Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 163: : A World Rewritten

Chapter 163: : A World Rewritten

The Vault glowed.

No longer flickering. No longer bleeding.

Alive. Whole. Waiting.

Ava stood before the interface, her hands hovering over the final set of commands. The last lines of the rewritten schema blinked at her like a pulse from the planet’s lungs—calm, full, awake.

[REWRITE REWRITE COMPLETE]

[APPLY TO ALL REGIONAL NODES?][Y/N]

Lucas watched in silence, leaning against the remnants of a collapsed pillar, blade sheathed, blood drying along his jaw.

He didn’t say anything.

He didn’t have to.

This was her moment.

Ava’s voice was quiet. "Once I do this... there’s no Military left."

"Good," Lucas said. "They don’t deserve one."

She hesitated only a second more, then tapped:

[Y]

The command executed.

And the world—shifted.

Not in thunder. Not in flames.

But in permission.

From one end of the system to the other, the override chain dissolved. The hidden code nests burned themselves out. Control nodes went dark.

All across the remaining bunkers, every mutant—every system holder—received a message:

[SYSTEM CONTROL RETURNED TO USER]

[MILITARY LOCKOUT LIFTED]

[YOU ARE FREE TO CHOOSE.]

Ava exhaled as if she’d been holding the breath since the end.

It was done.

She turned to Lucas.

His arms were crossed. The smirk wasn’t smug this time—just tired. Honest.

"You did it," he said.

"We did it."

Lucas tilted his head. "So."

"So."

She looked down at her boots, then past him. The stairwell Rei had come through was sealed forever now. The only exit was a side tunnel that spat them out into the edge of the wastes—dust horizon stretching in gold and red.

The desert shimmered like something ancient. Familiar.

Ava asked, voice light, teasing around the edge, "You wanna go back?"

Lucas raised a brow. "To?"

"Bai Manor."

Lucas’s voice was quiet.

Not wistful. Not emotional.

Just... certain.

It wasn’t just a place. It was home.

A broken fortress on the edge of the southern badlands, where the stars felt closer and silence wasn’t something to fear. Where systems had once flickered and failed, and Ava had first touched a core and made something new.

Ava glanced sideways. "You think they’re still there?"

Lucas nodded once. "He is."

The sun bled across the horizon like a promise as they crested the ridge. Dust kicked up around their boots, and the earth sloped downward into the remains of the outer estate wall—fractured stone teeth surrounding the property like the jawbone of something ancient.

And then—there it was.

Bai Manor.

Still standing.

Tall, skeletal, and stubborn as hell.

The eastern tower had collapsed. The greenhouse was glassless and overrun with desert flora. But the central structure held fast—steel-reinforced bones, blackened tile roof, high archways like raised brows.

Ava exhaled through a smile.

"Still ugly."

Lucas smirked. "Still mine."

They passed through the broken gate.

No alarms triggered.

No drones activated.

Instead—

A figure stepped out from the shadow of the main hall.

Immaculate suit. Silver hair. Scar at the jaw like a blade had tried and failed to cut him properly.

William Zhou.

He wasn’t standing in a doorway.

He was leaning against a matte-black armored Hummer, engine still purring, sand dusted across the windshield like it had come straight out of a warzone. Because it had.

Lucas stopped in his tracks, blinking against the rising sun. Ava squinted.

The old man looked exactly the same.

Black suit, crisp collar, sleeves rolled halfway for driving, and not a speck of sweat despite the heat. Silver hair sharp as ever. Scar still cutting like a second smile along his jawline.

He looked at Lucas.

Then at Ava.

Then back at Lucas.

"Are you done being dramatic," he asked dryly, "or should I come back in an hour?"

Lucas let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh.

"Nice to see you too, old man."

William pushed off the Hummer’s frame. "We’ve been tracking your beacon since the rewrite pulse lit up half the continent. Took me longer than I liked to get a signal through the dust storms."

He walked around and popped the passenger door open.

Inside, the vehicle looked untouched—polished screens, reinforced armor plating, weapons rack hidden beneath the floorboard, cold water bottles waiting in the console like they were VIP evacuees, not two war-hardened system ghosts crawling out of a dead zone.

Ava raised a brow. "You brought the good car."

William smiled faintly. "I brought the only one fast enough to outrun a satellite ping if you two started another war."

Lucas gestured to the backseat. "After you."

Ava climbed in, stretching across leather and shadow, still coated in sweat and dried code dust. Lucas followed, and William slammed the door shut.

The engine growled as the Hummer pivoted and tore away from the desert ridge, tires chewing gravel as the sun burned higher.

Ava glanced back through the tinted window.

The vault was already gone—swallowed by heat and horizon.

She looked at Lucas. "So. No speeches?"

He shrugged, reclining like he’d never left. "Bai Manor’s waiting."

"And?"

"And dinner. And a shower. And a full week of pretending I’m retired."

She smirked. "You’ll last three hours."

"I’ll make it four. Just to prove you wrong."

Ava gave him a side-eye, lips tugging in a crooked smile. But the joke didn’t stretch far. The hum of the Hummer rolled beneath them, steady as a heartbeat. Desert heat shimmered against the armored glass, but inside the cabin, it was still.

Quiet.

That kind of quiet that didn’t demand noise.

They drove like that for a few minutes—no drones, no threats, no beacons tracing them anymore. Just old road and old ghosts.

Lucas finally broke it.

Voice low. Not dramatic. Not weighty.

Just... honest.

"She was in a room."

Ava didn’t look at him yet.

"She?"

"Angle."

Now she turned.

Lucas kept his gaze forward, elbows resting loose on his knees, head tilted slightly toward the window. His golden eyes reflected sunlight, but something sharper moved under them.

"When I kept you waiting for a while," he said, "right before—I was already at the facility."

A pause.

"She was there. In a room. Monitored. Hooked into that redline interface like it was feeding her soul. They had her in a medical coma. And they were planning to use her again."

Ava’s fingers curled slowly on the seat leather.

Lucas’s voice dropped to a level no one but her could hear.

"This time, I killed her with my hands."

He didn’t sound proud.

But he didn’t sound sorry either.

"It wasn’t fast. But it was real. Not data. Not code. Just... done."

Ava watched him.

For a long beat, she didn’t speak. Her eyes didn’t soften. They didn’t harden either.

They just stayed clear.

"Good," she said finally.

Lucas nodded.

And silence took the cabin again—but not awkward. Not angry.

Just two people sitting in a moving machine, hurtling toward something called home, with fewer ghosts chasing their heels.

Ava leaned her head back against the seat, eyes half-lidded but alert. The sun had dipped a little lower in the sky, scattering amber across the dashboard. Lucas hadn’t spoken again since the last truth slipped out of him—and she hadn’t needed him to.

Not every silence meant something was wrong.

Some silences were just earned.

She glanced sideways at him.

Lucas Bai. The world’s most dangerous dealmaker. Future ruler of every underground trade route and neutral system left standing. Probably half of the known world would bow if he said the right numbers in the right tone.

And yet here he was.

Elbows on his knees. Wind-swept hair. A scar on one hand that hadn’t quite faded since the old days. Not commanding anyone. Not scheming.

Just sitting beside her.

He caught her looking. His eyes lifted—slow, unreadable, but sharp.

"What?"

"Nothing," Ava said. "Just figuring out where your throne should go."

Lucas arched a brow. "Throne?"

"You’re going to end up ruling everyone. You know that."

He made a soft sound—half scoff, half reluctant amusement. "And I suppose you’ll just invent me a crown made of repurposed satellite scrap?"

"I could."

"You would."

She smirked. "And it’d be better than anything gold."

He chuckled, just a little. "I don’t want a crown."

"I know," she said. "That’s why you deserve one."

The Hummer hit a soft patch of sand, rocking gently as William downshifted with the ease of muscle memory. Neither of them noticed.

Lucas leaned back in his seat again, eyes drifting to the sky outside the window—darker now, wide with stars just starting to creep out.

"I don’t think I ever cared about the rest of it," he said quietly. "The trades. The vaults. Not like they thought I did."

Ava didn’t answer. She just listened.

He tilted his head toward her, not quite smiling. "But I care about building something that lasts. Something real. Where we don’t have to run every ten minutes."

He paused.

"...I’d like you to be there for that."

Her voice was soft. Not teasing this time.

"I was always going to be."

Another silence passed—but this one buzzed with something low and real and full of gravity. Not physical. Not confessed. Not wrapped in romance. Just constant.

Like gravity.

Like orbit.

Like truth that didn’t need to shout to be heard.

"You’re not very good at this, you know," Ava said, finally.

"Which part?"

"The future talk. Most people would’ve thrown in flowers or stars or some dramatic promise."

Lucas shrugged. "You’re not most people."

"Good answer."

He met her gaze. Steady. Unflinching.

Neither moved closer.

Neither needed to.

There were no confessions between them—because nothing had been hidden.

Just two people, built from ruin and circuit and sharp decisions, who had carved a world together without ever saying the word love.

And somehow, they both knew it anyway.

The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!