The air in the N109 Zone tasted like electricity and smoke, thick, suffocating, like the city itself was trying to keep secrets buried beneath steel and shadow. I shouldn’t have come here alone.My fingers brushed the small device hidden in my pocket,a failsafe. Just in case.

That’s when I felt it.

Not a sound. Not a shadow. A presence, one that crept under my skin like silk woven from static. I spun around, heart racing, and saw him.

Tall. Calm. Dangerously composed. He looked like someone carved from the very shadows he ruled. A glint of silver at his collar caught the light, the insignia of Onychinus. So it was true. The whispers. The rumors. The man at the center of it all.

Sylus.

“I came to find answers,” I said, more bravely than I felt.