The High Table had never surrendered.
For centuries, its twelve seats ruled the criminal underworld with iron discipline—bound by ancient codes, sealed in blood oaths, and enforced with ruthless precision. No one challenged the Table. No one survived it.
Until now.
Beneath the cobbled heart of Rome, in a sanctum untouched by time or mercy, the council gathered. Shadows danced on stone walls, torches flickering against gold masks and silk robes. At the head sat the Elder, more myth than man, his voice a whisper passed down through generations.
But tonight, the myth would meet something older than fear.
The chamber doors creaked open. No announcement. No guards. No invitation.
Sagar entered.
Unmasked. Uninvited. Unafraid.
He strode across the black marble floor with the calm of a god in the wrong world, eyes gleaming with mockery and promise.
The Elder's voice cut the silence, regal and brittle."You have disrupted the order of the world. You mock our laws. Shatter our alliances. You play games with power forged in centuries of blood. Name your price—let us end this spiral before the world burns."
Sagar didn't slow. He walked the perimeter of the Table, fingertips gliding across its cold surface like a composer searching for the perfect note."Order," he mused, "is a bedtime story you whisper to feel safe. But I like stories that end with a bang."
A growl of rage rose from the far end. Argus, the Bloodwright of Istanbul—one of the Table's oldest, cruelest hounds—rose and slammed his fist down. The sound cracked like thunder."There are twelve seats. No more. No less. Respect the Table or be unmade."
In an instant, Sagar vanished.
No breath. No sound.
Then—he was beside Argus, fingers resting lightly on the man's shoulder. The chamber's temperature dropped. Magic, raw and unnatural, shimmered in the air. The scent of ozone. The hum of a world holding its breath.
Sagar whispered, "Rules are for those afraid of chaos."
With a flick of his wrist, reality twisted.
Argus vanished. Not slain—erased. His seat sat empty, his name fleeing the tongues of memory. Only the Elders remembered—and even that remembrance frayed at the edges like smoke in wind.
A collective inhale passed through the chamber.
Sagar turned to the Elder. His eyes gleamed—not with arrogance, but something older. Something unknowable."I'll take his seat," he said casually. "But I don't sit by rules. I sit above them."
And then it appeared: a thirteenth chair. Ornate. Alive. A construct of shifting geometry and impossible color. It hurt to look at it, like staring into a paradox.
Sagar sat, one leg over the other, lounging with the ease of a predator who'd never known fear.
The Elder's voice, for the first time in recorded memory, faltered."If you break the Table's code, the world will tear itself apart."
Sagar grinned, thunder in his laugh."The code's already broken. I'm just the only one honest enough to admit it."
Around him, the Elders sat frozen—bound by old laws, ancient chains. Yet nothing in their traditions had prepared them for this.
And so it was that the High Table changed forever.
There were now thirteen seats.
One belonged to a force outside law, beyond fear.
A seat without rules.
And as the criminal world trembled, Sagar smiled—because the game had only just begun.