The night after the explosion was not silent.Even as dawn crept reluctantly over the skyline, the city buzzed with panic. Sirens never stopped. Helicopters thundered above. News vans lined the streets like vultures, their lenses drinking in every twisted steel beam, every grieving face, every body bag carried past sobbing relatives.Liam Cross sat among the ruins, blanket draped over his shoulders, though he no longer felt the cold. His clothes were scorched, skin streaked with soot, but his wounds had already closed. The medics hadn’t noticed. No one looked twice at him. In a sea of survivors, he was just another face numbed by disaster.But inside him burned something none of them could see.The scales still glowed faintly on his chest, pulsing with a rhythm that matched his heart. Each throb whispered with alien clarity. Each beat echoed with temptation. Render Judgement.He clenched the blanket tighter, knuckles white. He couldn’t forget the thug’s scream as blue chains dragged h

The night in Hollow Veil seemed to drag longer than usual as though the city itself held its breath waiting for the next blow to fall. Liam’s body still carried the ache of his last encounter, but he had little time to rest. The System did not allow him rest. It whispered relentlessly at the back of his mind, scales tilting, chains rattling in unseen spaces, demanding he move, judge, execute. The train tunnels smelled of rust and rot as he walked through them, following the faint trail the System burned into his senses. He could feel something ahead, something heavy, pressing, a presence that felt wrong in every possible way. When he finally reached the abandoned station at the edge of the city, the silence hit him like a wall. No footsteps, no vermin, no distant hum of electricity, only the drip of water and the stale scent of ash. He knew he wasn’t alone.From the far end of the platform, a figure detached itself from the shadows, tall, broad shouldered, and wrapped in a coat that s

The storm raged outside the Veyron estate, thunder rumbling as though the sky itself protested what was about to unfold. Liam stood frozen at the window, his heart hammering, chains rattling faintly at his back as the System’s scales tipped violently, demanding decision. Selena Veyron had seen him. Not just seen recognized. Her lips curled with the calm confidence of someone who had expected his arrival. The boy beside her glanced between them, unaware of the weight pressing on the night. Selena touched the child’s head gently, whispered something, and a maid hurried forward to lead him away. He protested softly, clutching his toy soldier, but Selena soothed him with a mother’s tenderness that twisted Liam’s chest. Once the boy was gone, her gaze sharpened like a blade, fixed firmly on him.“Come in, Executor,” she called, her voice carrying through the glass like silk lined with steel. Liam hesitated only a second before slipping through the shadows, breaking the lock with a whisper

The warehouse still burned in the distance, a hollow carcass of steel and ash bleeding smoke into the night sky. Liam and Clara kept moving, their footsteps echoing along the cracked pavement of the docks. The sirens were getting louder behind them, their glow flashing across rusted shipping containers and the oily water that slapped against rotting wood pylons. The city was awake now, restless, and Liam could feel the weight of a thousand eyes hidden in the shadows. Marcus had escaped, and that single truth gnawed at him with every step. He flexed his hand as if he could shake the failure off, but the Executor’s mark still glowed faintly under his skin, a reminder of how close he had come to losing himself. Clara kept pace beside him, though her limp was worse now, blood soaking through the torn fabric at her thigh. She said nothing at first, but Liam felt her eyes on him. The silence stretched between them until finally she spoke, her voice low and sharp. “You almost burned with h

Three days after the fire, Redwater still reeked of smoke and iron. The city’s skyline was a jagged bruise, neon lights flickering like dying nerves. Liam hadn’t slept since that night. Every time he closed his eyes, the System’s interface burned against the back of his eyelids its red glyphs pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. The kills hadn’t silenced the corruption; they’d only made it louder.He sat at the edge of a derelict apartment window, staring into the gray sprawl below. The System hovered before him in ghostly projection, static washing over its fractured symbols.“Executor 01,” it said, the voice layered, digital and human at once. “New corruption detected.”Liam’s jaw tightened. “Where?”The screen glitched. Lines of code twisted into words. Corruption proximity: immediate vicinity.The cold air in the room thickened. Clara stirred behind him, wrapped in his jacket, asleep on the torn couch. For a moment, he wanted to believe the System was malfunctioning. But it never