Chapter 80: Rapid Developments

All she knew was that Yaela was Liam’s sister and that keeping her here could eventually push Liam past his current limitations, making him strong enough to challenge the Family Heads themselves. However long this process might take, she didn’t know, but she could at least make the effort to understand her captive.

“Tell me your name,” Ophix said, her tone carrying the weight of command despite the casual setting.

“Yaela Clint,” came the simple reply.

Ophix paused mid-bite, her fork hovering near her mouth. “Clint, you say?” “Yes.” For a moment, Ophix’s expression grew contemplative, as if searching through distant memories. “Hmm… now where have I heard that name before?” She frowned slightly, clearly struggling to place the familiarity.

After a few moments, she shrugged and returned to her meal. “Well, when I remember, I’ll let you know.”

Yaela said nothing, maintaining both her eating pace and her watchful gaze on the black witch. In the silence that followed, both women were left with their own thoughts—Ophix puzzling over a half-remembered connection, and Yaela wondering when the hell she would be lucky enough to leave here.

…

The towering digital billboards of Times Square cast their assortment of colors across Vaiden’s face as he stood transfixed in the heart of New York City. The morning sun struggled to compete with the artificial luminescence that painted the streets.

“Woaaahhhhh, the humans did all these?!” Vaiden exclaimed, his voice barely audible above the symphony of traffic and conversation that filled the bustling square. He had been walking for hours, his casually strolling beginning in the pre-dawn darkness and stretching well into the morning.

This wasn’t mere wandering, it was deliberate exploration. After seventy years away from this world, Vaiden found himself genuinely intrigued by humanity’s evolution, and he was determined to witness it firsthand.

Already, much earlier he had seen wonders that defied his expectations. The automobiles moved with a quiet efficiency that puzzled him, so different from the roaring, smoke-belching machines he remembered. This felt much more different from witnessing it through the memories of the dead.

Small, harmless magical creatures that once roamed wild now served as beloved companions to their human masters. Human now had several buildings that seemed to reach toward the skies with an audacity that spoke of boundless ambition.

But it was the scene unfolding before him now that truly captured his attention. A couple—a man and woman of contrasting skin tones, walked hand in hand through the crowd before sharing a tender kiss beneath the glowing advertisements.

Vaiden blinked twice, processing this display of affection between people who, in his time of brief activity, might never have dared to love so openly. He shook his head with genuine amusement. “So these creatures finally learned co-existence,” he murmured to himself, a note of approval in his voice.

Yet one element remained constant among all the pedestrians streaming past him: their unwavering devotion to small, glowing screens. Every person, young and old, seemed entranced by these mysterious devices.

Vaiden’s curiosity was piqued, and he had to understand what commanded such universal attention. His opportunity came when a young woman with stylish glasses approached, her gaze fixed downward on her device as she walked.

Without looking up, she was heading straight for him. “Oh, hey there,” Vaiden said as they nearly collided, his tone deliberately casual. “May I see that glowing screen for a bit?” He gestured toward the device in her hands.

The request was undeniably strange, who called a smartphone a “glowing screen”?—but something about Vaiden’s appearance disarmed her caution. Perhaps it was his striking features that gave him an almost celebrity-like presence, or maybe it was simply the magnetic quality of his smile. Whatever the reason, she found herself handing over her phone without question.

The moment Vaiden’s fingers made contact with the device, his eyes—hidden behind dark sunglasses—began to glow with an ethereal light. He stood perfectly still, his expression blank, as streams of data cascaded behind his lenses. Numbers, letters, and symbols flowed through his consciousness like a digital waterfall.

The woman watched in growing alarm as this continued for a full minute, her initial trust rapidly transforming into anxiety. “Hey, are you okay?” she asked, her voice tight with concern. “Can I have my phone back now?”

Vaiden blinked, the supernatural glow fading from his eyes as he returned to the present moment. “Oh yes, yes, you can have it back now,” he replied smoothly, offering her the device with a slight bow and a smile that feigned courtesy and perfectly masked the magnitude of what had just transpired.

The woman snatched her phone and hurried away, glancing back nervously as she disappeared into the crowd.

“This world has grown vastly different,” Vaiden thought, his mind still processing the overwhelming influx of information. In that single minute of contact, he had done far more than simply examine a smartphone. He had absorbed the device’s entire digital essence, following its connections through the vast network humans called the internet.

Seventy years of human progress, documented and catalogued in countless terabytes of data, now resided in his consciousness. Every innovation, every cultural shift, every technological leap—all of it integrated into his understanding with supernatural efficiency.

What struck him most was humanity’s casual relationship with privacy. Nearly everyone, particularly those deemed “famous,” had scattered their personal information across the digital landscape with shocking carelessness.

“Did they throw their sense of caution away?” he wondered aloud. Then an idea formed, and his lips curved into a smile that held no warmth. Vaiden began cross-referencing the faces his descendants had encountered, particularly the one that had captured his interest. He searched through the vast database now stored in his mind, matching faces to names, names to profiles, profiles to lives laid bare on the internet.

Nacht, he discovered, was quite popular, the President of the White Hunters who was also on the ranked board. Liam proved even more interesting—over the past week, he had become a trending topic in Michigan, his name and face circulating through social media networks with the intensity of a viral wildfire.

Vaiden was able to connect Liam’s face to the trending content and identify him as a USOV agent. The others, however, remained frustratingly elusive. Their masks had hidden their identities during the operation, rendering them invisible to even his enhanced search capabilities.

The Deity’s eyes that were closed for a moment during his information search, then opened, and faint letters seemed to dissolve from his irises like morning mist.

“Hm, so Michigan is where the fun’s at,” he said to himself, nodding with the satisfaction of a predator who had finally caught his prey’s scent.

Vaiden walked into a nearby alley, away from the crowds and cameras of Times Square. With a casual gesture of his hand, reality seemed to fold in on itself, creating a shimmering portal that hung in the air like a tear in the fabric of existence.

Without a backward glance at the city that had revealed so much, he stepped through the portal, which sealed itself behind him with the finality of a closing door.

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