By the time the sun cleared the rooftops, the fighting had already spread beyond the lower alleys.At first it came as scattered reports moving through the district like rumours carried on the wind. A scavenger emerging from a drainage well near the fish market. Two more climbing from a collapsed cellar three streets south. A Watcher spotted on a roofline before vanishing again. None of those incidents alone would have shaken the city. Monsters slipped through the outer zones often enough that people had learned to treat them like storms—dangerous, but temporary.This was different.The attacks were not scattered.They were appearing along the same streets Frankie had followed days earlier when the first signs of angelic interference appeared. Wells, runoff channels, forgotten storage tunnels, broken basements that connected to the old sewer system beneath Novara Prime. Every place that had once been marked quietly by the angels was now opening like a wound.And the city had finally noticed.Frankie stood on a narrow balcony overlooking one of the market streets as the first full wave surged into view. The creatures came out of the broken drain channel at the far end of the road, hunched shapes hauling themselves onto the stone with jerking movements that were neither fully animal nor fully human. People screamed and scattered, carts overturned, and a stall of copper pans crashed to the ground as a merchant fled.Frankie did not wait for the panic to spread."Left side," she said calmly.Marco was already moving.He stepped forward from the shadows beside the balcony railing and dropped to the street below without hesitation. The impact should have jarred a normal man's legs, but Marco absorbed the force easily, landing in the centre of the road just as the first scavenger charged.The creature slammed into him with enough momentum to shatter ribs.Marco barely shifted.Its claws scraped uselessly against the hardened structure growing beneath his skin while he caught its throat with one hand and drove the cane downward with the other. The strike folded the creature backward into the stone and silenced it instantly.Across the street Luca followed a heartbeat later.Red Oath flashed through the morning air in a clean red arc as he cut the legs from another scavenger before it could reach the fleeing civilians. The spear moved faster than it had even a week earlier, the weapon now an extension of Luca's arms rather than something he merely carried.Frankie dropped from the balcony and landed beside him.Three more scavengers were climbing from the drainage channel now.The first lunged.Frankie stepped into the attack instead of retreating, pivoting sideways as the claws swept past her shoulder. Her dagger flashed once across the creature's throat and then again through the joint of its arm before it could recover. The strikes were precise rather than powerful, using the monster's momentum against itself.It collapsed in the street before the scream could finish leaving its mouth.A second creature rushed her from the side.Marco intercepted it.He moved without hesitation, striking the scavenger across the chest with a controlled swing of the cane that lifted the monster clear off its feet. The impact hurled it backward into a stack of wooden crates where it crumpled in a spray of splinters.Tomas and Yara arrived moments later, blades already drawn."What did I miss?" Tomas asked breathlessly.Frankie gestured toward the far end of the road."More coming."The next wave emerged almost immediately.Five this time.They climbed over each other in frantic movements as they pushed out of the channel, their bodies still unstable from recent transformation. Some moved with hunched, broken gaits while others sprinted forward with terrifying speed.But the city had begun to fight back.A blacksmith from the next street over rushed forward with a hammer in both hands and struck one of the creatures across the spine as it tried to climb past him. Two dock workers grabbed a fallen cart and tipped it sideways to block the channel opening. Even the copper merchant who had fled earlier returned with a knife clenched in his fist, shouting at the monsters with a fury born from fear.Frankie felt something shift in the street around her.People were no longer running.They were resisting.Another scavenger lunged toward the crowd.Red Oath cut it down before it reached them.Luca pulled the spear free with a sharp motion and stepped forward again, placing himself between the civilians and the widening mouth of the drainage channel."Stay behind us," he called to the crowd.Someone shouted from farther down the road.More fighting.Frankie turned in time to see another group of creatures pouring from a well opening in the next intersection.Marco followed her gaze."They're spreading," he said quietly.Frankie nodded once.The warmth beneath her ribs pulsed steadily, reacting to the growing concentration of angelic residue spreading through the district."They're testing the city," she said.Rafe appeared on the rooftop above them, sliding down a loose drainpipe with the grace of someone who had spent half his life climbing buildings."It's not just here," he reported as he landed beside them. "Three streets over they're coming out of the sewer grates. South market too."Tomas swore under his breath."That's half the district."Frankie scanned the street quickly, measuring the flow of civilians and the position of her allies."Then we stop them here before they reach the inner roads."The battle continued.The next hour blurred into a constant rhythm of movement and steel.Frankie fought without counting.Scavengers rushed from the underground channels in small waves, each group slightly stronger than the last. Some moved like broken animals while others fought with surprising coordination, as if some distant intelligence guided their attacks from beyond the streets.Marco absorbed blow after blow that would have crushed ordinary fighters, his body becoming the unbreakable centre of their defensive line. Luca moved beside him like a storm of red steel, the spear cutting down anything that slipped past Marco's guard.Frankie moved everywhere else.Across rooftops. Through alleyways. Between barricades.Everywhere the fighting threatened to break through, she appeared like a shadow and turned the tide.By midday the rumours had begun to spread beyond the lower district.People started whispering the name again.The Ghost.Soldiers from the central districts finally arrived near the afternoon.Auxiliary fighters in temple colours marched through the market streets alongside a handful of blessed warriors whose armour gleamed with faint divine light. Their arrival pushed the scavenger waves back toward the outer alleys, but even they looked unsettled by the scale of the fighting.One of the auxiliary captains approached Frankie while she wiped blood from her blade."You've been holding this line all morning?" he asked.Frankie shrugged."Someone had to."Before the man could reply, Marco suddenly looked upward.His grip tightened on the cane.Frankie felt it a moment later.The warmth beneath her ribs changed.It wasn't the steady pulse of scavengers anymore.It was sharper.Colder.She turned slowly toward the sky above the city.High above the rooftops, two shapes were descending through the clouds.At first they were only silhouettes against the sunlight.Then the wings unfolded.Massive.Blinding white.The entire street fell silent as the figures drifted downward toward the distant centre of the city.Even the remaining scavengers froze in place.Frankie felt the mark beneath her ribs burn with a sudden intensity that made her breath hitch.Tier 5 Angelics , Arch Seraphs.
