Flashing blue and red emergency lights finally cut through the thick, settling dust of St. Petersburg. Far below Rina, the surviving members of Squadron A cautiously emerged from their shattered cover. They stared in absolute awe at the mountainous, ruined corpse of the Dagonar sprawling across the intersection.
Rina did not stay to accept their salutes.
The raw adrenaline that had fueled her massive spell was already beginning to crash. It left behind a heavy, hollow ache deep within her biological muscle fibers. She gave the syndicate cleanup captain a single, dismissive nod to begin harvesting the monster's lucrative remains. Then, she signaled for her extraction.
The helicopter flight back to Moscow was a cold blur of roaring rotor blades and icy crosswinds. By the time the heavily armored aircraft touched down on the private helipad of the Black Fangs headquarters, the dark night was already bleeding into the bitter, early hours of the morning. Rina's tactical boots felt like they were cast from solid lead as she stepped off the freezing roof. She dragged herself into the private elevator, her deadpan eyes watching the digital floor numbers tick down, down, down.
At the very heart of Moscow, the syndicate headquarters stood as a towering black fortress rising above the skyline. Its architectural presence radiated an aura so oppressive that only the absolute strongest dared to cross its public threshold.
The heavy door to her forty-fifth-floor suite creaked open. It moved slowly and heavily, as though the person pushing it had spent the very last of their kinetic strength just reaching the handle.
"Aaahhh. I am so tired," Rina groaned, her voice dragging across the quiet room.
The space that greeted her was no ordinary operative quarters. Reserved exclusively for Morozov's Fang, it was a breathtaking blend of national prestige and absolute power. It was a space earned strictly through blood and tactical brilliance. Pristine white walls edged with intricate veins of gold gleamed faintly under the crystal chandelier light. A massive, preserved monster skull hung proudly above the dark mantle, its curved horns polished to a brutal shine. Beyond the lavish velvet furniture stretched massive floor-to-ceiling windows. They offered a breathtaking panoramic sweep of Moscow's night skyline, the countless glass towers glittering like fallen constellations scattered across the frozen earth.
Rina trudged inside. Her posture was completely slouched, her arms swinging limply at her sides. She collapsed forward onto the velvet sofa with a graceless, heavy thud, sinking deeply into its expensive embrace. One gloved hand groped lazily across the soft cushions until her fingers brushed against the television remote. Without bothering to lift her face from the velvet, she pointed it blindly at the massive screen and clicked.
The dark room filled with the low, buzzing hum of static, followed by a burst of bright light as the nighttime news broadcast blared across the speakers.
A female reporter stood tense before the camera, a microphone gripped tightly in her hand. The catastrophic corpse of the Dagonar loomed directly behind her like a dark, bleeding mountain.
"Earlier tonight, the commercial district of St. Petersburg suffered a massive dungeon outbreak. Structural damages are already estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars." The reporter paused, her professional expression shifting into practiced relief. "Fortunately, no civilians were harmed. The dungeon entity was neutralized by the National Mafia Group, the Black Fangs. Though they prevented a catastrophic loss of life, local citizens remain deeply angered by the sheer devastation left behind."
The live feed suddenly shifted to a shaky street interview. A civilian man, the veins bulging furiously in his neck, gestured wildly at the camera lens.
"Could the government not stop this before it happened? Why do they wait until Class A monsters are running wild in our streets? Are you syndicate people not supposed to be the strong ones? At this rate, how many more of our homes will burn before you get your act together?"
Before his furious tirade could escalate any further, his terrified wife grabbed his arm and forcefully dragged him back inside their ruined apartment building. The reporter chuckled awkwardly, desperately trying to lighten the heavy, televised mood.
"I suppose that is a husband's fate." She then turned her microphone toward a small boy standing near the police barricade, his wide eyes fixed squarely on the syndicate cleanup crews. "And you, young man. What do you think of tonight's terrifying events?"
"Huh?" The boy blinked, startled by the camera, before finally finding his courage. He glanced back at the towering monster's corpse, then looked directly into the lens. "The woman who killed it. She is cooler than Viktor."
The reporter completely froze. Her cheeks flushed a deep, panicked red before she violently yanked the microphone away and forced a terrified smile. "And that concludes our St. Petersburg segment. Back to you in the studio."
The television screen went black with a sharp, echoing click.
Rina sighed, leaning back into the sofa as her golden blonde hair spilled lazily over the dark cushions. "Of course I am cooler than that old bastard," she muttered under her breath.
The opulent apartment fell into a comfortable, heavy silence. It was broken only by the faint hum of the sprawling city beyond her reinforced window.
Until the front door slammed violently open.
"THE BEAM OF DEATH!" a familiar voice shrieked at the absolute top of its lungs.
Rina did not even flinch. Her expression instantly flatlined into a mask of pure, apathetic exhaustion. She sank deeper into the sofa, slowly crossing her arms.
The intruder did not stop. Instead, she marched directly into the center of the living room, lifting one hand dramatically toward the crystal chandelier. She repeated the phrase with a slow, agonizingly mocking drawl. "The beeeam of deaaath."
Rina slowly turned her head, her deadpan blue eyes finally meeting the intruder's gaze. Elena was grinning from ear to ear, her eyes glinting with absolute menace and mischief.
"Really, Rina? The Beam of Death?" Elena completely lost her composure, bursting into laughter so hard she physically doubled over, clutching her stomach. "What is with you and your corny spell names?"
Rina scowled, the exhaustion weighing heavily on her eyelids. "Shut your mouth, Elena. It sounded much cooler in my head."
That only made it worse. Elena straightened up just long enough to wag a condemning finger at the anomaly, then collapsed into another helpless fit of laughter. "'It sounded much cooler in my head,'" she mimicked flawlessly between gasps, actual tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
Rina pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache blossoming behind her eyes. "I get it. Alright. That is enough."
Elena smirked, still breathless from her mocking laughter. "Stop lying to yourself, Rina."
Groaning, Rina grabbed a heavy velvet throw pillow, half-considering launching it across the room at her friend's head with lethal kinetic force. "Fine. You win. Now tell me the truth. Why are you actually here?"
As if the world had been suddenly muted, the ambient atmosphere in the room grew instantly heavy. The mocking laughter that had filled the suite mere seconds ago died completely in Elena's throat. Her expression sharpened into something cold and entirely unreadable. She crossed the living room with steady, tactical steps, her boots soft against the polished floorboards.
In the open kitchen, she reached into the cabinet for a ceramic mug. She busied herself with the expensive coffee beans and sugar, acting as though the sudden, suffocating weight of her silence explained everything.
Finally, Elena spoke. Her tone was level, clinical, and strictly business. "Viktor called me. He asked me to relay some highly classified information to you."
Rina straightened up on the sofa, genuine curiosity finally edging through her exhaustion. "What kind of information?"
Elena poured the dark beans into the automated machine, the low, grinding noise filling the tense pause in the room. "He said the recent dungeon outbreaks are strange. Too strange. And somehow, the Legal Headquarters has not flagged a single anomaly in the national grid."
Rina scoffed, rolling her blue eyes. "That just proves how completely incompetent his intelligence team is."
Unmoved by the insult, Elena continued, her cold tone cutting effortlessly through the air. "He suspects a third party is actively involved."
That phrase pulled Rina's absolute focus. "A third party?"
"Think about the mathematics," Elena said, leaning her hip against the marble counter as the coffee machine hissed. "For years, the Russian Lands only experienced single-digit outbreaks annually. It was stable. It was entirely predictable. But this year? We are barely three months into the calendar, and the total count has already doubled."
Rina's lips parted slightly, feeling the true weight of the situation settle deeply in her chest. "That does not add up. Even with the strongest mana-hiding artifacts on the market, Viktor should have traced something by now."
Elena retrieved her dark coffee, the steam rising like a ghost into the cold air. She walked slowly back toward the living room doorway. She leaned casually against the frame, but her dark eyes were as sharp as shattered glass. "Exactly."
Rina frowned, her mind spinning through the tactical variables. "So what is his actual theory?"
"He wanted to dismiss it as unusually fast dungeon metabolism." Elena took a slow, calculated sip of her coffee. "But when he dug deeper into the syndicate archives, he found a pattern. Every single major outbreak this year came from dungeons that were already officially scheduled for guild raids. Not a single one was left unattended. Viktor thinks there is a third, terrifying possibility."
Rina's breath hitched in her throat. "Which is?"
"Someone, or something, is artificially accelerating the dungeon aging process."
The silence that followed pressed heavily against the white walls of the suite. Rina stared at her friend, completely incredulous. "Is that even magically possible?"
"We do not know." Elena's sharp eyes softened for the briefest, most vulnerable moment. "But you know Viktor better than anyone. He is never wrong."
Rina turned her head away, her deadpan gaze drifting back to the sprawling city lights beyond the glass. The faint, exhausted reflection of her own face stared back at her.
"That," she admitted softly, her lips tightening into a grim line, "I cannot deny. Working exclusively with the variables we have just discussed, there is only one logical conclusion. Someone is intentionally weaponizing the dungeons to dismantle the Black Fangs politically."
Elena's eyes widened in genuine surprise, a small, impressed smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. "You really are a tactical genius. That is the exact same conclusion I reached."
Her tone carried obvious, warm admiration. But Rina only sighed. Her small shoulders slumped forward with profound disappointment. When she spoke, her voice was low, cutting, and entirely devoid of pride.
"...But is that not just common sense?"
The blunt words pierced significantly deeper than any physical blade. Elena completely froze in the doorway, her warm smile faltering into a rigid line.
"Oh." Elena forced a brittle, hollow laugh, desperately masking the sudden sting of the casual insult. "Well. I will see you around then."
She turned quickly toward the heavy door, but she paused, her hand resting hesitantly on the metal frame. Without looking back into the room, her voice dropped into something much quieter, much colder.
"Viktor said you should be very careful."
And then the heavy door clicked shut, leaving only the deafening silence and the weight of her dark warning behind.