The afternoon felt strangely light.
No internship work.
No classes worth attending.
No rifts tearing open the skyline.
The Business District was still cleaning up debris. Glass being replaced. Pavement being patched. Media rewriting the narrative.
Adrian walked back to his dorm slowly.
For once, nothing demanded him.
He opened his laptop.
And almost dropped it.
DemonHunter06 — 50,842 subscribers.
He blinked.
He had only done two livestreams.
The second one wasn’t even finished.
He clicked analytics.
Twenty thousand peak concurrent viewers during the campus incident before everything went dark.
Clips were being reposted.
Speculation threads everywhere.
“Is he an underground hero?”
“Why isn’t he in Hero Corp’s database?”
“Bro might be S-Class and just hiding.”
He leaned back.
He loved this part.
Not the killing.
Not the danger.
This.
The reaction.
He scrolled through comments.
“We tried to find you in the hero registry but couldn’t.”
“Is this illegal?”
“Bro’s probably too goated to register.”
He smirked and typed:
“Prefer staying under the radar.”
Thousands of likes within seconds.
Replying to every comment was impossible.
So he made a decision.
If attention was coming to him—
He would direct it.
Camera set.
Mask on.
Lights dim.
He hasn't transformed yet.
Viewers climbed fast.
10k.
15k.
19k.
20,436.
He nodded.
“Evening.”
Chat exploded.
He let it settle.
“First of all, thanks for the support.”
A pause.
“I’ve officially formed a small group.”
He adjusted his mask.
“The channel name is now Vigilante.”
Chat spammed the word immediately.
“The ghost girl you saw last time is my second ally.”
Samantha, somewhere in her dorm, probably paused mid-equation when she heard that.
“The third ally handles… background tasks.”
Peter would absolutely hate that phrasing.
Adrian continued:
“I won’t be registering with Hero Corp.”
“Official heroes have their job.”
“We have ours.”
That line hit.
Clips would be made.
Then he leaned slightly closer to the camera.
“Instead of me searching blindly for haunted locations…”
He let it linger.
“You bring them to me.”
Chat flooded instantly.
He raised a hand.
“Be specific.”
“Location. Time. Patterns. Temperature drops. Electrical interference. Recurring sightings.”
“Not just ‘my house is spooky’.”
He smiled faintly.
“If it’s real, I’ll check it out.”
And just like that—
He outsourced anomaly scouting to fifty thousand people.
Peter:
I must admit.
You still sound like a center-of-attention wannabe.
Adrian:
But?
Peter:
But you’re good at it.
A second message:
I’ll send some clones to promising locations.
Samantha replied almost immediately:
Not that fast.
A pause.
Then another message.
The pre-rift era already had thousands of ghost claims.
Post-rift numbers will explode.
The signal-to-noise ratio will be terrible.
Peter:
I have 10,000 cells.
Samantha:
And how many souls?
That quieted him.
She continued:
Some entities attack souls directly.
Even with your cell count, that risk isn’t calculable yet.
Peter:
Fair.
Samantha:
I’ll filter submissions.
Cluster by geography.
Time overlap.
Repetition density.
Electrical interference correlation.
Adrian read her messages with interest.
Pure Samantha.
She added:
I’ll convert qualitative rumors into weighted probability zones.
Peter:
You’re terrifying.
Samantha:
Efficient.
Adrian finally typed:
Good.
Then:
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Prioritize urban clusters near financial hubs.
Peter sent a single emoji.
Adrian opened the community rumor board.
Thousands of submissions already.
He pinned a message:
“Specify as much as possible.
Time, weather, witnesses, repeated patterns.”
He could almost see Samantha’s brain lighting up.
Qualitative → Overlap → Quantitative.
He wasn’t just hunting anymore.
He was building a network.
An information machine.
And unlike Hero Corp—
His system was decentralized.
Anonymous.
Reactive.
Fast.
He leaned back in his chair after ending the stream.
Fifty thousand pairs of eyes.
Watching.
Waiting.
He felt it again.
That warmth.
Not Heaven.
Not Hell.
Recognition.
He whispered to himself:
“If official heroes hold the spotlight…”
“…we’ll own the shadows.”
Outside, the city hummed quietly.
Somewhere deep below the surface—
Other things were listening too.
And now they knew.
There was a new player hunting them.
And he had an audience.
Chapter 14 — Filter through Noise
Morning light poured through the classroom windows.
Adrian looked half-asleep.
Samantha did not.
Her laptop screen reflected a storm of data.
10,382 submissions.
One night.
Comments. Emails. Tagged locations. Anonymous DMs.
Voice notes. Dashcam clips. Edited nonsense.
Noise.
Pure, beautiful noise.
Samantha adjusted her glasses.
“I’m starting with Bayesian filtering,” she said calmly.
Adrian leaned back in his chair.
“Of course you are.”
She ignored him.
“I cluster by geographic density first. Then remove single-instance anomalies. After that, I apply Monte Carlo simulations to stress-test recurring patterns.”
Leah blinked.
David slowly stopped chewing.
Samantha continued typing.
“Then I cross-reference with traffic logs, weather reports, satellite heat signatures, and social media geotags.”
Adrian smirked slightly.
She was in her element.
She mapped every reported sighting.
Red dots filled the state.
Most were isolated.
She filtered out low-frequency events.
Dots disappeared.
Reports within ±3 hour windows.
Another filter.
More dots vanished.
Keywords:
- “Burning smell”
- “Dry lake”
- “People walking in front of car but vanish”
- “Resort looks destroyed from far away”
- “Perfectly normal up close”
The screen zoomed inward.
Clusters converged.
Monte Carlo simulations ran thousands of random distributions to test coincidence probability.
After twenty minutes—
She stopped typing.
Adrian leaned forward.
“Well?”
Samantha rotated the laptop toward him.
One location pulsed red.
Almanda Lake Resort — 5 Star.
“I’m about 95% confident this is a real anomaly,” she said.
Quantitatively strong.
Qualitatively…
Strange.
- Drivers on the main road report seeing people wandering into traffic.
- When they stop, no one is there.
- From a distance: smoke. Fire. Structure damage.
- Upon approach: pristine architecture.
- Drone hobbyists claim the lake is completely dried out.
- Follow-up footage: lake full and calm.
- No official complaints from inside the resort.
- Business operations continue normally.
Adrian narrowed his eyes.
“A controlled illusion field,” he muttered.
Samantha nodded slowly.
“Or layered perception manipulation.”
Leah looked confused.
David decided not to ask.
Samantha posted the findings.
Peter replied almost instantly.
I’m going.
A second message:
I’m already nearby.
Adrian raised an eyebrow.
That was fast.
Minutes later—
Peter sent a short voice message.
He sounded different. Seriously.
“This is the place.”
Samantha typed:
You haven’t even entered.
Peter:
Don’t need to.
Pause.
I’ll explain later, trust me.
Then:
There are people inside waiting to be saved.
A beat.
I’m 100% sure.
Samantha looked at Adrian.
That wasn’t statistical language.
That was instinct.
Peter followed up:
I will save everyone. No matter how dire it is.
That tone—
That wasn’t research curiosity.
That was personal.
Peter sent another message thirty minutes later.
Booked three Presidential Suites.
Samantha blinked.
Huh?
Peter:
Highest tier.
Purchased new Nanotech drones.
Independent satellite uplink.
Military-grade SSDs in case stream corrupts.
Adrian:
Let me guess, parents money again. I know your family’s rich dude, they’re doctors.
Peter:
If I can generate 10,000 clone cells, become S-Class Rank 10 without my parents knowing, and still use their money—
I’d rather die.
Adrian laughed.
“You should be Pride.”
Peter replied instantly:
It’s common sense.
Then:
My parents still think I eat dinner with them every night.
Adrian:
You don’t?
Peter:
Technically, I do. A clone does.
Another message:
All my non-lab clones have different faces.
They work normal jobs.
They earn money.
When I need one, I swap consciousness.
Samantha paused.
“That’s terrifyingly efficient.”
Peter:
Benefits of a hivemind.
No dramatic entrances.
No flying.
No suspicious teleportation.
Plane.
Then bus.
Just like any tourist.
Peter walked ahead of them—
Now in the form of a middle-aged overweight uncle.
Receding hairline. Polo shirt stretched at the belly. Cheap sunglasses.
He carried their luggage dramatically.
“Kids these days,” he muttered loudly for show.
Samantha had to bite her lip to avoid laughing.
Adrian wore casual streetwear.
Normal.
Forgettable.
They approached the grand entrance.
Almanda Lake Resort gleamed under the sun.
White marble.
Blue water.
Palm trees swaying gently.
Absolutely pristine.
No smoke.
No ash.
No dried lake.
No wandering phantoms.
The receptionist smiled warmly.
“Welcome to Almanda.”
Peter handed over IDs smoothly.
“Family vacation,” he said cheerfully.
Keys handed.
Bellboy called.
No anomalies.
No distortions.
No visible cracks.
They entered their Presidential Suite.
The balcony overlooked the lake.
Clear.
Calm.
Beautiful.
Adrian leaned on the railing.
Too beautiful.
Samantha whispered:
“My data doesn’t lie.”
Peter stood by the window.
Still.
Very still.
After a moment, he spoke quietly:
“It’s here.”
Adrian didn’t ask how.
The air felt normal.
But something beneath it—
Was wrong
Even so —
They had willingly stepped inside the anomaly.