She Used Me for a Dare… Now I Own Her Mother

Chapter 240: Seventeen Minutes of Silence

Alex’s fingers made contact with the obsidian cover.

The book opened itself.

Alex jerked back slightly, startled. The tome responded with crisp precision, pages fanning outward in a controlled cascade... no hands guiding them, no mechanism visible. The movement was deliberate, purposeful, as if the book itself had recognized his touch and granted access.

”What the...” Alex muttered, leaning closer.

”A magical book?”

The first page blazed with luminescence.

Silver script materialized across the black surface, letters writing themselves in real-time as Alex watched with wide eyes and parted lips, fascination overriding his earlier wariness.

The text pulsed with inner light, each word seeming to carry weight beyond mere meaning.

THE GENESIS CHRONICLE: A RECORD OF DIVINE TRUTH

Alex’s breath caught as more text flowed into existence, forming a preface that seemed to address him directly:

***

PREFACE: A WARNING FROM THOSE WHO WITNESSED

This chronicle is not merely history... it is testament.

What you are about to read was compiled from sources both mortal and divine, from memories extracted from the Golden Ichor itself, and from the fragmented consciousness that still lingers in the stones of Aethros Valley.

If you have found this tome, you are either among the Enhanced elite who believe power is your birthright, or you are one of the rare few capable of perceiving the price that was paid.

What you claim as your right was purchased with divine sacrifice. The power flowing through your veins is not inheritance... it is debt. You live on borrowed time, sustained by blood that was never meant to be taken.

Remember this, or be consumed by what you do not understand.

***

Alex felt the weight of those final words settle in his chest.

Divine sacrifice.

His mind immediately went to Viktor’s words from the hospital... the story of Seven Gods who had supposedly given their lives willingly to save humanity from some catastrophic threat.

’Is this referring to the same event?’

If Viktor’s account was accurate... if beings powerful enough to be called gods had truly sacrificed themselves... then what kind of enemy had they faced?

Alex thought of Lilith. Her casual manipulation of reality, her ability to materialize objects from nothing, her knowledge that spanned impossibilities.

’If the Sacred Gods had been anything like her...’

’What could have been powerful enough to kill them?’

’And this ”Golden Ichor”... was that what the divine catalyst was originally called? The book claimed memories had been extracted directly from it, that some form of consciousness still lingered in the blood itself.’

”Lilith,” Alex said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. ”Can divine essence actually retain thought? Memory? Awareness?”

There was a pause.

Then Lilith’s voice came through, sharp and cutting:

”Bullshit.”

And then... silence.

Alex blinked, startled by her bluntness.

”What?”

Nothing.

”Lilith?” he tried again, waiting for elaboration.

Still nothing.

He frowned, waiting a few more seconds for her to continue, but the silence stretched on. Whatever had prompted that reaction, she clearly wasn’t planning to explain further... at least not right now.

Alex exhaled slowly and turned his attention back to the book.

’Fine. I’ll get answers from this, then.’

His eyes moved to the next section as text continued to render itself, the book’s interface responding to his focus with that same precise, deliberate grace.

Chapter ONE: THE WORLD BEFORE THE SILENCE

The Old Reality — March 14th, 2025.

The script shifted, becoming more narrative, almost conversational in tone:

***

The world that existed before the Convergence was much like the one most humans still perceive today.

Markets rose and fell. Politicians made promises. Scientists pursued knowledge within accepted boundaries. The wealthy competed for status, power, and legacy.

Nations jockeyed for economic advantage and strategic positioning. Trade agreements were signed and broken. Military tensions simmered along contested borders. The same geopolitical games that had defined centuries continued their endless cycle... alliances shifting, powers rising and falling, resources contested.

But in the highest echelons... the intelligence agencies, the shadow councils, the families whose wealth predated written history... there existed an awareness of something more.

Not knowledge, but suspicion.

A collective intuition that humanity’s understanding of reality was incomplete.

They were more correct than they could have imagined.

***

Alex’s mind raced as he absorbed the implications.

March 14th, 2025.

More than two centuries ago. Whatever this ”Convergence” was, it had reshaped the entire world... yet most of humanity remained completely unaware.

Only the elite knew the truth.

The text continued:

***

March 15th, 2025 — The Silent Rupture

At precisely 3:47 AM Greenewich Mean Time(GMT), every sensitive monitoring station on Earth experienced a phenomenon that would later be classified as ”The Null Event.”

For exactly seventeen minutes, all observation equipment recorded nothing.

Not static. Not interference. Not even the background radiation that permeates the universe.

Absolute silence.

___

Around the World — Simultaneous Collapse

In command centers across every continent, the same nightmare unfolded simultaneously.

Every screen went black.

Every satellite... dark.

Every communication system... silent.

NORAD. Beijing Space Command. The Kremlin. The Pentagon. European Space Agency. Every monitoring station, every intelligence hub, every military command center.

Blind.

For seventeen minutes, the most powerful nations on Earth lost all ability to see, hear, or communicate beyond their immediate physical location.

Emergency Response Centers Worldwide

Commanders stared at dead screens, hands hovering over red phones that no longer worked.

Technicians frantically switched to backup systems that refused to activate.

Military leaders calculated how vulnerable they were... how easily an enemy could strike while they couldn’t see it coming.

Intelligence directors felt true helplessness for the first time in their careers.

”Sir, everything’s offline. Satellites, communications, even hardlines... ”

”I know what’s offline! Tell me why!”

But nobody had answers.

Solar flare? No warning detected.

EMP attack? Ground systems would still function.

Cyberattack? Impossible to hit every system simultaneously.

Something beyond their understanding had rendered the entire world’s technology useless.

___

The Rising Panic

In Washington, the Joint Chiefs gathered in emergency session, unable to contact field commanders.

In Moscow, the President ordered missile forces to stand down... terrified someone might assume they were under attack and launch.

In Beijing, intelligence analysts frantically tried to determine if this was warfare or something far worse.

In London, the Prime Minister was escorted to bunkers designed for nuclear war.

Every nuclear power faced the same horrifying realization:

If they were blind, so was everyone else.

And in that blindness, any nation might assume attack and retaliate.

For seventeen minutes, humanity teetered on the edge of accidental annihilation.

The Questions No One Could Answer

Command centers worldwide erupted with the same desperate questions:

”Was it an attack?”

”Who has this capability?”

”Are we at war?”

”Is this natural?”

”What the hell just happened?”

Intelligence analysts scrolled through every classified brief, every theoretical scenario, every contingency plan.

Nothing matched.

No nation possessed technology that could disable global systems simultaneously. No solar event could affect ground-based and satellite systems identically. No weapon existed that could penetrate every defense at once.

This was beyond warfare.

Beyond technology.

Beyond understanding.

___

March 15th, 2025 — 4:04 AM GMT

Systems returned as suddenly as they’d failed.

Screens blazed back to life. Satellites resumed transmission. Communication networks reconnected.

But nobody celebrated.

Across the globe, command centers erupted into controlled chaos. The immediate priority was clear: determine what had compromised their systems.

Technicians initiated full security diagnostics. Engineers pulled system logs searching for intrusion signatures. Analysts ran malware scans across entire networks. Every agency focused on the same urgent question: what had failed, and why?

The answer that came back was worse than any attack scenario.

Nothing had failed.

According to every monitoring system, nothing had malfunctioned. Satellites reported continuous operation throughout the seventeen-minute blackout. Their internal clocks showed no gaps. Their data logs recorded no interruptions. Network systems displayed no errors or corruption.

As far as the technology was concerned, nothing had happened.

But humanity had been blind for seventeen minutes.

The initial relief at systems returning quickly transformed into something far more unsettling. The more they checked, the less they understood. No equipment failures. No cyber intrusions. No electromagnetic anomalies. No physical damage. No software corruption.

Every diagnostic came back clean. Every system reported perfect health.

If the technology hadn’t failed... what had?

***

Alex’s hands had gone numb from gripping the book’s edges.

Seventeen minutes of global darkness.

Technology that never failed, yet humanity couldn’t access it. Something had happened while the world was blind... something that required every monitoring system on Earth to be disabled first.

His mind raced back to Viktor’s story. The Seven Sacred Gods. Divine sacrifice. The hidden truth about an Eighth God.

’This is all connected,’ Alex thought, pulse quickening. ’And whatever happened in that valley two centuries ago... it’s the foundation of everything.’

The silver text continued materializing, promising answers.

Alex leaned closer, unable to look away.

***

Author’s Note:

This is a work of fiction set in an alternative world. Any resemblance to real persons, organizations, events, or locations is purely coincidental.

If you’re enjoying the journey so far, please consider supporting with Power Stones and Golden Tickets! Your support helps this story reach more readers and motivates me to keep delivering quality Chapters.

Thank you for reading, and buckle up... things are about to get even more intense!