The outer districts had already gone up in flames when Lucifer struck the first street.
Not in the usual sense. The damage was clean, though the lines of destruction had been precise. Walls opened, patrol routes fell, and local defenders crumpled before forming a proper line - the hunters had not come as an army, but as separate cells, aiming to reach the palace core and recovery halls from different angles
"Three confirmed cell incursions into the rim," Lucian's voice snapped across the emergency channel. "One working through the black market wards, one skirting the sky bridges... and one trying to run silent through the old blood tunnels under the third district. They are not random, but mapping a path to the deep halls."
"They want the recovery rooms," Aeloria said as she landed beside Lucifer on a cracked rooftop, starfire coiling around her hands in tight bands. "Damaris and Lilith first. You second if the path opens."
