The night that followed was colder than memory. Neon lights flickered against the rain-slicked streets of Ecliptica City, painting the asphalt in strokes of crimson and blue. The skyline loomed like jagged glass teeth under a storm that refused to break. Within the heart of the city — inside the towering fortress of the Obsidian Spire — the Empire of Shadows began to tremble from within.Enzo stood alone before the panoramic window of his war room, watching the digital map of his empire pulse with red marks — signals of betrayal, interference, loss. The city he once ruled like an unchallenged god was beginning to fracture under the weight of its own secrets. Every district that once echoed his name now whispered it like a curse. Every ally now watched him with calculating eyes.“Status report,” Enzo muttered, his voice low, sharp as steel.Cassian, his field strategist, stepped forward. The flicker of the holograms painted his scarred face in fractured light. “We’ve lost control of th

The city slept uneasily beneath a blood-colored dawn. Ecliptica’s skyline was no longer a symbol of triumph or progress—it was a monument of ghosts. The rain had stopped, but the air carried that heavy stillness that comes only after destruction, when even the wind fears to move.In the heart of the eastern sector, Vira Korr stood on a glass platform high above the industrial quarter, her reflection split into a thousand fragments beneath her boots. Below, the city burned in slow motion—pockets of rebellion erupting like open wounds. She had seized control, yes. But control was an illusion. The shadows whispered differently now.A faint tremor rippled through the building, followed by the sound of alarms flickering to life across her command screen.ALERT: Unauthorized transmissions detected.Source: Unknown. Frequency origin—inside network core.Vira frowned. “That’s impossible. The Oracle’s core was destroyed in the Spire blast.”Her lieutenant, a wiry man named Ren, swallowed hard.

The rain fell like shards of glass, slicing through the silence of the night. In the dim corridor of the abandoned church that served as their temporary base, the candles trembled as if they knew what was about to unfold. Enzo stood in the middle of the hall, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, his eyes locked on the door where Valeria was supposed to appear. His pulse was steady—too steady. Calmness before the storm had always been his curse.He had planned every move, every alliance, every assassination since he clawed his way from the gutters to the throne of the underworld. But tonight, something felt different. The air was too still, too deliberate, as if the city itself was holding its breath.The door creaked open. Valeria stepped in, her figure bathed in the faint glow of the flickering lights. Her beauty, even in the cold haze, could still silence a room. But Enzo’s eyes didn’t linger on her face. They fell instead on the faint glint of something metallic at her side—a

The morning after the storm carried a strange stillness, like the city itself held its breath. From the windows of the high palace, Enzo watched the skyline, each tower rising like a blade out of the mist. He had worn the crown again before dawn; its weight felt heavier now, as though it knew what he had done in the dark. Beside him, Isabella still slept, her face turned to the light. For a moment, he allowed himself the illusion that they could stay like this — king and confidante, lovers hidden behind velvet curtains while the empire healed below.But the empire was never quiet for long.A knock shattered the silence. Two of his guards stepped in, their expressions tight with the kind of tension that only bad news carried. “My lord,” one said, bowing, “the Council requests your presence in the Hall of Oaths. Urgent matters. They demand it immediately.”Enzo’s gaze drifted to Isabella, then back to the guards. “Tell them I’m on my way.”When they left, Isabella stirred, eyes half-ope

The rain didn’t stop for three days. It was as if the heavens themselves were mourning what the city had become — a graveyard of ambition, a chessboard of ghosts. The neon lights that once painted the skyline now flickered in broken rhythm, their colors bleeding across puddles filled with oil and blood.In the heart of it all, the empire that Dante built was dying.Selene watched from the rooftop of the Mirage Hotel, her black coat billowing in the storm. The city below shimmered with chaos — fires burning through the old districts, gunfights echoing through the alleys. Every street she looked upon had once belonged to him. Now, they were hers.Behind her, Viktor Kane, her second-in-command, approached with the swagger of a man who’d seen too much war to be afraid of it anymore. His scarred face glistened in the rain, one eye hidden behind a steel plate.“It’s done,” he said. “Dante’s lieutenants have either fled or bent the knee. The Crimson Reign controls the docks, the black market