The capital never truly slept. Even at midnight, its towers shimmered like shards of molten glass, and the air pulsed with the faint hum of mana-powered engines. But tonight, beneath the city's glow, a storm of steel and blood was gathering.
Rin stood on the eastern terrace of the Guild Hall, the cold wind ruffling his cloak. His wounds from the Burned Valley still hadn't healed completely, but his eyes—those eyes once calm as water—now burned with a focused fury.
The oath he'd taken in the fire was still seared into his heart. Never again will I hesitate.
Behind him, footsteps approached. Kael leaned against the rail, his usual smirk subdued. "The whole city's tense," he muttered. "The nobles are hiring private guards, the market's flooded with forged tokens, and word is—someone put a bounty on your head."
Rin didn't turn. "Let them come."
Kael exhaled through his nose, half amused, half worried. "You've changed, Rin."
"I've remembered what this place is," Rin said quietly. "A nest of vipers pretending to be kings."
A sudden crack of thunder echoed—not from the sky, but from somewhere deep within the city. A plume of smoke rose in the distance. The market quarter.
Kael stiffened. "That's the Blood-Gold Exchange!"
Rin was already moving.
The narrow alleys of the market were chaos incarnate. Flames licked at banners, the air thick with the scent of burning oil and iron. Merchants fled in panic while masked assassins darted between the stalls, blades flashing in the firelight.
At the heart of it all stood The Syndicate's Black Envoy, her cloak woven from night itself. "Find him!" she commanded. "Bring me the Shadow of the Burned Valley—alive if possible, dead if not!"
Rin's response came like lightning. He dropped from a rooftop, his dagger cutting through two assassins before they even noticed. The third turned just in time to see his own reflection in the blade before it slit his throat.
Kael appeared moments later, crossbow in hand, firing precise bolts through the chaos. "You really don't do subtle anymore!"
"Subtlety's for ghosts," Rin growled, parrying a spear strike and driving his boot into the attacker's chest. "I'm done hiding."
The Black Envoy stepped into the light. Her face was half-covered by a silver mask, her voice cold as winter glass. "You killed my predecessor."
Rin twirled his dagger, sparks from the nearby flames dancing along its edge. "You'll have to be more specific."
She smiled faintly. "Good. I like when prey bites back."
The battle that followed was unlike anything the capital had seen since the Great Uprising.Blades clashed beneath burning signs. Arrows whistled through smoke-thick air. Rin moved like a shadow possessed—his every strike deliberate, deadly.
At one point, the Envoy caught him off guard, her scythe grazing his shoulder, blood splattering across the stone. But Rin didn't flinch. He caught the weapon mid-swing, twisted, and slammed his knee into her gut. The impact sent her sprawling.
For a moment, they locked eyes. In that reflection of fire and blood, there was no hatred—only mutual recognition. Two killers, forged by the same broken world.
Then the bell tower shattered.
A stray explosion ripped through the plaza, hurling debris like shrapnel. Rin shielded Kael with his cloak, the blast wave throwing them into a collapsed cart. His ears rang, vision blurring—but his grip on the dagger never loosened.
When the smoke cleared, the Black Envoy was gone.
Hours later, the capital still burned.
Rin sat atop a ruined statue, overlooking the chaos. His hands trembled—not from fear, but from exhaustion. He'd slain eleven Syndicate agents tonight, yet the real war was only beginning.
Kael limped over, face smeared with soot. "We sent a message, that's for sure. But they'll hit back harder."
"They already have," Rin murmured, nodding toward the dark horizon. In the distance, airships bearing the Syndicate's crimson sigil were crossing into the city. "This was a distraction."
Kael froze. "Then what's the real target?"
Rin's gaze hardened. "The Senate."
By dawn, the once-glorious capital was a battlefield in disguise.Guards fortified the Senate plaza, merchants whispered of civil war, and bounty hunters poured in from the outer districts, drawn by the promise of gold and glory.
Rin moved through it all like a ghost, hood drawn, his mind sharp and calculating. Every ally he'd made in the underground markets, every debt owed to him by thieves and smugglers—all would come due now.
He met with Lady Nyra, the informant queen of the slums, in a candle-lit cellar beneath the eastern wall.
"You're walking into a death trap," she warned, her silver eyes gleaming. "The Syndicate's already inside the Senate. Half the councilors answer to them."
"Then I'll burn out the rot," Rin said.
Nyra studied him for a moment, then slid a small crimson token across the table. "This opens a hidden passage beneath the Senate Hall. It was built during the old wars—no one alive remembers it."
Rin took it silently.
She smiled faintly. "You've started to sound like a king."
He looked up. "No. Just a man tired of being hunted."
That night, as storm clouds gathered over the capital, Rin moved through the hidden tunnels—dagger in hand, cloak soaked with the scent of rain and blood.Above him, the Senate prepared for its grand assembly, oblivious to the fact that death was already beneath their feet.
And as the first lightning struck the spires, Rin whispered to the shadows:
"Tonight, the hunters die."