The city felt like it had shifted overnight. Shadows stretched longer, sharper, slicing across cracked streets like knives. The hum of electricity thrummed through the alleys, underlined by the distant clatter of barricades being hauled into place. Dylan moved along the rooftops, boots silent against rusted metal panels, watching as the factions spilled into the veins of the city.
Clang… clang…
Patrols passed below, their movements practiced, almost choreographed. Lights flickered streetlamps, neon signs, digital billboards casting chaotic patterns that danced across the walls. Every flicker, every pause, every staggered step told a story, and Dylan read each one like a code.
From his vantage point, the city was both battlefield and chessboard. Each faction marking territory, each street a potential trap. He noted the weak points: a supply crate left too close to an intersection, a guard whose attention wandered for a heartbeat too long, a barricade built without considering the escape route behind it.
Drip… drip… from a broken pipe above.
He crouched, letting the sound blend with his own pulse. Chaos wasn't mindless. Not here. The Syndicate ran on it, sculpted it, measured it. Each movement, each clash of armor or gunmetal, a carefully placed piece in their game.
And in the eye of it all, Dylan moved unseen, calculating. Opportunistic. Survival depended not on strength, but on timing, on observation, on knowing which sparks to let ignite and which to snuff out.
He caught a glimpse of a firefight forming at the far end of the block. Flames licked the walls of an abandoned building, silhouettes darting through smoke. A faction leader barked orders, but his voice was drowned by shouts, metal striking metal, the chaos he had learned to anticipate.
If they burn each other, maybe I walk away clean.
The thought passed through Dylan like a whisper, almost humorless, almost prayer. Every alliance, every betrayal, every silent footstep he had taken led him here. Watching. Waiting. Choosing.
From above, the city's veins throbbed with movement organized, controlled, a pulse of imminent destruction. Dylan stayed in the shadows, mapping paths, noting patterns, memorizing every weak point, every safe corridor. The war hadn't fully erupted, but the first sparks had ignited.
And he would watch it burn, slipping through the cracks where others would falter.
No cheers. No laughter. No victory. Just the quiet, steady realization that chaos could either swallow him or carry him forward. The choice wasn't his to make. Not yet.
The horizon darkened with the promise of fire, and Dylan stayed where he was silent, observing, ready.