The prison gates screeched open with a sound like rusted bones breaking. Mark Lane stepped forward. Five years. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days. He didn’t look back.“Lane,” the guard called, voice flat. “You’re free. Try not to come back.”Mark paused. Just long enough to turn his head slightly. “I won’t,” he said.The guard snorted. “Everyone says that.”Mark didn’t reply. He walked out into the sunlight, eyes narrowing as brightness washed over him. The city skyline loomed in the distance, steel, glass, and rot stacked high. It looked the same as the day he went in.Only he had changed. A black sedan waited beyond the gate. Three men leaned against it. All tall. All broad-shouldered. All wearing identical faint smiles.One of them clapped slowly. “Well, look at that. The sacrificial lamb survived.”Mark stopped walking. The man continued, “Five years inside, and you still walk straight. I’m impressed.”Mark’s gaze drifted over them calmly. “You’re early.”Another ma

The rain hadn’t stopped. It hammered against the windshield as Mark drove through the city, wipers slicing back and forth like metronomes counting down to something inevitable. Streetlights smeared into long, distorted lines across the glass.Tania sat in the passenger seat, silent. “You should’ve stayed home,” Mark said.She didn’t look at him. “You didn’t ask me to.”“I was going to.”She turned then, eyes sharp. “No. You were going to decide for me.”Mark tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “This isn’t something you should be near.”“And prison was?” she shot back. “Five years without you was?”Silence fell again. Mark exhaled slowly. “They used Andrew to bait me.”“And you’re still going,” she said. “So what does that make you?”“Someone who finishes things.”The car slowed as they entered an older district, abandoned factories, shuttered warehouses, streets too wide and too empty. Mark recognized the area immediately. The old Lane shipping subsidiary. Sold on paper. Still

Darkness swallowed the hallway. Not the absence of light, but something heavier, thicker, as if the shadows themselves had weight. The shattered bulbs sparked once, twice, then died completely.Tania’s breath hitched. “Mark…” she whispered.“I’m here,” he said immediately, stepping back until he felt her against him. “Don’t move.” The woman in white didn’t advance. She didn’t need to.“You feel it, don’t you?” her voice drifted through the dark, calm and almost kind. “The pressure. The difference.”Mark did feel it. This wasn’t like Zhou Wen. This wasn’t like the observer under the overpass. This presence was sharp. Focused. Purpose-built.“Who are you?” Mark asked.A faint glow bloomed in the darkness, golden, soft, outlining the woman’s face. Her eyes gleamed like molten metal.“My designation is Aurelian Executor Seven,” she said. “But you may call me Iris.”“Executioner,” Mark repeated. “So Heaven finally chose violence.”Iris smiled. “You misunderstand. Violence was always the la

Mark didn’t remember leaving the subway station. One moment he was on his knees, lungs burning, ears ringing with the echo of a god’s voice. The next, cold rain struck his face, sharp enough to drag him back into his body.He lay sprawled in an alley two districts away, concrete slick beneath his palms. So they’d thrown him out. Not killed. Not spared. Released. Mark pushed himself upright slowly. Every muscle screamed. His vision swam, the world tilting as if reality itself hadn’t quite settled back into place.“Being hunted by everything,” he muttered. “That’s new.”A laugh bubbled up, short, rough, humorless, and died in his throat. He staggered forward, bracing himself against a wall. Neon signs buzzed overhead. The city looked normal. Too normal.But Mark could feel it. Eyes. Not watching from above anymore, but from everywhere. Windows. Shadows. Passing cars. Reflections in puddles that lingered a second too long.The city had become a net. Tania was waiting when he reached the

The city didn’t calm down after the sirens faded. It only pretended to.Mark felt it as they moved through the crowds, an unnatural stillness beneath the noise, like an animal holding its breath. People shouted, phones recorded, police cordons snapped into place. But under it all was a tremor, a low-frequency unease that crawled along Mark’s spine.“They’ll blame a gas explosion,” the boy said casually as they ducked into a side street. “Or a meth lab. Humans are very creative when they’re scared.”Tania shot him a look. “People could’ve died.”The boy’s grin faded. “People always do.”Mark glanced back at the ruined building once more before turning away. “Second tier,” he muttered.The boy nodded, suddenly serious. “Yeah. That’s… not great.”“Define not great,” Tania said.The boy shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets. “First-tier Hunters are tools. Algorithms with teeth. Second-tier ones?” He hesitated. “They remember.”Mark stopped walking. “Remember what?” he asked.“Pain,” th