Pitch-black darkness swallowed Sector Five like a gigantic burial shroud. Without electricity, the skyscrapers that once glowed with arrogant brilliance now looked like silent concrete tombstones. Down below, on streets usually deafened by the horns of cargo trucks, there was only the sound of wind carrying the stench of smoke and despair. Vladimir hadn’t just severed the transportation lines. He had ripped out the lifeblood of the district itself. Water stopped flowing, cellular signals vanished, and the only remaining light came from fires burning inside trash barrels or cars torched by panicked mobs. Eduardo stood on the balcony of Sark Tower, staring toward the district perimeter. In the distance, rotating police lights formed an impenetrable barricade line. They weren’t there to maintain order. They were there to make sure not a single rat escaped this hunting zone. "Ed, this is seriously fucked up." Belerik rolled out from behind the glass doors, the wheels o

At first, the buzzing sounded like a swarm of bees trapped inside iron pipes, faint, static, yet constant. But to Eduardo, whose senses had become razor-sharp thanks to Reaper Mode, the sound was a melody of death engineered with digital precision. "Freya!" Eduardo roared, his voice thundering through the suffocating underground bunker corridors. He sprinted across the concrete floor at a speed that blurred his outline. Every step left thin cracks in the ground beneath him. Inside his head, the system screamed nonstop, projecting a red radar display filled with dozens of tiny moving dots racing through ventilation shafts and unsealed windows. CRASH! Eduardo slammed through Freya's door hard enough to rip the steel hinges apart. Inside the room, illuminated only by dim red emergency lights, Freya was struggling to climb out of bed. Her face, usually cold and composed, had turned pale, yet her eyes still burned with defiance. "Ed! Stay away from the window!" Freya shouted.

The burnt smell of gunpowder from the earlier drone attack still lingered between the concrete walls of the Sector Three bunker. In the middle of the cramped room, a silver suitcase rested atop a steel table. Belerik, seated in his wheelchair, had just opened it, revealing a pitch-black three-piece suit that looked absurdly elegant against the filth of the bunker surroundings. Eduardo stood motionless before a small fogged mirror. The white streaks in his hair shimmered silver beneath the dying LED lights. He studied his pitch-black eyes, a pair of bottomless voids that had become windows into his shattered soul. “I checked the stitching. Level-four bulletproof lining, lightweight, and it won’t restrict your movement,” Belerik said hoarsely. He couldn’t look directly at Eduardo. His hands trembled as he adjusted the collar of the suit. “But Ed... this is suicide. You know that, right?” Eduardo slowly slipped into the white dress shirt. His movements were stiff,

Eduardo’s footsteps echoed across marble floors polished to a mirror shine. The dining hall of Vladimir’s villa was more than just a place to eat. It was a cathedral of luxury built from the sins of Rome itself. Its ceiling was adorned with frescoes depicting the fall of gods, while a massive crystal chandelier hung low overhead, casting a suffocating yellow glow across the room. At the far end of a teakwood table long enough to seat thirty people, Don Vladimir sat alone. He wore a gray wool cardigan, looking more like a grandfather waiting for his grandson to come home for dinner than the devil ruling the underworld. Before him sat two silver plates of mushroom risotto still steaming with heat, accompanied by a bottle of red wine probably worth more than the lives of ten guards outside. Eduardo pulled out a chair at the opposite end of the table. He did not remove his leather gloves. His pitch-black eyes stared at Vladimir without blinking while wisps of dark Reaper v

Thick smoke and concrete dust billowed upward, swallowing the Shadow Arena that had once looked sterile and untouchable. The roar of helicopter engines above the massive ventilation shaft sounded like iron dragons raging through the sky. Eduardo stood tall in the middle of the sand, now soaked with mutant purple blood, his breath escaping in thin streams of black vapor. His pitch-black eyes slowly shifted from the cracked VIP glass toward the two figures who had just landed behind him. “I told you... not to come,” Eduardo said, his voice heavy, vibrating at a low frequency that made ears ache. Gord grinned, even though his face had gone pale at Eduardo’s appearance. He cocked his heavy machine gun, letting shell casings clink against the sand. “Sorry, Boss. Got a discount on the helicopter ride, would've been a waste not to use it. Besides, what kind of clown lets his boss play in the dirt alone down here?” “Ed, listen to me,” Freya stepped forward, still carrying