Flames lashed the concrete wall of the intersection exactly where Anya had just been standing. The heat didn't just radiate; it exploded, generating a thick hiss like a sledgehammer striking hot metal. Anya had leaped to the left, deep into the shadow of the mossy sidewalk, only a fraction of a second before the Tiris Unit cabins opened thin slits in their armored shields and unleashed a stream of blazing compressed gas. She choked back a groan, her clothes feeling as if they had been forged onto her skin by the searing steam. She managed to keep hold of the Nexus Gamma chip hidden in her forearm, but the shockwave of the attack nearly sent her sprawling onto the dusty asphalt. Three Tiris Battalion Derrick Units moved forward, crawling slowly like ravenous industrial predators. Their flamethrowers were just a scare tactic. Daniel didn't want to kill her; he just wanted to neutralize her. Daniel only wanted to ensure she was completely crippled and alone. Far across the silent inte

The red light blinked slowly, like the heartbeat of a predator stalking prey from behind the dense foliage of a giant monstera leaf. Anya blinked her eyes, feeling a pounding headache hit the crown of her head as consciousness began to return. The smell of wet earth and an overly pungent jasmine aroma stung her nostrils. She was no longer in the ruins, no longer hearing the roar of Miguel's EMP, but lying instead on a silk bed in the middle of a massive greenhouse surrounded by ten-meter-high bulletproof glass walls.Anya tried to move her hand, but a wave of weakness immediately spread through her. She stared toward the corner of the ceiling, where small cameras with automatically moving lenses tracked her every breath. Daniel Molserat hadn't just imprisoned her; he was visually dissecting her."Awake already, darling?"The voice sounded smooth, but to Anya, it was like a knife scraping across porcelain. Daniel stood in the automatic sliding doorway, wearing a white linen shirt that

The thermal flare generated by the Dark Blade created a blinding white sphere of light, accompanied by a deafening, high-frequency ring. Daniel and the two remaining guards immediately recoiled, painful, sharp cries cutting the silence as their optical sensors overloaded.The reaction was brief, but that was all the time Miguel needed.He slid into the Greenhouse like a wet ghost, the Plasma Slinger slung across his back, his left calf muscle already on the verge of seizing. The half-open steel door was the boundary between the war outside and the deadly dance within.Daniel’s two personal guards struggled to regain focus, fumbling for the toggles on their stun weapons. Daniel roared in fury: “Guard Molserat! Don’t let him get close! Aim for the nerves!”The first supervisor was a large, muscular man, slow to respond. When he saw Miguel’s approaching asymmetrical movement—crippled, listing, yet lightning-fast—he froze. Miguel slammed into the two-meter-high wire mesh wall. The sudden

"Cut the frequency!" Anya yelled at Miguel.Miguel cut the internal frequency in milliseconds, but Asset Nineteen's cold words were already recorded, not in his ears, but in his bones. Her voice was a sharp reflection, stripping away all vibrations of vulnerability in Miguel, leaving only nihilistic precision."Nineteen—that perfect target—activated a high-frequency sonar barrier," Anya hissed, leaping back into the ruins of the Molserat X-50. Daniel's laptop in her hands was already smoking.Eight shadows, the Syndicate's best team known as the Sigma Annihilation Division, tightened their formation. Nineteen's sports bike was motionless. The replica merely stared, its brutal silence pressing down on the entire Overpass. Every member of the Sigma Team waited for an order that never left the cold clone's lips.Miguel felt paralyzed, not by the old injury in his calf, but by the mirror in front of him. *This is you without flaw, without doubt.* That was The Scythe that Doctor Dark dream

Miguel pulled the Amphibian’s hydraulic thrust lever to full speed. The sound of the Molserat jet engine roared in fury. The Amphibian’s anti-thermal steel snout slammed into the curved glass pillars. Thick tempered glass shards exploded like vibrating crystals in all directions, flooding the cockpit with the cold, Amethyst frost.The heavy X-50—normally used for navigating canal waters—was thrown past the Molserat Tech lobby’s biometric checkpoint, breaching the first perfect layer of security with embarrassing ease. The pungent smell of ozone mixed with the hiss of hot water dripping from the Amphibian.“This is the blazing front door,” Anya hissed, blood still staining her shirt. She jumped out before the Amphibian had fully stopped, landing on the Persian rug in the white marble lobby.“Four security points. All running,” Miguel reported, stepping out, his hot Plasma Slinger raised. His left leg now functioned with acute pain, but Daniel’s glove dampened the worst neurological sho