"They've locked onto us!" Kai suddenly grabbed Astra's sleeve, his fingers trembling. "Lira, we need to move! Now!"
But the way back was already gone.
From within the crowd of the Night Market, figures began emerging like ghosts. Dark cloaks slipped through the masses, and beneath their hems glinted electro-whips and ion cutters. The surrounding people immediately sensed danger: merchants started folding their stalls, buyers scattered, and shouting turned into panicked running. The market was collapsing in real time—its regulars knew the rule well: when Glitch Hunters arrive, only those who run without questions survive.
At the center of the widening circle stood two Hunters. Their streamlined armor reflected neon light in cold fragments.
"Target: Anomaly A-01," one of them stated. The voice was perfectly clean, free of synthetic distortion—deep, calm, almost human. "Confirmed critical Omni-field distortion. Threat level: Alpha-Ω. Proceed with core extraction. Living priority maximum."
The second Hunter did not waste time on words.
He moved.
Not like a human.
He displaced through space in fractured bursts, as if reality itself skipped frames around him. The air cracked and warped. In his right hand, a spear of pure white light materialized—perfectly straight, pulsing with concentrated Omni-field energy.
Astra could not react in time.
Even her enhanced reflexes, amplified by Tanatos, were too slow for something at this level. The spear tip was already tearing through the air toward her chest.
"Too slow, little spark…" Tanatos sighed inside her mind, almost disappointed. "Watch. This is how space is properly handled."
At the exact moment the white spear should have pierced her chest, Astra's shadow on the dirty metal floor suddenly came alive.
It snapped upward, detaching from the surface, growing—expanding.
From a flat silhouette, it became a massive, pitch-black arm with long, curved violet claws. It materialized from nowhere—solid, tangible, real.
It caught the spear mid-flight.
A sound like shattering ice echoed through the entire hangar—high, crystalline, piercing reality itself.
The white glow of the spear began to fade, swallowed by absolute blackness. Omni-energy hissed and dissolved like acid dropped into alkali. The Hunter froze mid-air, his visor flashing violently through red and yellow warning cycles.
"Shadow… has density?" he rasped, his voice losing its perfect clarity for the first time. "Impossible. This violates the second law of thermodynamics and conservation laws—"
"My law is above yours," Astra said.
Her voice now came from both her own mouth and the shadow itself—dual, layered, ancient. It filled the entire hangar, forcing remaining traders to flee in terror.
The violet threads on her left shoulder flared so intensely they burned through her coat. The glowing pattern surfaced like a brand made of living fire.
The shadow arm clenched.
The Hunter's white spear shattered into millions of fading sparks, extinguished before they could reach the ground.
With a second, almost lazy motion, the massive black arm struck the Hunter.
The impact was catastrophic.
His armored body flew across the entire hangar like a rag doll, slamming into the far wall so violently the metal buckled and split. Armor crushed along with bones and implants. From beneath his visor mask poured blood mixed with blue coolant.
He slid down the wall and stopped moving.
The second Hunter froze completely. His visor flickered several times as internal protocols attempted recalibration.
The entire Night Market was now watching only them.
Astra slowly lowered her hand. The shadow limb still hovered beside her—huge, black, with pulsating violet veins. Its claws flexed gently, as if tasting the air.
Tanatos laughed softly inside her.
"See?" he whispered. "A shadow can become flesh. And flesh… can become shadow. Welcome to the next stage, little spark."
Astra stood in the center of the emptied circle, surrounded by the scent of ozone and fear. Her eyes glowed fully with deep violet light.
She was no longer hiding.
The shadow that became flesh had just announced itself to the entire market.
And now the entire Sector 01 would learn:
Anomaly A-01 was no longer running.
It had started answering back.