Beneath Valemir, far below the city's polished towers and dazzling lights, a different world breathed. One of shadows and whispered debts, hidden doors, and men whose names were never printed on company ledgers—but whose power shaped the city just the same.
Here, in the velvet-draped lounge of The Obsidian Fang, Kip Mandari sat like a monarch of smoke.
He wasn't flashy—he never needed to be. His power wasn't in what he wore or how he spoke. It was in the silence that followed when he entered a room. In the way men older than him stood straighter, and women sharper than steel watched him with something between fear and fascination.
Tonight, he wasn't alone.
The circle of lieutenants seated before him were the best money could buy. Corporate fixers. Former military tacticians. Two exiles from foreign cultivation clans. Even a disavowed tech savant who once sold secrets to three governments at once.
But Kip didn't speak immediately. He let the silence stretch.
Until finally, he lit a thin cigar, the flame reflecting in his cold eyes.
"You've all heard the news," he said. "Milo's dead."
No reaction. None dared flinch.
"But unlike others... I see opportunity."
He stood, walking slowly around the table, the floor beneath him etched with a dragon-serpent motif only visible in certain lighting.
"Chess Golding is dangerous. I know this. You know this. He didn't build Aeris Holdings with handshakes and powerpoints. He built it the same way I built my empire—through force, deception, and vision."
One of the men dared to speak. "Should we strike now? While he's distracted?"
Kip gave a half-smile. "No. Not yet. You don't move on a lion while he's still bleeding from battle. You wait until the blood starts to dry."
He turned to a wall display and activated a holographic map of Valemir's economic and energy grid. Red veins pulsed along key sectors.
"Chess's strength lies in balance—between his business façade and his hidden roots. But balance is fragile. It only takes one shift to collapse the structure."
He zoomed in on one sector—Grid Delta Seven—located beneath the outer ring of Aeris Holdings' energy infrastructure.
"This node controls thirty percent of Valemir's power reserves. A silent partnership under a shell company no one's noticed. Except us."
The hacker, a young man with glassy eyes and jittery fingers, leaned forward. "I can bury the trail. Make it look like a cascade failure. Overload the node and collapse it from the inside."
"Not yet," Kip said. "We're not here to destroy. We're here to apply pressure. Just enough to make him scramble."
Another voice spoke up—soft, feminine, but laced with steel.
"I want to be the one to handle the approach," said Nyra Alis, the former disciple of the Eastern Wind Sect who now served Kip with silent loyalty. "He won't see me coming. Especially if I go through her."
"Elsa Jefferson?" Kip mused, raising an eyebrow.
Nyra smiled. "A woman's war is the most dangerous kind."
Kip nodded approvingly.
"Do it. Begin Phase One."
Meanwhile — Upper Valemir, Aeris Holdings Command Room
Chess sat in a sleek operations hub, walls lined with encrypted screens, internal surveillance grids, and predictive AI-generated analytics.
Across from him, his second-in-command and friend, Leoric Dane, leaned on the edge of a desk.
"We just detected anomalous energy activity near Delta Seven," Leoric said. "Someone's trying to tickle the system."
Chess stared at the blinking red lines on the map.
"They're probing," he said quietly. "Looking for cracks."
"You think Kip's behind it?"
"I don't think," Chess replied. "I know."
He stood, his aura shifting—calm, but deadly. Like a lake that hid dragons beneath its still surface.
"They want to play a game of pressure and patience? Fine. But I won't let them dictate the tempo."
"What do we do?"
"We outmaneuver," Chess said. "Like always."
He tapped into his secure communicator and sent a silent message to a sleeper agent embedded deep within Valemir's energy commission.
Directive Echo: Monitor all activity within Grid Delta Seven. Report any fluctuation beyond 0.3%. No engagement. Observation only.
Jefferson Global – Elsa's Office
Elsa stood before her glass window, gazing down at the city. Her reflection stared back—a woman transformed.
Her assistant entered.
"Ms. Jefferson. You have a visitor."
"Name?"
The assistant looked uncertain. "Nyra Alis. She says she's here with a mutual investment proposal... and a message from the Eastern Wind Consortium."
Elsa narrowed her eyes.
"Send her in," she said calmly.
But her hand, out of sight, moved to her tablet. A silent alert sent directly to Chess.
Something was beginning.
And this time, Elsa wouldn't wait to play defense.