The city felt wrong even after the Council’s phantom had vanished. Neon lights blinked out of rhythm, shadows lingered too long in corners, and voices whispered from empty streets. Ethan knew the battle wasn’t over. The Ghost Market hadn’t just been a weapon—it was now a wound, bleeding madness into reality.He stood at the edge of a fractured street, blade still in hand, scanning the skyline. Wren crouched beside him, daggers twirling between her fingers, eyes narrowed at the flickering signs above. Camille leaned weakly against a wall, pale but determined, her breath still uneven from holding back the Wardens earlier.“They won’t stop,” Wren muttered. “Every time we close one door, they’ll open another. This isn’t war anymore, Ethan. It’s infection.”Ethan’s jaw tightened. “Then we cut it out at the root.”Camille shook her head, fear lacing her voice. “You don’t understand. The Ghost Markets aren’t just places. They’re traps. Code woven into the mind. Once you go too deep, you don’

Camille’s blood still stained Ethan’s hands when the world shifted again. Hospitals and safehouses were useless now—Helena’s Ghost Markets had spread into every network, hijacking power grids, surveillance cameras, even emergency rooms. To move Camille anywhere was to risk her being used as bait.They chose the ruins of a forgotten subway tunnel instead, a place so far beneath the city that even Helena’s whispers couldn’t immediately reach it. Wren stitched Camille’s wound in the dim light, her hands steady but her mouth running sharp as ever.“You know,” Wren muttered, tightening the final knot in the stitches, “we really ought to stop letting people stab us. It’s bad for morale.”Camille hissed but managed a faint smile. “Maybe you should stand in front next time.”Ethan sat nearby, his blade across his lap, silent. His thoughts weren’t on the tunnel—they were on Helena’s crown blazing above the city, on her voice infecting every heart like a poison.Cain’s whisper slid into the bac

The night before dawn was thick with static. The Ghost Markets pulsed in the distance, vast neon towers of shifting data, visible even through the broken skyline. They looked alive, breathing, as if the Council had stitched nightmares into the bones of cities.Ethan stood at the mouth of the tunnel, staring at that horizon. His blade rested loosely in his grip, but his eyes never blinked. Wren sat on a crate nearby, flipping a dagger over and over in her palm. Camille crouched in silence a few feet away, head bowed, her face still bearing the sting of Wren’s slap.Nobody spoke. The silence was louder than words.At last, Wren broke it. “So. What’s the plan? Walk into the biggest trap they’ve ever set and hope they trip over their own egos?”Ethan’s lips curved into a grim smile. “Close. We don’t win by brute force. The Council controls the Ghost Markets because they believe no one else can bend them. We’ll prove them wrong.”Camille lifted her head, her voice small. “But the Cipher do

The throne room still hummed with static after Ethan threw the blade. Sparks crawled across shattered screens, Helena’s smirk glowing in the dim light like a crescent moon.Ethan’s chest heaved as though he had swallowed fire. The Cipher pulsed from where it was embedded in the throne, crimson veins stretching like roots across the fractured metal.Cain’s voice filled the chamber, no longer confined to whispers. Why resist, boy? You’ve known it since the beginning. Every triumph you claimed was mine. Every ally you gathered, every enemy you crushed—it was all my design. You were never king. You were never even a player. You were the board itself.Ethan’s hands trembled. His knees dug into the floor as he fought to steady himself. He felt the truth in Cain’s words—every betrayal, every twist, every war had circled back to him. Cain hadn’t been a guide; he had been the architect.Wren’s face hardened. She turned her head slowly toward the throne, toward the blade. Her hand tightened aro

The blackout stretched for what felt like hours, though it was only seconds. Gunfire cracked through the darkness, sharp and merciless. Screams rose like waves crashing against steel walls. Ethan’s vision adjusted just enough to catch shadows lunging, bodies falling, the flashes of muzzle fire painting blood across glass floors.“Stay with me!” Ethan barked. He pulled Camille behind him and spun as a figure lunged from the dark. The Cipher sang, slicing the air in a crimson arc, and the attacker split clean in half, collapsing at his feet.Wren was a blur of silver beside him, her blade finding throats in the dark, her expression carved from ice. She fought like she wasn’t trying to survive—like she wanted to punish.The holograms flickered back to life, casting Cain’s smirking face across every surface. His voice was silk over the screams. Beautiful, isn’t it? The sound of ambition burning. The smell of empire dying. You thought this was a summit. No, boy. This is your crucible.Dele