Mostang moved through the night, quiet as a shadow. The courier's route was short, two blocks to a dead-end warehouse. He watched the man, noting every twitch, every glance. When the courier paused to light a cigarette, Mostang slipped past and followed.
At the warehouse, the courier met another figure. A small package changed hands. Mostang lunged for the ledger, but it wasn't there. Only a thin metal tablet wrapped in waxed cloth.
More figures appeared. Trained men, not street thugs. Mostang fought, taking two down, but a kick to the ribs and a slice across his arm reminded him he wasn't untouchable. He barely escaped with a small folded sheet of paper — a scrap of the ledger. Three names were visible: Marcos Varel, Lotus, and R. Lampourge. A black feather symbol was stamped beside them.
The attackers Chased him for hours. While mostang was running.
He realized. He dropped the paper.
Mostang's breath came in short, ragged gasps. The alley had become a canyon of shadows and steel, corrugated walls closing in. He'd failed the courier job — the ledger was gone, a setup had unspooled beneath his boots, and Vencor rewarded failure the only way he knew how: with a hunt.
A rumble rolled through the night as shapes spilled from the darkness. Not dozens. Not a pack. Two hundred silhouettes, moving like a living wall — hooded, armored, weapons glinting. Men trained since childhood, faces impassive, steps measured. Vencor's ghosts.
Mostang backed up until brick met his spine. His pistol felt heavy and empty in his hand. He could see the way the killers split into columns, closing the distance, a tide of black that would swallow him in seconds. There was no friendly corner to duck into; every exit was lined with men who had nothing but orders.
Emma watched from a rooftop across the gap — twenty meters of cracked asphalt and cold air separating them from blood. She'd known this was coming the moment the ledger disappeared; Vencor did not tolerate loose ends. She had followed Mostang's trail, stayed distant, watched him move, calculate. She'd planned to let him try and fail — to test if his loyalty was salvageable. But watching him Ready to fight. But slightly cowering. Shifted something inside her.
She smiles
He had been brave. He deserves Emma's trust
A single shot kicked the air near Mostang's ear — a warning more precise than a threat. The killers closed in like a blade sliding into a sheath.
Emma could have stayed hidden. Let Vencor's hounds tear him apart. Let the lesson be final. Instead she stepped forward.
She didn't run. She didn't scream. She walked out from behind a rusted container into full view, boots echoing on the asphalt. The killers pivoted, a ripple of knives and rifles aiming her direction. For a heartbeat, the air seemed to stop — two hundred trained killers, one woman standing in their sight.
Mostang's head snapped up. For the first time in the night he saw hope — thin, ridiculous, alive.
Emma's voice carried across the gap, low and cold as blown glass:
"Go. Now."
It was a command, not a plea.
He hesitated — the hesitation that kills — and she snarled like a warning animal.
"Move. Don't look back."
Mostang didn't need her twice. He bolted, feet barely touching the ground, sprinting in a zigzag that his pursuers would curse later. Twenty meters became a chasm with every step; his lungs burned, his heart tore, but escape was bought with speed and a sliver of fate.
The killers shifted toward him. Two pairs split to close angles, but the moment they moved, Emma made the choice she knew she'd have to make. She raised her gun and fired three precise rounds — not to kill, but to claim attention. Bullets stitched into a nearby steel drum, sparks flying. A ring of men dropped, not from the shots but from reflex — flinches, adrenaline, the sudden necessity to react.
That microsecond was everything. Mostang dove through a break in formation, cutting between two moving columns, a blurred silhouette swallowed by the night. He ran until his lungs screamed and the city swallowed his shape.
When the dust settled, the killers refocused on Emma. She turned toward them slowly, hands empty, shoulders squared. No theatrics. No begging. The woman they'd been sent to cleanse of the world was the one standing in the open, and the rules suddenly felt different.
Vencor's men hesitated — not many things gave them pause. But there, under the moon and the buzzing neon, Emma's calm was a force: not naïve, not pleading, just absolute. Some of the killers lowered their weapons fractionally; others spat curses into the night.
A voice crackled from the shadows — a lieutenant, barking orders — but the momentum had shifted. Mostang's silhouette disappeared into an alleyway and then into a maze of streets. The flow of the hunt stuttered. Vencor's men would regroup; they would come again. But for now, Mostang had lived.
Emma watched him go until he vanished. Only then did she turn back to face the hundred pairs of eyes.
She didn't smile. She didn't fear. She simply said, voice as thin and hard as a blade:
"This ends when I say it does."
They moved in then — not storms of bullets, but cautious, tested, circling like wolves deciding whether to attack a new, dangerous alpha. Emma bent, picked up a length of pipe, and readied herself. Her hands were steady; her body hurt; her plan was only half-formed. But she had bought Mostang a life.
He had run because she told him to. He would come back — or he wouldn't. Either way, tonight had changed the terms.
---
The asphalt stank of oil and smoke. Emma stood alone in the center, a length of rusted pipe in her hands. Two hundred killers fanned around her, shifting like a single monstrous organism. Blades scraped. Guns cocked. Boots stomped a rhythm.
Her body was already bruised from weeks of torment, ribs aching with every breath. But her eyes were steady — that terrifying calm that only came when death was expected, maybe even welcomed.
---
First Wave
They rushed.
The first came low, swinging a machete at her legs. Emma sidestepped, brought the pipe down, shattering his wrist, then jammed the end into his throat. Another grabbed at her back — she pivoted, cracked his jaw with an elbow, and stabbed the pipe into his gut. Two bodies down in seconds.
But the mob surged closer. A blade scraped her thigh. Another sliced her shoulder. Blood streaked down her arm, warm and slick, but she gritted her teeth and kept moving.
Shots rang out. Emma dove behind a burned-out car as bullets ripped sparks across the hood. She yanked a corpse by the collar, using it as a shield. The body jerked with impacts until the clip ran dry. She tossed it aside, vaulted the car, and slammed the pipe into a gunman's temple, sending him down twitching.
Two knives slashed at once — Emma caught one arm, broke it with a twist, but the second blade bit across her stomach. She gasped, blood blooming on her shirt, but drove her forehead into the man's nose, shattering it.
Her breathing turned ragged. Her pipe was bent now, dented with cracks of bone and steel.
---
Close Quarters Frenzy
Five men boxed her in. One lunged — she swept his legs, cracked his skull against the pavement. Another swung a chain; it wrapped around her arm, tearing her skin as it tightened. She used the pain, yanking the man close and smashing her head into his. Blood sprayed across her face.
A kick caught her ribs. Something cracked inside. She staggered, vision swimming, but refused to fall. She swung wide — pipe across a kneecap, another across a jaw.
Every move cost her blood now. Her shirt clung red, her breathing shallow.
Second Wind
For a heartbeat, she almost dropped — knees buckling. Then she thought of the guard who saved her. Of Diana searching. Of Valeria still alive inside the prison. Of Vencor, waiting, laughing.
Her vengeance for her parents.
She's the only hope to clean the world. No one dares to face the world.
Only Emma Elarat. The False successful Legacy of Vencor.
Her eyes burned. She roared.
Emma ripped the chain still looped around her arm, whirled it like a whip, and tore into the killers. Steel lashed faces. Skulls cracked against concrete. The mob actually hesitated — a ripple of unease running through trained men.
------
But exhaustion crept fast. Her swings slowed. A blade carved across her back. A pipe smashed into her knee — she dropped for a moment, one leg useless. They circled again, sensing weakness.
Emma pushed herself up, wobbling, barely able to hold the chain. Her vision tunneled. The killers advanced, thirty still standing.
She smiled. Blood in her teeth.
"You'll have to bury me twice."
She charged. One last time.
---
Aftermath
By the end, the ground was littered with groaning bodies and corpses. Emma Stood staring at the Sky. Then walked on the nearest wall leaned on it. Slowly sliding down until she sat in a pool of her own blood. Her arms shook too much to grip the chain anymore. Her chest rose shallow, every inhale like knives.
She'd won the impossible fight. But the cost was written in her broken body.
Her eyes fluttered. She wasn't sure if she'd wake again.
But she had kept her promise — Mostang had escaped.
-----
The street was quiet now, save for the groans of the dying and the steady drip of blood on concrete.
It was raining.
Diana sprinted into the clearing, chest heaving, her sneakers splashing through puddles of crimson. She had followed Mostang's warning, but she was too late.
Her eyes widened at the sight. Bodies lay scattered like ragdolls — some with skulls caved in, others twisted at unnatural angles. And there, in the center, Emma slumped against a wall, barely holding herself upright, her skin pale and her clothes soaked through.
Diana whispered, her voice breaking:
"Emma… you fought all of them… alone?"
Mostang, standing behind her with ash still burning on the end of his cigarette, muttered grimly:
"You don't get it. Those weren't just thugs. Each of them… one was worth twenty above average men strength. Two hundred of them."
Diana froze, calculating. Her throat went dry.
"Twenty times two hundered. Four thousand…" she whispered. "She… fought four thousand."
She turned back to Emma, her voice trembling now, half in awe, half in horror:
"You're not even human anymore, are you…?"
Emma's head tilted, her eyes empty and glassy, but a weak smile tugged at her lips.
"Not human… just stubborn."
Then her body slumped forward, unconscious, the last of her strength spent.
Diana caught her before she hit the ground, clutching her tight. For the first time in years, tears stung Diana's eyes.
Diana tightened her arms around Emma, cradling her limp form like something fragile, even though she knew better — Emma wasn't fragile. She was steel. But right now… right now she looked like she might shatter.
"Don't you dare leave me, Emma," Diana whispered through gritted teeth, tears streaking her face. "Not after all this. Not after I found you again."
She rose to her feet, Emma's weight heavy against her shoulder, blood soaking through Diana's shirt. Her knees trembled, but she forced herself to walk. Step by step. Away from the battlefield of corpses. Away from the smell of smoke and blood.
Behind her, Mostang flicked away his cigarette, the ember fading into the night. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and followed silently. He didn't say a word, but his usual cocky air was gone. The sight of Emma — broken yet victorious — had stripped him of it.
Finally, Diana spoke without looking back.
"You're with us now, huh?"
Mostang smirked faintly, though his eyes were serious.
"After seeing her fight like that? You think I'd walk away? …Consider me official."
Diana didn't answer, but she gripped Emma tighter, and for the first time in a long time, she felt hope — fragile, but real.
The three of them disappeared into the night, leaving behind the battlefield of four thousand men felled by one woman.
Chapter End