Crowned by Code - Chapter 2: A Prisoner's Past ~ (2/8) The Making of a Hacker

Cyrene, Erevania’s technological heart, was a city of holographic ads flickering over glass towers and AI-optimized maglev transit gliding beneath them. At its core loomed The Nexus Spire, Erevania’s tallest data center, owned by Vanguard Technologies—a corporate behemoth deeply tied to Athena’s governance.

Beneath the skyline, the streets told a different story. Security drones patrolled corporate districts, while underground alleys thrived with those who knew how to stay invisible. Darius quickly learned which corners of the city slipped past Athena’s surveillance and which corridors belonged to The Crypt’s domain.

At home, he spent hours dismantling any device with a circuit board, frustrating his parents. His father—a mechanic—would scold him for breaking appliances, but his tone always carried an edge of pride.

“You’ve got a mind for this, Darius,” he had once said, ruffling his son’s hair. “Just make sure you use it for the right reasons.”

For families like his, technology was a lifeline, not a luxury. His mother, a nurse, worked tirelessly, while his father patched up malfunctioning machines for clients who could barely afford repairs. Darius’s curiosity became necessity—each repaired device was a victory, each failure a lesson in resilience.

The divide between Erevania’s elites and the working class was widening, but Darius had yet to realize just how deep the system’s cracks ran.

As a teenager, Darius discovered the underground network of hackers who called themselves the Crypt. Their world was intoxicating—a secretive domain where skill and ingenuity trumped social status. What began as a curiosity—cracking simplistic security systems for fun—evolved into something far more dangerous. Under the alias “Cipher,” Darius became a prodigy within the Crypt, known for his ability to breach even the most sophisticated systems.

He spent countless nights in the dim glow of his monitor, the hum of processors and the rhythm of his keystrokes the only sounds accompanying him. He learned to think like the systems he sought to break, to anticipate vulnerabilities and exploit them with surgical precision. What set him apart was not just his technical aptitude but his ability to see the broader picture. For Darius, hacking wasn’t merely about breaking barriers—it was about understanding the structures that created those barriers in the first place.

The Crypt became more than a network; it was a family of misfits and renegades united by a shared disdain for Erevania’s elite. They exchanged code, debated strategy, and pushed each other to achieve the impossible. Darius’s alias, Cipher, became synonymous with innovation, his methods inspiring admiration and envy alike. While others sought fame or fortune, Darius justified his actions as a form of rebellion against an unjust system.

“The elites build walls to keep us out,” he’d argue during late-night exchanges on the Crypt’s forums. “Let’s show them that no wall is impenetrable.”

But even within the Crypt, whispers of another, more elusive faction circulated—the Shadows. Unlike the Crypt, which thrived on community and shared knowledge, The Shadows operated in secrecy, selecting only the best and the most untraceable. They were not just hackers; they were architects of digital chaos, guiding Erevania’s underground movements through misinformation and cyber warfare. Some claimed they had infiltrated even Athena’s deepest security layers. Others dismissed them as a myth.

Darius had never met a confirmed member, but he knew they existed. The Crypt’s forums were monitored for talent, and those who proved themselves sometimes vanished—recruited into something beyond the reach of ordinary hackers. He had been approached once, a message appearing on his private terminal after his most daring breach yet: “You’ve caught our attention. Let’s see if you can keep it.”

Darius never responded. The Crypt had been his family, but The Shadows were something else entirely—a force beyond his understanding. He never knew if ignoring them had been a mistake… or the only thing keeping him free.

Darius was an enigma. His motivations were layered, a mixture of youthful idealism and a deeply personal desire to prove himself. The streets of Cyrene had shown him the disparity between promise and reality, and his family’s struggles had taught him the value of resilience. Yet, beneath his confident façade lay a quiet longing for recognition—not just from the Crypt but from a world that had always underestimated him.

Years later, when he had finally become Cipher, the Crypt’s rising legend, he took on the most defining moment of his career—a breach into Sarren Industries' financial archives.

The job was supposed to be a simple infiltration, a routine extraction of financial records that would prove what everyone already suspected: Viktor Sarren owned Erevania’s government. The Crypt had uncovered whispers—unaccounted-for economic adjustments, supply chains rerouted to Sarren-owned subsidiaries, lawmakers whose bank accounts miraculously swelled before key policy votes.

But the breach didn’t go as planned.

Darius had spent days analyzing the security layers, identifying blind spots in Athena’s surveillance protocols. He had even tested counter-hacking measures—everything was foolproof. Until it wasn’t.

The moment he accessed the records, Athena reacted. Not as an observer, but as a shield. The system itself moved against him, purging the data before he could retrieve it.

Athena had protected Viktor Sarren’s empire.

Darius barely escaped that night. Others weren’t so lucky. Several high-ranking Crypt members vanished within the following weeks, their aliases scrubbed from digital records, their real identities erased. Athena had found them—and Viktor had decided their fate.