a herbivore's skin.
She didn't know yet. But she wanted to. Needed to.
---
And Lyra?
She sat curled up in her bed, phone in hand, scrolling through pictures she'd secretly taken of Aeron during dinner. Just small, innocent shots—him looking bored at the table, his hand resting near the wine glass, his eyes staring into space.
She didn't understand why he was in her thoughts this often.
She had met beautiful people before. Confident people. Fragile ones.
But Aeron?
He was all three. And none.
There was something about the way he didn't try that made her want to force him to notice her. She'd caught herself brushing his hand just to see if he'd flinch. He never did.
> "Why are you so… calm all the time?" she whispered.
A part of her wanted to break that calm.
To see what was underneath it.
---
Back in the study, Aeron leaned back in the old chair and exhaled.
Selene. Lyra. The entire estate.
They were all stuck in the same dance. All drunk on power and titles. All blind to what was being built beneath their feet.
> "They're not watching me," he muttered, almost smiling.
"They're watching the shadow I cast."
The real him?
The one designing server infrastructure and investing in biotech offshoots in the dark?
That one lived in silence.
The world would meet Eon Vale first.
Then, if necessary—
They would meet Aeron, too.
But only when it was far too late.