The first week broke whatever remained of Chloe Mercer’s pride.The second week taught her how little the world cared about it.Sector Four of the Northern Copper Mining District was nothing like the luxurious world in which Chloe had grown up. There were no marble floors, private elevators, climate-controlled rooms, or servants waiting for instructions. The buildings surrounding the mine were constructed from reinforced steel, weathered concrete, and patched industrial panels. Dust covered almost everything. At night, the narrow streets between the labor quarters filled with the sounds of machinery, coughing workers, distant transport vehicles, and the constant metallic rhythm of ore being processed.This was where thousands of people lived who had fallen outside the old Northern system.Some had been criminals.Some had been debtors.Some had lost their companies.Others had simply been born poor.And now Chloe and Oliver lived among them.Every morning began with the same bell.Eve

The meeting was held beneath the Central Headquarters.Seven levels below the Global Hunter Association’s public administration floors, behind three layers of biometric security and a sealed spatial barrier, existed a chamber that did not appear on any official blueprint.Only five people possessed unrestricted access.They were the Supreme Directors of the Global Hunter Association.No assistants were permitted inside.No ordinary analysts were allowed to observe.No recording devices functioned within the chamber.At exactly midnight, the five directors took their seats around a circular black table.At the center of the table appeared a single name.ETHAN VANCE.For several seconds, nobody spoke.Director Helena Ward finally broke the silence.“We have all reviewed the Northern reports.”Across from her, Director Cassian Rourke folded his hands.“The reports are difficult to accept.”“They have been independently verified,” Helena replied.“I know.”Rourke looked at the projection.

The former Northern Palace had been rebuilt into one of the central administrative strongholds of the Ghost Syndicate, but there was one place beneath its foundations that Ethan had deliberately left untouched.The deepest section of the old palace ruins.For centuries, the Northern rulers had built layer after layer of reinforced foundations beneath the palace, turning the ground beneath the throne into a maze of vaults, emergency tunnels, sealed chambers, and forgotten military structures. Most of those spaces had already been mapped and absorbed into the Syndicate’s new infrastructure.This one had not.Because the ground beneath it was no longer behaving like ordinary ground.A black fracture stretched across the stone floor of an abandoned underground chamber, thin at first, barely wider than a finger. Yet the darkness inside it did not resemble an ordinary crack. There was no visible bottom. No broken rock. No exposed foundation.Instead, something seemed to exist on the other s

The ancient gate opened with the sound of mountains grinding against one another.A wave of heat rolled through the cavern.Ethan remained still as the golden light behind the gate expanded, illuminating a passage that descended deeper into the abnormal dungeon. The walls were no longer ordinary stone. They had become perfectly smooth, almost metallic, covered in enormous formations that resembled veins running through the entire structure.The deeper Ethan looked, the more obvious it became that the dungeon had not been naturally formed.Someone—or something—had built it.And whatever had built it had intended to keep something inside.Ethan stepped through the gate.The passage immediately widened.A gigantic circular chamber appeared beyond it.There were no smaller creatures.No wandering monsters.No traps.Only an enormous black platform suspended above a bottomless chasm.At the center of that platform stood a single figure.It was more than ten meters tall.Its body was constr

The Ghost Syndicate had recruited thousands of people.But Ethan had no intention of confusing numbers with strength.Forty thousand names on a database did not constitute an army.People who had signed contracts were still civilians until they could operate under pressure, follow orders, protect one another, and function as a single force.That transformation began three days after recruitment closed.Across the Northern Capital, abandoned military training grounds were reopened.Old barracks were repaired.Training halls were expanded.Combat arenas were reinforced.Medical facilities were installed.Equipment warehouses were converted into organized distribution centers.The black banners of the Ghost Syndicate appeared over every facility.At dawn, the first recruits assembled.More than ten thousand freelancers stood across the largest training field.They came from different backgrounds.Some had worked for major guilds.Some had spent years as independent hunters.Some were sup