The bright, sterile light stabbed at Kade Ren's eyelids. He blinked against it, trying to force his heavy, sluggish body to move. But pain flared sharp and unforgiving across his ribs, and his breath caught.
The unfamiliar scent of antiseptic filled his nostrils, mingling with the low hum of machines and distant voices. He wasn't in any place he recognized. His fingers twitched, testing strength that felt stolen. Tubes and wires were tethered to him like chains.
He forced his eyes open wider. The room was a white prison—walls too clean, too bright, as if all warmth had been drained from the world. The beeping of a monitor beside him was steady, but it sounded alien to his ears.
"Patient stable," came a voice from outside the door, soft but clinical. "Memory loss is severe…"
Kade's jaw clenched. Memory loss? That wasn't a word someone like him was supposed to hear. In his line of work, every detail mattered. Forgetting was not an option.
Fragments of a nightmare surfaced, stabbing at his mind like shards of glass—betrayal in cold darkness, blood spilled on cracked stone, a mission gone disastrously wrong. And then, nothing.
His mind felt blank, hollow in the spaces where memories should be.
A sudden pulse hummed beneath his skull—a faint, almost imperceptible vibration that whispered secrets just beyond his grasp. It wasn't pain. Not exactly. More like a flicker of something ancient awakening deep inside.
And then the words appeared, glowing in the corners of his vision like a message meant only for him:
Welcome, Shadowbound User. Initiating link...
He blinked, disoriented, unsure if it was a hallucination or some strange trick of the mind. But the words were real. Clear.
A system? What kind of cruel joke was this?
Kade's fingers curled into fists. Years of training, silent kills, disappearing into shadows—could it all be undone by some cryptic "system" implant?
Yet beneath the shock, curiosity sparked. The promise of power, control, answers.
He focused, forcing his mind to steady. He wasn't the same man who woke up in this sterile room. The past had betrayed him. Left him for dead. But now—now he had a chance.
A chance to rise.
Outside the door, footsteps approached, slow and cautious. Kade shifted, testing his body again, muscles weak but determined. His lips pressed into a hard line.
This city hides secrets darker than he ever imagined. The syndicate that once ruled the shadows had turned its back on him.
But shadows were his domain. And from the deepest darkness, he would claw his way back.
Whatever this Shadow System was, it was the key—a weapon forged in mystery and ancient power.
And Kade Ren intended to master it.
Because some debts only the dead can repay.