The drainage tunnel spat them out beyond the wall's grace.
Cold black water lapped at their boots, the sound too loud in the tight concrete throat of the pipe. Somewhere above, Novara Prime slept behind curtains of gold and incense, wrapped in the smug hum of divine protection. None of that warmth reached the filth below.
Rafe led with a predator's ease, fingers trailing the slime-slick wall as if reading a pulse. Luca followed, breath catching in ragged hitches. Frankie held the center. Behind her, Tomas and Yara brought up the rear, fear scenting the air like sour milk.
No one spoke. In a place the gods had abandoned, sound was a death sentence.
They climbed the slope. Rafe shoved aside a rusted iron grate. It shrieked thin and wrong. He climbed out first, a jagged silhouette against a dead horizon.
Frankie followed.
The Death Zone greeted her with the stench of rot and ancient copper.
Moonlight spilled over shattered asphalt and leaning ribs of broken skyscrapers. Rusted cars sat half-buried in dust. A billboard hung crooked, the smiling family peeling away in strips of sun-bleached paper. Their faces looked like they were screaming.
The air was thin. Brittle. As if the world had exhaled here and never bothered to breathe back in.
"So this is it," Tomas whispered.
Yara clutched her pendant of Athena, knuckles white.
Rafe didn't turn. "Stay off open streets. If you hear clicking, freeze. If you hear singing, run."
"What sings?" Luca asked.
Rafe glanced back, eyes hollow. "You'll pray you never find out."
They moved.
The first hour passed in silence. No insects. No birds. Just wind threading through broken concrete and the slow groan of settling metal.
Frankie walked with unnerving ease. Her breath stayed deep. Her muscles refused to burn. Each step landed where she intended.
She remembered her first auxiliary sweep, chafing armor, shaking legs, heart battering itself raw.
Now?
Stillness.
The system didn't speak. It simply watched through her.
Luca leaned closer. "You're not even breathing hard."
Frankie glanced at him. Moonlight caught the faint silver smoke in her pupils. "You are."
He smiled faintly. "Always was the weaker one."
She didn't correct him. He wasn't weak. He just wasn't being rewritten from the marrow out.
By midnight they reached the outer ring. Ruins crowded tight, windows yawning like eye sockets. A child's toy lay half-buried in grey dust. Sofia would have loved it.
Frankie didn't stop. Sentiment was weight. Weight was death.
They sheltered in a collapsed tram station. Rafe unfolded a map of the old world, ink faded to dried blood.
"Why come back?" Tomas asked, tearing into chalk-dry bread.
Rafe didn't look up. "Because fear doesn't fill a stomach."
Frankie leaned against cold concrete and closed her eyes. The system unfurled in her thoughts like a shutter.
Dominion insufficient.
Growth recommended.
Not a voice. An instinct. A hunger etched into her nerves.
They moved again before dawn, descending into a sunken roadway choked with rusted husks.
Yara lifted a hand. "Tracks."
Frankie crouched. Deep claw marks. Fresh.
Rat-class scavengers. Multiple.
Rafe's grip tightened on his knife. "We're close. Milan's outer ring."
Through the haze, the city rose. Not marble. Not gold. A forest of broken towers and dead spires. At its heart, the Sforza Fortress, a jewel of a forgotten age.
They entered the streets. Air tasted of rust and something living beneath the dust. Tables still set. Pictures smiling from cracked frames.
Frankie wondered if anyone had prayed when the angels came. If anyone had listened.
Rafe halted. "Rest point. First pick."
Cupboards were forced open. Canned food. Blankets. A bottle of clear alcohol.
"Old world blessing," Rafe murmured.
Frankie filled her pack with food first. For Sofia. Then slipped a small silver necklace into her pocket. Just because.
They stepped outside as daylight bled into bruised purple.
Then
Click-click-click.
Close. Fast.
Everyone froze.
Rafe's blade slid free. Yara trembled. Luca moved instinctively toward Frankie.
Rat-class scavengers closing in.
The amulet against her chest gave a single heavy throb. Not her heart. Something else waking.
Frankie flexed her fingers. Speed hummed in her nerves. The world slowed. Dust hanging in the air. Shadows sliding too fast for human eyes.
She almost smiled.
She wasn't the girl who left the wall.
And the monsters in Milan were about to learn they weren't the only hunters in the dark.