Takeshi had long left Bay City behind, abandoning the scorched ruins of other people’s sins. Ahead of him was only one goal - to find Quell’s stack.

It sounded almost religious, if he believed in anything at all. He didn’t know if Reileen had lied when she claimed before her death that Quell had been copied… but if there was even a ghost of a chance, he would find it.

Money was as necessary as air. That’s why he took a job any normal person would run from at breakneck speed: track down a former Protectorate officer, a mercenary who erased targets as if he were still bound by the old codes.

But the problem found him first. The officer was eliminated. Coldly. Precisely. And with a method that sent a strange, irritating tingle down Kovacs’ spine - a mixture of recognition and irritation. It was Envoy-level technique. Only not his Envoys - and certainly not anyone who could still be alive.

In the darkness of the abandoned hangar, inspecting the crime scene, Takeshi noticed another trace - elusive, almost mocking. The Shadow. That was the name given to the unknown hunter who appeared suddenly, vanished without a sound, and left behind flawless bodies, as if cut by a surgeon trained by Quell herself.

"Fuck…" Takeshi muttered, leaning toward the dust-strewn floor. "This is no coincidence."

He was certain: the Envoys were dead. He carried their graves in himself like scars. But this killer knew their techniques too well. That could only mean one thing - someone was playing with the ghosts of the past.

From that moment, he had a new priority. Find the Shadow. Figure out who taught them movements that should have died with the Envoys. And only then - if he survived this hunt - return to the search for Quell’s stack.

Kovacs had already felt another presence in the empty hangar, faint, but far too alive to be an illusion.

The hunt begins. And he hates losing to ghosts.