The explosion didn't just tear the warehouse apart.
It humiliated him.
Silco stood at the edge of the broken platform overlooking the ruins, the heat still radiating up from below. Purple fire clung to twisted beams and collapsed catwalks, shimmer burning in slow, poisonous plumes that painted the air violet. The factory was gone. Reduced to a smoking wound carved into Zaun's flesh.
His jaw was clenched so tight his teeth ached.
Gone. Months of work. Equipment. Stockpiles. Distribution routes. All erased in one violent, deliberate act.
And worse—
No bodies.
Every guard had fled. Every worker had escaped in the panic. Whoever did this hadn't come to massacre. They'd come to destroy.
That made it personal.
Silco's cane tapped once against the metal floor as he stepped forward, staring down at the wreckage. His reflection shimmered in a puddle of half-cooled residue, distorted and ugly.
Someone walked into my city, he thought, anger coiling tight in his chest, and lit a match.
Behind him, hurried footsteps echoed. A group of his men stood at a distance, nervous, shaken, eyes flicking between the wreckage and their boss. None of them spoke. None of them were stupid enough to.
Sevika stepped up beside him, arms crossed, metal fingers clicking softly as she flexed them.
"Well," she said flatly, "that's a mess."
Silco didn't answer.
One of the guards finally cleared his throat. "Boss… the shimmer's gone. All of it. Vats, reserves—everything detonated. Whoever did it carved runes straight into the containers."
Silco turned slowly.
"Runes?," he repeated, voice low and sharp.
"Yes sir we didn't find any explosives so it must have been magic"
Silco laughed once.
Not amused. Not even close.
A short, bitter sound tore out of him as he dragged a hand down his face. "So not Piltover," he muttered. "And not the Firelights but a mage here in Zaun"
Sevika raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
"They would've taken something," Silco snapped. "Intel. Shimmer. Hostages. This wasn't theft." His eye burned as he looked back at the ruins. "This was vandalism."
That word tasted foul in his mouth.
Sevika exhaled slowly. "Witnesses say it was one guy. Hooded. Fast. Real fast. Fire magic,If Piltover finds out Enforcers would flood the lanes."
Silco's grip tightened around his cane.
"One," he said quietly. "One man walked into my operation, panicked my guards, burned my stock, and vanished."
His voice rose, sharp and venomous. "Do you have any idea what that does to perception?"
The guards stiffened.
"Zaun runs on fear," Silco continued. "On the understanding that there are consequences. And tonight—" He gestured sharply at the smoking crater. "—someone challenged that."
He turned fully now, fury no longer contained. "I don't tolerate challenges."
Sevika smirked faintly, though her eyes were serious. "You want him found."
Silco looked at her.
"No," he said. "I want him dragged to me."
A beat.
"Alive," he added. "Anyone can burn a factory. I want to know why this one chose mine."
Sevika cracked her neck once, metal arm whining softly. "Alright. I'll put word out. He won't be hard to spot—outsider, magic, big enough balls to kick a hornet's nest."
Silco watched the smoke curl upward, drifting toward Piltover's lights above. "He didn't kill anyone," he said suddenly.
Sevika glanced at him. "That bother you?"
"It concerns me," Silco replied. "Means he wasn't desperate. Or careless." His eye narrowed. "Means he thinks he's righteous."
That made his skin crawl.
Men who thought they were monsters could be controlled. Men who thought they were heroes burned everything trying to prove it.
Silco straightened. "Double security on every remaining site. Quietly. I don't want panic."
"And if he hits again?"
Silco smiled thinly. "Then he saves us the trouble of looking."
Sevika turned to leave, then paused. "What if he's not working for anyone?"
Silco's smile faded.
"Then Zaun just gained a very dangerous variable."
He watched Sevika walk off, barking orders as shimmer guards mobilized across the district. His city stirred, gears turning, violence waking up.
Silco stared at the ruins one last time.
You wanted my attention, he thought. Congratulations.
Somewhere out there, a stranger had just declared war on the Undercity's king.
And Silco intended to answer personally.