Lytis took the data-slate, his expression thoughtful. "Wraz," he murmured, the name unfamiliar. "Who is he?"

Elias sighed, a hint of weariness in his voice. "Wraz was... an orator, a scholar. He was once a respected figure in the Holian Society, known for his eloquent speeches and insightful interpretations of the scriptures."

He paused, his gaze clouding over with a hint of regret. "But then... he began to deviate. He started preaching about forgotten histories, about hidden truths that contradicted the accepted Holian narrative. He spoke of a time before the Three, of other gods, of suppressed knowledge."

Angella's ears perked up at the mention of other gods.

Elias shook his head sadly. "The Holian Society deemed his teachings heretical, dangerous. They outlawed him, stripped him of his titles, and banished him to the fringes of the city. He lives in the lower wards now, in the slums, a pariah."

Lytis nodded, his jaw tightening with a renewed sense of purpose. "Then that's where we need to go," he said, turning to Angella. "Thank you, Elias. You've been... invaluable."

Elias offered a small, sad smile. "Be careful, both of you. The lower wards are a dangerous place, and Wraz... he's a marked man."

Lytis and Angella quickly made their way back to the hovercar. As they navigated the increasingly crowded and dilapidated streets towards the city's underbelly, the vibrant neon lights and sleek architecture of the upper wards gave way to a grittier, more desperate landscape. The air grew thick with the stench of decay and the oppressive weight of poverty. The towering structures of metal and glass were scarred and crumbling, casting long shadows over the narrow, winding streets.

Angella, her initial curiosity quickly giving way to apprehension, peered around, her gaze fixed on the passing scenery.

"There," Angella gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, pointing towards a dimly lit alleyway.

Lytis brought the hovercar to a halt.

"I saw something..." Angella said.

Lytis's eyes narrowed as he scanned the alley. He saw it then too—a shape, huddled and still, lying amidst a pile of discarded waste.

He activated a powerful floodlight on the hovercar, bathing the alleyway in a harsh, white light. Angella recoiled, a sob catching in her throat.

It was another victim. A young woman, her body arranged in the same ritualistic pose they had seen before. The viscous, black substance, the "Fear," was smeared across her skin, and her face was mutilated, half the skin peeled away, frozen in a mask of silent horror.

Angella was already on her wrist-comp as they got out of the car, her voice shaking as she spoke to the emergency services. "Hurry, please... there's a woman here, in an alleyway... she's badly injured... I think she's still alive..."

Lytis crouched down, his keen eyes examining the woman's still form. He confirmed Angella's assessment, his expression grim.

He didn't waste a second. He turned and sprinted back to the hovercar, his long coat billowing behind him. He opened the trunk and pulled out the heavy silver case Angella had seen in his laboratory—the one he had said he hoped never to use.

Angella watched, her breath hitching, as he rushed back to the woman's side. He snapped the latches open with a practiced urgency, revealing the sleek metallic device inside. He quickly attached the pads to her chest. Thin, glowing wires snaked across her skin, and the machine pulsed with a soft, rhythmic light.

"The Bio-Regulator," Angella whispered, recognizing the red glow of the medical caduceus.

"It will keep her alive... for a little while longer, at least," Lytis said, his voice strained as he adjusted the dials. "It's a temporary measure. But she needs real medical attention, and fast."

He glanced at Angella as the wail of sirens grew louder in the distance. "Good work making the call. Now step back. The authorities won't like us touching the scene."

A few minutes later, the sirens echoed deafeningly through the narrow streets, bouncing off the decaying metal walls until an ambulance screeched to a halt at the alley's mouth. The back doors flew open, and a team of medics in high-visibility tactical gear rushed out, their boots splashing in the murky puddles.

Lytis stepped forward to intercept the lead paramedic, a burly woman with a laser-scanner already in hand. She moved to shove past him, but Lytis held his ground, raising a hand to point at the device on the victim's chest.

"She has a Type-4 Bio-Regulator attached directly to the myocardial leads," Lytis said, his voice cutting through the chaos with practiced authority. "Do not remove it until you have her fully hooked up to your primary life support. If you pull it now, her heart stops instantly."

The paramedic paused, blinking in surprise as she looked down at the sleek, humming machine pulsing on the woman's chest. She checked the readout on her scanner, her eyes widening behind her visor.

"A Type-4?" she muttered, looking up at Lytis with a mixture of suspicion and respect. "Civilian models don't have this kind of output. Where did you get this?"

"Does it matter?" Lytis replied coolly. "Is she stable?"

The paramedic knelt beside the victim, running a quick diagnostic. She let out a low whistle. "Stable is a strong word. But her rhythm is holding." She looked up at Lytis, her expression grim. "If you hadn't slapped this on her... she wouldn't have made it to our arrival time. She would have bled out five minutes ago."

"Then keep her that way," Lytis said, pressing a digital business card into the paramedic's hand. "I’m a private investigator. This is my secure frequency. When she wakes up—not if, when—contact me immediately. She’s a material witness."

The paramedic nodded, pocketing the chip. "We'll do what we can. Load her up!"

The team worked quickly and efficiently, transferring the woman onto a hovering stretcher. They synchronized the ambulance's systems with Lytis's device before finally loading her into the bay. With a slam of the doors and a fresh burst of sirens, the vehicle sped away, disappearing around a sharp corner.

Lytis and Angella stood in the eerie silence left in its wake. The flashing lights of the departing vehicle painted fleeting, rhythmic streaks of red and blue across their faces before fading entirely, leaving them in the oppressive gloom of the alley.

Angella hugged her arms around herself, shivering despite the humidity. She looked up and down the empty street, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Where are they?" she asked, her voice small in the vast darkness.

Lytis holstered his hands in his coat pockets. "Who?"

"The police," Angella said, looking at him. "I called dispatch at the same time I called for the ambulance. In my sector, a patrol drone or a cruiser would have been here before the medics. They... they didn't even show up to secure the scene."

Lytis looked at her, his expression unreadable in the shadows. He gestured vaguely at the crumbling buildings around them, the graffiti-stained walls, and the piles of uncollected refuse.

"Look around you, Angella," he said, his voice low and cynical. "Do you see any patrol beacons? Any security cameras that haven't been smashed?"

"No, but... it's an attempted murder," Angella insisted, though her voice wavered. "A woman was mutilated."

"Down here, that's not a crime statistic. It's just Tuesday," Lytis said bluntly. "The Holian Temple’s light doesn't reach the Lower Wards, and neither does the police budget. They don't cross the Sector 4 barrier unless there's a riot threatening the upper levels or a VIP gets lost."

Angella stared at the empty street, a cold realization settling in her stomach. She had lived her life in a bubble of relative safety, believing that the system worked, that the authorities protected everyone. But here, in the shadow of the city she loved, people were left to bleed in the dark, and the law didn't even bother to turn on its sirens.

"They aren't coming," she whispered, the horror of the underbelly finally sinking in. "She would have just died here, and no one would have investigated."

"Exactly," Lytis said, turning away from the alley. "Which is why we have to do it ourselves. We can't stay here all day. Come on. There's a place a few blocks from here that serves decent synth-ice cream. We can talk while we... process this."

They walked in silence for a few blocks, the oppressive atmosphere of the lower wards pressing down on them. The synth-ice cream parlor was a small, garishly lit oasis amidst the decay, its bright, artificial colors a jarring contrast to the grim reality outside.

As they sat at a small, sticky table, a server with bright pink hair and multiple cybernetic piercings brought them their order: a towering sundae for Angella, and a more restrained cup of something dark and bitter for Lytis.

Lytis took a spoonful of his synth-ice, his expression thoughtful. "So," he said, his voice low, "I told the clinic to contact us if that woman becomes responsive. In the meantime... this 'Wraz'. What do you make of him?"

Angella stared at her sundae, the vibrant colors suddenly unappetizing. "A heretic," she said initially, reciting what every citizen was taught. "Banished for speaking against the truth."

Lytis raised an eyebrow, a hint of amusement in his eyes. "Or a madman, spreading dangerous lies. The Holian Society doesn't usually exile people for mild disagreements, Ms. Angella. Whatever he was preaching, it must have struck a nerve."

Angella frowned. A nagging thought, sparked by the strange symbol on the capacitor and the ritualistic killings, made her tap the screen of her wrist-comp. "I want to see it," she murmured. "The official record. If Wraz was a High Priest, his name should be there."

She navigated to the public archives, pulling up the Book of Harmony. It was a text she had heard recited a thousand times in the Temple, but she had never truly read it with a critical eye. She scrolled to Chapter 1: The Dawn Age.

"Here," she pointed, sliding her wrist toward Lytis so he could see the holographic text. "It lists the Three: Kryll, Solara, and Xylos. The creators."

She scrolled down a few lines. "But look at the High Priests appointed to serve them. Black, Marvin, Wraz... and Brunor."

Lytis leaned in, his eyes narrowing. "Four priests."

"Four priests for Three Gods," Angella whispered, her finger hovering over the discrepancy. "It doesn't make sense. The Holian faith is obsessed with triangles, with trinities. Why would they break their own sacred geometry at the very foundation? It’s... asymmetrical."

Her finger swiped to Chapter 2. The text here was different—heavy, poetic, but strangely hollow.

"The world... was plunged into chaos... A being of immense power... sought to dominate."

"It's so vague," Angella muttered. "Everything else in the book is so specific—measurements of the temple, the exact color of Solara’s fire. But the 'Great Upheaval'? It just says 'A being.' No name. No origin. Just... a redacted monster."

She looked up at Lytis, a chill that had nothing to do with the ice cream settling in her chest. "Jackson used to complain about the history books in school. He said the math didn't add up. That the variables were missing."

She looked back at the screen, at the mismatch of numbers. Four priests. Three gods.

"Wraz isn't just a madman," she realized, her voice trembling. "He's the leftover variable. He's the fourth priest with no god to serve."

Lytis set his spoon down, his demeanor shifting from casual to sharp. "Then he knows the missing piece of the equation. We need to find him. Immediately."

He stood up, tossing a credit chip onto the sticky table. Angella scrambled to follow, her heart pounding with the realization that the entire religion might be a lie.

Just as Lytis reached for his coat, his wrist-comp buzzed—a harsh, urgent trill that cut through the shop's ambient noise.

He froze, looking at the caller ID.

"It's the clinic," Lytis said, his eyes meeting Angella's. "The woman from the alley. She's awake."

Angella gripped the edge of the table. "Does she know? Did she see them?"

"There's only one way to find out," Lytis said, turning toward the door, the hunt for Wraz temporarily paused. "The archives will have to wait. We have a witness."