Vayne City was a machine that never slept.
Even at 3:00 AM, the industrial district roared. The Halo Production Line was running at 110% capacity, churning out thousands of glowing blue vials every hour to feed the addiction of the Northern Legion.
Deep beneath the city, in the reinforced bowels of the Geothermal Reactor, the air was thick with heat and the hum of turbines.
This was the heart of my empire. If the heart stopped, the Halo serum would spoil within hours due to lack of refrigeration. If the serum spoiled, twenty thousand knights would turn into flesh-eating ghouls by sunrise.
The security was impenetrable. Laser grids. Motion sensors. Mana-dampening fields.
But the intruders didn't use mana. And they didn't have heat signatures.
They were Void Stalkers.
They didn't walk; they poured. Like ink spilled on a canvas, five shadows detached themselves from the darkness of the ventilation shafts. They slid along the walls, bypassing the laser grids simply by existing as two-dimensional silhouettes.
They coalesced into humanoid forms at the base of the Main Turbine.
Their leader, a faceless figure of swirling smoke, placed a pulsating purple charge on the reactor casing. A Void-Bomb.
It was a surgical strike. Destroy the power, spoil the product, break the contract.
The leader raised a hand to trigger the detonator.
Snip.
The wire connecting the detonator to the charge was severed.
The Void Stalker froze. It looked down.
Standing in the shadows of the turbine—shadows that were somehow darker than the Stalkers themselves—was a massive figure in obsidian armor.
Nero held the severed wire between two armored fingers. The purple flames in his visor burned with contempt.
"You utilize the darkness like a tool," the Shadow General rumbled, his voice like grinding stones.
Nero stepped forward, the shadows of the room bending toward him in reverence.
"I am the dark."
The Void Stalkers shrieked—a sound like tearing metal—and lunged.
The battle was a blur of non-Euclidean geometry.
Nero didn't block; he absorbed. When a Stalker slashed at him with a blade of condensed void, Nero's armor simply drank the attack.
[Skill: Abyssal Spikes]
Nero slammed his foot onto the grating. Spears of solid darkness erupted from the floor, skewering three Stalkers instantly. They didn't bleed; they dissolved, their essence flowing into Nero, making him larger, stronger.
"Is this the best the Broken Hero can send?" Nero taunted, crushing a Stalker's head in his gauntlet. "Snacks?"
But Kaelen hadn't sent warriors. He had sent fanatics.
The last surviving Stalker didn't attack Nero. It ignored him completely.
It turned its body into a liquid state and surged through the grating, diving directly into the spinning blades of the Main Turbine.
"No!" Nero roared, grabbing at the trailing smoke.
Too late.
The Stalker solidified inside the mechanism.
CRUNCH.
The high-speed turbine blades hit the solid mass of void-matter.
BOOM.
The explosion rocked the foundations of the city. Metal shrapnel tore through the reactor room. The hum of the generator died, replaced by the screaming of emergency alarms.
Location: Vayne City Penthouse (Control Room)
The lights in my office flickered and died, instantly replaced by the crimson glow of the emergency backups.
"Report!" I snapped, pulling up the diagnostic screen.
"Turbine 1 is gone!" Seraphina yelled, her fingers flying across her console. "Reactor output has dropped to 40%. We're losing voltage across the grid!"
On the wall map, sectors of Vayne City were turning red.
"The refrigeration units in the Halo factory are failing," Seraphina warned. "If the temperature rises above 5 degrees, the entire batch spoils. We lose the shipment. The Prince's army turns."
"Divert power," I ordered. "Reroute everything to the factory."
"Lucas, wait," Seraphina said, freezing. "We're at 40%. We don't have enough juice to run the factory and the residential district."
She pointed to the map.
"It's five degrees below zero outside. The workers need heat. They need light. If we cut the residential grid, twenty thousand people—our people—freeze in the dark."
I looked at the map.
Option A: Save the comfort of my workers. Lose the Halo shipment. The Northern Legion falls. Kaelen wins the North.
Option B: Save the contract. Keep the factory running. My workers freeze for a night.
It wasn't a choice. It was math.
"Cut the city," I said flatly.
Seraphina looked at me. "Lucas..."
"If the factory stops, an army of monsters eats the North," I said, my voice hard. "The workers can put on a sweater. Cut it."
Seraphina hesitated for a second, then bit her lip and typed the command.
[Command: Load Shedding Initiated.]
[Sector: Residential District - OFFLINE.]
[Sector: Commercial District - OFFLINE.]
[Power Diverted to: Industrial Sector.]
Location: Vayne City Streets
One by one, the neon lights of Vayne City winked out.
The streetlamps died. The heating vents stopped humming. The windows of the apartment blocks went black.
A collective gasp rose from the city below. Then, confusion. Then, fear.
The only thing left illuminated was the massive, monolithic shape of the Main Factory. It glowed with blinding light, humming with all the diverted power, a lighthouse in a sea of darkness.
I stood by the window of my tower, looking down at the blackout. I could see torches being lit. I could hear the distant sound of breaking glass as panic set in.
"We saved the batch," Seraphina whispered, looking at the factory telemetry. "Refrigeration is stable."
"Good," I said. "Send the shipment."
KZRRRRT.
Suddenly, the emergency speakers throughout the city—which ran on a separate battery circuit—crackled to life.
It wasn't my voice.
"Look at him."
Kaelen's voice echoed through the dark streets, distorted and mocking.
"Look at where the light goes."
I gripped the windowsill. He had hacked the PA system.
"He sits in his tower," Kaelen whispered to my freezing citizens. "He keeps his factory warm. He keeps his gold safe. But you? You are left in the cold."
The voice grew louder, more impassioned.
"He calls this progress. He calls this order. I call it slavery. He would burn you all to keep his machines running."
Down in the streets, people looked up at my tower. I couldn't see their faces, but I could feel their resentment.
"Come to me," Kaelen urged. "The Void does not trade. The Void does not hoard. The Void is warm. Break your chains... and strike a match."
Click.
The speakers died.
I stood in the silence of my office, the red emergency light bathing me in the color of blood.
[ System Notification: City Defense Successful (Factory Secured). ]
[ Reputation (Citizens): -20%. (Unrest Rising). ]
[ Reputation (Business/Princes): +10%. (Contract Fulfilled). ]
"He's trying to turn my own workforce against me," I realized. "He knows he can't beat me in the market, so he's trying to start a union. A violent one."
"It's working," Seraphina said, watching a group of workers throw a rock through a storefront window below. "They're scared, Lucas."
"Fear is a motivator," I said, turning back to my desk. "But so is hunger."
"Seraphina, double the wages for the night shift tomorrow. And announce a 'Hardship Bonus' for the blackout."
"You think you can buy their forgiveness?"
"I don't need forgiveness," I said, looking at the glowing factory that was currently saving the Empire from a zombie apocalypse. "I just need them to show up for work."