Chapter 70 — The Hand of Jared
The silence before disaster is never quiet.
It is heavy. Thick. A pressure that fills the lungs until breathing feels like treachery. Silva felt it in the stone beneath his boots, felt it in the iron around his bones, felt it whispering through the glowing fist clenched at his side.
The city had not recovered from the siege of the previous night. Smoke still curled from broken rooftops. Streetlights flickered like dying stars. The people had locked themselves indoors, as if walls were enough to keep the darkness outside.
Silva knew better.
This wasn't about buildings.
This wasn't about territory.
This was about him.
And tonight… Jared was coming.
Beneath his feet, the rift pulsed again. Slow. Controlled. Watchful. The First Fist was… alert. Not raging. Not sleeping. Waiting. Listening.
Silva crouched at the edge of the shattered overpass, watching the fog gather below. Kael materialized out of the smoke, his expression grim.
"He's here," Kael said quietly.
Silva didn't turn. "I know."
"You can feel him?"
"I can feel the entire city flinching."
A low vibration passed through the edge of the overpass. Then another. Then another. Footsteps…but not from one man.
An army.
Out of the fog, they emerged.
The Hand.
Dozens at first. Then hundreds. Figures clothed in black fabric that absorbed all light. Their eyes gleamed faintly with unnatural reflection. Not human not anymore. Something between belief and corruption.
And at the center…
Jared.
He walked forward like a king walking into fire, slow and deliberate. No weapon in his hands. No armor on his body. Just a long black coat, dragging through the ash. His eyes, however, burned red with something ancient, something earned.
He stopped a few meters away from Silva, staring up at him.
"So this is what you've become," Jared said, his voice echoing unnaturally. "A guardian chained to a dead city."
Silva jumped down from the overpass, landing in front of him. The impact cracked the concrete. His fist glowed brighter.
"And you," Silva replied calmly, "are worse than I imagined."
Jared smiled. That smile had once been human.
"I am evolution," Jared said. "You're an accident that should never have happened."
Behind him, the army stood motionless, waiting for one word.
One gesture.
The tension wrapped around Silva like barbed wire.
"You remember who I was, don't you?" Jared continued. "You remember the things I believed in. The things we talked about when the world still made sense."
"You were weak," Silva said. "Now you're poison."
Jared's eyes flared brighter. "No. I was blind. And now I see everything. I see what's under this city. I see the First Fist. I hear it calling to me."
The ground trembled.
The rift answered.
A low groan echoed from below, like something massive shifting in its sleep.
Silva felt it. The ancient presence. It stirred… not in fear… but in interest.
"Its power will belong to me," Jared said. "And when it does, you will kneel… or break."
Silva stepped forward. "You'll never reach it."
Jared raised one hand.
The entire army moved.
Like a tide of shadows, they rushed forward without sound. No screams. No war cries.
Just pure, silent violence.
Silva exploded into motion. He met the first wave with a blinding flare of golden light. Bodies flew backward as energy clashed with darkness. Steel met flesh. Power met will.
But they didn't stop.
They kept coming.
Kael joined the fight, his corrupted energy now turned into fury against the very thing that had poisoned him. Together they fought, back to back, surrounded by an ocean of black.
Strike.
Turn.
Block.
Break.
Breathe.
Silva's fist shone like a second sun in the night, each blow shattering the ground and forcing the shadows to retreat — but only for seconds before rushing back in.
And through it all… Jared walked forward.
Untouched.
Unrushed.
He passed between his own soldiers as Silva battled them, walking calmly toward the rift. Toward the trembling earth. Toward the source.
"Silva!" Kael shouted. "He's ignoring the battle!"
Silva saw it. Panic tightened his chest.
Jared wasn't there to fight.
He was there to claim.
With a violent surge of energy, Silva blasted a clearing through the army and rushed toward him, leaving a trail of gold behind his steps. Jared finally turned, smiling.
"You're late," he said.
Silva swung.
Jared lifted his hand.
Black energy wrapped around Silva's fist, stopping it inches from Jared's face. The golden glow flickered for the first time.
Silva froze.
Shock rippled through him.
Jared was holding back the Iron Fist.
"You don't understand it yet," Jared whispered. "But it already knows me."
The rift convulsed. The underground chains strained violently. A dark-gold pulse erupted downward, and a voice — ancient and infinite — brushed Silva's mind.
Not a command.
A question.
Which of you… carries iron within the soul?
Silva screamed and broke free, slamming Jared backward. Jared skidded across the ground, laughing as he rose again.
"You heard it, didn't you?" he said excitedly. "It spoke! It knows there are two of us worthy of standing before it."
"You're not worthy!" Silva roared. "You're a disease!"
Jared stretched his arms wide to the army. "Then why do they follow me? Why does darkness obey me?"
The ground behind him split wider. A massive, glowing pattern appeared – ancient symbols burned into the stone. The seal of the First Fist, awakening.
Silva realized it with chilling clarity.
This was not an attack.
This was a ritual.
And he was standing in the center of it.
"You don't have to die here," Jared said. "Join me. Together, we can rewrite this world. Two Iron Fists. One purpose."
Silva's answer was a step forward… and a blaze of light.
His entire body erupted in golden fire. The darkness around him peeled back like fear.
"I don't share destiny," he said. "I protect it."
He drove his shining fist into the ground.
The impact shattered the ritual markings. Light burst into the sky like a rising sun, blasting the shadows outward in a colossal wave. The army of the Hand screamed for the first time, their silence broken as they were thrown back.
Jared stumbled, eyes wide.
The rift stabilized… for now.
Silva stood in the epicenter of the light, steam rising from his body, his eyes burning pure gold.
Breathing.
Alive.
But deep below, something shifted again.
Something even older than The First Fist.
And as Jared vanished into the smoke, his final words echoed like a curse across the city:
"This was only the beginning, Silva. Next time… the Fist will choose."
Silence returned slowly.
But it was no longer empty.
It was waiting.