2025-08-18 13:52:02
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THE HUNTERS' SHADOW
The night pressed heavy on Lin City, the smoke from burning homes clinging to the sky like a second skin. Inside the safehouse, silence weighed just as thick. Fighters who had once laughed in the face of death now sat hollow-eyed, their rifles laid across their knees like toys clutched in fear. Every distant shout sent them stiffening, waiting for the inevitable knock of war.But the true storm wasn’t outside. It was circling them, unseen.Ares stood at the cracked window, his frame etched in the orange glow of fires burning across the horizon. His hands were steady on the sill, but his jaw was steel, teeth gritted against the knowledge of what was coming.“They’ll come for him,” he said at last, his voice gravel in the silence.Mira stiffened, her arms tightening around Elijah who slept in her lap. Her eyes found Ares - sharp, trembling. “Don’t you dare say that out loud.”“I don’t say it to curse us,” Ares replied, turning. His gaze held hers, fierce, unblinking. “I say it because i
THE RETALIATION
And Lin City… would drown in it.The warning became truth faster than anyone expected....At dawn, the city woke not to birds or traffic - but to sirens. Explosions rocked the east district, smoke rising like dark pillars against the sky. Ares’s strike at the docks had ripped open The Concord’s pride. Their response came swift, merciless, and aimed at the heart.By noon, three Resistance safehouses were reduced to rubble. Streets once busy with vendors now stank of fire and dust. Mothers clutched their children in alleys, while men whispered of vengeance and doom in the same breath.And above it all, the word spread like sickness: The Concord is coming for the families....Inside the safehouse, chaos churned. Fighters stormed in with wounds still fresh from the docks, shouting, arguing, blood and grime staining the floorboards.Reyes slammed a pistol onto the table, his voice cracking through the noise. “They’re not even hiding it now! They’re burning out every nest we’ve got!”Hawk
STRIKING FIRST
The city held its breath.After the depot massacre, Lin City was quiet - but it was the kind of quiet that sits heavy before a gun goes off. Shops opened late, shutters creaking in fear. Streets emptied faster at dusk. Gangs whispered, businessmen tightened their guards, and in the alleys, everyone asked the same question: What would the God of War do next?They didn’t have to wait long....Inside the safehouse, Ares stood at the table again. The map spread before him was stained now with blood and ash from the depot fight. Circles. Arrows. X’s where men had fallen.Reyes leaned back in his chair, arms folded. His knuckles were scabbed raw, his lip split. “So,” he muttered, “what’s the play? Sit and wait for them to knock again? Or do we finally kick their teeth in?”Hawk rubbed at his jaw, his voice lower. “We’re stretched thin. Half the Resistance is bleeding. If The Concord marches in full force, we’ll be crushed before sundown.”Mira listened from the corner, Elijah curled asleep
BAPTISM OF FIRE
The first burst of gunfire ripped through the depot like thunder splitting stone. Bullets sparked against steel beams, rattled off rusted walls, cracked through crates. The Concord charged in with all the arrogance of men who thought numbers made them gods.They didn’t see the wires.The explosion tore the front wave apart. Fire roared, smoke curling black against the dripping ceiling. Screams cut the air - high, jagged, panicked. Men stumbled, burning, their banners catching flame.From the rafters above, Ares’s men opened fire.The depot became a slaughterhouse....Ares moved like a shadow through it all. His rifle barked once, twice, each shot deliberate, each man that fell chosen. He wasn’t a wild animal foaming at the mouth - he was a surgeon with steel, cutting through the noise with precision.Reyes was beside him, laughing like a madman between bursts of fire. Hawk’s shotgun thundered, echoing against the rafters. Resistance fighters, ragged but steady, poured rounds into the
THE WOLVES IN THE DARK
The storm didn’t end with the night. It crawled into the dawn, clinging to the gutters, dripping from the broken edges of Lin City’s skyline like the city itself was bleeding out. But in the alleys and high towers, the storm wasn’t rain - it was men sharpening knives, counting bullets, whispering about the name that had broken Kane.The God of War. Ares.And they wanted his head....Inside the safehouse, the air was heavy. The lamps gave off more smoke than light, filling the room with the stink of burned oil. Ares sat at the table, his big hands resting on the map Hawk had left behind, his eyes locked on the red circle inked over the industrial zone. He didn’t move, didn’t even blink. To anyone else, it would look like he was staring at lines on paper. Reyes knew better.“You didn’t tell them everything last night,” Reyes said from the wall, arms crossed.Ares didn’t look up. “They weren’t ready.”Reyes’s laugh was dry. “Not ready to hear half the city wants your head? That business
THE GATHERING STORM
And Lin City would never be the same.The rain had not stopped. It poured through the night and into the pale dawn, hammering rooftops, washing filth from alleyways, and drowning the city in a gray veil. To some, it felt like a cleansing. To Ares, it was an omen.He stood beneath the dripping eaves of the Resistance safehouse, his broad frame silhouetted against the storm. His hands were clasped loosely behind his back, but the stillness in his posture was not peace - it was calculation. He had lived through enough wars to recognize the rhythm of one when it began. Kane’s death had not ended anything. It had only reset the board.Reyes came up behind him, boots squelching against wet ground. “The city’s boiling,” he said without preamble. “Half the gangs want to claim Kane’s turf. The other half want revenge. And the big players - the real powers - they’re watching. Waiting.”Ares didn’t look away from the storm. “And the Resistance?”“Fractured,” Reyes admitted. “Some see Kane’s deat
