The Northern Foundries of Terminus City were no longer a miserable, decaying graveyard of primitive iron production. They had been completely, terrifyingly resurrected.
Exactly four months had passed since Inspector General Gideon Cross had legally sealed the city behind a completely impenetrable wall of classified federal immunity. In those four months, the Mercer Company had executed a sweeping, violently efficient industrial revolution that defied every known metric of municipal engineering.
Cole Mercer stood on the narrow, highly suspended steel catwalk overlooking the massive expanse of Foundry Number One.
The heat radiating from the factory floor was an absolute, physical wall. It was a staggering, suffocating 130 degrees Fahrenheit on the catwalk, but Cole did not sweat. He wore his immaculate charcoal worsted wool suit, his hands resting gracefully on the silver falcon head of his ebony cane. He looked down at the mechanical inferno below with the cold, unblinking detachment of a deity observing the turning gears of the universe.
The primitive, low-yield blast furnaces of Boss Malachi's era had been entirely demolished. In their place stood three towering, state-of-the-art Bessemer converters. They were massive, pear-shaped steel vessels lined with heavily imported refractory brick, capable of transforming 30 tons of crude pig iron into flawlessly pure, military-grade steel in less than twenty minutes.
The sensory assault of the foundry was completely overwhelming.
The deafening, concussive roar of the heavy steam engines drove massive blasts of highly pressurized oxygen directly up through the molten iron. The chemical reaction was a catastrophic, blinding spectacle. Massive plumes of incandescent fire, sparks, and thick, brilliant orange smoke violently erupted from the mouths of the converters, illuminating the cavernous brick factory with the harsh, terrifying light of a captive sun.
Moving flawlessly in perfect, highly synchronized unison beneath the raining sparks were the laborers.
There were seven thousand of them operating across the four facilities. They were heavily muscled, stripped to their waists, their skin slick with sweat and black soot.
They did not work with the slow, desperate, exhausted shuffle of men driven by Cartel terror. They moved with the frantic, absolute, hyper-coordinated devotion of religious zealots.
Cole had not simply doubled their wages. He had completely engineered their psychological reality.
He had constructed state-of-the-art medical trauma clinics directly on the factory floors, staffed by highly paid surgeons hand-picked by Silas Weaver. He had established heavily subsidized, pristine grocery commissaries in the tenement wards, completely eradicating starvation in the industrial sectors overnight. He had instituted a strict, rotating shift schedule that prevented fatal exhaustion.
He had given them an absolute, undeniable utopia built on the ashes of their former oppressors.
And in return, the laborers had completely deified the sixteen-year-old boy in the cashmere coat. They viewed Cole Mercer not as a corporate owner, but as a silent, omniscient mechanical messiah. They policed themselves with ruthless, terrifying efficiency. Any laborer who showed signs of laziness, sabotage, or disloyalty to the Mercer Company was immediately, violently beaten into a coma by his own peers and dragged to the medical clinics.
They were an impenetrable biological shield, operating twenty-four hours a day, entirely dedicated to feeding the massive industrial machine.
Dr. Silas Weaver stepped onto the highly suspended steel catwalk, holding a thick, leather-bound production ledger. The doctor wore a pristine, highly tailored gray suit, a protective silk mask covering his mouth and nose against the toxic particulate dust.
"The daily production quotas have been completely shattered again, Mr. Mercer," Weaver shouted, his voice barely cutting through the deafening roar of the Bessemer converters erupting below.
"We are currently yielding exactly four thousand tons of heavy artillery casings and reinforced armor plating per week. The quality control diagnostics are entirely flawless. The failure rate is mathematically zero."
Cole did not turn his head. He watched a massive crane slowly tip a glowing converter, pouring a blinding river of liquid steel into the heavy transport molds.
"The Federal trains?" Cole asked, his voice entirely flat, entirely cutting through the mechanical noise.
"They are currently loading at the primary railyards," Weaver reported, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Inspector General Cross left a permanent detachment of fifty heavily armed federal soldiers to guard the loading bays. The steel is loaded directly onto armored railcars, sealed with federal treasury locks, and dispatched immediately to the Western Territories."
Weaver opened the heavy ledger, his eyes scanning the incredibly dense, multi-columned financial data.
"The Federal Department of War is paying our operational costs precisely on time, entirely in pure federal gold reserves transferred directly into the subterranean vaults of the First Continental Bank. Furthermore, Mr. Thorne has successfully structured a highly aggressive municipal bond issuance. The elite mercantile class, completely insulated from the war, is pouring their liquid capital directly into our holding companies."
Weaver closed the ledger, shaking his head in profound, absolute awe.
"We are generating more liquid capital in a single week than the entire Iron Foundry Cartel generated in a decade. We are not simply a corporation, Mr. Mercer. We are the absolute, undisputed economic engine of the continent."
Cole turned slowly, leaning his weight onto the silver falcon cane.
"We are an engine, Silas," Cole agreed coldly. "But an engine is fundamentally constrained by the specific dimensions of its fuel tank. Our current fuel is the desperation of the Federal Army. The Federal Department of War pays us entirely because they are losing the conflict against the Western Separatists."
Cole began to walk slowly along the vibrating steel catwalk, the blinding orange light from the converters casting long, highly sharp shadows across his pale face.
"Consider the mathematical trajectory of our current operation," Cole instructed. "We are supplying the Federal Army with massive quantities of flawlessly manufactured, highly superior heavy artillery and impenetrable armor plating. This steel is currently being shipped to the western trenches."
"Eventually, the sheer, overwhelming volume of our superior munitions will completely shift the tactical reality of the battlefield. The Federal Army will breach the Separatist trenches. They will win the war."
Cole stopped, locking his dead, completely unblinking eyes onto the doctor.
"And the absolute second the Federal Army wins the war, the military defense contracts will entirely terminate. The massive influx of federal gold will cease. The demand for heavy artillery will plummet to zero. Our foundries will be forced to shut down. The laborers will be laid off, their utopia will collapse, and they will immediately turn on us."
Weaver swallowed hard, the cold logic of the assessment instantly shattering his momentary triumph.
"A total federal victory is a mathematical catastrophe for the Mercer Company," Cole stated flawlessly. "A short war is highly unprofitable. We do not require a federal victory, Silas. We require an absolute, perpetual, perfectly balanced stalemate."
Weaver's eyes widened in profound, absolute terror as he realized exactly what the boy was implying.
"Mr. Mercer," Weaver whispered, looking around the roaring factory as if afraid the federal inspectors could hear them over the deafening noise. "You cannot possibly be suggesting what I think you are suggesting. If we intentionally slow down production to prolong the war, Inspector Cross will notice. He will revoke our federal immunity and execute us for treason."
"I am not suggesting we slow down production," Cole replied smoothly. "Slowing production diminishes our immediate revenue stream. We will continue to supply the Federal Army at maximum, flawless capacity."
Cole leaned slightly forward, his voice a cold, mechanical blade.
"We are simply going to completely level the tactical battlefield. We are going to ensure the Western Separatists possess the exact same high-grade munitions that the Federal Army possesses. We are going to completely subsidize the enemy."
The absolute, mind-shattering magnitude of the treason paralyzed Weaver entirely.
Cole Mercer was not simply a war profiteer. He was planning to completely orchestrate the casualty rate of a massive national conflict, playing both sides of a bloody war to guarantee a perpetual, unending stream of absolute wealth.
"How?" Weaver gasped, his chest tightening with sheer panic. "The Separatists are two thousand miles away across heavily fortified, highly militarized borderlines. The Federal Army controls every single rail line, every major road, and every telegraph wire. We cannot possibly smuggle heavy artillery to the enemy without the federal marshals instantly discovering the treason."
"Physical borders are simply lines drawn by men who lack imagination, Silas," Cole replied flatly. "And federal marshals are bound by the rigid, highly predictable mechanics of bureaucracy."
Cole turned away from the catwalk, walking toward the heavy iron staircase leading down to the administrative offices.
"Return to the First Continental Bank. Tell Reginald Thorne to immediately liquidate 100,000 Silver Eagles from our anonymous shadow accounts. Convert the currency entirely into small, untraceable, high-value diamonds. I require an incredibly dense, easily transportable medium of exchange."
Weaver did not argue. He bowed deeply, completely terrified by the boy's absolute, sociopathic ambition, and rushed toward the exit.
Cole descended the iron stairs, entirely ignoring the roaring inferno of the foundry floor. He entered his private, completely soundproofed administrative office. He locked the heavy steel door behind him.
The room was silent, sterile, and cold. A massive, incredibly detailed topographical map of the entire continent was pinned to the far wall. The Federal territories were marked in blue. The Western Separatist territories were marked in red. The border between them was a thick, jagged line representing thousands of miles of heavily fortified trenches, barbed wire, and artillery craters.
Cole sat behind his polished mahogany desk.
He looked at the blue text hovering silently in his retinas.
[Current balance: 292.6 Silver Eagles.]
Weaver was correct. The logistical challenge of smuggling thousands of tons of heavy weaponry directly through an active, highly militarized continental warzone was a mathematical nightmare. The Federal Army conducted aggressive, highly invasive searches of every single cargo train and river barge moving westward.
If Cole simply attempted to bribe a federal train conductor to misroute a shipment of artillery to the Separatists, the probability of discovery was statistically absolute. The conductor would be caught, interrogated, and executed, and the paper trail would inevitably lead back to Terminus City.
He could not use the existing federal infrastructure. He needed to resurrect a ghost.
Before Cole had systematically eradicated the Iron Foundry Cartel, Boss Vane had operated a massive, highly illegal southern smuggling network. Vane had moved contraband entirely via the Black River—a treacherous, highly dangerous, completely unmapped subterranean river system that flowed deep beneath the southern mountain ranges, completely bypassing the federal border checkpoints.
Cole had seized the exclusive municipal licenses for the river docks, but he had entirely abandoned the underground smuggling routes, deeming them highly inefficient for legitimate commercial logistics.
It was time to reactivate the Black River.
But establishing a highly illegal supply line required an extremely competent, completely amoral proxy. He needed someone capable of navigating the treacherous subterranean waters, negotiating with the heavily armed Separatist warlords, and operating with absolute, sociopathic discretion.
He could not use Weaver. The doctor was a brilliant administrator, but he possessed the physical resilience of wet paper.
He needed an apex predator.
"System," Cole whispered internally, his physical body going completely still. "Deduct 1 Silver Eagle. Initiate simulation."
[Balance updated. Current balance is 291.6 Silver Eagles.]
[Simulation starting in 3, 2, 1.]
The silent administrative office completely vanished in a blinding flash of absolute white light.
Cole opened his eyes in the projected future.
He was sitting in the dark, velvet interior of his private carriage. It was parked in the deepest, most miserable slum of the municipal zone—a rotting, heavily flooded district completely untouched by the Mercer Company's economic revolution.
"Silas," Cole commanded in the simulation. "Go into the basement of that tavern. Find the assassin known as the Wraith. Tell him Cole Mercer requires a private audience."
Weaver, looking incredibly nervous, exited the carriage and entered the dilapidated tavern.
Ten minutes later, the door of the carriage opened silently.
A figure slipped into the velvet interior with the completely terrifying, fluid grace of a shadow. The Wraith wore matte black tactical canvas, his face entirely obscured by a dark cowl. He radiated a cold, absolute absence of humanity. This was the man who had effortlessly assassinated Garrick Stone with the Damascus stiletto.
The Wraith did not speak. He simply sat in the darkness, waiting.
"I require a logistics commander," Cole stated in the simulation, projecting absolute, untouchable authority.
"I am opening the Black River subterranean smuggling routes. You will command a fleet of heavily modified, shallow-draft river barges. You will transport highly classified, heavily sealed crates of military artillery directly through the subterranean caverns, completely bypassing the federal border checkpoints."
"You will deliver the cargo to the Western Separatist High Command. You will demand payment entirely in uncut diamonds. You will be compensated exactly ten percent of the gross yield."
The Wraith sat perfectly still.
"I am an assassin," the Wraith replied, his voice a dry, rasping whisper that sounded like dry leaves scraping across a gravestone. "I kill targets. I do not drive boats."
"You are a mercenary who operates entirely for capital," Cole corrected him coldly. "I am offering you a position that will generate more liquid wealth in a single month than you have earned in a decade of slitting throats in alleys."
The Wraith tilted his head slightly, contemplating the mathematical logic.
"Show me the cargo," the Wraith demanded.
In the simulation, Cole instructed Weaver to take the Wraith to a highly secure, completely isolated warehouse near the river docks. Inside the warehouse were fifty heavy wooden crates, entirely unmarked.
Weaver used a crowbar to pry open one of the crates. Inside, packed meticulously in heavy grease, were twenty flawless, brand-new heavy repeating rifles, manufactured directly in Cole's foundries.
The Wraith looked at the rifles. He looked at the crippled boy in the cashmere coat.
The assassin did not negotiate. He moved with absolute, blinding speed.
He drew a heavy, silenced revolver and shot Dr. Weaver directly through the temple, killing the doctor instantly. Before Cole could react, the Wraith lunged forward, grabbing Cole by the throat, completely lifting him out of the chair.
"You are a foolish child," the Wraith hissed, his cold eyes burning with predatory greed. "You show me a king's ransom in untraceable weaponry and expect me to act as your delivery boy? I will simply kill you, take the warehouse, and sell the rifles to the Cartel remnants myself."
The Wraith squeezed Cole's throat. The physical pressure was catastrophic. Cole's windpipe crushed entirely.
[Simulation terminated. Host vital signs depleted. Cause of death: Catastrophic asphyxiation and cervical fracture.]
[Resetting temporal coordinates.]
Cole gasped slightly, his eyes snapping open in the sterile, soundproofed administrative office of the foundry.
Only a single second had passed in absolute reality.
The first parameter was definitively established. The Wraith was fundamentally incapable of corporate loyalty. The assassin operated entirely on the immediate, highly predatory instinct of the underworld. If presented with massive, unprotected physical wealth, the Wraith would simply execute the employers and steal the assets.
Cole could not tempt the Wraith with the cargo. He had to completely paralyze the assassin with an absolute, highly sophisticated psychological trap before the cargo was ever revealed.
He needed to own the Wraith's survival.
"System. Deduct 1 Silver Eagle. Initiate simulation."
[Balance updated. Current balance is 290.6 Silver Eagles.]
[Simulation starting in 3, 2, 1.]
Cole awoke in the second projected future.
He was back in the velvet carriage parked in the slums. Weaver retrieved the Wraith. The assassin slipped silently into the dark interior.
Cole did not immediately offer the job. He completely hijacked the psychological rhythm of the encounter.
"Three weeks ago, you successfully infiltrated a highly secure subterranean vault near the river docks," Cole stated smoothly in the simulation. "You executed a Cartel lieutenant named Garrick Stone using a customized Damascus steel stiletto."
The Wraith completely froze. His hand twitched, instinctively reaching toward his concealed weapons. The assassination of a Cartel boss was a guaranteed death sentence if the truth ever leaked.
"You were highly efficient," Cole continued relentlessly, his dead eyes locking onto the dark cowl of the assassin. "But you were not invisible. A secondary team infiltrated the vault exactly twenty minutes after your departure. They documented your exact entry points, they retrieved microscopic fibers from your tactical canvas, and they observed your exit vector."
It was a complete, mathematically flawless lie, entirely constructed on the foundation of Cole's own previous manipulation.
"I possess highly detailed, absolutely undeniable proof that you murdered a top lieutenant of the Iron Foundry Cartel," Cole stated, his voice a cold, mechanical blade.
"If that information is anonymously delivered to the surviving Cartel loyalists scattered throughout the tenement wards, they will not rest until they find you. They will burn this slum to the ground, they will capture you, and they will subject you to weeks of unimaginable, systemic torture."
The Wraith did not move. He did not draw his weapon. He analyzed the absolute, terrifying gravity of the threat. The boy in the carriage had completely bypassed his physical defenses and targeted his total operational security.
"What do you want," the Wraith rasped, the predatory arrogance completely stripped from his tone, replaced by cold, calculating caution.
"I am opening the Black River subterranean smuggling routes," Cole commanded, entirely dominating the space.
"You will command a fleet of shallow-draft barges. You will transport heavily sealed, completely unmanifested crates to the Western Separatist High Command."
"You will not inspect the cargo. You will not ask questions. If you execute the deliveries flawlessly, you will be paid handsomely, and your secret will remain entirely safe. If you attempt to open a single crate, or if you attempt to betray me, the evidence of your Cartel assassination will be instantly released."
The Wraith stared at the boy. He realized he was trapped in an absolutely flawless psychological cage. The crippled teenager possessed leverage that entirely superseded physical violence.
"I accept the contract," the Wraith whispered, officially surrendering to his new owner.
"Excellent," Cole replied. "The first shipment departs at midnight from the abandoned Docks of Ward Four."
The simulation accelerated.
Cole observed the execution of the smuggling operation.
The Wraith was incredibly competent. He procured the necessary barges, hired a crew of blind, heavily intimidated river rats, and successfully navigated the treacherous, completely unlit subterranean caverns of the Black River.
The fleet entirely bypassed the massive Federal Army checkpoints on the surface.
Ten days later, the barges emerged from the underground caverns deep within the hostile territory of the Western Separatists.
The Wraith's fleet was immediately intercepted by a massive, heavily armed patrol of Separatist soldiers. They were dirty, starved, and highly aggressive.
They escorted the barges to a heavily fortified, deeply entrenched military encampment.
The commander of the Separatist forces, a brutal, highly paranoid warlord named General Vanecker, stepped onto the docks to inspect the delivery.
The Wraith presented the heavily sealed crates.
Vanecker ordered his soldiers to pry them open. The Separatists stared in absolute, mind-shattering awe at the flawless, brand-new heavy repeating rifles and the highly advanced artillery casings manufactured in the Mercer foundries.
It was absolute salvation for their failing war effort.
The Wraith demanded the payment in uncut diamonds.
General Vanecker looked at the assassin. He looked at the massive arsenal of advanced weaponry that had just been handed directly to him. He looked at his hundreds of heavily armed, starving soldiers.
Vanecker smiled. It was a cold, incredibly violent smile.
"Why would I pay you for weapons I already possess, smuggler?" Vanecker sneered.
Vanecker drew a heavy cavalry pistol and shot the Wraith directly between the eyes.
The Separatist soldiers immediately opened fire on the river barges, completely slaughtering the Wraith's entire crew in seconds. They seized the weapons, entirely burning the barges to the water line.
Cole watched the simulation terminate as the absolute failure of the transaction registered.
[Simulation terminated. Logistics asset depleted. Cargo entirely seized without compensation. Operation failed.]
[Resetting temporal coordinates.]
Cole gasped slightly, his eyes snapping open in the sterile administrative office.
He sat perfectly still, his mind processing the catastrophic failure of the final step.
The second parameter was completely established.
Smuggling the weapons was entirely possible. The Wraith was a flawless delivery mechanism.
But the Western Separatists were not honorable corporate clients. They were a desperate, starving, highly violent rebel army fighting an apocalyptic war. They did not operate on commercial contracts. They operated on raw, immediate military advantage.
If Cole simply handed them thousands of high-grade rifles, they would inherently choose to murder the couriers and steal the assets rather than surrender their extremely limited reserves of precious gems.
Cole could not simply deliver the weapons. He had to force General Vanecker to willingly hand over the diamonds before the crates were ever opened. He had to completely paralyze the warlord's inherent treachery.
He needed to find the hidden flaw in the Separatist High Command.
"System. Deduct 1 Silver Eagle. Initiate simulation."
[Balance updated. Current balance is 289.6 Silver Eagles.]
Cole ran five consecutive simulations in the span of five seconds.
He dedicated these simulated cycles entirely to deeply investigating the internal political structure of the Western Separatists. He sent the Wraith not as a smuggler, but as an invisible spy.
The Wraith infiltrated the Separatist encampments, silently observing the command tents, stealing classified military dispatches, and listening to the heavily guarded conversations of the high-ranking officers.
Cole absorbed the data with the terrifying efficiency of a supercomputer.
In the fifth simulation, he found the absolute, catastrophic vulnerability within the rebel army.
General Vanecker was not the supreme ruler of the Separatists. He was simply one of three major regional commanders. And the three commanders absolutely despised each other.
They were engaged in a highly volatile, deeply paranoid internal power struggle for ultimate control of the rebel coalition. Vanecker was currently losing. His forces were the most depleted, and the other two commanders were secretly conspiring to absorb his remaining battalions and execute him for incompetence.
Vanecker was entirely desperate for a massive military victory to secure his political dominance. He needed advanced weaponry not just to fight the Federal Army, but to explicitly crush his own internal rivals.
Cole smiled in the simulation.
It was the exact same psychological architecture he had used to destroy the Iron Foundry Cartel. Greed and paranoia were universal constants.
"System. Terminate simulation protocols."
[Confirmed. Simulation protocols suspended.]
Cole sat in the absolute reality of his administrative office.
He possessed the exact mathematical blueprint to completely subsidize the enemy and establish an infinite loop of profitable warfare.
He stood up, gripping his silver falcon cane. He unlocked the heavy steel door and walked back out onto the roaring, deafening factory floor.
He found Weaver standing near the administrative stairs, clutching a small, heavy velvet pouch containing the 100,000 Silver Eagles worth of uncut diamonds he had just retrieved from the bank.
"I have the capital, Mr. Mercer," Weaver shouted over the noise.
"Keep it," Cole commanded smoothly. "We will use it to initially fund the Wraith."
Cole leaned slightly toward the doctor, his pale eyes completely dead, entirely devoid of any moral hesitation regarding the sheer magnitude of the treason he was about to execute.
"We are going to open the Black River, Silas."
"You will meet the Wraith tonight. You will secure his loyalty using the exact blackmail parameters I provide."
Cole outlined the flawless, multi-layered deception.
"The Wraith will transport fifty crates to the Separatist encampment. But those crates will not contain heavy repeating rifles. Forty-nine of those crates will be completely filled with useless, heavy iron slag from our lowest grade furnaces. They will be heavily sealed and bolted shut."
Weaver frowned, highly confused. "Iron slag? General Vanecker will execute the Wraith the moment he opens them."
"He will not open them immediately," Cole corrected him with absolute certainty.
"Because the Wraith will only permit Vanecker to open the very first crate. And the first crate will not contain slag. The first crate will contain exactly one flawless, highly advanced Gatling Gun, custom-forged in our annex, complete with a thousand rounds of belted ammunition."
Cole's voice was a cold, mechanical hammer driving the strategy into reality.
"The Wraith will demonstrate the weapon. He will completely obliterate a target in front of Vanecker's starving, desperate soldiers. He will then inform Vanecker that the remaining forty-nine sealed crates contain identical weapons."
"But the Wraith will also deliver a highly classified, heavily forged military dispatch. The dispatch will state that if Vanecker attempts to steal the shipment without payment, the Mercer Company will instantly redirect our entire subterranean supply line to Vanecker's two internal rivals, completely arming them to destroy him."
It was a perfectly constructed, absolutely inescapable psychological snare.
Cole was weaponizing Vanecker's internal paranoia. Vanecker could easily kill the Wraith and steal the cargo, but the sheer terror of his rivals receiving future shipments would completely paralyze his treachery. Vanecker would inherently choose to pay for the weapons to guarantee his own monopoly on the advanced technology.
"Vanecker will hand over the diamonds," Cole stated flawlessly. "The Wraith will depart. And when Vanecker finally pries open the remaining forty-nine crates and discovers the iron slag, he will realize he has been completely robbed."
"But he will be entirely unable to retaliate. He cannot complain to the Federal Army. He cannot complain to his rivals. He will simply be a bankrupt warlord holding a single Gatling Gun."
Weaver stared at the sixteen-year-old boy in absolute, mind-shattering awe. Cole was not simply selling weapons to the enemy. He was actively defrauding the enemy, extracting their massive diamond reserves while providing them with absolutely zero tactical advantage, completely ensuring the Federal Army maintained its slow, grinding, highly profitable advance.
Cole was dictating the exact casualty rate of the entire continental war.
"It is... it is a masterpiece of absolute manipulation, Mr. Mercer," Weaver whispered, terrified of the sheer evil of the logic. "We will drain the Separatists of their wealth, we will continue to drain the Federal treasury, and the war will continue indefinitely."
"That is the calculus of attrition, Silas," Cole replied smoothly, turning away from the doctor.
Cole walked slowly toward the heavy iron doors of the foundry, his ebony cane tapping a steady, highly deliberate rhythm against the concrete floor.
He looked up at the massive, roaring Bessemer converters, pouring their blinding, liquid fire into the molds.
He was entirely untouchable. He was a sovereign entity. He possessed federal immunity, a fanatic private army, an infinite industrial engine, and a flawlessly executed shadow network that completely controlled the velocity of death on a national scale.
Cole Mercer looked at the blue text hovering silently in the toxic, smoke-filled air.
[Current balance: 290.6 Silver Eagles.]
The machine was completely autonomous. The monopoly was absolute.
But as Cole stepped out into the freezing, gray rain of Terminus City, the system—for the first time since the mine shaft—did not simply display his balance.
The blue text in his retinas flickered violently. The numbers glitched, tearing into static, before resolving into a completely new, highly terrifying diagnostic message.
[Warning: Host timeline interference reaching critical threshold.]
[Secondary temporal anomaly detected within local municipal radius.]
[Calculating probability of external system presence: 99.9%.]
Cole stopped entirely dead on the cobblestones. His grip on the silver falcon cane tightened until his knuckles turned completely white.
The cold, flawless logic of the void instantly shattered.
He was not the only anomaly in the city.
He was not alone.