The night over Donin was ink-dark, the stars veiled by a low ceiling of clouds that moved like restless smoke. The city slept uneasily, its perimeter wards faintly flickering, stretched thin from weeks of tension. Hadeon's men had grown accustomed to waiting, an endless stalemate where nothing moved but shadows and rumors.
The first strike came with the usual precision of the Agaron Empire.
Damian's Shadows didn't waste effort on walls or gates. They slipped through ether gaps too small for normal troops, weaving through unguarded corridors and the quiet skeleton of supply lines. No signals flared. No alarms sounded. By the time the first alarm bell rang, three key relay towers were already burning from within, ether nodes gutted with precise cuts, leaving Hadeon's outer command lines blind.
