The Libeus Agency Headquarters was a fortress hidden in plain sight, buried beneath the city's financial district, accessible only to those who knew the codes and carried the clearance. Its walls were lined with screens, each one showing a different angle of the city, a different threat, a different crisis waiting to unfold.
The main screen, the largest one, dominated the far wall, and on it, the storm played out in real time.
The satellite above the city was not like other satellites. It had been designed by the Agency decades ago, its sensors calibrated to detect supernatural energy, its cameras equipped with filters that could see through snow and clouds and darkness.
Its primary function was not to spy on enemies or monitor troop movements. Its primary function was to erase.
Every civilian who pointed a phone at the storm, every journalist who tried to capture footage, every bystander who thought they were witnessing something ordinary—their recordings would be scrambled, their memories altered, their experiences replaced with something safe, something ordinary, something forgettable.
The Agency had been doing this for generations. They were good at it.
The woman who watched the main screen had hair the color of scarlet, red as blood, red as the setting sun.
Her eyes were red too, the red of a vampire, the red of something that had lived too long and seen too much.
She was the Chief of the Agency, and she had been in this position for longer than anyone knew.
She watched the footage.
The aura rising from the college campus was like a volcano, like a wound in the world, like something that should not exist. The storm that surrounded it was not natural. The snow that fell in the middle of the afternoon was not weather. It was grief. It was rage. It was the mourning of something that had lost its mate.
She had seen many things in her years. She had seen demons rise and fall. She had seen the birth of monsters and the death of gods. She had never seen anything like this.
"Status report," she said.
Her voice was calm. It was always calm.
An officer stepped forward, his tablet glowing with data, his face pale.
"One hundred twenty units have been dispatched. They are divided into three divisions. First division is memory removal. They are already on-site, erasing civilian recordings and altering memories. Second division is civilian assistance. They are evacuating the injured and securing the perimeter. Third division is the main party. They are approaching the source of the threat now."
The Chief nodded. "Phoenix?"
"Phoenix is with the third division. She is leading the assault."
The Chief's eyes returned to the screen. The woman with the black wings was still in the sky, still searching, still waiting. She had not moved. She had not attacked. She was looking for something. Or someone.
"Tell Phoenix to be careful," the Chief said. "That thing is not a demon. It is something else."
The officer nodded and relayed the message. The Chief watched the screen, and she waited.
The combat vehicles sped through the empty streets, their engines roaring, their lights cutting through the snow.
The storm was worse now, the wind howling, the visibility almost zero. But the drivers did not need to see. They had Monday, the Agency's AI, guiding them through the chaos.
Phoenix sat in the lead vehicle, her weapon across her lap, her mask hiding her face. She had been here before.
She had walked through the halls of John Bosco Culinary College, had sat in its classrooms, had cooked in its kitchens.
She knew the layout. She knew the shortcuts. She knew where the threat was.
The convoy reached the college gates.
The first and second divisions peeled off, heading toward the surrounding buildings, toward the civilians who had been caught in the storm. The third division continued straight, toward the field, toward the source of the threat.
The vehicles stopped. Phoenix stepped out. The snow was deep, already covering the grass, already hiding the bodies. But she could see them. The men in dark uniforms, scattered across the field, their bodies twisted, their faces frozen in terror.
Some had been thrown against the walls of the buildings. Some had been crushed by falling debris. Some had simply died, their minds unable to withstand the sound of the dragon's roar.
Her team fanned out, checking for survivors, securing the perimeter. Phoenix walked toward the center of the field, toward the place where the readings were strongest, toward the thing that had caused all of this.
She stopped.
A body lay on the grass. A young man, his face peaceful, his eyes closed, his lips curved in a smile. His shirt was soaked with blood, dark and dried, the stain spreading across his chest like a flower blooming. His hands were folded on his stomach, as if someone had placed them there, as if someone had cared enough to make him look comfortable.
Phoenix knelt.
Her mask was wet. She did not know when she had started crying. The tears fell from behind the mask, dripping onto the young man's face, mixing with the snow that was falling around them.
She touched his cheek. It was warm. He had not been dead long. His skin was still soft, still young, still alive in a way that made her chest ache.
"Yuuta," she whispered.
Her voice broke. She had not said his name in week. She had not allowed herself to think it, to speak it, to remember the boy who had sat beside her in that classroom, the boy with the red eyes who had been afraid of everything, the boy who had trusted her when no one else would.
She had left him.
She had walked away.
She had told herself it was for the best, that he would be safer without her, that she was doing him a favor. And now he was dead. Killed by men who did not know him, who had never met him, who had shot him for reasons she did not understand.
Her hand curled into a fist.
She looked up at the sky.
The woman with the black wings was still there, still hovering above the college, still searching. Her eyes were violet fire, her hair white as snow, her dress red as blood. She was beautiful, and terrible, and wrong.
Phoenix stood. Her hand moved to her weapon. Her voice, when she spoke, was cold.
"Target acquired," she said into her earpiece. "Moving to engage."
She did not wait for a response. She walked toward the woman in the sky, toward the storm, toward the thing that had taken Yuuta from her.
Before Phoenix could attack, Erza was gone.
Her speed was unmatched. One moment she was hovering above the college, her black wings spread against the storm-torn sky, her violet eyes scanning the chaos below. The next moment, she was a streak of white and red, cutting through the air, leaving behind a trail of snow and frozen light. The wind howled in her wake. The clouds parted and closed behind her, the storm following her like a loyal hound, like a shroud, like a promise.
She flew toward the port.
She did not know why. She did not know how. The memories she had taken from the sniper had imprinted themselves on her shattered mind, images burning into her grief-stricken consciousness. The faces of the eight men who had ordered the hit. The location where they gathered. The crimes they had committed, the sins they had piled upon sins, the lives they had destroyed without a second thought.
She did not think about what she would do when she found them. She did not think about anything. She only flew, and the storm flew with her.
The port was a cancer on the edge of the city, a place where ships came and went in the night, carrying things that should not be carried, to places that should not exist. The warehouses were old, rusted, their walls stained with salt and neglect. The containers were stacked like tombs, their colors faded, their contents hidden from the eyes of inspectors and investigators who had been paid to look the other way.
This was where the eight syndicates operated. This was where they planned their crimes, divided their profits, celebrated their victories. Drugs, weapons, human trafficking, forced prostitution, murder, extortion, rebellion—every sin that could be committed had been committed here, and the eight bosses had grown rich from the suffering of others.
They thought they were untouchable. They had made deals with demons, had sold their souls for power and protection. They had killed anyone who stood in their way, had crushed anyone who tried to stop them, had built their empire on the bones of the innocent.
They did not know that death was coming for them.
Erza landed on the port.
The ground shook beneath her feet.
The impact cracked the concrete, sent fissures spiderwebbing across the surface, knocked containers from their stacks like toys scattered by an angry child. The men who had been guarding the perimeter were thrown to the ground, their weapons flying from their hands, their bodies breaking against the frozen earth.
Some were crushed beneath falling containers, their screams cut short, their blood pooling beneath the steel.
The warehouse beside the port—a converted cargo building reinforced with steel doors and barred windows—shook on its foundations. The walls trembled. The windows shattered, glass raining down on the floor inside. The eight bosses, who had been waiting for news of the mission, who had been celebrating their imminent reward, felt the ground move beneath them.
Viktor Krov, the leader of the Eastern Syndicate, a man who had killed more people than he could count, looked at the others. His face was pale.
"What was that?"
Marcus Vane, the head of the Western Syndicate, a man who had built his fortune on the suffering of women and children, shook his head. "I don't know. But it felt like something landed on the port. Something heavy."
Soren Voss, the youngest of them, the most reckless, laughed nervously. "Something heavy? It felt like a bomb. Like the whole port was hit by a bomb."
Dmitri Volkov, a brute of a man who had earned his place through violence and fear, moved toward the window. Through the shattered frame, he could see the snow beginning to fall, thick and fast, covering the bodies of their men.
"The storm," he said. "It followed something."
"Or someone."
Elena Cross, the only woman among them, a creature of such cruelty that even the other bosses feared her, looked toward the door. Her hand moved to the weapon at her belt.
"Whoever it is," she said, "they will regret coming here."
Ivan Blackwood, Viktor's second-in-command, a man who had been with the syndicate since the beginning, nodded. "We should go outside. If it is the Demon King, we cannot keep him waiting."
The oldest among them, the most feared, the one who had started it all, spoke. His name was Cassius Vane, and he had been making deals with demons since before any of the others were born.
"It is not the Demon King," he said. His voice was low, steady, but his hands were shaking. "The Demon King does not announce himself with storms. He does not weep."
They looked at him.
"Weep?" Viktor asked.
Cassius did not answer. He walked toward the door, and the others followed.
The eight bosses stepped outside.
The snow was falling fast, covering the ground, covering the bodies of their men, covering everything in a blanket of white that should have been peaceful but was not. The wind howled, carrying with it the sound of something that might have been crying, something that might have been screaming, something that might have been both.
She was standing in the center of the port.
Her dress was red.
Not the white of the imperial gown she had worn when she first appeared in Yuuta's apartment, not the white of the dress he had bought her, the one with the golden flowering stripes.
Red.
Red from blood.
Red from the men she had already killed, from the sniper whose head she had crushed, from the bodies that lay scattered across the city behind her.
Her hair was silver, but it was streaked with red, stained by the blood that had splattered across her face, her neck, her hands. Her eyes were violet fire, glowing in the dim light of the port, and they were weeping.
Silent tears ran down her cheeks, cutting tracks through the blood, falling onto the snow that was already covering the ground.
She did not speak. She did not move. She simply stood there, surrounded by the bodies of their men, surrounded by the storm that had followed her from the college, surrounded by the grief that was so deep, so vast, so absolute that it had become something else entirely.
The eight bosses stared at her.
They had never seen anything like her. She was beautiful, in the way that a storm is beautiful, in the way that death is beautiful, in the way that something that has been broken beyond repair can still be beautiful. She radiated power, grief, rage, and something else—something that made their blood run cold and their hearts stop.
Dmitri Volkov was the first to speak. "Who is she? Is she one of the Demon King's generals? A high-ranking demon?"
Soren Voss shook his head. "I don't think so. I don't feel any killing intent from her. Just... grief."
"Grief?" Marcus Vane laughed, but there was no humor in it. "She just killed our men. She destroyed the port. And you think she is grieving?"
"She is crying," Elena Cross said. Her voice was quiet, almost soft. "Look at her face. She is crying."
They looked. She was crying. Silent tears, falling from her glowing eyes, cutting tracks through the blood on her cheeks. Her lips were pressed together. Her hands were clenched at her sides. Her whole body was trembling, shaking, falling apart.
Viktor Krov raised his weapon. "We should kill her. Before she kills us."
"Kill her?" Ivan Blackwood grabbed his arm. "What if she is a high-ranking demon? What if she serves the Demon King directly? If we kill her, we are rebelling against him. We would be signing our own death warrants."
"You idiot." Viktor shook him off. "If she served the Demon King, she would not have killed our men. She would not have come here alone. She would have announced herself. She would have—"
Cassius Vane stepped forward.
He was the oldest among them, the most feared, the one who had started it all. He had been making deals with demons since before any of the others were born. He had seen things that would make the younger men weep. He had done things that would make them run.
"Enough," he said. "She is not a demon. She is not a general. She is not a messenger." He paused, his eyes fixed on Erza's face. "She is something else. Something worse."
He raised his hand to give the order to fire.
Erza's eyes found him.
Her gaze moved across the eight bosses, one by one, memorizing their faces, marking them. Viktor Krov. Marcus Vane. Soren Voss. Dmitri Volkov. Elena Cross. Ivan Blackwood.
Therese Ashworth, who had been silent until now, her face hidden in the shadow of her hood. And Cassius Vane, the oldest, the most feared, the one who had started it all.
She did not speak. She did not move. She simply looked at them, and they felt it. Grief. Rage. Death. It washed over them like a wave, like a tide, like something that could not be stopped.
The men who had been pointing their weapons at her, who had been surrounding her, who had been waiting for the order to fire—they lowered their guns. Their hands were shaking. Their faces were pale. They could not breathe. They could not think. They could only stand there, frozen, as the woman in the red dress wept.
The eight bosses felt it too. Their legs gave out. Their bladders released. They fell to their knees, their hands pressed to the ground, their heads bowed. They did not know why. They only knew that they were in the presence of something that should not exist, something that had no mercy, something that would not stop until they were dead.
Cassius Vane, the oldest, the most feared, the one who had started it all—he looked up at her. His face was pale. His hands were shaking. His voice, when it came, was barely a whisper.
"Who are you?"
Erza did not answer.
She could not answer.
Her grief was too deep. Her rage was too vast. Her mind was too shattered to form words, to form thoughts, to form anything except the need to destroy.
She raised her hand.
The snow fell faster.
The ice spread wider.
And the eight bosses, who had killed so many, who had destroyed so many lives, who had thought themselves untouchable—they waited for death to take them.
To be continued...