The night was heavy with smoke and the acrid scent of gunpowder as Cain and his group moved through the narrow back alleys.
Their footsteps echoed softly against cracked concrete and rusted dumpsters.
Cain’s breath came uneven, his body still shaky from the system going offline, but his face was set, hardened.
Elara and Axil flanked him, exchanging worried glances, but Cain ignored them, focusing on the path ahead. he had refused their help when his legs seemed to hold his weight more easily, stubbornly leading them onwards and denying their increasingly frustrated demands to tell them what was wrong.
Suddenly, from a side street, a man burst forward. Vargas, one of Cain’s lieutenants, was bloodied, his shirt stained with deep reds that weren’t his own.
Behind him, a handful of Ca
