Morning came late to Harlow Street.Not because the sun failed to rise, but because no one in the Pit bothered to notice it.The place still smelled faintly of blood and disinfectant. The floors were clean, the bodies gone, but something lingered beneath it all. A reminder.Leon stood near the far wall, eyes half-focused on nothing.Or rather—on something only he could see.The System flickered quietly.Stable now.Responsive.Waiting.He flexed his fingers slowly.The upgrade hadn’t just strengthened him. It had changed the way he perceived everything. The world felt… layered. Like there was more beneath the surface, just waiting to be cut open.Footsteps approached.Marcus again.“Everyone’s up,” he said. “Or at least pretending to be.”Leon nodded once.“Bring them.”Marcus didn’t ask questions this time. He turned and called out, his voice cutting through the low noise of the room.Within minutes, they gathered.Darren. Cole. The others.Not soldiers.Not yet.But no longer the sa

Leon didn’t rush.That was the first thing that separated him from the men he hunted.Anyone else would have sprinted after the fleeing scout, eager to catch him before he disappeared into the maze of the city. But Leon understood something far more important than speed.Control.If he pushed too hard, the man might panic. Panic led to mistakes—but it also led to unpredictability. A cornered rat didn’t always run home. Sometimes it died in a gutter, taking its secrets with it.Leon didn’t want a corpse.He wanted a path.The connection pulsed faintly in his mind.Subtle, but steady.The Blood Mark.It didn’t feel like sight. It wasn’t sound either. It was something deeper—an awareness that existed beneath both. Like knowing where your own hand was without looking at it.Except this wasn’t his body.This was someone else’s.Running.Fast.Afraid.Leon turned into the same street the man had disappeared into, his pace measured, almost casual. Anyone watching would see nothing unusual—a

The alley didn’t feel small anymore.It felt sealed.Leon stood at the center of it, surrounded by bodies that were already cooling, the scent of iron still thick in the air. The silence from seconds ago was gone, replaced by something building—Footsteps.Many of them.Closing in from both ends.From above.From places that shouldn’t have had space for movement.The man at the far end didn’t run this time.He stepped back slowly, putting distance between himself and what was about to happen, his eyes fixed on Leon with something sharper than before.Expectation.“Let’s see it,” he said quietly.Leon didn’t answer.Because he felt it too.Not just the approaching enemies.The System.It didn’t flicker this time.It surged.For a brief moment, everything around him sharpened unnaturally.Not visually.Internally.Then—System ActiveThe words didn’t appear in front of him like before.They settled into his awareness.Clear.Stable.Alive.A second layer slid over reality.Not blocking

The room didn’t look like a battlefield.That was the trick.Bare walls. Empty floor. A single hanging light that hummed faintly above, casting a dull yellow glow across cracked tiles. It felt abandoned, like nothing important had ever happened there.But Leon knew better.He could feel them.Not just one or two.Layers.Above the ceiling. Behind the walls. In the floor beneath his boots.Breathing. Waiting.The System sharpened around him.Hostile Signatures Confirmed Total Count: 18 Ambush Configuration Detected Primary Threat Direction: Multi-axisMarcus exhaled slowly beside him.“Yeah… I don’t like this one.”Darren shifted his weight, eyes scanning the corners.“They’re everywhere, aren’t they?”Leon nodded once.“Good,” he said.Cole frowned. “You keep saying that like it’s a good thing.”Leon stepped forward.“Because it is.”The man who had led them here watched from the far side of the room, relaxed now, no urgency in his stance.“You still don’t get it,” he said. “This isn’