The blood still clung to Nolan’s sleeves, but his mind was already elsewhere. The docks were silent, yet the binary words burned on his screen like a brand. With that message that said, "We are listening." He knew the fight had only shifted battlegrounds. Steel was finished. Now, the war moved into code.The room was silent except for the hum of machines. Rows of screens glowed with shifting light, casting Nolan’s mask in ghostly reflection. His fingers moved quickly, striking the keyboard like drumbeats. Every line of code he wrote was a blade, every command a strike against an unseen enemy.The docks were behind him now, but their echoes had not faded. Blood on steel, fog on skin, the sharp memory of Mael Vox’s blade tearing through flesh. Yet Nolan knew the Syndicate’s war was not only fought in alleys and container yards. There was another battlefield, one far colder, one made of numbers and shadows.Steel broke bones. But code—code broke empires.He leaned back for a moment, let

Chapter 162: Virella’s Wrath in Marble HallsThe mansion sat on the cliffside like a crown of glass and marble, its white facades gleaming faintly under the wash of moonlight. Below, the ocean churned restlessly, waves striking against black stone as though trying to claw their way up to the fortress above. Within, all was silence and wealth—corridors lined with statues looted from fallen empires, chandeliers dripping with crystal light, walls hung with canvases worth more than most men’s lives.And at the heart of it all sat Virella.She reclined in a velvet armchair of blood-red, one long leg crossed over the other, her hand cradling a delicate crystal glass filled with a dark Burgundy vintage.The light from her massive curved television flickered across her sharp features, giving her an almost spectral glow. Onscreen, a playlet unfolded—an avant-garde performance from a secretive troupe she patronized. Masked actors twisted and bowed across a minimalist stage, their dialogue ci

Nolan stayed silent, circling through the machines.Four men advanced. Their boots thudded softly against the floor.The fight erupted in a storm of suppressed fire. Bullets hissed like wasps, ripping through old cloth and wood. Nolan fired back, two down in seconds. His magazine clicked empty.Now it was steel and bone.A pipe whistled toward his head. He ducked, crowbar smashing ribs, the sound cracking like kindling. Another lunged with a knife, slashing his shoulder. Nolan twisted, caught the man’s wrist, and drove the blade into his thigh before crushing his skull against iron.Hands grabbed him, tried to strangle him with wire. He slammed the crowbar backward, breaking teeth, then rammed his attacker’s head into the loom. Blood spattered the gears.By the time the dust settled, only two bodies still twitched. The rest lay broken, silent in pools of blood.Nolan’s chest heaved. His mask dripped crimson.And still, the handler had not moved.At last, the man stepped forward. His v