The VIP lounge was an island of hedonism, suspended above the squalor of the city.
The air was heavy with the aroma of charcoal-grilled meats and the biting fragrance of high-end stimulants. Unlike the stiff formality of the ballroom upstairs, this space was raw, loud, and dangerous. Here, the elite Vanguard recruits and their handlers let the masks slip. They toasted to their survival, to their bonuses, and to the corpses they had stepped over to get here.
Liam moved through the doorway like a drift of smoke.
The service elevator had deposited him in a dimly lit alcove near the bar. His muscles felt tight—unnaturally so. The stolen silver energy of the Silver Aegis was coiled beneath his skin, vibrating with a frequency that felt like a low-grade fever. It didn't belong to him, and his body knew it. Every few seconds, his fingers would twitch with a phantom heat, a sensory echo of Marcus's last moments.
Focus, he told himself, the cold logic of the Mimic's heart acting as an anchor. Let the silence breathe.
He adjusted the heavy cowl of his cloak. To anyone who glanced his way, he was just another E-Rank logistics worker, a faceless ghost sent to refill the ice or clear the empty crystal glasses. In a room full of peacocks preening their shimmering mana-auras, a sparrow was invisible.
At the center of a circular leather booth sat Miller.
He was exactly as Liam remembered: broad-shouldered, with a booming, obnoxious laugh that seemed to vibrate in the very glasses on the table. He was surrounded by three young recruits—two men and a woman—who hung on his every word as if he were a prophet.
"So there we are," Miller shouted over the thumping bass of the music, gesturing wildly with a half-empty bottle of amber liquid. "The rift is closing, the walls are screaming, and the porters are losing their damn minds. One of them—a scrawny kid—actually tries to grab my boot. Can you believe the balls on that guy?"
The recruits laughed, the sound sharp and grating.
"What did you do, Miller?" the woman asked, her eyes glittering with a mixture of awe and cruelty.
Miller grinned, a wet, jagged expression. "I kicked him back into the dark. I told him: 'Rank has its privileges, kid. Try dying with some dignity.' You should have heard the sound of the door locking over their screams. Cleanest sound I've ever heard."
Liam's hand tightened around the tray he had picked up from a nearby station. The silver energy beneath his skin flared, a white-hot spike that threatened to break his E-Rank camouflage. For a fleeting second, the image of the vault's cold floor flashed in his mind—the smell of ozone, the darkness, and the vibration of Miller's laughter through the steel.
He took a slow, deliberate breath. The anger didn't burn; it crystallized.
He began to move.
He didn't approach from the front. He drifted through the periphery, weaving between the high-backed chairs and the clusters of drunken hunters. He arrived behind Miller's booth just as a waiter passed by with a tray of shooters.
"Refills?" Liam's voice was a low, rasping murmur, muffled by his mask.
Miller didn't even look up. He just waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah. Put 'em down and get lost, grunt."
Liam leaned over the back of the booth. As he set the glasses down, he allowed his shadow to fall over Miller's shoulder. It was a subtle displacement, a coldness that seemed to bleed from his very presence.
Miller's laughter faltered. He shivered, rubbing his neck. "Damn, is the AC on full blast back here?"
"It's the draft from the cellar," Liam whispered.
Miller froze. That specific word—cellar—hit him like a physical blow. He turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowing as he tried to peer beneath Liam's hood. "What did you say?"
"The dark gets very hungry, Miller," Liam said, his voice now clear, stripped of its worker-drone persona. "It remembers the sound of the door."
Miller scrambled to stand, his chair sliding back with a loud screech. The recruits looked on in confusion, their smiles fading into uneasy frowns. "Who the hell are you? Security! We've got a crazy—"
Miller's words died in his throat.
Liam reached out and gripped Miller's forearm. The Silver Aegis—stolen, refracted, and vengeful—surged through Liam's hand. But it wasn't a shield this time. He used the silver mana as a conductor for the Mimic's black filth.
Miller's arm turned a sickly, translucent grey. He tried to scream, but the air in his lungs felt like it had turned to lead.
"Miller? What's wrong?" one of the recruits asked, reaching for her weapon.
Liam didn't give them the chance.
He didn't need to kill them all—not yet. He only needed the target. With a violent jerk, he pulled Miller over the back of the booth and into the darkness of the service corridor behind them. It happened so fast, so fluidly, that to the rest of the room, it looked like Miller had simply stumbled into the shadows.
In the narrow, dimly lit hallway, Liam slammed Miller against the wall. The hunter's Silver-Rank strength was useless; the black mana was already eating his neural pathways, short-circuiting his ability to fight back.
"You..." Miller gasped, his eyes bulging as he finally recognized the cold, dead gaze beneath the hood. "The porter... the kid..."
"I'm the one who didn't die with dignity," Liam said, his voice as sharp as the broken blade he now pressed against Miller's throat.
The noise of the party continued just a few feet away—the music, the cheering, the clinking of glasses. It was a symphony of the oblivious.
Liam felt the Mimic's heart begin to hammer against his ribs. It wasn't fear. It was the thrill of the harvest. He could feel Miller's life-force, his skills, his very essence vibrating in terror.
"Tonight, Miller," Liam whispered, leaning in until their foreheads touched, "you're going to find out exactly what's on the other side of that door."
The silver light beneath Liam's skin pulsed one last time before fading into a total, predatory black.