She glanced one last time over the neon skyline, then simply stepped off the ledge.
The freezing wind brushed violently against her coat as she plummeted toward the subterranean entrance of the Ashen Bazaar. She did not panic or brace for impact. Seconds before hitting the ground, a localized cushion of spatial pressure flared beneath her boots, and she landed on the cold concrete in absolute, terrifying silence.
The hunt had begun.
Rina stood before the heavy reinforced steel door of Sector Four, the first location pinging on her mental map. She did not bother trying the lock. She simply raised a single finger and traced a horizontal line in the air.
A razor-sharp wave of spatial pressure sliced cleanly through the solid steel hinges. The massive blast door fell backward, slamming against the concrete floor with a deafening thud.
She stepped over the fallen metal into the bunker. Four syndicate guards stared at her, their weapons only halfway raised.
"One, two, three, four," Rina counted calmly.
She snapped her fingers. Four invisible needles of highly compressed mana fired instantly, piercing straight through their foreheads. The guards dropped to the floor in perfect unison, their blood pooling on the cold concrete. They were dead before they even realized they were under attack.
She stepped over their bodies and walked out the back exit. This was going to be a long night.
For the next eight hours, Rina did not fight. Fighting implied a struggle, a chaotic exchange of gunfire and blows. This was a hostile takeover executed by a single person. The Ashen Bazaar was massive, but her mental map was absolute. She moved like a phantom hitman through the subterranean labyrinth, tracking the glowing blue beacons in her mind.
Every hideout, every bunker, every fortified safe house was systematically cleared. When thugs tried to barricade themselves inside secure rooms, she manipulated the spatial pressure inside, violently snapping their necks with a sharp twist of her wrist. When a desperate squad tried to ambush her in a narrow alleyway, invisible spatial garrotes materialized out of the shadows, choking the life out of them in complete silence.
She did not turn them to ash. She left the bodies exactly where they fell. Syndicate members were left slumped over poker tables, bleeding out on the pavement, and hanging lifelessly over metal railings. It was a cold, methodical, mafia-style cleansing.
Panic spread through The Root's communication channels like a virus. The static crackled with the desperate screams of men who realized they were not fighting a rival gang. They were being hunted by a firing squad they could not even see.
The numbers in her head continued to climb with a rhythmic, deadly certainty.
Eighty-two. Three hundred and fourteen. Seven hundred and fifty.
For most of the night, her blue eyes never lost their glow. She was not a warrior seeking glory. She was a professional tying up loose ends.
By the time the first rays of morning sunlight hit the surface of the city miles above, a chilling, absolute silence had overtaken the entire Ashen Bazaar. The bustling, ruthless underground market was now a massive graveyard.
Rina stood alone in the center of the subterranean plaza. Her pristine coat was now covered in heavy splashes of blood. Her chest heaved as she panted, the sheer physical toll of executing a thousand complex mathematical calculations finally catching up to her. Yet, she stood tall among the corpses. She was a monster, and she was not finished yet.
They did not know it yet, but history would later record that single, blood-soaked night in the underground under a very specific title.
The Massacre of Root.
Miles away from the blood-soaked concrete of the Ashen Bazaar, the true heart of The Root operated in perfect safety.
Their inner sanctum was not hidden in a damp subterranean cave. It was located on the top floor of a pristine, glass-walled skyscraper in the center of the Capital District. The entire city sector was a fortress of political corruption. The ruling political party had heavily subsidized the building, and fully armed state police guarded the lobby round the clock.
Taproot and his executives were legally untouchable. Any official strike against this building would be treated as an act of terrorism against the government itself.
Inside the luxurious boardroom, Taproot sat perfectly still at the head of a massive oak table. The bloodlust atmosphere from the night before had doubled into something much darker.
A breathless, trembling scout stood in the doorway. The bottoms of his boots were stained red, and his eyes were wide with a vacant, shattered terror.
"Report," Taproot commanded quietly.
The scout swallowed hard, his voice cracking. "The entire Ashen Bazaar. Every sector, every level. It is completely silent."
"And the men?" Taproot asked, his grip resting lightly on the wood.
"Executed," the scout whispered, trembling violently. "We found them slumped in their chairs and dropped in the hallways. Precise holes in their heads and severed throats, but we did not find a single bullet casing. The death toll is at a thousand. Exactly one thousand, sir. In a single night."
Taproot closed his eyes. The suffocating silence in the room stretched on for a long moment. The scout stood frozen in the doorway, expecting a scream, an explosion of rage, or a panicked order to retreat.
Instead, Taproot simply waved his hand. "Leave us."
The scout practically scrambled out of the room, desperate to escape the heavy tension. The thick wooden doors clicked shut, leaving Taproot alone with his top four executives. These were the elite. The absolute highest-ranking killers in his syndicate, men who had built their reputations on mountains of corpses.
There was not a single trace of fear on their faces. Instead, the remaining executives at the table sat in joyous, suffocating excitement. A dark, electric anticipation filled the room.
"A thousand street rats," one of the executives scoffed. A cruel smile spread across his scarred face as he looked out the floor-to-ceiling window at the glittering city skyline. "She saved us the trouble of paying them this month. Taproot, we have been suffocating up here playing politicians. It has been years since the Morozovs sent a figure worth killing."
"Do not underestimate her," Taproot replied, though his voice was a calm, dangerous rumble. He leaned back in his leather chair. "The Morozovs think their little lapdog can provoke us with a single night of bloodshed. But if she steps foot in this district, she will be declaring war on the ruling party itself."
He reached for a silver lighter on the table, casually flicking the lid open and shut. The metallic click echoed loudly in the quiet room.
"We will continue with the plan exactly as discussed," Taproot stated with absolute finality. "Nothing changes. Our timetable remains intact."
He stood up, his towering figure casting a long, heavy shadow over the polished wood. The faint blue residual burn of Rina's mana still ached deep beneath his tattooed skin, a reminder of the power currently hunting them.
"But as for our immediate problem," Taproot continued, his dark eyes locking onto the four men seated around him. "We cannot have a rabid dog running loose in our outer territories."
The four executives slowly stood up from their chairs. The sheer bloodlust radiating from them was suffocating. They had been waiting for this exact moment.
"You four are the roots that hold this syndicate together," Taproot ordered, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Go downstairs. Find this Fang. And kill her."