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Neon murals of fallen angels and laughing devils covered the vaulted ceiling. Lasers cut through old dust while smoke machines choked out whatever remained.

They killed the music after the first body hit the floor.

Screams replaced the bass.

Silence dropped over the club soon after. The lights continued to strobe on a broken loop. A damaged neon halo flickered near the bar, buzzing while I counted bodies and made sure no one important was still alive.

“Call cleanup,” I said into my comm. “Tag every asset for reassignment. Hollowside is finished. Get a crew in here to handle the takeover and scrub their brand.”

“Yes, sir,” Vale answered, his voice calm over the static. “Anything else?”

I glanced toward the ceiling. Someone had painted demons over the saints years ago. The old bones of the church groaned around me, adjusting to their latest sin.

“Send troops to the freight corridor and evacuate every powerless worker living near the northern border. Open the public shelters to everyone. Anyone who asks for clan registration before allowing them inside answers to me.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Good.”

I stepped over a ruined fire demon and headed through the staff hall into the alley. Shadows followed at my heels while the bass finally died behind me as someone killed the power. New Abaddon was mine. It had always been mine. Now, Hollowside remembered.

The South had crossed Angelfall. By dawn, every ruler on the Valkyrie continent would move soldiers, lock down travel routes, and pretend they hadn’t spent years waiting for this exact excuse.

Scarn had started a war, and I planned to finish it.

The drive back to New Abaddon took forty-five minutes. It gave the blood time to dry across my gloves and tactical jacket, though none of the violence had cooled the pressure grinding behind my eyes. Vale kept the comm quiet while I drove. He knew better than to interrupt me unless a border fell or somebody important died.

The black glass of Lux Tower appeared between the surrounding buildings as I entered the city center. Security barriers had already risen around the garage for me, and armed guards watched every vehicle entering the block.

I bypassed the garage.

People needed to see me walk through the front doors. They needed to see blood on the assassin while the city remained standing behind him.

The tower doors opened before I reached them. Warm air rolled across my mask, carrying the scents of polished stone, expensive spellwork, and, faintly, flowers. Someone stood directly in my path.

A delivery girl faced the reception desk with her back to me, holding a black box against her hip while security examined the arrangement. She had a small frame beneath her dark delivery jacket, and a brown braid had slipped free from her collar. Her hands remained steady even with armed guards watching her from every side.

Probably some underpaid courier. I coughed. She shifted her weight but remained in my way. One of the guards saw me and straightened. “Sir.”

The woman turned and her eyes went wide at the sight of me. I saw her, and the world dropped out from under me. My breath vanished. The lobby shifted hard to the left before snapping into focus with enough force to make my vision pulse. Every sound became muffled beneath the roar of my own blood.

My neck burned.

The pain struck beneath my jaw, a searing line carved underneath my skin. Heat pulsed across my throat. The bond snapped into place so fast I stumbled. My elbow struck the edge of the security desk. The shadows around my boots spread across the polished floor in a violent rush before coming back under my control.

The girl worried the hem of the sleeve with her thumb and forced out the words, “Are you okay?”

I said nothing.

I couldn’t.

Her brown eyes remained fixed on my mask. A mouth wasn’t enough. The bond needed my true face and my eyes together. The mask buried both behind black metal.

The bond had opened for me.

Her side remained closed.

For one second, I forgot about Scarn, Hollowside, the border, and the war spreading through my city-state. Every part of my body reoriented toward the woman standing a few feet away. My shadows stretched toward her, eager to wrap around her ankles and drag her somewhere no one else could ever reach her.