The Vanguard Suite felt smaller now, the vast expanse of the city outside the windows appearing distant and irrelevant. Within these four walls, the myth of Marcus Thorne was unraveling in a mess of blood, expensive silk, and frantic, wet breaths.
Marcus was shivering—a violent, rhythmic tremor that had nothing to do with the air conditioning and everything to do with the black mana paralyzing his internal pathways. Every time he tried to circulate his Silver-Rank energy, it felt like swallowing a thousand shards of broken glass. The energy didn't flow; it scraped against his nerve endings, charring them from the inside out.
"Please," Marcus wheezed, his eyes darting toward the discarded chrome chestplate on the leather sofa as if the hollow metal could somehow save him. "You want money? Gear? I have stashes... off the grid. The Association doesn't know. Just... name your price. We can fix this."
Liam didn't blink. He sat on the edge of the mahogany desk, his posture relaxed in a way that was fundamentally predatory. The broken skinning knife rested casually across his knee, its jagged edge catching the blue moonlight. In this light, the blade didn't look like steel; it looked like a hole in reality.
"You're still using the hero's script, Marcus," Liam said softly, his voice lacking any inflection. "But the audience is gone. There are no cameras here. No adoring fans. It's just you, and the ghost you made."
Liam leaned forward, and as he did, the Mimic's heart in his chest pulsed in a rhythmic, hungry sync with Marcus's terror. It was a strange, sensory feedback loop—Liam could feel the cold sweat breaking on Marcus's skin as if it were his own. He could feel the lie forming in the Captain's throat before a single syllable was uttered. It felt like a sour, metallic tang in the air.
"Tell me about the others," Liam commanded. "Who else helped you seal that vault? Who else decided that four porters weren't worth the three-minute delay it would have taken to save them?"
Marcus hesitated, his jaw clenching so hard a vein throbbed in his temple. "It was... it was a group decision. The Rift was collapsing. We were under orders to prioritize High-Rank assets. If the Captain dies, the mission fails. That's the rule. That's how the system works!"
Deep in Liam's marrow, a sharp, cold vibration flared—the Skill Devourer's instinct for deceit. It wasn't a message on a screen; it was a physical rejection, a foul taste on his tongue. He knew the man was lying.
Liam reached out, his fingers—cold as grave-dirt—brushing Marcus's temple.
"Wrong answer."
He didn't strike him. Instead, he released a mere sliver of the Mimic's essence directly into Marcus's mind.
The Captain didn't scream—not at first. His mouth fell open in a silent, agonizing gasp as his world was instantly replaced. The luxury suite, the neon lights, and the amber scotch vanished. In their place was a simulated sensory void—the same crushing, lightless, oxygen-starved terror Liam had lived through for days in the cellar.
To Liam, it was a few seconds. To Marcus's nervous system, it was hours of feeling invisible teeth gnaw at his sanity in the dark.
When Liam finally pulled back his hand, Marcus collapsed into a broken heap of silk and sweat, sobbing like a child. His "heroic" facade hadn't just cracked; it had been pulverized.
"Th-the Vice President of the Branch," Marcus gasped, the words tumbling out in a frantic, desperate confession. "Vargas. He wanted the core from that Rift for a private buyer. We were late... the window was closing. He told us over the comms to cut the dead weight. My squad—Kael, Elena, and Miller—they all knew. They took the hush money. A hundred thousand credits each. Plus the medals. It was... it was supposed to be easy."
Liam sat back, the names etching themselves into his memory like acid on glass. Vargas. A name that carried enough weight to shift the city's hierarchy. The list was growing, and each name felt like a tether pulling him deeper into the hunt.
"Miller," Liam mused, a cold spark of memory igniting. He remembered Miller. The man who had stood by the vault controls, laughing at a joke while the screams from the other side were cut off by the heavy steel door. "Where is he?"
"Below," Marcus choked out, his spirit completely extinguished. "The VIP lounge... the 'After-Party.' He's celebrating with the new recruits. Bragging about his 'saves.' Please... I gave you everything. I'm a Silver-Ranker. I can be useful. I can help you kill Vargas!"
"You've already helped me, Marcus," Liam agreed, standing up. The chair scraped against the carpet with a sound like a blade being whetted on a stone.
He walked behind Marcus, his shadow stretching across the floor until it swallowed the kneeling man whole. He didn't feel the burning rage he had expected. Instead, he felt a terrifying, clinical hunger. The Skill Devourer was no longer an abstract mark on his skin—it was a biological imperative, a void that demanded to be filled.
"But you're a 'High-Rank asset,' Marcus. And I'm just a porter collecting his overdue wages. I think it's time to settle the bill."
Sensing the finality in Liam's voice, Marcus found one last surge of adrenaline. He lunged backward, his fingers clawing for the heavy crystal decanter on the table, a desperate, clumsy attempt to break Liam's skull.
Liam didn't even look. He caught Marcus's wrist with a sickening crack and slammed his head into the mahogany desk. The impact was dull, heavy, and final.
Liam's hand clamped over Marcus's mouth, his fingers sinking into the skin with unnatural strength. With a swift, brutal upward thrust, he drove the broken skinning knife into the base of Marcus's skull, severing the connection between the brain and the silver core.
The struggle was brief—a frantic, muffled thrashing against the carpet, heels drumming a desperate rhythm that ended in a final, shuddering exhale.
As the life left Marcus's eyes, the void in Liam's chest opened wide. It wasn't a chaotic, oily mess like before. This was sharp, metallic, and overwhelming. It felt as if he were swallowing a sun.
Images that weren't his flooded his mind: Marcus training in the academy, the first time he killed a monster, the moment he decided to take the bribe, the look on his face as he turned the key in the vault. All of it was stripped of emotion, reduced to raw data and mana-frequency, and funneled into Liam's very being.
Beneath his skin, a new power began to hum—a silver light that felt fractured, refracted through the prism of his stolen nature. It was the Silver Aegis, but it no longer felt like a noble shield. It felt like a trophy.
Liam stood over the body, his breath steady and slow. He felt stronger, his muscles humming with a new, refined tension, but more importantly, he felt full. For the first hour in days, the screaming hunger in his marrow was quiet. He felt like a predator that had finally tasted meat.
He wiped the jagged blade on Marcus's pristine silk shirt, leaving a smear of dark red across the "hero's" chest. He pulled his cowl back over his head, the shadows of the room embracing him like an old friend. The "Hero of the Vault" lay dead in his palace of glass, a hollow shell of the lie he had lived.
Liam walked back to the service elevator, his reflection in the obsidian glass appearing as nothing but a dark smudge.
The party downstairs was still in full swing. The bass from the ballroom vibrated through the floorboards—a dull, rhythmic thud that sounded like a funeral drum. Miller was still laughing. The recruits were still cheering. The world still thought Marcus Thorne was a god.
But the ghost was moving. And the ghost was no longer hungry. It was focused.
Liam pressed the button for the VIP floor. As the doors slid shut, he felt the silver energy ripple beneath his skin, perfectly hidden behind the veil of the shadow. A stolen shield for a silent executioner.