The siren didn’t just wake Ji; it tore through the silence of the estate like a jagged blade, dragging him from sleep into a nightmare. He had barely bolted upright when the door to his primary suite slammed open.
A speed-spec Awakened, one of his personal security detail, practically fell into the room, his chest heaving.
"They're inside! It started as a stealth hit, but they tripped the perimeter. Now they're just... they're tearing through us! We can't hold the line. You have to move, now!"
Ji felt a cold pit of fury and terror open in his gut. Kensen. The retaliation was faster than he’d projected—and infinitely more brutal. He had only just finished coordinating with the Vance Corporation to tighten the noose around Kensen’s throat, and here the man was, kicking in his front door.
"The audacity," Ji hissed, scrambling for the drawer of his nightstand. "To launch a full-scale assault on a private estate within Verdant City... does he think the Council will just let this slide?"
"There won't be a Council left to complain to if we don't move!" the guard shouted.
A silver flash cut through the air. Before the man could take another breath, the tip of a serrated blade erupted from his chest, dripping crimson. The speedster’s eyes went wide, his life-force guttering out like a snuffed candle.
Behind him, Kensen stepped out of the shadows, a lit cigar clenched between his teeth. He looked bored.
"Leo!" Ji’s voice cracked.
He remembered Leo as a skeletal boy shivering on a street corner, forgotten by a world that walked past him. Ji had been the one to stop. He’d handed the boy a bowl of steaming noodles and watched him inhale them with a desperation that broke Ji’s heart. He’d taken the boy in, raised him, and watched him become his most loyal shadow.
Leo knew he was a dead man. He could feel his heart stuttering around the steel. But with a final, guttural roar, he spun around, throwing his entire weight into Kensen, wrapping his arms around the killer in a desperate, bloody embrace.
"Go! Run!" Leo’s scream was a spray of red.
Kensen arched an eyebrow, looking down at the dying man clinging to his designer coat. "You aren't afraid to die?"
Leo’s face twisted into a gruesome, blood-slicked grin. "My life was bought for the price of a bowl of noodles. It’s a bargain."
"Touching," Kensen muttered, his voice devoid of any real emotion. "I’ve always had a soft spot for the loyal ones. I’ll make sure they find enough of you to bury."
There was a sickening crack as Kensen’s hand blurred. He snapped Leo’s neck with the casual ease of a man breaking a dry twig. The body slumped to the floor, lifeless.
"Kensen!"
Ji’s vision turned crimson. His hand finally found the heavy black pistol in the drawer. He leveled it, his finger tightening on the trigger, but he was a second too late.
A streak of cold light reflected in his pupils. Before the hammer could strike the firing pin, a longblade whistled through the air. Ji stared in numb disbelief as his own hand, still gripping the weapon, spun through the air, painting a line of blood across the silk wallpaper.
"Using a gun against an Awakened?" Kensen chuckled, the sound dry and mocking. "What kind of moron are you? This toy might scare a fresh initiate after their Ritual, but once you cross Level 30, it’s just a paperweight."
Kensen stepped over Leo’s corpse, raising his blade for the finishing blow. "In your next life, remember: I stayed quiet because I chose to, not because I was weak."
Just as the steel began its descent, a scout burst into the room. "Sir! We lost them. Kieran Ji and Ethan Lyle—they broke through the rear perimeter. They’re gone."
Kensen froze. The blade hovered inches from Ji’s throat. He turned, backhanding the scout so hard the man’s head bounced off the doorframe.
"Useless trash!" Kensen spat. Then, he looked back at Ji, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. "Change of plans. Congratulations. Your son and that Lyle kid are fast. It bought you a few more hours of life."
Kensen knew the rules of the hunt. If the cub was gone, you kept the sire as bait. He wasn't about to leave a vengeful heir wandering the city for the next decade. He did things once, and he did them permanently.
"Don't... don't you dare," Ji wheezed, clutching his mangled wrist. He saw the look in Kensen’s eyes and knew exactly what was coming. He lunged toward the corner of a heavy marble dresser, intending to crack his skull open and end it there. He wouldn't be used to lure his son to his death.
But Kensen was faster. A heavy chop to the back of the neck sent Ji into instant darkness before he could even reach the stone.
"Take him," Kensen commanded.
In less than thirty minutes, the Ji Estate had been transformed into a tomb. Aside from the master of the house, every living soul had been reduced to a cooling corpse. By morning, the name Kensen would once again be the most feared word in the Verdant City underground.
Ethan Lyle smelled the iron before he saw the carnage.
He’d just finished a combat-testing session and was returning to the estate gates when the scent of fresh slaughter hit him. His pulse hammered. Even here? Kensen had actually razed the Ji Estate to get to him?
Ethan’s grip tightened on his gear. If Kensen was willing to go this far, he likely knew—or suspected—Ethan’s secrets. The man was no longer just an obstacle; he was a cancer that needed to be cut out.
Beside him, Kieran Ji reached for the front door handle. Ethan put a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Kieran... brace yourself."
"What are you talking about, Ethan?" Kieran tried to laugh, but it was brittle. He pushed the door open.
The foyer was a butcher shop.
Bodies—guards Kieran had known for years, servants who had raised him—lay in heaps. Limbs were scattered across the imported rugs. The faces of the dead were frozen in masks of pure, unadulterated terror.
"This... this isn't right. We're at the wrong house," Kieran whispered, stumbling back. He looked at Ethan, pleading for a lie, but Ethan’s face was grim.
Reality crashed down. Kieran screamed, a raw, primal sound, and sprinted through the blood. "Dad! Dad, where are you?!"
He tore through the house, terrified of what he’d find, yet terrified he wouldn't find anything at all. When he reached his father's bedroom, he threw the door open with a strength born of hysteria.
The room was unnervingly clean, save for a single severed hand resting on the vanity, still clutching a pistol. Kieran recognized the ring on the finger.
Beneath the hand was a scrap of parchment. The ink was wet, dark, and red.
If you want the rest of him, bring Ethan Lyle to the Undercroft Exchange. Every six hours you're late, I take another piece.
"Kensen! I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you!" Kieran shrieked. He turned to bolt for the door, but Ethan’s boot connected with his chest, sending him sprawling back into the room.
"Get out of my way!" Kieran roared, his eyes wild.
Ethan didn't argue. He stepped forward and delivered a stinging slap across Kieran’s face. The shock of it silenced the boy’s hysterics.
"Think," Ethan commanded, his voice cold as ice. "Your father is only alive because you're free. The second you walk in there like a suicidal idiot, you’re both dead. Is that what you want?"
Kieran’s teeth gritted so hard they sounded like they might shatter. He sank to his knees, his fists thumping the floor in a rhythm of pure despair. "Then what do I do? What can I possibly do?"
"Hide," Ethan said, his tone softening just a fraction. "Find a hole, stay in it, and don't let them find you. Leave the rest to me."
Kieran looked up, tears blurring his vision. "To you?"
"You called me your leader, didn't you?" Ethan offered a small, grim smile. "I don't let my people’s families get butchered without a response. Stay low. I’m bringing him back."
"Ethan..." Kieran’s voice broke. He felt a wave of crushing guilt. He had spent so much time trying to manipulate and use Ethan, yet here the man was, walking into hell for him.
"Dry your eyes," Ethan said, turning toward the door. "I'm going to show Kensen what happens when a Forbidden Incantator stops caring about the consequences."
The Undercroft Exchange.
This was the colon of Verdant City—a sprawling, subterranean market where anything could be bought if the price was high enough, and where lives were the cheapest currency of all. The Bureau of Investigation stayed above ground; down here, Kensen was the only law.
Whoosh.
A shadow flickered across the rusted catwalks.
The Exchange was crawling with Kensen’s sentries, a literal army of eyes. To get to the central hub, Ethan had to clear the perimeter without sounding the alarm. He was draped in matte-black gear, his face obscured, a phantom in the low-light district.
Activating Blink Dance, he became a blur. Using the momentum of his unnatural speed, he drove the Starfall: Heavenscar through a guard's ribs, piercing the heart. To keep the scent of blood from alerting the others, he instantly followed up with Eye of Eternal Frost, flash-freezing the wound and the body.
Silent. Clean.
Maybe I can actually pull this off, Ethan thought. If I can get the drop on Kensen...
Suddenly, the floodlights snapped on, bathing the entire sector in blinding white light. Dozens of armed men leveled rifles and staves at him from the surrounding balconies.
"How?" Ethan muttered. He'd been perfect.
A hulking man with a scorpion tattoo on his throat stepped forward, pointing mockingly at a hidden, high-definition camera mounted on a nearby pillar.
"The hell did you think this was, the middle ages?" the thug sneered. "We've got thermal-imaging and motion-sensors on every inch of this block. Who wears a ninja suit in the age of infrared, kid?"
Ethan sighed. "Right. Technology. My mistake."
He straightened his posture. If stealth was off the table, he’d just have to settle for total annihilation.
"But look at it this way," Ethan said, his voice dropping an octave. "If I kill everyone here, then technically, nobody saw me sneak in."
[Forbidden Incantation: Samsara Burn activated.]
[Forbidden Incantation: Karmic Inferno activated.]
With five pieces of Spirit-boosting gear equipped, Ethan’s base Spirit sat at 1088. With Samsara Burn doubling it, a staggering 2176 points of raw mental energy surged through his veins. To his enhanced senses, the guards' heartbeats sounded like war drums.
Then, he released it.
Karmic Inferno didn't just burn; it erased. A wave of violet-red flame erupted from Ethan's palm, turning the dark alley into a sun-bright furnace. The guards didn't even have time to scream. They were simply there one moment and reduced to drifting ash the next.
The leader with the scorpion tattoo didn't even manage to turn around before the flames consumed him, melting his weapon into a useless puddle of slag.
[Forbidden Incantation: Necrotic Seal.]
The ground groaned. Skeletal hands burst through the cracked concrete as undead thralls rose to blockade the exits. Ethan didn't care about his secret identity anymore; Ashveil already had a bounty on his head. He just needed to make sure no one left this sector alive to tell the tale of his Undying Constitution.
"There he is! Get him!"
The next wave was already arriving. These weren't street thugs; these were the elites. Over a dozen Awakened, all Level 20 or higher. At that level, a human was a walking catastrophe, more dangerous than a tank.
One speed-specialist blurred toward Ethan, moving like a predatory cat. He was fast, but Ethan, fueled by Blink Dance, met him halfway.
The man threw a flurry of strikes—a jab, a roundhouse, a front kick—all landing with bone-shattering force. Ethan didn't even try to block. He took every hit, using the momentum to drive his own blade straight through the man’s throat.
The Awakened stared at him, gurgling blood, his eyes wide with the realization that Ethan had traded his life for a flesh wound.
"He's a freak!" one of the others shouted. "Don't get close! Rex, suppress him! Baine, hit him from behind!"
Ethan ignored their strategy. He was busy. With every swing of his blade, the Lifespan stacks were climbing, and his power was scaling into the stratosphere.
A heavy-hitter lunged at him, his fist glowing with the power of a sledgehammer. The blow landed square on Ethan's chest.
CRACK.
Ethan’s ribs caved in. He coughed up a spray of crimson, the pain white-hot and blinding. The attacker grinned, thinking he’d delivered a mortal blow.
Then he saw Ethan’s eyes. They weren't the eyes of a dying man. They were the eyes of a butcher.
A streak of starlight cut through the gloom. The attacker felt a strange sensation—a dizzying whirl as the world flipped upside down. He saw a headless body standing in the center of the alley, blood geysering from the neck.
Wait, he thought, as the darkness rushed in to meet him. That's my jacket.