Elior didn't sleep that night.
Sleep was for the innocent, for those who had nothing to fear from the weight of their own choices. He stood atop a rooftop, black flames swirling silently around him as the city sprawled below—so beautiful in its slumber, so oblivious to the rot hiding beneath its polished steel surface.
The first name on the list was gone.
Rhys Valen.
Reduced to ash.
But it hadn't brought the peace Elior expected. If anything, the kill had carved something deeper into him—a hollow space where guilt used to live. Not remorse. No. That part of him had died alongside his sister. What remained now was cold, quiet, and focused.
> [Target Eliminated: 1/100]
Next Target: Dr. Isa Mevron
Affiliation: Hero Authority – Division of Genetic Enhancement
Status: Active Participant in Project Revenant
Threat Level: Moderate
Last Seen: Tier-6 Research Compound, Nova District
He narrowed his eyes.
Project Revenant.
The name tasted bitter. Elior had heard whispers about it before—rumors of illegal augmentations, unauthorized experiments, and "failures" that never made it to the news. But none of it had ever been confirmed. Not until now. Not until Liana died.
If Dr. Mevron had a hand in it, she was next.
Nova District was nothing like the Skyspire.
It wasn't built for the elite, or even the comfortable. It was a grid of silence and secrecy, a concrete maze of labs, factories, and government facilities surrounded by watchtowers and drones. Getting in was a death sentence for most.
But Elior wasn't most.
Cloaked in shadow, his form twisted and rippled, blending with the dark like a phantom. He moved through checkpoints like smoke, his presence masked by the Villain System's passive field: [Veil of the Forsaken], which rendered him invisible to electronic surveillance and minor detection spells.
He reached the compound within an hour.
Towering walls loomed in front of him, lined with arcane glyphs and auto-turrets. A normal assault would've triggered a lockdown. But Elior didn't believe in brute force.
Not anymore.
He reached into the system, invoking one of his new abilities.
> [Skill Used: Nightmare Echo]
Manifest a temporary illusion crafted from the target's deepest fear.
A single guard patrolled the eastern access gate. Elior focused on the man's mind. A moment later, the soldier dropped his rifle and screamed—backpedaling as he swung wildly at invisible attackers.
Elior walked past him like a ghost.
The rest of the facility wasn't hard to navigate. He followed blueprints embedded into his system map, weaving through sterile corridors, each lined with glass rooms where test subjects floated in vats. Children. Teens. Their eyes closed, wires sprouting from their heads like parasite roots.
They weren't soldiers.
They were resources.
His jaw tightened.
And then he saw her.
Dr. Isa Mevron.
Tall, poised, and dressed in white, her silver hair tied in a perfect braid. She stood in the observation deck above a chamber filled with green mist and pulsing energy—a prototype stabilization core. One misstep and the whole place would go nova.
"You're him," she said as he entered, without even turning. "The traitor."
"I'm the consequence," Elior replied.
She finally looked at him—and her lips curled into a smirk. "Do you think you're the first hero to fall?"
"No," he said. "But I'll be the last."
Lightning-fast, she activated a security rune—but the moment she touched it, the console sparked and exploded in her face. Elior had already corrupted the system with [Inversion Sigil], a new passive that flipped enchantments against their user.
Her scream was brief.
He approached her calmly, black flames dancing in his hand.
"Why?" he asked.
"You wouldn't understand," she spat, blood dripping from her chin. "We were building something… something beyond the system. Beyond weakness."
"You mean enslaving the powerless."
"Empowering the few to save the many."
"You murdered my sister."
Dr. Mevron coughed and looked up at him with defiance. "And I'd do it again."
So he showed her no mercy.
The flames consumed her, silent and absolute. No explosion. No trace.
> [Target Eliminated: 2/100]
New Skill Gained: Soulbrand – Mark a victim's dying essence to locate their co-conspirators.
Title Gained: The Whisper in the Dark
Threat Assessment: Growing. The Republic has classified you as a Level A Threat.
Elior exhaled slowly.
The world was starting to notice.
Back at his safehouse—a forgotten sub-basement of an abandoned metro line—Elior sat in the dark, his eyes scanning the holographic network he'd stolen from the Hero Authority.
Every kill gave him more pieces. More access. More truth.
And with that truth came new names.
The list was growing.
But so was the danger.
> [System Alert]
A-Class Hunter Dispatched: Kill Order Authorized
Targeting: Elior Caelum (Codename: Shadow Sovereign)
A flicker of interest passed through his mind.
So they were sending someone after him.
He opened the file and saw the hunter's face.
His former best friend.
Asher Vane.