The warehouse didn’t just smell of abandonment; it smelled of the metallic tang of dried blood. Located at the end of a dead-end street in the heart of the Rust District, the locals called it 'The Slaughter-Box.' Three previous tenants had failed here—one went bankrupt, one was found in the rafters, and one simply vanished into the smog. Denzel Reddington didn't believe in curses, but as he knelt on the cracked concrete with a bucket of lye, he felt the weight of the failures built into the soot-stained walls.The grease was a thick, black skin bonded to the floor over decades. Denzel’s massive frame heaved with every rhythmic stroke of the wire brush. He didn't use a machine; he used raw effort, muscles rippling beneath a sweat-soaked shirt. Every scrape was a deliberate act of reclaiming the space."Hey, Doc! You missed a spot of bad luck in the corner!"The voice crackled with a dry, hacking laugh. Outside, a group of homeless men sat on discarded tires, passing a bottle of rotgut.

The morning air in the Rust District didn't bring refreshment; it brought the stagnant weight of industrial exhaust and the sickly tang of a dying population. By noon, the "Blue-Skin Fever" had transitioned from a rumor to an epidemic, carving a path of sapphire terror through the alleyways. It began at the fingertips—a faint bruising beneath the nails that crawled up the forearms, turning veins into jagged, cobalt-blue ropes that throbbed with every shallow heartbeat. To Denzel Reddington, it looked like a massacre disguised as medicine.Denzel stood outside his warehouse clinic, leaning against the pitted, rusted doorframe. Beside him, Lead-Pipe Lou stood like a gargoyle carved from scarred leather. The lead pipe Lou had once tried to break Denzel with was now holstered in a crude sling across his back, a silent testament to the new hierarchy."It’s getting worse, Doc," Lou rumbled. He gestured toward a man in line whose face looked like it had been dipped in ind

The girl lay on the metal workbench, her breathing so faint it didn't even fog the cold steel. In the flickering light of the warehouse, the black lines tracing her skin looked like ink suspended in water, shifting and pulsing with a predatory rhythm. Denzel Reddington didn't need to touch her to feel the chill. It was the same soul-deep frost that had been slow-cooking his sister Mia’s life for a decade."How long has she been like this?" Denzel asked, his voice tight.The mother was huddled in the corner, her fingers interlaced so tightly they were white. "Three days. We live near the old textile mill... the one the men in white bought last year. I found her in the alley behind their gate. They threw her out like broken furniture."Denzel’s jaw tightened. He leaned over the girl, his silver-gold vision flaring as the 9-Heaven System overlaid a shifting grid over her body. Red pulses indicated a massive chemical rejection in her respiratory system, but th

The world was a roar of white noise and brick dust. The air, tasting of scorched gunpowder, choked Denzel Reddington as he lay flat, shielding Claire Sterling from falling shards. His ears rang—the aftereffect of the breach charge that had turned the sanctuary's entrance into a jagged maw."Stay down," Denzel hissed. He could feel the heat radiating from the entrance where fire still licked the doorframe.Claire didn't argue. Her silver hair was matted with soot, her navy-blue coat torn. She was trembling, but her eyes were fixed on the ruined doorway where the shadows of SUVs’ headlights danced through the haze.Then, a new sound began.It was a rhythmic, oscillating hum that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly in the marrow. Denzel’s 9-Heaven System flickered violently, the interface blurring into red static.[CRITICAL SYSTEM INTERFERENCE: SONIC DISRUPTION DETECTED. BIO-RESONANCE DROPPING.]Denzel let out a strangled groan,