A blur darted through the empty avenues, too fast for the cameras, too precise for the eye.
A young man who wore a black suit moved like a phantom through the alleyways and rooftops, his footsteps whispering against the concrete.
His hair, a deep shade of blue so dark it melted into the night, whipped in the wind behind him
His black eyes, devoid of fear, scanned the surroundings with calculated focus.
His expression was tight, but not panicked, cold and calculating, like a wolf running through fire.
Behind him, the darkness itself seemed to shift.
Human-shaped shadows flickered along the walls and rooftops, slipping through the air with silent menace.
Dozens of them.
They were not ordinary men.
Their movements were too fluid, too practiced, each step a calculated motion of precision and death.
These were assassins.
Real ones.
The kind spoken of only in fearful tones.
They were the ghosts who ended lives without leaving a trace, professionals whose hands had long forgotten the weight of mercy.
And they wanted him.
The young man weaved through narrow corridors, his limbs a blur of raw velocity.
Every time his foot hit the ground, it was as if time stuttered, his speed simply unnatural.
He leapt across rooftops with the ease of someone who had done it all his life.
But he was no stranger to this chase.
No wide-eyed amateur discovering danger for the first time.
He had been hunted before.
And he has also hunted.
Still, the sheer number tonight was unlike anything he'd faced before.
One of the shadows dropped from above, landing in front of him.
No words were exchanged.
There was no need for threats or warnings, these were men who spoke with blades and bullets.
The assassin lunged.
The young man didn't stop.
He ducked low under the strike, using the momentum of his run to spin and drive his elbow into the attacker's side, sending the figure crashing into a wall.
The impact cracked brick.
But the rest were not far behind.
From the rooftops, two more dropped like ravens swooping down on prey.
He didn't break stride.
His body twisted with impossible control, evading the slashes with movements too sharp, too fast, too deliberate.
His breath remained steady as he continued running.
He knew what they were.
He knew what they wanted.
And he knew one thing with absolute certainty, they wouldn't stop until they kill him and get it back.
The cityscape opened before him, a descending slope of roofs, ladders, and open air.
He didn't hesitate.
His foot pushed off the ledge and he soared through the open night, the wind howling in his ears, coat billowing like wings behind him.
He landed with a graceful roll, already moving before the echo of his fall could catch up.
Still the pursuit didn't cease or slow, he could feel them.
One by one, more shadows peeled from the edges of the buildings and streets.
They came from every direction now, some leaping across buildings, others slithering through alleyways.
Their presence suffocated the city air, turning the night into a death trap with no way out.
Dark's body moved like instinct made flesh.
Every step, every leap, every breath was calculated but effortless.
His eyes scanned the corners, rooftops, windows, any place an attack could emerge from.
He had no luxury for distraction, but his senses devoured every detail.
That was one of the most important rule of an assassin.
Observe...
Broken glass in a narrow alley.
The flicker of movement near a dim sign.
The faintest sound of cloth brushing against air.
Then...
A figure appeared at his side like a shadow come to life, running stride for stride with him.
Dressed in midnight blacks, every inch of the man radiated silent precision.
The assassin's face was partially masked, but his eyes, cold, pale gray, locked onto Dark with chilling familiarity.
In his hand, a dagger glinted under the streetlamp's pale glow, polished and deadly, as if it had never failed to taste blood.
The man didn't waste time with empty words.
"You'll pay for your foolish betrayal, Assassin Dark," he said, his voice low but sharp, each word slicing the air like the blade he carried.
The weight behind it was the anger of betrayal.
Dark didn't reply.
He knew the person.
They had once fought together, side by side.
Together as a team for one purpose, to kill without question, to live without identity.
The assassin lunged without slowing, the dagger flashing like a streak of silver death.
The aim was precise, heart-level.
Fast.
Too fast for anyone normal.
But Dark wasn't anyone normal.
He twisted his body mid-stride, bending at the waist with an impossible level of control.
The blade missed by inches, slicing through air where flesh had been a breath ago.
Before the assassin could correct his form, Dark pivoted hard on his foot, letting the momentum flow into his leg as he launched a brutal kick.
His heel slammed into the man's side.
A dull, sickening crack followed.
The assassin staggered mid-run, air bursting from his lungs.
His body hit the ground hard, rolling into a parked motorcycle with a crash that echoed through the silent night.
Dark didn't look back.
'They were done sending grunts, now they're sending their best, He was one of the elite in the group, they wouldn't just send him for normal mission, unless it's a threat that's worth it.'
Which he was.
The streets opened ahead, an intersection stretching out with multiple paths.
Dark made his decision in a heartbeat, veering left into a dim alley bordered by rusting fences and towering fire escapes.
His mind was already working three steps ahead.
He could still hear them behind him.
But Dark's eyes remained calm, focused.
This was his world too, the world of silence, of death, of betrayal.
He had been shaped by it.
Molded in its fire.
Rain started to fall, light at first, but growing steadier, drumming against metal, glass, and flesh alike.
Dark's breath remained steady as his feet hit the ground in rhythmic precision, the sound of his boots muffled by the wet pavement.
He reached an intersection, four ways out, each stretching into unknown territory.
He veered hard to the right.
The motion was fluid, practiced, his body leaning just enough to keep balance, his momentum redirected without pause.
The new street was narrower, partially blocked by stacks of crates and abandoned dumpsters.
Behind him, the storm followed.
Footsteps, a dozen at least, splashed through the rain-soaked ground.
The sound was organized, purposeful.
Not the clumsy scramble of pursuers, but the relentless cadence of trained killers.
Dark didn't look back.
Looking back was for people who doubted their next step.
Instead, his eyes scanned forward, drinking in every possible path, every potential threat.
He could hear the footsteps, closer, synced with his pace.
No longer distant.
No longer scattered.
They were adapting.
Suddenly the sound of a blade slicing through the air whistled to his left so fast.
Dark twisted his body, the motion reflexive, and a throwing knife zipped past, grazing his sleeve and embedding into a nearby wall with a metallic thud.
He didn't stop.
Another blade flew.
Then another.
But they weren't aiming to kill.
Not yet, because they couldn't.
Instead they were trying to slow him.
Corner him.
Rain blurred the edge of his vision as he turned down another tight corridor, this one lined with rusted pipes and tangled wires overhead.
'One thousand.' he thought.
That was the number he'd overheard, quietly spoken in the encrypted comms channel, barely audible over static.
One thousand assassins.
One thousand trained killers dispatched by the very organization he'd once walked among like a brother.
Now, they wanted his head.
And all for a single artifact.
He allowed himself a faint smile, just the corner of his lips tugging up.
They didn't expect it.
The artifact was secured, wrapped and kept in a place no one would find it.
But after years of blending in, building trust, wearing a face that never truly belonged to him, today Dark had finally made his move.
He'd stolen something that didn't just hold value.
It held power.
Power that could reshape the order of the assassin's group from the inside out.
Power they were never meant to possess.
So of course, they panicked.
They looked into every corner, no details left uncheck.
Until now, they found him.
They weren't just surprised.
They were also furious.
The betrayal burned more than the theft.
Because he hadn't been a nameless infiltrator.
He had been one of them.
Trusted.
Admired, even.
The ghost who never failed.
The silent hand who took out targets others couldn't even touch.
And the whole time, he had been watching them.
Studying them.
Planning for this very moment.
The first wave came twelve hours after the breach was discovered.
Four hundred elite, sweeping the industrial zone where they believed he had escaped.
He killed them all before dawn.
By noon, the second wave came.
Smarter.
Better armed.
Didn't matter.
He left their dead bodies.
Now, almost a full day later, he was still running, not from danger, but toward the next phase of a plan he had crafted years ago.
Ninety percent of their entire force lay broken in his wake.
And still they came.
He ducked under a scaffolding, leapt over a collapsed dumpster, and landed in a clean crouch, silent despite the soaked ground.
His senses extended beyond sight now, he could feel the air shift when a body moved behind him, could taste the tension in the silence just before another attack.
They were closing in again.
Pathetic.
Weak.
Entertaining.
He didn't think it with pride or arrogance.
It was simply the truth.
The men and women chasing him were trained killers.
Professionals.
But against him?
They were ants on a battlefield built for giants.
Dark tilted his head slightly...
'Footsteps.'
'Wet fabric brushing against stone.'
'The sound of metal, a blade sliding free from its sheath.'
He didn't even need to look.
'Three above.'
'One on the left.'
'Two more closing the gap from behind.'
The trap was set.
They thought he was already getting weak.
They didn't know that he wanted them to come.
He adjusted his pace, letting his silhouette blur against the rain as he rounded another corner.
He turned sharply, vanishing into a side alley.
Dark's footsteps were a whisper against the slick ground, the wind folding around him like a silent cloak.
He moved without hesitation, without urgency.
Every turn of his body, every shift of his weight, spoke of someone who had done this a thousand times, who had stopped counting the kills because names and numbers no longer mattered.
But even in his rhythm, there were surprises.
The sudden sound sliced the air, sharp, fast, unnatural.
'A Gunshot.'
Dark's body reacted before thought could catch up.
He twisted.
The bullet screamed past his side, kissing the fabric of his coat, barely grazing the air where his heart had been a split second earlier.
In the same movement, his right hand snapped to his belt, fingers curling around the handle of a black dagger.
It gleamed, even in the dark, as though the rain had polished its edge mid-flight.
Without breaking stride, he spun and struck.
The dagger clanged against the bullet mid-air, steel meeting lead in a flash of impossible precision, and the deflected round ricocheted back, tracing a deadly arc straight into the shadows where it had been born.
A muffled grunt echoed from behind a crate.
Then silence.
The shooter dropped forward, limp, his eyes wide with disbelief as the life faded from them.
He hadn't even had time to scream.
Dark barely glanced.
"You hesitated," he muttered under his breath, eyes already searching the rooftops. "Mistake."
There.
Movement on the fourth floor.
Another assassin, this one smarter.
Higher vantage, better aim.
They thought the high ground gave them control.
They forgot who they were dealing with.
Dark's fingers tightened around the hilt of his dagger, still wet from rain and blood.
With a smooth motion, he pulled it free from his side, one of the last custom-forged blades he carried, balanced for both close combat and long-range throws.
The edge shimmered under a bolt of lightning overhead.
The dagger left his hand like a whisper of death, slicing through the rain and cutting the silence apart.
There was no time for the assassin to duck.
No time to dodge.
The blade embedded deep into his throat.
He collapsed backward without a sound, limbs jerking once before stilling.
The body tumbled from the edge, hit the fire escape with a wet crash, and dropped into a heap in the alley below.
Dark exhaled, but it wasn't relief.
It was boredom.
They were wasting his time.
These weren't challenges, they were obstacles.
And predictable ones at that.
'Guns now? Really? is that how desperate they've become?'
His fingers flexed slightly as he moved forward, retrieving another blade from beneath his coat.
Somewhere above, in the endless maze of rooftops and gutters, more eyes watched.
More hunters prepared to strike.
Dark ran with the force of a storm.
Each step cracked against the pavement, launching him forward in fluid strides that blurred the edges of reality.
His body was no longer merely human, it hadn't been for years.
Every cell had been sharpened by fire, honed by betrayal, carved into something unnatural through endless training, discipline, and survival.
And now, he was reaching the final act of his plan.
'It's time.'
He shifted direction, turning down a wider road, the narrow alleys behind him disappearing like memories erased in fog.
His speed increased, legs pumping faster than even most eyes could follow.
Concrete cracked beneath his boots.
But then, so fast he didn't even register it until it was too late.
'A sound.'
Not footsteps.
Not a gunshot.
It was… mechanical.
Guttural.
Heavy.
His senses screamed, warning, alarm, confusion, all tangled into a single instinct.
His head turned just in time.
The truck was already there.
An enormous, rust-silver machine barreling down the same street he had just turned into.
It defied every law he understood about speed and control.
Its wheels barely touched the ground.
The engine roared like a beast unleashed, like something ancient that had waited years for this one moment.
He stared.
For the first time in years, Dark hesitated.
'What…?'
And then it hit him.
Steel tore through the rain.
The impact sent his body flying.
Everything went black.
No pain.
No sound.
Just the crushing pressure of reality collapsing around him.
Time fractured.
A breath caught in his throat, but never left.
And in that space between life and whatever came next… a single thought surfaced, bitter and broken.
'No… not like this…'
He had been so close.
So close to becoming the most feared name in the underworld.
The man whose mere presence would silence rooms.
All those years, those endless, bloody years spent climbing, killing, outwitting, outlasting…
'Was this really how it ends?'
He didn't want to die.
Not yet.
Not like this.
The darkness pressed in harder, colder.
And in the last flicker of thought before everything vanished…