CHAPTER 294: CHAPTER 294 AET-KHENU-RA

Liam leaned against the rusted pillar, arms crossed, his mind still processing the scenes they had just uncovered. Clark’s involvement, the brutal murders, the transformation from soldier to monster. But amid all of it, one memory kept pushing its way to the surface, last night, when the wings had burst from his back.

He turned to Vanessa, eyes narrowed. "Why did you say Aetherial last night... when you saw my wings? And why did Clark freeze when he saw them too?"

Vanessa’s eyes immediately lit up, like she’d been waiting for that question. "You remember what I told you... about your father? That he was working on something tied to ancient power.... something no one ever really understood?"

Liam nodded slowly. "Yeah. You said he never succeeded."

Vanessa gave a slow, knowing smile. "That’s what everyone thought."

Liam straightened slightly. "What do you mean?"

"No one believed he succeeded," she said calmly. "But he did. He didn’t fail, Liam. He succeeded... in creating you."

Liam’s brow furrowed hard. "What?"

Vanessa could see the confusion tightening his face. She wasn’t surprised. It was a lot to throw at someone, especially someone still grappling with the idea that his father had been hiding world-changing secrets.

"Listen," she said, stepping closer. "Have you ever heard the term Aet-khenu-ra?"

Liam repeated the name silently in his mind. The syllables were strange, ancient, unfamiliar. He slowly shook his head. "No. Never."

"It’s from the lost Egyptian histories," Vanessa said. "Not the ones in textbooks or museums. I’m talking about the real ones, the ones that were destroyed or buried, the ones that only fragments of scholars even know exist."

He raised an eyebrow.

She continued, "Aet means a divine presence. Khenu means ’to shine’—not just light, but a kind of radiance that burns, that purifies. And Ra..." she paused, "Ra is the sun god. The source of all creation in their mythology."

"So what does it mean together?" Liam asked.

Vanessa looked him in the eye. "Aet-khenu-ra means The Divine Flame of the Sun. It referred to beings... gods, if you want to call them that. Creatures who weren’t born, but manifested. They weren’t just strong, they were impossible. Light that moved. Flame that thought. Souls wrapped in something more than flesh."

Liam stared at her, silent, trying to process it all. "So you’re saying... what? You think I’m one of them?"

"I think," Vanessa said slowly, "your father found something ancient. Something real. And instead of just studying it... he rebuilt it. And when he couldn’t hand it over to the government, he locked himself away and started creating something no one could ever trace."

Liam’s mind was spinning.

She thought he was some kind of godlike being created by his father.

But he knew the truth—or at least, part of it. His powers came from the System. That blue interface in his head, the missions, the upgrades, the skills. It wasn’t ancient. It was futuristic. Centuries ahead of anything science had today. An AI wrapped in something more intuitive than anything he’d ever imagined.

And yet...

His father had created it.

Or had he found it?

Liam remembered what Vanessa had said in the chamber days ago: that his father had locked himself away with his partner for years. No messages, no appearances. Just total silence. What if the system wasn’t a project... but a discovery? What if they had found something buried, technology, or knowledge or maybe something even older?

And then the real question slammed into his mind like a freight train: What if the system is a remnant of the Aet-khenu-ra?

It made too much sense to ignore. The powers. The wings. The way people reacted to them not with confusion, but with fear, recognition. Clark froze. Vanessa whispered a name from a dead language.

Liam’s jaw tightened as his thoughts kept racing. Was that what his father had been working on all along? A system built from something ancient—an interface to awaken a dormant power inside him?

He looked at Vanessa again, who was still waiting for his response.

"These beings..." he said carefully, "If they were so powerful... why didn’t anyone ever hear of them in history?"

Vanessa gave a bitter half-smile. "Because history is a lie. What the world knows is what the winners allowed to survive. But the Aet-khenu-ra weren’t just powerful, Liam. They were feared. Worshiped and hunted at the same time. The priests of the old dynasties tried to control them. When that failed, they buried the truth. They turned gods into myths, and then buried the myths under sand."

Liam exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair. His chest felt tight with the weight of everything.

On one hand, he knew she was trying to connect him to something ancient, something legendary. But the part of him that had been with the system from the beginning—the part that felt its presence, knew its tone, its machine-like calculations—that part whispered to him that something else was going on. That the system wasn’t magic or divine.

It was technology.

But where did his father get it? How did he design it?

Unless... he didn’t.

Unless what Vanessa said was true—and what his father really did... was awaken something. Find something.

And Liam was the result.

Liam stood silently for a few seconds, still trying to connect everything in his head. The name Aetherial still rang in his ears like an echo from another time. He looked at Vanessa again, his voice low but steady.

"Alright... so what happened to these gods you spoke of? The Aet-khenu-ra? Where did they go?"

Vanessa shook her head slowly. "That’s all I know," she said, voice quiet. "That’s all my father was able to find. He spent years digging, decoding fragments, translating ancient scrolls that barely survived the centuries—but he never found out what happened to them. Just that they existed... and then vanished."

Liam nodded slowly, though his mind was clearly elsewhere. His eyes were on her, but his thoughts weren’t.

He blinked, then leaned forward slightly. "But none of what you’ve said explains something. Why did you say Aetherial when you saw me last night? Where did you hear that name?"

Vanessa didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she gave a small nod, acknowledging the gap in the story.

"You’re right," she said. "Come here."

She reached over to a bag near the table, pulled out a slim device—her personal terminal—and began tapping on it quickly. Within seconds, her screen lit up with dozens of image files. Vanessa slid her chair to the side, motioning for Liam to come closer.

He stepped beside her, and she tilted the screen toward him.

Photo after photo flashed by. Dozens of different men—some younger, some middle-aged. Some clean-shaven, some rugged. At first glance, Liam couldn’t understand what he was looking at. The photos were clear, high resolution, and taken from odd angles—some up close, others from rooftops or dark alley corners. It looked like surveillance footage, but too personal... too deliberate.

"What am I looking at?" Liam asked, confused. "Are these... your targets?"

Vanessa didn’t answer directly. "Look at their necks," she said instead. "Just focus on their necks."

Liam squinted slightly and leaned in. And then he saw it.

A small marking. On one man’s neck—what looked like a faint outline of wings.

He moved to the next image. The pattern was different, but similar—another tattoo, this time more elaborate. An angel, etched along the base of a man’s neck.

He flipped again.

A bird. Large, wings spread wide across the man’s shoulder blade. A raven.

As the pictures rolled on, the theme became obvious.

Every man had something on his skin. A symbol. A creature with wings. They weren’t identical—but they weren’t random either.

"Birds," Liam muttered, eyes narrowing. "All of them."

Vanessa nodded. "I didn’t notice at first either. Not until last night... when I saw the tattoo on Clark."

She looked over at Liam.

"For hours, I kept trying to remember where I’d seen it before. The bird. The design. It was familiar, but I couldn’t place it—until just now."

Liam stood straight, muscles tensing as he glanced back at the photos. "So who are they?"

"They belong to a clan," Vanessa said. "One that most people never even hear about. They don’t interfere in normal affairs. Don’t make noise. Don’t leave traces."

Liam turned to her. "What clan?"

"They call themselves The Raven," she said. "A group of people with the ability to summon wings. Just like Clark did last night."

Liam raised his eyebrow slowly. "So he’s one of them?"

Vanessa nodded again. "It looks that way. But here’s the strange part... No one knows how they get their powers. They don’t recruit, they don’t train openly, and no one’s ever seen a child version of them. It’s like they just... exist. The only exception is Clark."

She tapped a few keys and opened a new file—one of her father’s scanned research documents.

"According to this," she said, pointing to the file, "they trace their origin back to an ancient race. The Aetherials."

She scrolled down to a specific passage, highlighting a section written in her father’s familiar handwriting.

’The Raven claim their gifts are divine. Passed down from beings known as Aetherials—those with glowing white wings, immortal strength, and knowledge of energy manipulation far beyond human understanding.’

Vanessa’s voice was quieter now. More thoughtful.

"They believe the Aetherials were gods. Not metaphorically. Literally. That their blood runs in their veins. That’s where they draw their power. Their identity."

As she spoke, her eyes slowly met Liam’s.

She didn’t say it, but the message was loud and clear.

He fit the description.

White wings. Impossible strength. Powers no one could explain. No origin. No rules.

Liam held her gaze, his face unreadable. Inside, his mind was a storm.

Could the System be... a key? A gateway? Something his father reverse-engineered from the remains of this forgotten race?

And what if... his father didn’t just find knowledge from the Aetherials...

What if he used it?

"Is there anything else?" Liam asked quietly.

Vanessa nodded, flipping quickly through the last few pages of the scanned document. Most were faded notes, fragmented thoughts from her father’s research—speculations about bloodlines, about wings appearing only in rare hosts, about limits to their manifestation. She passed several entries, then paused at the very end.

Her eyes froze.

One line, bold and written in large capital letters, stared back at them both.

"THE RAVEN MUST BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS. THE DESTRUCTION THEY POSSESS KNOWS NO BOUND."