The Dagger Tong didn't leave calling cards.
They left holes—in style archives, in corporate data vaults, and in people.
Their kills were clinical: precise throat cuts, dislocated fingers to prevent return strikes, and black-market disruptors to wipe chi traces clean. They didn't just kill bodies. They deleted legacies.
Now they ruled Sector 5's Night Market, where pirated styles were sold like contraband. It was whispered that their founder had stolen an entire Corp martial library by watching a tournament through a drone lens.
Stray had been in The Drop less than three hours.
His chi was unstable. His breath ran on lag. Every few steps, his HUD jittered with error messages.
But he didn't have time to recover.
The quest marker in his system glowed red:
> [LOCATE: WREN (EX-YULAN | DATA BROKER | LAST KNOWN CONTACT)]
[LEAD: ASH COIL – DAGGER TONG RUNNER]
[RISK: CRITICAL]
And so he hunted the hunter.
---
The Night Market pulsed beneath failing streetlights and augmented veils that bent light into kaleidoscopic traps. Booths flickered in and out of regulation. Traders whispered in dialects Jian didn't recognize, peddling weapon grafts, speed mods, even stolen Sect names.
He kept his hood low. His HUD dim.
Still, the whispers chased him.
> "Street chi."
"Raw graft."
"No sect mark… maybe a Wild Monk?"
"Sloppy. Probably dead by morning."
His chest tightened. The implant throbbed at the base of his skull.
Then—movement.
A figure dropped into his path like a switchblade flicked open.
Ash Coil.
Small. Barefoot. Lethal.
Chrome arms shimmered with internal code. Three fingers extended in Silent Bloom—a kill-form licensed exclusively to Dagger Tong enforcers. No voice. No warning.
Only action.
Coil struck.
---
> [INCOMING TECHNIQUE: BLOOM NEEDLE v2.0 – MULTI-STRIKE CLASS]
[RECOMMENDED DEFENSE: WHITE NEEDLE FORM v1.0]
Jian barely reacted in time.
Chi surged through him—erratic, twitchy, like a system rebooting mid-sentence.
The first blow grazed his temple.
The second ripped his sleeve.
The third blurred toward his throat.
Jian stepped offline.
Instinct took over.
He caught Coil's wrist, diverted the momentum, spun low, and rammed an elbow into his ribs. Chi flared from the impact—shallow, jagged, but enough.
Coil staggered backward, silent.
> [COUNTER SUCCESSFUL – XP GAINED: +22]
[WHITE NEEDLE FORM – SYNC STABILITY: 74% → 76%]
Jian backed away, gasping.
"You're not Wren," he muttered. "But you'll take me to him."
Coil didn't answer.
He pulled a red-glowing node from beneath his collar.
A beacon.
Jian's HUD screamed.
> [DAGGER TONG ALERT TRIGGERED – LOCAL MOBILIZATION INBOUND]
[LOCKDOWN: 90 SECONDS]
"Shit."
Jian ran.
---
He bolted through the market's edge, flipping a synthfruit cart for cover, crashing through a curtain of rattling chain links, diving into a vent shaft that stank of metal and blood.
Coil followed.
Not fast.
Instant.
He was running a speed mod.
Jian hit the underrails—an old metro spine where trains hadn't run in decades. The air was cold and tight. His breath left in clouds.
Then it got quiet.
Too quiet.
Coil had vanished.
Jian crouched, blink-scanning.
> [STEALTH FIELD DETECTED – GRADE: CLASS B – DISSIPATING IN 3...]
[2...]
[1...]
Coil dropped from above.
Blades first.
Jian shouted and threw his hand up—
> [ACTIVATING: CHI-STRIKE – FLAME BURST]
It wasn't ready.
It wasn't stable.
But it worked.
Fire erupted mid-spin, catching Coil mid-air and slamming him against a concrete pillar. Sparks exploded across the track. Metal screamed.
Jian hit the floor hard.
His lungs burned.
> [MOD OVERLOAD – COOLING PERIOD: 45 SECONDS]
[WARNING: INTERNAL DAMAGE – MINOR NERVE STRAIN]
Coil didn't rise.
Jian crawled forward, trembling, and pulled a data shard from the runner's belt. The strip was etched in glowing glyphs—old-school tech. No encryption. Just intent.
> "SECTOR 7 – BROKEN CLOUD – WREN HIDES WHERE THE SKY LEAKS."
Jian's eyes narrowed.
Sector 7.
Skyfall Ruins.
A collapsed biotech district. Unmapped. Unregulated. Home to rogue sects and whispered myth. A place where old power still waited underground—and the Broken Cloud Sect was said to have once fought Corp elites and survived.
He pocketed the shard.
"Thanks, Coil."
Coil didn't move.
The tunnel lights flickered.
Then died.
Jian stepped into the dark, the memory of fire still whispering along his fingertips.
---