PART 1: THE FEAST OF SILENT SOULS

Aethel Island—a massive monolith rising from the frigid North Sea, shrouded in perennial mist. At the island’s highest peak, the Sterling Manor stood like a fortress of glass and steel. Tonight, the estate was ablaze with light. It was the 75th birthday of Arthur Sterling, the man dubbed the “Lord of Longevity” and patriarch of the biotech empire, Aethelgard.

Inside the grand hall, the scent of white lilies mingled with the aroma of expensive vintage wine, creating an atmosphere that was as prestigious as it was suffocating. Julian, the eldest son, stood on the second-floor balcony, his cold blue eyes scanning the crowd below. He adjusted his diamond cufflinks, feeling the crushing weight of expectation. To Julian, his father was not a parent, but a mountain to be climbed—or a boulder to be crushed.

Elena, his sharp-witted sister, glided to his side with a flute of sparkling Champagne. “You look tense, Julian,” she smiled, a smile that never quite reached her eyes. “Is it the CEO announcement father is making tonight?”

“Watch your tongue, Elena,” Julian replied in a low growl. “Don’t forget who is currently running the Shanghai plants.”

“Running them? Or hiding the massive debts from failed experiments?” Elena arched an eyebrow and turned away, leaving Julian in a simmering rage.

In a darker corner of the garden, Leo—the rebellious youngest—sat on a stone ledge, smoking. He looked at the manor with blatant contempt. Leo was the only Sterling who refused every privilege. But there was something no one knew: Leo possessed a hard drive containing leaked footage from his father’s underground labs. What he saw wasn’t science meant to save lives; it was the slaughter of humanity.

PART 2: THE SILENT GUNSHOT

At exactly 10:00 PM, Arthur Sterling appeared. He stepped out of the glass elevator, his silver hair perfectly groomed, his bespoke suit hugging a still-robust frame. Beside him was Isabella, his third wife, 45 years his junior. She was as beautiful as a porcelain masterpiece, her eyes harboring secrets no one could decode.

The music stopped abruptly. Arthur raised his glass, his voice booming through the hall: “Thank you all for coming. For 75 years, I have sought to defeat time. And tonight, I wish to hand over the key to that future to the most deserving heir.”

But just as he brought the glass to his lips, a horrifying event occurred. Arthur suddenly froze. The crystal glass slipped from his hand, shattering into a thousand shards. He clutched his throat as bright red blood began to spill from his mouth, staining his pristine white shirt.

“Arthur!” Isabella screamed, but she didn’t rush to save him. She stood still, her eyes wide in a calculated state of shock.

Arthur collapsed, his trembling finger pointing toward a massive safe at the end of the hall. He wheezed broken words: “Only one… must live… to inherit…”

Chaos erupted. Bodyguards swarmed. Julian and Elena rushed to their father, but instead of calling for a doctor, their eyes locked onto each other—and then simultaneously darted toward the safe.

PART 3: THE DEVIL’S TESTAMENT

Arthur didn’t die, but he fell into a deep coma, placed inside a special bio-pod in the manor’s basement. The room was guarded by a biometric security system to which only Isabella held the access code.

The next morning, while the mist was still thick, the three siblings were summoned to the library. Isabella sat in Arthur’s chair, cold and commanding.

“Your father left a unique testament,” she said, her voice monotone. “It wasn’t written on paper. It exists within Aethelgard’s core system. The condition to activate it is this: Within the next 48 hours, the corporation must have a single CEO. If you cannot reach a compromise, the system will automatically liquidate all assets and donate them to charity.”

Julian slammed the table: “You expect us to believe you? You’re just a gold digger!”

Isabella smiled and slid a tablet across the desk. “Check for yourself, Julian. This is a direct order from your father, signed with his genetic code before the party began.”

The war had started. Julian immediately locked down the island, severing Elena’s communication with the shareholders. But Elena was one step ahead. She had bribed the security director and installed spyware on Julian’s phone.

PART 4: THE SILENT SCARS

While Julian and Elena were busy tearing each other apart, Leo snuck into the basement. He needed to know what his father was truly hiding. Using a hacking device he had secretly developed, Leo accessed the family’s medical records.

What he found sent a chill down his spine.

All of them—Julian, Elena, and himself—were not born naturally. They were the first gene-edited clones of the “Eternal Succession” project. Each was designed with a specific advantage: Julian was discipline, Elena was cunning, and Leo was creativity.

Arthur didn’t love them. He viewed them as spare parts. “The small scar on our backs,” Leo whispered, his hand trembling as he touched the two-centimeter scar at the base of his neck, “it wasn’t an appendectomy like he told us. It’s a neural data port.”

Arthur intended to use the body of the “winning” child as a vessel to transfer his own mind. This wasn’t an inheritance battle. It was a selection process for Arthur Sterling’s new host.

PART 5: GAME OVER

The second night on the island. A massive storm hit, cutting off all contact with the mainland. Julian and Elena confronted each other in their father’s office. Julian held a gun, his face distorted by the lust for power.

“Don’t you understand, Elena?” Julian roared. “I sacrificed my life for this company! You’re just a parasite!”

“You’re the blind one, Julian!” Elena laughed bitterly. “Don’t you see? Father never intended for you to be CEO. He only wanted your brain!”

At that moment, every screen in the room flickered to life. The image of Arthur Sterling appeared—not the man in a coma, but a youthful, digitized AI version.

“My children,” the voice echoed. “Your hatred is beautiful. It is the necessary catalyst to trigger the transfer. Julian, you have the resolve. Elena, you have the wit. But only one carries the ‘x-factor’ I require…”

The door swung open. Isabella entered, holding a syringe filled with a shimmering gold liquid. She looked at the siblings with pity.

“Do you still think you’re the protagonists?” Isabella said. “Arthur Sterling died five years ago. What lies in the basement is just a corpse kept alive by machines. And I… I am not his wife. I am the representative of the victims of his experiments.”

It turned out Isabella was the daughter of Arthur’s former partner—the man he betrayed and murdered to steal this technology. She had spent ten years infiltrating the family, waiting for the moment they would destroy themselves.

PART 6: ASHES OF THE EMPIRE

Isabella injected the liquid into the building’s cooling system. It wasn’t poison, but a biological computer virus designed to wipe Aethelgard’s data and overload the micro-nuclear reactors powering the island.

“It’s over,” she said, watching the AI version of Arthur scream as it was deleted.

Leo appeared at the door, carrying the cold body of his father, whom he had finally disconnected from life support. “Let’s go,” Leo said curtly. “This island is about to blow.”

Julian and Elena collapsed to the floor, watching their empire turn to dust. Power, money, immortality—it was all a bloody dream.

The next morning, fishermen in the North Sea saw a pillar of black smoke rising from Aethel Island. The Sterling Manor was gone. No more Aethelgard, no more blood will.

On a small boat drifting away from the island, Isabella looked toward the horizon. She held the only remaining crystal—a gift Arthur once gave her as a pledge. She tossed it into the deep ocean.

The crown of thorns was destroyed, but the scars on the backs of the three Sterling siblings would forever remind them of the price of ambition. The House of Sterling had fallen, but their story would be told as a warning to anyone who wished to play God.