Information was a weapon, usually sharper than a knife. But when Elara opened the dossier on Valerius, the weapon felt heavy, like a hammer she wasn't sure she could lift.
She sat cross-legged on a beam of steel in the Spire of Silk, the wind howling through the skeletal remains of the building. Krixis hung above her, his multiple eyes reading the holographic display projecting from Elara's wrist.
"This is not a man," Krixis clicked, his voice vibrating with a rare frequency: caution. "This is an anomaly."
The Profile
Name: Valerius
Rank: High Council Enforcer / The Pale Prince
Species: Classified (Presumed Highborn variant)
Age: Unknown (Records date back to the First Fall, 800 years prior)
Threat Level: Omega
"Look at the kill list," Elara murmured, scrolling through the data.
Valerius wasn't just a bureaucrat. He was the monsters' monster. When a Highborn clan rebelled in the Eastern Sector, Valerius was sent alone. The report stated that he slaughtered three hundred Lycan-class warriors in a single night. No weapons found. Cause of death for all subjects: total exsanguination and blunt force trauma.
"He has no guards," Elara noted. "A man of his rank usually has a battalion. He walks alone."
"He walks alone because he needs no shield," Krixis hissed. "This contract... it smells of death, little one. The Highborn who hired you wants Valerius dead because they fear he will kill them next. You are being thrown into a meat grinder."
Elara turned off the hologram. Her grey eyes were cold, calculating. "Then I need to be the jam in the gears."
Elara didn't rush. A predator does not sprint until the trap is set. She spent two weeks preparing.
She turned the lower levels of the Spire into a kill room. She hung heavy sandbags on swinging chains to simulate Valerius's rumored speed.
She trained blindfolded.
Swish.
A sandbag swung at her head. Elara ducked, the canvas brushing her hair. She spun, slashing with her twin daggers.
Rip.
"Too slow," she whispered to herself.
She added weights to her limbs. She practiced moving silently on broken glass. She forced herself to stay awake for three days straight to dull her reflexes, then forced herself to fight Krixis while exhausted.
She studied the anatomy of speed. If he moved faster than sight, she couldn't aim where he was. She had to aim where he would be. She calculated trajectories, wind resistance, and the biological limits of muscle contraction.
She crafted poison. Not normal neurotoxins—those wouldn't work on a Highborn. She distilled the venom of a Gorgon-Viper, a rare beast Krixis had caught years ago. It turned blood into sludge. It caused the heart to pump tar.
She coated her bullets, her wires, and her knives in the translucent liquid.
Valerius lived in the center of the city, in a cathedral that had survived the apocalypse untouched. It was a place of Gothic spires and gargoyles, perpetually shrouded in a gloom that seemed unnatural.
Elara became a gargoyle herself.
For seven nights, she watched him. She wore a suit that masked her thermal signature. She perched on the ruins of a bank across the square, looking through a high-powered sniper scope.
She learned his routine. It was clockwork. It was the routine of a man who had done the same thing for centuries and had lost the capacity for spontaneity.
The Routine:
6:00 PM: He wakes. Lights in the upper sanctum turn on.
8:00 PM: He sits on the balcony with a glass of thick, dark red liquid. He does not drink it for pleasure. He drinks it like fuel. He stares at the moon for exactly one hour. He does not blink often.
10:00 PM: He leaves the cathedral. He walks the perimeter of the district. He does not take a vehicle. He walks down the center of the street, hands in the pockets of a long, black coat that costs more than a human life.
2:00 AM: He returns.
He looked human. That was the most disturbing part. He had white hair and sharp, aristocratic features. But he was too still. Even when he stood on the balcony in the wind, he didn't sway. He was like a statue carved from marble and regret.
On the eighth night, Elara got to see why he was called the Omega Threat.
She was crouching on a fire escape, three stories up, masked by the rain. Valerius was walking his route, passing through a narrow alleyway known as "The Throat"—a choke point between the sectors.
It was a setup. Not by Elara, but by someone else.
A heavy metal gate slammed down behind Valerius, sealing the alley. From the shadows ahead, a dozen creatures emerged. They were Bruisers—genetically modified ogres, seven feet tall, with cybernetic jaws and hammers made of engine blocks.
Twelve against one.
Elara adjusted her scope, holding her breath. Let's see what you are.
The leader of the Bruisers roared, a sound that shook the fire escape. "The Council sends its regards, Leech!"
Valerius stopped. He didn't look afraid. He looked... tired.
He sighed, a puff of white mist in the cold air. He slowly took his hands out of his pockets. He wasn't wearing gloves. His hands were pale, his fingernails slightly long and black.
"Twelve," Valerius said. His voice was soft, but it carried over the rain. "Hardly worth the laundry bill."
The Bruisers charged.
It happened in a blur. Elara's eyes, trained by Krixis to track the fastest predators, could barely keep up.
Valerius didn't run. He vanished.
One moment he was standing there; the next, he was behind the first Bruiser.
CRACK.
Valerius didn't punch the creature. He simply shoved his open hand through the Bruiser's back. His hand exited through the chest, holding the creature's cybernetic heart. The metal was crumpled like tin foil.
He crushed the heart. The Bruiser fell.
The others swarmed him. Hammers swung, smashing the pavement where he had just been. Valerius moved like smoke. He ducked under a swing that would have leveled a building, his movement so fluid it looked like a dance.
He grabbed the second Bruiser by the lower jaw. With a casual flick of his wrist—no leverage, just impossible strength—he ripped the jaw clean off. The creature gargled blood and collapsed.
It was a massacre. It wasn't a fight; it was landscaping.
Valerius was pruning weeds.
One Bruiser managed to grab him. The massive arms wrapped around Valerius, squeezing. Elara saw Valerius's expression through the scope. He looked bored.
Valerius flared his strength. His coat didn't rip, but the air around him distorted. He grabbed the Bruiser's arms and pulled them apart.
RIIIIIIP.
The sound of muscle tearing was wet and loud. He dismembered the ogre with his bare hands, tossing the limbs aside like trash.
Blood sprayed across Valerius's face. He didn't wipe it off. He licked a drop from the corner of his mouth.
Within sixty seconds, twelve massive killing machines lay in pieces in the alleyway. The rain washed the blood into the gutter, mixing with the oil.
Valerius stood in the center of the carnage. He adjusted his cuffs. He checked his pocket watch.
Then, he looked up.
Straight at the fire escape. Straight at Elara.
Elara froze. Her heart hammered against her ribs. He sees me. He's three stories down, in the dark, through the rain, and he sees me.
Valerius stared for a heartbeat, his red eyes glowing faintly. Then, he offered a small, dismissive smirk, turned his back, and continued his walk.
He didn't attack her. She wasn't worth the effort. She was just another rat in the walls.
Elara retreated to the Spire, her hands shaking slightly as she unbuckled her armor.
"Well?" Krixis asked, descending from his web. "Is he killable?"
Elara pulled up the recording she had taken through the scope. She played the fight in slow motion. Even at 25% speed, Valerius was a blur.
"He caught a hammer mid-swing," Elara whispered. "He has the strength of a hydraulic press and the speed of a viper. Physical trauma won't work. He heals too fast. I saw a cut on his cheek close before the blood could drip."
She paced the room.
"He is arrogant," she said. "He saw me and didn't kill me. That is his weakness. He believes he is untouchable."
She walked to her workbench, sweeping aside the blueprints for explosives.
"I can't beat him in a fight," Elara concluded. "If I duel him, I die in three seconds."
She picked up a small vial of the Gorgon venom.
"I have to make him want to die," she said. "I have to get close. Not as an assassin... but as bait."
She looked at the calendar on the wall. The Highborn were hosting a 'Blood Moon Ball' at the end of the month. A gathering of the elite. Valerius would be there.
Elara grabbed a knife and stabbed it into the date.
"He wants to be bored?" she whispered. "I'm going to be the most interesting thing he's ever seen."