The whispers of the elites were a far-off, speculative terror. The reality of Elian's power was forged in the crucible of the ordinary, in the hard, unedited fights where desperation met greed. The Integrity Echo had made him a magnet for such conflicts, and they brought him to the fault lines in the city's fragile social fabric.
It was a sweltering afternoon on the periphery of the market, where the precisely organized chaos of commerce disintegrated into a no-man's-land of conflicting ownership. The air, already thick with dust and heat, vibrated with the raw energy of a mob on the verge of outrage. Two bands of men grinned at each other, their faces contorted in rage. On one side, the crew of mechanics from a small, struggling car-yard, with their leader, a coarse-looking man called Mr
