[A Few Monts Earlier]
Twenty n stood outside the Central Detention building, their forms barely visible in the moonlight.
Each one wore black combat gear that seed to absorb the light. Their masks were identical, white porcelain painted with bloody smiles that stretched too wide, too wrong.
Patrolling officers spotted them and froze.
One figure stood apart from the others.
He wore a perfectly tailored black suit, a fedora pulled low over his face, and sunglasses despite the midnight hour. His posture radiated authority, the kind that made n either follow or flee.
Behind him walked another figure, massive and broad-shouldered. His mask was different from the others, completely white with no smile, no expression, just blank porcelain that sohow felt more threatening than the grins surrounding him.
The patrolling officers reached for their weapons.
"Stop right there! Identify yourselves!"
The suited figure kept walking, his footsteps echoing on the pavent.
"I said STOP!"
Damian didn’t stop.
And the Mafia mbers exploded into motion.
****
The first officer died before he understood what was happening.
One mont he was reaching for his communication device. The next, a blade opened his throat and blood sprayed across the building’s facade.
SHLK
He dropped, hands clutching uselessly at the wound.
The second officer managed to draw his weapon, managed to pull the trigger.
BANG
BANG
The bullets streaked toward the suited figure.
Damian tilted his head slightly, the first bullet passed through empty air where his face had been a fraction of a second before, his body shifted with minimal movent, and the second bullet missed by inches.
He didn’t break stride.
The officer’s eyes went wide.
’What the–’
A massive hamr obliterated him before his thoughts could complete.
BOOM
Brian’s weapon reduced the man to paste against the pavent, blood and bone fragnts splattering in a wide radius.
The Mafia mbers flowed past Damian like a tide, engaging the officers who were now pouring out of the building.
Damian walked through it all, unhurried, his hands in his pockets.
Bodies fell wherever he passed.
An officer tried to intercept him, Aura blazing around his fists.
CRACK
One of the Mafia mbers caught him with a blade across the ribs. The officer scread and went down, clutching the wound as blood poured between his fingers.
Another officer fired from a window.
BANG BANG BANG
Damian’s body moved like water, flowing around the bullets with movents so minimal they seed impossible, his head tilted, his shoulder rotated and his torso shifted.
Every bullet missed.
Brian raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
SNAP
The sound echoed like thunder.
A massive do materialized around the entire Central Detention building, shimring with translucent Aura. The structure wasn’t wide, maybe 100 ters across, but it stretched upward to encompass all seven floors.
From outside, anyone looking would see the building wrapped in a sphere of barely-visible force. Nobody could enter or leave without Brian’s permission.
The mont the domain settled into place, sothing changed in the atmosphere.
The police officers inside started feeling it almost imdiately. A heaviness in their limbs that hadn’t been there before. Their movents beca slightly slower, their breathing a fraction more labored.
It was subtle at first, barely noticeable in the chaos of combat.
But with each passing second, the drain beca more apparent.
Their stamina was being siphoned away, pulled into the domain itself and redistributed to Brian and the Mafia mbers fighting alongside him.
One officer threw a punch that should have shattered ribs, but found his arm moving slower than it should. The Mafia mber he was fighting dodged easily, suddenly moving with enhanced energy that hadn’t been there monts before.
Another officer tried to run up stairs and found himself winded halfway up, gasping for breath like he’d sprinted a mile instead of climbing one flight.
Inside, officers who’d been reaching out for their communication radios found their signals dead.
"What the–"
"It’s a domain! They have a–"
SHLK
A Mafia mber’s blade silenced him mid-sentence.
The fighting intensified.
Auras blazed to life throughout the building, different colors clashing as D rank, C rank, and B rank awakeners engaged in brutal close combat.
BOOM
CRACK
BANG
The sounds overlapped, creating a symphony of violence.
An officer with so sort of fire skill sent a wave of flas toward a cluster of Mafia mbers.
WHOOSH
Two of them dove aside, but the third took the blast full-on and scread as his clothes ignited.
BOOM
Brian appeared in a blur of motion, his massive fra covering the distance in less than a second. His A rank speed made him nearly impossible to track.
He grabbed the burning Mafia mber and rolled him across the ground, smothering the flas with his own body. The fire died quickly under Brian’s Aura reinforced clothes.
The fire-wielding officer tried to capitalize on the distraction, flas gathering in his palms for another attack.
CRACK
Brian’s hamr took him in the chest before the flas could form, caving in his ribcage with a sound like breaking wood.
A Mafia mber with enhanced strength grabbed an officer and slamd him through a wall.
CRASH
The concrete crumbled, dust filling the air.
Damian kept walking, ascending stairs, moving deeper into the building.
Officers tried to stop him.
But Brian moved in front of each one, his hamr swinging in devastating arcs that left nothing but corpses.
BOOM
An officer’s chest caved in, ribs shattering like glass.
CRACK
Another one’s skull split open like a dropped lon.
The stamina drain was becoming more pronounced now. Officers were breathing hard, moving slower, their enhanced stats struggling against bodies that felt increasingly exhausted.
The Mafia mbers, anwhile, were fighting with energy that seed to grow with each passing mont. Their movents were sharper and faster.
Brian was directing the stamina flow subconsciously, spreading it among his allies while keeping a portion for himself. It wasn’t a massive boost, but in a sustained fight, that extra edge made all the difference.
Damian reached the second floor without breaking stride.
A woman sat behind a desk, her hands shaking violently as she watched the carnage unfold. She was civilian staff, just soone who kept records and filed paperwork.
Her face had gone completely white.
Damian stopped in front of her desk.
"Ming."
The woman stared at him, not comprehending.
Damian’s voice was soft, almost gentle.
"Tell where he is."
Understanding dawned on her face, followed imdiately by terror. Her hands scrambled through papers, knocking half of them to the floor as she searched the records with trembling fingers.
She found the file and pointed, her finger shaking so badly she could barely hold it steady.
"D-detention room seven... T-third floor... Down the hall, last door on the right."
Damian smiled behind his sunglasses.
"Thank you."
He turned toward the stairs.
Four officers burst through a doorway ahead, fresh from torturing Ming. They saw the suited figure and the masked giant, saw the blood on Brian’s hamr and saw the bodies littering the floor.
They charged anyway as the Mafia mbers t them head-on, and the fighting exploded into close-quarters brutality.
Damian walked past it all, Brian clearing the path with thodical efficiency.
"Are there any strong police officers here?"
Damian’s voice was casual, like he was asking about the weather.
Brian shook his head, his mask showing nothing.
"Strong awakeners aren’t exactly cabbages in the Northern Region. Most of the strong and capable of this city are already taken by the military... While there are indeed many more, they should be at the headquarters. And the criminals here are all in Aura cuffs, so there was no reason for them to be here at this hour."
They reached the third floor.
Then the world changed.
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