Chapter 11 – The One Who Remembers
The flickering visions faded, but Shayan stood frozen.
Someone had tampered with time—not by magic, not by brute force, but by memory. And only a true mnemonic wielder could pull that off.
He clenched his jaw. There shouldn't be another.
The orb dimmed, its glow retreating into silence. But the echo of that voice still lingered.
> "You are not the only one who remembers everything."
He turned on his heel and left the Vault, locking it behind him with a single press of his thumb. Ancient mechanisms sealed it once more, vanishing as if it had never existed.
Back in his estate, Shayan accessed his private lab hidden beneath the west wing. Screens buzzed to life, illuminating a wall filled with data—black market records, global surveillance intercepts, hidden empire blueprints, and a blinking red mark under a label:
[Subject: X – Unknown Memory Phantom]
> "They left no trace," said Eira, his AI assistant. "But the signature in the archive matches the quantum residue detected in the Kyoto assassination vault three years ago."
Shayan's eyes narrowed.
That vault had been classified—even within his own illegal intelligence network.
"Bring up the Kyoto vault breach logs," he ordered.
Within seconds, holograms reconstructed the scene. He watched closely. A shadow slipped past cameras, twisted the timelines within the building, and erased everyone's memories of the incident—except the dead.
> "One target survived," Eira noted. "A girl. Now missing."
"Name?"
"Velka Dae."
The name meant nothing. But his instincts screamed otherwise.
He traced the pattern—each appearance of the phantom lined up with a significant shift in hidden power structures across the empires.
"Either they're warning me," Shayan muttered, "or challenging me."
He didn't like either option.
With a flick of his wrist, he activated a deep-net beacon—one reserved for The Obsidian Net, his most secretive and illegal organization.
> "Bring me every trace of Velka Dae. Dead or alive. And locate any known mnemonic anomalies worldwide."
He stared at the blinking map.
A storm was coming. One only a true memory could survive.
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