The clinic was a sterile box of white noise and flickering fluorescent lights, smelling of cheap antiseptic and ozone. Lytis didn't bother with the receptionist. He flashed his holographic badge—a different one this time, older and higher clearance—and shouldered his way through the double doors, Angella close on his heels.

He grabbed the first doctor he saw by the arm, a harried-looking man with bloodstains on his scrubs. "The woman from the alley. Room 304. Is she conscious?"

The doctor blinked, startled by Lytis’s intensity. "Yes, she woke up ten minutes ago. But..." He hesitated, looking disturbed. "She’s acting strange."

"Strange how?" Lytis demanded. "Is she in shock?"

"That’s the thing," the doctor said, lowering his voice. "She’s not. She saw her own injuries—the skin peeled back, the bruising—and she just... smiled. Her heart rate is completely flat. Normal, but flat. No spikes. No adrenaline." He shook his head. "We thought she was just happy to be alive, but it’s not relief. It’s like... she’s incapable of being afraid. It’s unnatural."

Lytis exchanged a sharp look with Angella. No fear. The substance the killer used—was it extracted from her? Or did the ritual burn the capacity for fear out of her mind?

"We need to see her. Now," Lytis said, releasing the doctor and marching down the hall.

They rounded the corner just as the door to Room 304 slid open.

A figure stepped out.

He wasn't wearing the grey jumpsuit of a maintenance tech or the tattered rags of a slum dweller. He wore pristine, flowing robes of deep crimson and gold—the vestments of a Holian Inquisitor. His face was hidden behind a polished golden mask that depicted a serene, smiling face.

He paused, seeing Lytis and Angella. The mask tilted slightly, an expression of mockery frozen in gold.

"The light of the Three reaches even the darkest corners," the Inquisitor said, his voice smooth and cultured. "Go with grace."

He didn't run. He simply walked past them, radiating an aura of untouchable authority.

"Stop!" Lytis shouted.

In a blur of motion, Lytis reached inside his coat. Angella expected him to pull out a stun-baton or a standard-issue energy sidearm. Instead, his hand came out gripping a heavy, brutal slab of matte-black steel. It was clumsy and archaic compared to modern tech, with a sliding mechanism on top and a textured grip.

With a loud, mechanical clack-clack that echoed violently in the sterile hallway, Lytis racked the slide.

He leveled the ancient weapon at the Inquisitor’s back. "Freeze!"

The Inquisitor didn't even turn around. He simply raised a gloved hand over his shoulder.

A pulse of invisible kinetic force—tech far superior to anything civilian—slammed into Lytis. It hit him like a physical wall, throwing him backward. He crashed into the linoleum, the heavy steel gun skittering across the floor.

By the time Lytis scrambled up, coughing and grabbing the weapon, the crimson robes had disappeared around the corner.

"Damn it!" Lytis hissed, ignoring the pain. He rushed into the hospital room.

The scene was calm. Too calm.

The woman from the alley lay perfectly still. The Bio-Regulator Lytis had attached to her was gone—removed not by force, but unlocked.

"No," Angella whispered, rushing to the bedside.

The woman was dead. But it wasn't the precise, complex ritual they had seen in the alley. Her throat had been slit. Crude. Brutal. Final. A message.

On the bedside table, where the Bio-Regulator should have been, sat a small, triangular card. The symbol of the Holian Temple was embossed on it in gold leaf.

Lytis stared at the body, his face twisting in fury. He holstered the heavy steel gun beneath his coat, the metal clinking against his belt. "They didn't just kill her," he spat. "They executed her."

"The Church?" Angella asked, trembling. "Why? Why would a priest do this?"

"Because she was a loose thread," Lytis said, picking up the card and crushing it in his fist. "The killer—whoever he is—left her alive. He took her fear, but he left her breath. The Church doesn't make those kinds of mistakes."

The lead doctor rushed in, flanked by two nurses, looking horrified. "What happened? We got a security override from the Upper Wards! They locked us out of the system!"

"You were silenced," Lytis growled. "The Inquisition just paid you a house call."

He turned to Angella, his eyes hard. "Do you understand now? We aren't just hunting a serial killer anymore. We are being hunted by the people who built this city."

Angella looked at the dead woman. She had survived a monster only to be murdered by a savior.

"We need to disappear," Lytis said, grabbing her arm. "That Inquisitor saw our faces. If the Church knows we are involved, nowhere is safe."

They moved quickly, exiting through a rear maintenance door into the humid, trash-strewn alleyway behind the clinic. Lytis checked the corners, his hand hovering near his chest where the weapon was hidden.

Once they were in the shadows, Angella finally found her voice.

"Lytis," she asked, her eyes fixed on the bulge in his coat. "That weapon you pulled... I've never seen a gun like that. It didn't whine or charge up. It sounded... mechanical."

Lytis paused, glancing down at his chest. He pulled the coat tighter. "It’s a relic. Like the badge. Kinetic projectile thrower. Seven rounds of lead and copper."

"Why do you carry it?" Angella asked. "Energy weapons are faster. Lighter."

Lytis looked at her, his expression grim. "Energy weapons can be remotely disabled. They have safety chips. They leave digital signatures." He patted the heavy steel against his ribs. "This doesn't connect to the network. It doesn't ask permission to fire. And unlike energy shields..."

He looked back toward the clinic where the Inquisitor had used the kinetic pulse.

"...you can't hack a piece of lead moving at supersonic speeds. If I had pulled the trigger, he would be dead."

Angella shivered. It was a brutal tool for a brutal world.

"Where do we go?" she asked.

"To the one man the Church hates more than us," Lytis said, ushering her toward the hovercar. "We find Wraz. He knows the history. He knows why the Church is executing witnesses... and he might be the only one who understands what this killer is actually trying to do."

They ditched the hovercar three blocks away, trading its tracking signature for the anonymity of the crowded streets. Lytis led them deeper into the labyrinth of the Lower Wards, past the industrial sectors and into "The Rust Bucket," a subterranean dive bar carved out of an abandoned subway station.

The air inside was thick with smoke and the smell of cheap synthetic fuel. The patrons were a mix of off-grid mercenaries, black market organ dealers, and people who simply didn't exist in the official census. No one looked up when they entered. In a place like this, making eye contact was a liability.

Lytis secured a booth in the back, shielded by a flickering holographic advertisement for a defunct soda brand. He ordered two glasses of something dark and oily, then immediately set to work. He checked his heavy kinetic pistol one last time before sliding it back into his coat.

"Stay here," Lytis muttered. "Drink the sludge. It helps with the nerves. I need to buy some information."

He pulled out a stack of physical credit chips—untraceable currency—and began making rounds, moving from table to table. Angella watched him whisper to contacts with cybernetic eyes and scarred hands, asking the same question over and over, likely hunting for a lead on Wraz.

Angella stayed in the booth, the heavy silver medical case tucked under the table at her feet. She pushed the drink away; the smell alone made her nauseous. Instead, she activated her wrist-comp, scrolling through the Book of Harmony again. And again.

She was obsessive now. The image of the dead woman in the clinic had seared something into her mind. The Church had killed to protect a secret, and that secret was hidden in the math.

Chapter 1: The Dawn Age. ...appointed four individuals – Black, Marvin, Wraz, and Brunor – as the first High Priests...

She highlighted the names. She cross-referenced them with public records. Nothing. It was as if these people had never existed outside of the scripture. But Wraz was real—Elias had confirmed it. So the others had to be real too.

Black. Marvin. Brunor.

The names echoed in her mind, a rhythmic chant. She felt like Jackson, staring at a math problem where the variables refused to resolve.

Lytis returned to the booth twenty minutes later, sliding in with a frustrated sigh. He looked more tired than she had ever seen him.

"Nothing solid," he muttered, keeping his voice low. "Wraz has gone to ground. My contacts say he was seen near the old filtration plant a week ago, but since then? Ghost. Some say he's dead. Others say he's building an army in the sewers. Just noise."

"He's not dead," Angella said, her eyes still locked on her screen. "The Church wouldn't be this scared of a corpse."

Lytis watched her for a moment. "You've been reading that text since we sat down. You're going to burn out your retinas."

"The names, Lytis," she whispered, tapping the screen. "They have to be the key. Black. Marvin. Wraz. Brunor. If Wraz is the outcast, where are the other three? The Church erased Wraz, but did they erase the others too? Or are they the ones running the Inquisition?"

Lytis leaned back, cleaning his glasses with a rag from his pocket. "It's ancient history, Angella. These people—if they were real—died hundreds of years ago. The names are probably just titles passed down."

"Titles..." Angella murmured. She closed her eyes, trying to visualize the text. Brunor.

Why did that specific name feel so tactile? Not just a word on a page, but a memory of a sound. A rumble.

Brunor.

She thought back to the beginning of this nightmare. The day she met Lytis. The Holian Society bar in the Mid-Wards. The plush booths. The smell of expensive synth-alcohol.

She remembered asking for water. She remembered the bartender.

A tall, imposing man with a shaved head and intricate tattoos on his arms.

Lytis had waved him away. “She's not staying long, Brunor.”

Angella’s eyes snapped open. The noise of the dive bar seemed to vanish, replaced by a ringing silence.

"Lytis," she said, her voice trembling. "The bar where we met. The Holian Society."

"What about it?"

"The bartender. The big man with the tattoos. What was his name?"

Lytis frowned, confused by the pivot. "Brunor? He owns the place. Why?"

"Brunor," Angella repeated, turning her wrist-comp so Lytis could see the highlighted text in the Book of Harmony.

...appointed four individuals – Black, Marvin, Wraz, and Brunor...

Lytis stared at the screen. He looked at the name. Then he looked at Angella. His cynical, weary expression hardened into stone.

"No," Lytis muttered. "That's impossible. Brunor is... he's a fixture. He’s been running that bar for twenty years. He serves drinks to politicians and guild leaders. He’s neutral ground."

"Is he?" Angella pressed. "The book says he was one of the first High Priests. One of the founders. The bar is literally named The Holian Society."

"The founders lived centuries ago," Lytis argued, though his hand drifted instinctively toward the heavy steel gun beneath his coat. "Unless you're suggesting the man pouring drinks is an immortal demigod."

"I'm suggesting," Angella said, her voice gaining strength, "that if Wraz is real, and the Church is hunting him... maybe the only person who knows where to find him is his old brother."

Lytis sat in silence for a long moment. The implications were staggering. If the bartender was merely named after the saint, it was a coincidence. But if there was a connection...

"He knows everyone," Lytis realized, speaking more to himself. "Everyone passes through The Holian Society. The High Council. The gangs. The police. If Wraz is hiding in this city, Brunor would know. He hears every whisper."

He stood up abruptly, throwing a handful of credits onto the table.

"We're leaving," Lytis said.

"To find Wraz?" Angella asked, scrambling to grab the medical case.

"No," Lytis said, his eyes cold. "We're going back to where we started. We're going to have a very serious conversation with your bartender."