Clad does not exist.
At least, that is what the world believes.
There are no buildings with its name, no public leaders, no websites to trace. Governments deny it. Criminal networks avoid speaking of it. And yet, across every continent, in cities both loud and forgotten, Clad operates perfectly.
Silently.
Clad is a global secret organization that registers assassins.
Once a name is entered into Clad's system, that person ceases to be ordinary. Their past becomes irrelevant. Their future becomes measurable.
Measured in bounties.
Every assassin registered under Clad carries a price on their life. The lowest possible starting bounty is one million. That alone places even the weakest, least experienced assassin far above the average citizen in wealth.
In Clad, being below average still means being a millionaire.
Money is not the reward.
It is the motivation.
The rules are simple.
Kill an assassin.
Receive their bounty.
No courts.
No witnesses.
No second chances.
An assassin's bounty rises primarily through confirmed kills, though other factors influence it—strength, reputation, efficiency, and survival. Some assassins climb fast. Others rise slowly but never fall.
A few vanish entirely.
There are solo assassins, those who refuse clans, refuse alliances, and refuse protection. They fight alone, trusting no one. But Clad offers no mercy to independence. A solo assassin does not face rivals.
They face the world.
And the world is full of hunters.
Clans exist to survive this system—groups bound by technique, ideology, and shared bloodshed. Some prefer precision. Others favor chaos. Each clan perfects its own way of killing, its own way of staying alive.
Clad does not care how assassins kill.
Only that they do.
Long ago, Clad funded itself through darker means, trading what it took from the dead to those rich enough to buy life itself. That era is said to be over. Officially, Clad now runs purely on bounties, contracts, and control.
Officially.
No one truly knows who runs Clad.
No one knows where it began.
And no one knows how to leave.
Because once Clad registers your name…
You are no longer living in the world.
You are surviving inside a system designed to make you a target.
And the hunt never ends.