Some wars are won with bullets while others are won with silence and the people you buried before anyone knew their names. That was the war I had prepared for. **** Northern Jincheng in an Abandoned Industrial Sector The old textile plant hadn’t operated in over two decades. Broken windows gaped like empty eye sockets. Rusted conveyor belts sat buried under dust and poison ivy. But beneath its hollow bones was something else. A bunker. Built by my hand. Funded with money that had never seen a bank. Coded with biometric locks that only five people on earth could open. Two of them were dead. One had betrayed me. The last stood beside me now, Zhang Xue’er, no longer just a heiress, no longer a pawn. But a witness to everything. **** We entered through a false wall of crates, descending a spiral staircase carved into concrete. The deeper we went, the more the city faded. The noise. The fear. The name they’d plastered across the news like a curse. Here, I wasn’t “Li Tian” or

Some routes are chosen while others are forced upon you.The Devil’s Ladder was the kind of path you only took when every other option had already been sealed by fire, blood, or betrayal. It wasn’t an escape. It was a gamble. A coin toss in the dark where heads meant you lived long enough to regret it, and tails meant they never even found your bones.****Dragon’s Spine : North Wing, 03:45 HoursThe generator room still smelled of ozone and fear. Anzu was cuffed and unconscious, dragged to the far wall by Jiang and Duan Yu. His detonator sat in my palm, warm from the heat of his grip.“You really think this place can hold another hour?” I asked Jiang.“Systems are holding now, but the EMP fried half the auto-turrets. If Han’s people breach before we move, we won’t have perimeter defense.”Ember’s voice cut in from the comms. “Then we move now. We’ve got three junctions already in Han’s control. If he gets Junction Seven, the only way out is through the Ladder.”I looked over at Xue’

The city was never quiet. Even before the wheels of the chopper touched down on the private helipad, I could hear it — the hum of traffic, the drone of construction, the heartbeat of a place where every breath was a transaction and every streetlight doubled as a spotlight for someone’s ambition. After days of ice, stone, and silence, the noise hit like a wave. We disembarked in staggered order. Jiang and Duan Yu went first, both carrying the stiffness of men who’d left too much of themselves behind on that mountain. Xue’er followed, her scarf pulled high against the wind, eyes darting across the skyline as if she wasn’t ready to believe we were home. Ember was last. She didn’t speak. She just stepped down, the rotor wash snapping her hood back, revealing eyes that didn’t match the calm in her face. She scanned the rooftop perimeter, every shadow, every vent, as if she expected Han’s men to crawl out of the HVAC. I knew that feeling, the mind still stuck in enemy territory long a

The city doesn’t sleep, but it does change masks.By the time Zhao Wei had gathered the others, the skyline had traded gold for steel. The night was alive with neon veins and the low thrum of engines going too fast down wet asphalt. It was the kind of night when the city whispered secrets to anyone reckless enough to listen.We met in the war room. Not the polished boardroom where shareholders pretended to hold knives, but the basement beneath my central tower. Concrete walls, reinforced doors, a table big enough to seat an army but small enough to remind us this wasn’t about comfort.Jiang came first, his limp heavier than usual, mountain wounds not yet forgiven by his body. He didn’t complain; he never did. He just sat with his back straight, eyes burning with a soldier’s loyalty.Duan Yu arrived next, smelling of cigarettes and city smog, his leather jacket damp from the rain. He flicked his lighter three times before pocketing it, a nervous habit that told me he already knew the w

I came back to headquarters with my coat heavy from soot, my hands still shaking from the adrenaline that never quite left me after a fight. The kind of shaking that comes from knowing you danced close to a switchblade and the music stopped when you wanted it to. The rest of them moved around me like planets around a star ,almost like familiar gravitational pulls, small adjustments when I passed. Jiang clapped me on the shoulder so hard it hurt; Duan Yu tried to hide a grin behind a bandage on his knuckle; Zhao Wei didn’t take his eyes off his tablet. Xue’er looked at me like I was an accident she hadn’t authorized.“Status?” I asked, because motion answers anxiety.“Viper vanished,” Jiang said. “His men retreated. Losses are heavy on both sides. We tapped the Syndicate comms and there’s chatter, they are angry and wounded. They’re regrouping.”“And Ember?” I asked.Jiang’s jaw tightened. “She’s with us. She saved your life, but we still need to sort out why she was in the Syndicate’