Meanwhile,
Author
The capital of the Central Kingdom did not sleep.
It simply changed costumes.
By day, the Golden District bustled with merchants, diplomats, and the endless theater of court politics.
By night, the same streets belonged to a different class entirely - mercenaries, information brokers, and the kind of people who measured wealth not in land or titles, but in dungeon cores and body counts.
Aria walked through the latter crowd like a shark through minnows.
Her wavy golden hair had been straightened into a high, sleek ponytail that snapped behind her like a whip in the warm evening wind.
Dark glasses concealed her gold-crimson eyes, reducing them to an anonymous gleam that could have belonged to any bored noble slumming for thrills. She wore fitted black leather - p
