[Gold Fever: The Madness of the Bid]
The underground hall was no longer a place of refined nobility; it was boiling. The scent of expensive perfumes and imported colognes had been completely overpowered by the pungent, metallic stench of cold sweat and sickly greed. The air was thick, heavy with the collective desperation of the world's most powerful monsters. The bidding had transcended mere numbers; it had devolved into hysterical screams, a verbal war where money was the ammunition.
"Fifty thousand gold coins!" screamed an arms dealer, his face disfigured by burn scars, saliva flying from his mouth.
"One hundred thousand!" retorted a corrupt politician, tearing at his starched shirt collar as if it were strangling him in his excitement.
The voices escalated into a cacophony. The numbers began to overlap, climbing into the millions with terrifying speed. People were no longer sitting; they were standing on their velvet seats, their veins bulging, their eyes bulging out of their sockets as they tracked that pulsating heart in its glass vessel. It was mass hysteria, a collective trance induced by the promise of immortality.
Suddenly, a suffocating silence fell over the room. It happened the moment Lucian stood up with terrifying calm. He didn't scream. He didn't sweat. He simply raised a hand that was still clad in a pristine white glove.
"Five million gold coins..." Lucian began, his voice calm, cutting through the noise of the hall like a cold blade. He paused for effect, letting the astronomical number sink in, then added the final blow: "...and the entire Province of Aurora. Its mountains, its mines, and every single one of its inhabitants... in exchange for this Heart."
Five seconds of absolute shock froze the room. Then, the volcano erupted.
"You have no right!" one of the high nobles screamed, pointing a trembling finger at Lucian. His face was purple with rage. "You are buying the entire world! This isn't an auction anymore; this is a monopoly on power itself! You cannot trade sovereign land!"
Boos and shouts of disapproval rose like a tidal wave. The attendees began to scream in the face of the auctioneer, threatening violence. The atmosphere was charged with enough tension to ignite a massacre among the psychopathic elite. Weapons were being half-drawn beneath coats. The facade of civility had shattered completely.
[Absolute Darkness: The Ghost's Dance]
And then... the light died.
It wasn't a flicker. It was instant, absolute blackness. The massive chandeliers were extinguished, plunging the underground hall into a darkness so dense, so heavy, that you couldn't see your own hand in front of your face.
The silence lasted for a heartbeat, followed immediately by screams of terror and panic. The sound of expensive chairs crashing, bodies colliding in a blind stampede, and glass shattering filled the cavernous room.
"Stay focused, Ray!" I heard Skyro's voice beside me, tense and alert.
But I didn't wait. I didn't need light.
I activated my Crimson Eyes.
In that fraction of a second, the pitch-black world before me transformed into a vivid map of thermal colors. I saw hundreds of orange and yellow bodies moving randomly, stumbling over each other in a pathetic display of fear.
But amidst the chaotic swarm of warm colors... there was one body that was different.
I saw a thermal signature moving at a speed that no human should possess. It wasn't running; it was flowing like black lightning through the chaos. I watched him rush toward the stage, his movements abrupt and lethal, like a choreographed dance of death. He was a blur of kinetic energy. I saw him decapitate the guards standing in his path with effortless swipes; their bodies turned from the warm orange of life to the cold blue of death in mere fractions of a second.
He reached the glass vessel. With a single, brutal strike, he shattered the reinforced glass. I saw him grab the pulsating heart, his heat signature flaring as he touched the artifact. Then, he leaped vertically, defying gravity, and vanished toward the upper exit with insane speed.
[The Bloody Stage: Dan's Signature]
Just as suddenly as it had vanished, the light returned. The blinding glare of the chandeliers flooded the room, revealing the aftermath.
A shockwave of horror silenced every tongue. There were no screams this time, only a silent, paralyzed terror.
In the front row, in the seat of honor, Lucian was still sitting exactly as he had been. His posture was upright, his white suit pristine... except for the fountain of crimson blood erupting from his neck.
He was headless.
The white fabric of his suit was rapidly being dyed a deep, sickening red. I lowered my gaze to the floor near his feet. There lay his severed head. His expression was frozen in that arrogant smirk he had worn moments ago. But the horror lay in the details.
His left eye had been surgically gouged out and stuffed forcefully inside his open mouth.
I looked at the stage. The auctioneer lay in a pool of his own blood, subjected to the exact same grotesque fate: head severed, left eye removed and jammed into the oral cavity.
It was a signature. A calling card left for the world to see.
"It's him..." I whispered, sparks of rage flying from my eyes as the realization hit me. "It's Dan!"
[The Pursuit: Above the Courtyard of Death]
I didn't wait for orders from Skyro. I didn't wait for the guards to secure the perimeter. I launched myself forward with explosive speed, ignoring the panicked crowd. I reached the iron service door the shadow had used and smashed through it with my massive shoulder, twisting the metal hinges.
I ran through the dark service corridors, my instincts guiding me upward. I bounded up the spiral stairs, skipping three at a time, my heart beating the drums of war against my ribs. I burst through the final door and out onto the soaring rooftop of the mansion.
The cold night air slapped my face, a stark contrast to the stifling heat below. The moon hung in the center of the sky, a silent witness to the catastrophe unfolding.
And there, standing at the very edge of the roof, stood that massive man.
He was holding the vessel containing the "Dragon Heart." The deep red light emanating from the heart reflected on his pitch-black hair and his glowing red eyes, which shone with a terrifying, euphoric ecstasy. He looked like a demon offering a sacrifice to the moon.
He turned to me slowly. There was no fear in his posture. Instead, he was smiling... that same psychopathic smile I had seen in Adrian's suite. A smile I knew all too well, one that made the memory of Luca's blood boil in the back of my mind.
"So, you actually caught up to me?" he said, his voice deep and resonant, as if coming from the pits of hell itself. "You are truly interesting."
I didn't waste breath on words. I lunged at him with everything I had. I drew my blade, "Sin," from my back. The purple aura of the sword flared violently, syncing with my rage. I wanted to tear him apart, right here, right now. I wanted to carve the smile off his face.
But he didn't move to fight me. He didn't draw a weapon. Instead, he looked at me one last time, a look filled with mockery and amusement. Then, with terrifying agility for a man of his size, he leaned backward and dropped off the edge of the towering roof.
"DAN!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, reaching the edge a second too late.
I looked down into the abyss of the city. I saw him land on the adjacent rooftops with a lightness that defied physics, rebounding and leaping across the gaps. He disappeared into the dark alleys of the city with a speed I had never witnessed before.
I tried to follow. I vaulted over the edge, landing on the lower roof, scanning the area with my eyes. But he was gone. He had vanished completely amidst the fog and shadows, as if he had never existed.
I stood there in the middle of the night, my chest heaving, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I slammed my fist into the stone parapet, pulverizing the rock out of sheer frustration.
He escaped. He escaped, and he took the "Dragon Heart" with him.
"Damn you, Dan..." I whispered into the wind. "I swear... this is the last time you run away."
I climbed back up to the main roof, where Skyro had just arrived, gasping for air, his face flushed from the exertion. He looked at me, standing alone with my sword drawn, then looked down at the empty city streets. He understood everything in an instant.
"He took it... didn't he?" Skyro asked, his voice faint, barely audible.
"He took it, Skyro," I said, sheathing my blade with violent force. "Dan now possesses the Dragon Heart... He possesses the Reflection."
Skyro looked toward the dark horizon, his face losing all color. He spoke in a tone filled with grave danger, a tone that signaled the end of the world as we knew it.
"Then... Draka is no longer the same. The real war begins now, Ray. We have to find that devil before he implants that heart into his chest... otherwise, there won't be a world left to save."