2026-02-26 16:08:31The rain roared harder, turning the forest floor into a slick, churning slurry. Vittorio Valdieri crawled out of the body bag in a movement that sent pain tearing through him. Every inch of muscle in Leo Ravelli’s body felt as if it were being ripped straight from the bone. Lightning split the gray sky above, illuminating his pallid face and casting a grotesque contrast against eyes that now gleamed with lethal sharpness.
Pinned beneath Vittorio, Kalen coughed up blood. He tried to reach for the knife tucked behind his belt, but Vittorio pressed his thumb into a nerve at the base of Kalen’s arm first.
“You move, and this nerve dies permanently,” Vittorio hissed. His voice was cold, trembling not from fear, but from the violent tremors beginning to seize his nervous system.
“Leo… what’s inside you?” Kalen gasped, staring in horror at the face he knew as a cowardly addict. “You should’ve died in that bag!”
Vittorio did not answer. A wave of pain crashed through his skull. Withdrawal. This body demanded its poison. His vision blurred, and his arm muscles began to shake uncontrollably.
“Damn it,” Vittorio muttered.
Sensing an opening, Kalen forced his strength into a roll, throwing Vittorio aside. “You’re just junkie trash, Leo! You don’t have the strength to kill anyone!”
Vittorio slammed into the mud. Vargas, shot earlier in the shoulder, crawled out of the grave pit with his face flushed red with rage. In his uninjured hand, he gripped a tactical dagger.
“I’ll skin you alive, you little bastard!” Vargas roared. “Kalen, hold him!”
Kalen stood, wiping mud from his ruined silk shirt. “Don’t kill him yet, Vargas. I want to know how a rat like him pulled off that lock earlier. That wasn’t an amateur move.”
Vittorio rose slowly. His legs shook violently as he stood between the two executioners. In his old world, he could have killed men like them in seconds. Now he was trapped in a body that struggled just to remain upright.
“You talk too much for professional killers,” Vittorio said. He dropped into a low stance, turning his body sideways to reduce his target.
Vargas sneered. “Look at you. You can’t even stop your hands from shaking. Need one last dose before you die?”
“I don’t need muscles to break your neck, Fat Man,” Vittorio replied flatly. “I just need gravity and your stupidity.”
“Die!” Vargas lunged forward with a straight thrust.
Vittorio did not retreat. If he stepped back, his weak body would lose balance on the slick ground. As the blade nearly touched his chest, he rotated slightly, letting the knife slide past his armpit. He caught Vargas’s wrist, not with brute force, but by locking the man’s elbow joint beneath his own arm.
Crack.
“Aaagh!” Vargas screamed as his elbow shifted unnaturally.
“Leverage, Vargas. You should study physics harder in hell,” Vittorio whispered.
Kalen reacted instantly, charging in with a straight kick aimed at Vittorio’s ribs. Vittorio released Vargas and dropped himself to the ground, sweeping low and using his own body weight to knock Kalen off his feet.
Mid-motion, withdrawal slammed into his heart. His chest felt crushed by an invisible giant’s hand. His breath locked in his throat. He collapsed into the mud, clutching his chest as his vision washed white.
“Leo!” Kalen scrambled up and kicked Vittorio in the face. “I don’t know what trick you’re using, but this ends now!”
Vittorio tasted blood. His head throbbed, but his consciousness stayed sharp. Focus, Vittorio. Don’t rely on strength. Use pain.
Vargas, clutching his limp arm, advanced with hatred etched across his face. With his good hand, he grabbed a large, jagged stone from the edge of the grave.
“I’ll smash your skull with this, you piece of trash!” Vargas snarled.
Vittorio glanced at Kalen, then at Vargas, already raising the stone. He had one move or he was dead.
“Kalen,” Vittorio croaked.
“What? Begging now?” Kalen scoffed, pointing a finger at him as if it were the gun he no longer had.
“Do you know why Antonio chose to have me disposed of?” Vittorio asked, baiting him.
“Because you’re useless! You’re a disgrace to the Ravelli family!” Kalen snapped.
Vittorio smiled faintly, a smile alien on Leo’s gaunt face. “Wrong. He threw me away because he was afraid. Afraid I’d wake up and realize who I really am.”
“You’re just a junkie hallucinating!” Vargas shouted, swinging the stone at Vittorio’s head.
Vittorio moved in a way neither of them expected. Instead of dodging aside, he slid forward through the mud, straight into Vargas’s space. He caught Vargas’s left wrist holding the stone and, with a precise jerk, redirected the swing using Vargas’s own momentum.
“Vargas, don’t!” Kalen shouted.
Too late.
Driven by Vargas’s full fury and guided by Vittorio’s technique, the jagged stone slammed into Vargas’s own neck as he stumbled forward.
The sharp edge buried itself deep into Vargas’s carotid artery. Fresh blood erupted, splashing across Vittorio’s face and Kalen’s white shirt as he stood directly in front of them.
Vargas choked, clawing at his torn throat, before his heavy body collapsed into the mud with a wet thump. His eyes stared blankly up at the rain-soaked sky.
Vittorio rose slowly, ignoring the agony tearing through his chest. He stood over Vargas’s corpse, letting the rain wash the blood from his face. Then he looked at Kalen.
Kalen took a step back, his face drained of color. He had seen plenty of death, but never an emaciated addict execute someone with such efficiency while shaking uncontrollably.
“You… you’re not Leo,” Kalen whispered, his voice trembling. “Leo can’t fight like that. Leo doesn’t have eyes like that.”
Vittorio stepped forward, though his legs barely held him. Each step was heavy, yet his presence filled the air with crushing dominance.
“Tell me, Kalen,” Vittorio said, his voice now carrying unquestionable authority. “Do you want to join your friend in that hole, or do you want to live a little longer and give me information?”
Kalen fumbled at his back pocket, hoping for a spare weapon, but found nothing. “The Circle… they’ll kill me if I talk.”
“And I’ll kill you if you don’t,” Vittorio replied. “The difference is, they might give you a quick death. I have all night to show you what someone freshly risen from the grave can do.”
Vittorio picked up the blood-slick stone still lodged in Vargas’s neck. He held it casually, yet with the unmistakable precision of a man who knew every lethal point on the human body.
“Who ordered this execution? And what’s on the micro-SD you were sent to retrieve?” Vittorio demanded.
Kalen swallowed hard, glancing at the helicopter lights now sweeping the forest about five hundred meters away. “The cleanup team is here. You won’t make it out of this forest alive, whoever you are!”
Vittorio narrowed his eyes. He felt the adrenaline fading, the withdrawal pain crashing back twice as hard. He had to end this now.
“Look at me, Kalen,” Vittorio commanded.
Kalen obeyed without meaning to. He looked into Leo Ravelli’s eyes and found no trace of Leo there. Instead, he saw an ancient predator, a Godfather who had sent hundreds to their deaths without blinking. The gaze was so cold, so filled with pure hatred, it felt as though his soul were being stripped bare.
“I am not Leo,” Vittorio whispered again, now inches from Kalen’s frozen face. “My name is Vittorio Valdieri. And I suggest you start talking before I decide to use this stone on your eyes.”
Kalen collapsed into the mud, mentally shattered. “The Circle… Antonio… they want the project. Project Ouroboros…”
Vittorio went still. That name. Ouroboros. The serpent devouring its own tail.
“Explain,” Vittorio ordered.
“I don’t know the details! I was only told to eliminate Leo and recover the data!” Kalen screamed hysterically as the helicopter’s light drew closer, bathing the blood-soaked forest in a nightmarish glow.
Vittorio stood tall, letting the storm batter his fragile body. One enemy lay dead, the other broken at his feet. Above them, the real hunters were descending from the sky.
“It seems the world hasn’t changed much in fifty years,” Vittorio murmured, staring into the approaching light. “Still full of rats trying to become lions.”
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CHAPTER 115: FOG OVER THE THAMES
The sky above London no longer poured rain. Instead, it exhaled a blanket of soot-laden fog so dense that a person could barely see the tip of their own nose. The stinging smell of coal burning in thousands of emergency furnaces saturated the air, creating an atmosphere that felt Victorian in appearance yet burdened with the suffocating tension of modern military rule. In the silence of the River Thames, its waters black as ink, a Crimson Syndicate hydrofoil sped forward almost soundlessly, slicing through the fog toward a hidden dock beneath Westminster Bridge.Leo Valdieri stood on the vessel's bridge, dressed in a thick charcoal wool coat with a crimson silk scarf wrapped around his neck. Leo Ravelli's body had become remarkably powerful. Every movement radiated the efficiency of a predator that had made peace with its pain."London has always known how to hide its sins behind a veil of fog, Silas," Leo said, his voice calm yet carrying an oppressive resonance.Standing beside him
CHAPTER 114: BLOOD LITURGY IN THE CITY OF FASHION
The basement beneath the Palazzo Ducale no longer smelled of ancient mildew. Instead, the air carried the sharp scent of industrial cleaning chemicals and lingering gunpowder still clinging to Silas Vane's suit.At the center of the room, illuminated only by a single low-hanging halogen lamp, Fabrizio Valdieri sat bound to a heavy iron chair. The face that had once mirrored the glory days of the past was now ruined, blood caked at the corners of his mouth. Yet his eyes still burned with blind fanaticism.Leo Valdieri stood in the shadows, lazily twirling his carbon knife with a hypnotic motion. He had exchanged his tuxedo for a black tactical shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing the increasingly powerful physique of Leo Ravelli's body."You were always a terrible dreamer, Fabrizio."Leo's voice shattered the silence, cold and vibrating with oppressive authority."In seventy-four, you thought you could survive by jumping out of the car before it exploded. Now you think you can p
CHAPTER 113: BLOOD UPON STILL WATERS
The hydraulic gears beneath the Rialto Bridge groaned, iron grinding against iron as the manual floodgates were forced shut by the White Sword faction's sabotage. The canal's surface, usually a scene of romance, had become a corridor of slaughter.Leo Valdieri stood tall at the bow of a tactical speedboat he had just hijacked, his hands gripping the assault rifle of the attacker whose shattered body now lay crumpled in a corner of the deck."Silas! Don't let them turn around at the San Marco bend!" Leo shouted through his wired communicator.From the balcony of the towering Palazzo Ducale behind them, a flash erupted from the muzzle of Silas Vane's sniper rifle, slicing through the darkness.BANG!One of the enemy speedboats in the rear formation exploded when Silas's magnetic round struck its steam engine. A fireball surged into the sky, bathing the facades of the ancient buildings in a horrifying crimson glow."The rear sector is sealed, Don!" Silas's voice came through, calm but he
Chapter 112: Banquet in the City of Water
Three months after radioactive steam shrouded the skies above Pripyat and erased Antonio Valdieri's shadow forever, the world did not suddenly become a paradise. On the contrary, the planet became a blank canvas contested by countless hands hungry to paint it red. In the vacuum left by global power, the Crimson Syndicate underwent a metamorphosis. They were no longer merely an underground guerrilla force. They had become the architects of a new order known as the "Great Family of the World."Venice, the city built upon thousands of wooden pillars, had been chosen as the shadow capital. There, within the lavishly restored Palazzo Ducale, luxury that challenged the passage of time gleamed beneath Murano chandeliers, their light reflecting across the crystal-clear waters of the canals.Leo Valdieri stood on a balcony overlooking the Grand Canal. Leo Ravelli's body now appeared far more mature. He had survived the explosion through an impossible twist of fate after his farewell broadcast.
CHAPTER 111: THE FOUNTAIN OF TRAITORS
The asphalt of Via del Corso beneath Leo Valdieri's feet felt too smooth, too flawless for a street that should have been decades old. Above them, the ceiling of Sector Zero's massive dome flickered, displaying a simulation of the constellations from 1974 that was beginning to distort under electrical interference. Gunfire and explosions from the café still echoed through the artificial city, bouncing off the facades of fake Roman buildings that were now cracking open to reveal the steel framework beneath."Two more blocks to the Trevi Fountain, Don!" Silas Vane shouted as he unleashed a burst of suppressive fire toward an apartment balcony on the left."Leo, the sensors ahead are detecting an abnormal temperature spike!" Elena Ravelli ran beside her brother, her fingers moving swiftly across the scanning device mounted on her forearm. "The water in that fountain isn't decorative. It's the primary coolant for the steam reactor beneath us!"Leo Valdieri ducked as a heated spike round s
CHAPTER 110: THE SILENT ZONE IN FORBIDDEN LAND
The sky above Pripyat was never truly black. It hung overhead in a dense gray haze that resembled funeral ash. The rain that fell across this region brought no freshness, only traces of heavy metals that clung to the armored windows of the Crimson Syndicate APC. In the distance, the silhouette of the giant rusted Ferris wheel stood like the skeleton of a prehistoric monster, a silent witness to a world whose heartbeat had stopped decades ago. This was Sector Zero. An exclusion zone in Ukraine that had officially been erased from international navigation systems by the remnants of the Hegemony. Here, beneath layers of concrete and radiation, The Sovereign's Shadow had built his final sanctuary.Leo Valdieri sat in the rear seat of the APC, watching the monitor that displayed radiation levels outside the vehicle. His black suit remained immaculate, a stark contrast to the desolation beyond the glass. Leo Ravelli's body now felt so perfectly synchronized with his soul that he could sens
