On the Path of Eternal Strength.

The morning had not yet finished being born.

The sky was a sheet of broken, grayish clouds that could not decide between raining or simply watching from above.

The air smelled of cut wood, dust from disturbed earth, and dry iron.

That aroma that only unfinished works have… or cemeteries where no one weeps.

Helena walked ahead.

Slow steps, but measured. Her cane barely touched the ground, not out of weakness, but out of certainty.

She did not speak. She did not ask.

She observed.

Selena came behind her.

Dressed with the precision of one who never improvises, her eyes analyzed the structure of the mansion under construction as if searching for flaws, vulnerabilities… or possible escape routes.

—Are you sure we would see them here? —she asked, with that neutral voice that was not cold from lack of soul, but from an excess of calculation.

—No. —Helena replied with simplicity—. But if they are still breathing, this would be their last trace.

They were not referring to just any group.

They spoke of Sebastián. Of Virka. And of the silent beast, the one called Narka.

Three names. Three existences that, without permission or protocol, had left a mark in that world that was not even theirs.

Upon reaching the edge of the site, a worker lifted his gaze.

He did not greet. He only stepped aside.

He had seen them before.

No words are exchanged with those who could be weapons disguised as women.

Helena inspected the entrance.

The frame still without a door, the walls without paint, the ceilings unfinished.

The mansion was barely a skeleton of intentions.

But it already weighed as if it contained history.

—They are not here. —Selena stated after a few minutes. It was not a supposition. It was a verdict.

—No. —Helena confirmed.

Selena took out the small device from her jacket.

The cell phone.

A simple tool.

A bridge.

—Do you think he will use it? —she asked, not really expecting an answer.

—I don't know. —said Helena—. But it belongs to him. Like almost everything he still doesn't know he carries with him.

Selena placed the cell phone on a dusty toolbox, right in the center of what would be the main hall.

There was no note.

There was no need.

If Sebastián found it… he would know. If not… he would too.

—It doesn't feel like a farewell. —said Helena suddenly, stopping beside an unplastered wall.

—Because it isn't. —Selena replied—. But something has changed.

Both of them knew it.

That place was empty.

But the silence…

The silence weighed as if three presences had been torn out of time.

As if the echo of what had happened there… did not want to be forgotten.

Helena turned.

Selena did as well.

They said nothing more.

They did not look back.

They only let the wind move the dust, as if it wanted to cover the footprints of three existences that were no longer there.

And the world, which rarely grants truces, decided to keep silent a few seconds more. The noise of the city was a contained murmur at that hour.

The lights of the lampposts had not yet fully gone out, as if doubting that dawn was enough to protect the living.

Helena walked without haste.

Each step measured as if the asphalt could collapse under the wrong weight.

At her side, Selena kept her gaze forward, but her eyes calculated routes, buildings, movements.

Neither of them spoke idly.

—He almost died. —said Helena. Her voice did not tremble. But it was not indifference: it was surgical precision.

—But he didn't die. —Selena replied, without breaking her rhythm.

The traffic was still scarce, but the echo of a motorcycle in the distance was enough to drag with it the memory of what had happened the night before.

Sebastián, alone before the abyss.

And the abyss, almost satisfied to devour him.

—It is still something… inhuman. —added Selena—. But not eternal.

Helena barely nodded.

She knew what that meant.

—We are not used to seeing cracks in someone like him.

—Because rarely does someone like him survive his own cracks.

The building where they operated was not far.

A concrete structure without markings. Functional. Discreet.

Like almost everything they controlled.

Like almost everything they wanted unseen.

—Do you think we will see him the same again? —asked Helena, no longer looking at Selena, but at an invisible point above the rooftops.

—No. —said Selena—. But he doesn't need to. What he seeks lies beyond "the same."

They entered the building without needing to announce themselves.

The doors recognized them.

The hallways feared them.

They walked to the office without wasting time.

When the door closed behind them, the world seemed to grow quieter.

Or denser.

Helena sat down.

Selena, on the other hand, remained standing, reviewing the tablet where maps, lists, and protocols were projected.

—Sebastián spoke of the "Veil." —Helena recalled, without softness—. A plane we cannot access.

—For now. —corrected Selena, as if time were always a promise and never a barrier.

—And if forces we don't understand move there…

—Then we cannot keep reacting. We must anticipate.

Helena observed her for a moment.

It was neither approval nor criticism.

Only evaluation.

—Do you think he will be able to carry all that he bears?

—No. —said Selena, without looking at her—. But that won't stop him.

Helena lowered her gaze for a second.

The screen before her displayed unfinished reports, open missions, nameless faces.

—We are not in control. —she said at last.

—We never were. —Selena replied—. But we pretend better than the rest.

The night before had revealed to them something more than a weakness.

It had reminded them that they were inside a living, mutable… and hostile system.

One that was not ruled by the rules they commanded.

—Then we adapt. —murmured Helena.

—Or we die like the rest. —concluded Selena.

And for the first time in weeks, Helena did not know if that phrase was a warning…

or an inevitable fate. The morning light barely slipped through the office windows, projecting irregular lines across the floor.

The air, though clean, carried that metallic taste of decisions not yet spoken.

Helena watched the screen in silence.

Selena did not blink.

—Progress? —asked Helena without turning.

Selena slid the latest image across the digital table.

The reconstruction of the suit that Sebastián had ripped from his first target was still incomplete.

But not for lack of means.

Rather, because there was something they did not know how to replicate.

—The structure is ready. Almost identical. —she said—. But its functioning… does not respond the same.

—What prevents it?

—We don't know. The power core that subject carried… was not common.

Helena did not respond.

Her silence weighed more than any hypothesis.

—And what have the ones from Recliva said? —she continued, slowly folding her hands.

—That it is not standard technology. That it does not respond to external stimulation.

That its behavior changes depending on proximity, as if…

—As if it felt? —Helena interrupted.

Selena did not confirm.

But neither did she deny it.

—It is like a mechanism that remembers for whom it was activated.

They both knew what that meant:

A limitation.

A warning.

Or an intentional design that was never meant to be shared.

—Can it be adapted to our units? —Helena asked after a moment.

—Partly. But they will not respond the same.

They will function… but without that aggressive precision we saw in the original.

—Then we are not replicating it. We are imitating it.

—Exactly. And poorly.

Selena turned off the screen.

—Will we use it anyway? —she asked.

Helena closed her eyes for a moment.

She was not thinking of strategies… but of consequences.

—Yes. But not in the field. Only as a piece.

—A trap?

—No. A lie.

And if it works… perhaps we will discover who else has used something like this.

Selena nodded.

Deep down, all of this was a war between shadows.

Between what was not said… and what was never meant to exist.

—Do you think Sebastián would understand that we are using it? —she asked.

—I don't know. —Helena said—. But we are not obliged to ask his permission.

Only to survive what he unleashes.

Selena turned the tablet back on, this time to close the records.

No written trace would remain.

Because if there was something they had learned that night,

it was that what is truly dangerous… does not need to leave evidence.

It only leaves a space.

A silence.

And then, it disappears.

The screen went dark, but the echo of the data remained alive in the room.

Helena did not move.

Neither did Selena.

Both understood that sometimes, what weighs most is not what is missing…

but what one tries to force to fill the void.

—We do not control it. —Helena said at last, more to set it in the air than as judgment.

—And still we will use it. —Selena replied, as if she had already accepted every variable of the risk.

Helena nodded slowly.

The cane rested against her thigh. She did not need it to stand, but to remember that balance was not a state, but a constant choice.

—What do we have exactly? —she asked.

Selena turned the tablet, showing the silhouette of the replica suit.

Its metallic surface imitated the texture of the original.

The plates unfolded with surgical precision.

The internal systems responded to touch, to heat, to movement.

But it was still dead.

—It is a body without a heart. —she said—. It reacts. But it does not act.

—And if we lend it one?

Selena lifted her gaze. Not in surprise. But in confirmation.

Both knew that idea had been hovering from the start.

—Who? —she simply asked.

Helena did not answer. She did not yet have the name. But she knew what to look for:

Someone who was not afraid to burn… even if he did not know why.

—We don't need it to work the same. —she added— Only to inspire the same terror.

—Then we need a monster. Or someone who knows how to pretend to be one.

—Sometimes there is no difference.

Selena walked to the window. Outside, the day remained gray, as if the sun did not want to stain its hands in that part of the world.

—I can prepare it for urban interventions. Close combat. Controlled visibility. —she said.

—No. —Helena interrupted—. Make it conspicuous. I want them to see it.

—A decoy?

—A message.

Selena understood without needing further explanation.

It was not a weapon.

It was a shadow in human shape, dressed in something that resembled too much the night when everything changed.

—Shall we release it in the center? —she asked.

—Too soon. Chaos draws the wrong kind of attention.

We will place it in a more discreet spot. A smaller war. Something no one will miss if it disappears.

Selena already had five possible places in mind.

Zones where silence was the norm, and violence a language that needed no translation.

—And if they recognize it?

Helena barely turned her face. Her gaze was beyond the glass, beyond the horizon.

It was on the memory of the original suit…

and on the void left by the one who wore it before becoming something else.

—Let them recognize it.

—And if they ask?

—Let them wonder.

—And if they fear?

Helena lifted her chin slightly.

—Then we will have done something right.

A tense silence settled in the office.

It was not empty: it was calculation, strategy… and a trace of resentment for not having the complete pieces.

—And if he returns? —Selena said at last.

There was no need to name him.

Helena did not hesitate.

—We will not have stolen anything from him. We will only have reminded him of what he left behind.

—And if he does not approve?

—Then let him destroy it.

—And with it, the message.

—Or make it real.

The two looked at each other.

There were no smiles.

There was no relief.

Only a tacit agreement between two minds that knew truth is rarely necessary to win.

Only fear.

And if they could not understand the power they had seen…

at least they could replicate its shadow.

Helena did not lift her gaze from the report.

The words were not many, but each one weighed like a gunshot that was never heard. In the lower corner of the digital file, an image rotated in silence: the Armex suit, reconstructed from ruin, raised from the trash like a corpse forced to walk.

—There is no core. —said Selena, without emotion, like one mentioning a missing screw, though knowing it was the whole soul.

—There never was. —Helena replied—. What we found in that body was not a reactor… it was an aberration.

Silence.

The office lights barely flickered over the blueprints projected on the wall. The replica of the Armex kept spinning on the screen: imposing, incomplete… and now more dangerous than ever.

—Then it deploys without a soul. —said Selena—. Like a weapon without intention, but with purpose.

Helena nodded. The idea was not to grant it meaning. But utility.

—The auxiliary energy overloads at eighteen minutes. After that… structural collapse. Or self-destruction. —Selena reported with surgical precision.

—Enough for a run. —Helena said—. And a warning.

The idea was no longer theirs. It had been born from the very darkness they observed. That which, as always, walked ahead.

A criminal.

A human scrap, condemned for crimes that did not even matter. A forgotten gear, ready to be used one last time. He would be its pilot. Its bearer. Its trap with legs.

Helena tightened her grip on the cane.

—I want it to be in the same club. —she said—. Where it all began.

—Where the original was recovered. —Selena completed—. Let the cycle seem to close… while we open another.

A pause.

The shadows in the room did not move, but something in them seemed denser.

—Public reaction? —Helena asked.

—We don't care about the masses. But the other players… something in them will tremble. —Selena replied—. It's not a declaration of war. It's an echo. A signal.

—Of what?

Selena closed the tablet.

—That they are not alone. That we are playing too. And that we know how to fabricate monsters, even without meaning to.

The phrase lingered.

Like an invisible blade, marking the air.

Helena leaned back in her chair. It was not rest. It was strategy. It was her way of tilting to see the world from below… and then crushing it.

—Make it look like a mistake. —she ordered—. But one too clean to be an accident.

Selena was already writing the protocols on the screen.

—We will release it, let it walk its death. And let its burst say what we need without speaking words.

Helena closed her eyes for a moment.

She visualized the scene: the suit moving forward among dead lights, the robotic breathing of the manipulated criminal, the explosion in red… the silence after.

—Then it will not be an attack. —she murmured.

—It will be a mirror. —Selena replied—. One that returns their own nightmares to them.

And while the system compiled the activation codes, the two understood they needed no more warnings.

They only had to let the shadows speak for them.

And let the world… hear the muffled scream of the coming horror.

They did not call it by its name.

Because it had lost it years ago.

Because not even the other scraps of the prison mentioned it anymore.

Because the name was a mask… and he had chosen to rip even his own face away.

In the records of the penal system he appeared only as "Subject 27-0C."

A soulless nickname, with no redemption possible.

Only a cell and a chain of crimes so long that even hell would accept it without blinking.

Helena watched him from the other side of the opaque glass.

Not with disgust.

Not with judgment.

Only with that gaze that weighs more than any chain.

—Fifteen years in isolation. —Selena read softly, as if the number spoke directly to her stomach—. Three escape attempts. One murder inside the prison. Four riots instigated. No sign of remorse.

—Perfect. —Helena said, as if that file were a checklist completed.

On the other side, the man only laughed.

He did not speak with words.

He babbled with scars.

His knuckles were more tattoo than skin. His gaze more poison than vision.

—Do you know why they call him "the Oblivion"? —Selena asked, without looking away.

—Because no one remembers him as human. —Helena replied.

And in a way, it was true.

He had been born in one of the cracks of the system —that mixture of misery and violence where no one wanted to look.

He grew up among rubble, among bodies thrown away like trash, among blood and fire.

And he decided, very early, that the world that had spat him out deserved to burn.

Not for justice.

Not for revenge.

Only for balance.

—He is disposable. —Helena murmured—. But his fury is still useful. It only needs a direction.

Selena nodded.

The suit was almost ready.

The replica of the Armex was not perfect… but lethal for a few minutes.

Enough for a message.

Enough to turn Oblivion into a bullet… and the nightclub into a warning.

—And if the suit collapses before impact? —asked one of the technicians, without raising his voice too much.

—Then, even better. —Helena replied—. Let the corpses ask later.

The criminal was taken to the implantation room.

He did not ask what the suit was.

He only asked for a cigarette.

And when they lit it, he put it out against his own tongue… as if pain were a greeting to himself.

He had no family.

He had no history worth a tear.

He only had a body full of scars, a hollow soul, and a face that would not survive a single night in freedom.

He was perfect.

Not as redemption.

But as punishment with direction.

And while the team adjusted the last parameters, Selena watched the screen where his face trembled under the visor of the helmet.

—Do you think Sebastián will understand this message?

Helena did not respond immediately.

—It doesn't matter if he understands it. —she said at last—. What matters is that the world knows there are still monsters… and not all of them are him.

The buildings had no face.

They were columns of gray concrete, with tinted windows and soulless receptionists.

But among them… one, in particular, seemed deader than the rest.

Not because it was abandoned.

But because everything in it seemed built to be forgotten.

Helena stepped out of the car without a word.

Selena followed her, tablet in hand, with that precise elegance that not even the rain —about to fall— dared to ruin.

A guard opened the door without looking at them.

He did not even ask their names.

He just let them pass as if they were part of the air… or of the cracks that held it together.

—Third floor. Office of Inspector Garza. —Helena murmured.

Selena did not reply, but she had already traced in her mind every step, every hallway, every face on the cameras.

When they knocked on the door, the voice on the other side did not say "come in."

There was only a dry click.

The lock surrendering too soon.

Inside, Inspector Garza was a man as broad as an old file.

He had thick fingers, bitten nails, and a constant smell of smoke, cold coffee… and fear wrapped in authority.

—Mrs. Helena. Miss Selena. —he said, with a voice that wanted to sound dignified.

—Inspector. —Helena replied, with a tone that asked for no permission. Nor respect. Only obedience disguised as courtesy.

—Is this about the suit? —he asked, without preamble.

—No. —Helena said—. It's about a warning.

Garza swallowed hard. Not because he didn't understand.

But because he understood too well.

—We already moved the subject's file. Officially, he died in a riot six months ago.

—Perfect. —Selena replied.

—And the trace of the suit… —Garza added—. It was "confused" with parts seized from a port raid. No one will ask.

Helena walked to the window.

From there, the horizon was a smear of smoke and antennas.

—Inspector. —she said at last—. You think you run a precinct. But what you run… is the varnish. I own the wood.

Garza did not know if that was a threat.

Or a declaration of faith.

—This operation will leave no trace. —he said, like a loyal dog that knows the length of its chain.

—I don't care if it leaves traces. —Helena corrected, without turning—. I care that the traces lead to the wrong place.

Selena placed a document on the desk.

—The criminal will be transferred to the club tonight. Infiltrated as a failed operative. The suit doesn't need to survive. It only needs to make an impact.

Garza read it without blinking.

But his hands sweated as if holding the verdict of his life.

—And if the press asks… —he stammered.

—They won't. —Helena said—. Because you will give them another, better story. Fireworks, a gang score to settle, an undercover operation from another city. Pick the flavor you prefer. But make them swallow it.

The room grew quieter.

Not out of respect.

But from that invisible pressure that surrounded them every time they spoke without raising their voices.

Selena looked him straight in the eyes.

—If this plan fails, Garza, you will not die. That would be mercy. What you will lose is your anonymity. And when this world knows what kind of man you are… not even pigs will want to wallow with you.

Garza nodded.

Not out of courage.

But from that resignation only known by men who have already sold their soul… and know their buyer does not accept returns.

Helena turned halfway.

She left the office as if everything were already done.

And in a way… it was.

Because her enterprise was not only contracts and technology.

It was a web of invisible threads, of old favors, of secrets with a price and silences with interest.

A queen without a crown.

An empress of control.

And that night, her warning would walk on borrowed legs… dressed in steel, madness, and rancor.

The prisoner had no name.

It had been stripped from him along with his teeth, his nails, his voice, and any trace of humanity that had ever made him a man. The only thing left was flesh with a past —and a past so rotten that not even the worms of justice wanted to devour it.

They dragged him like a sick animal, but not with brutality. It was not necessary. No will remained that could resist. He only walked because they pushed him. He only breathed because his body had not yet learned how to die.

The suit awaited him.

Black. Cold. Incomplete.

A mechanical skeleton without a core, a promise of power without a soul, designed to scream on the battlefield… and to explode if the scream lasted too long.

The workshop where they dressed him did not seem part of the world. Metal ceilings, bare walls, pipes like inert veins. The air smelled of rust, oil, and something deeper… something like fear.

Two men held him by the arms.

Two others began fastening the metal anchors to his back, his chest, his bony legs.

—Do you know why you are here? —someone asked. The voice came from a corner in shadows. It could have been Helena. It could have been no one. It didn't matter.

The prisoner did not respond. His eyes were open, but he did not see. Not from blindness. From emptiness.

The helmet was the last piece. A capsule over the head. Sealed. No external vision. Only a small screen inside… where nothing was displayed.

—He doesn't need to see. Only to arrive. —said a second voice. Cold. Technical. Selena, perhaps. Or a preprogrammed recording to command deaths.

The suit's internal engines hummed with unstable energy, powered by an improvised battery that only had to last long enough.

Just enough to walk toward the nightclub where everything had begun.

Just enough for the monster disguised as a man to reach his final altar.

—This will be his only useful act. —Helena murmured, without emotion—. A failed experiment… that will return as a warning.

The suit activated.

The prisoner's body barely straightened, as if the machine held him up more than his bones did.

He was not a warrior.

He was a message.

He was a specter dressed in the remains of a broken idea, programmed to burn, to remind the world that death also has well-dressed emissaries.

The technicians stepped aside.

The gate opened.

The prisoner, now faceless, took the first step out of the laboratory.

The sound was metallic, dry, as if the ground itself did not want to bear his presence.

No one applauded.

No one looked back.

Because that being was not marching to war…

…he was marching toward destruction.

He was not announced with sirens.

He did not cross the city like a frantic projectile.

He advanced like death with neatly combed hair: without haste, without noise, without a face.

A white van —the kind one sees every day, the kind no one remembers— moved through the streets with a rough, steady engine, barely audible beneath the gray symphony of morning traffic.

On the outside, nothing betrayed it. No logos, no marks, no weapons in sight. Only a matte paint, clean but without shine, as if the sun itself avoided it.

But inside…

Inside it carried a warning dressed as a machine.

And a crime chained to the back seat.

The prisoner did not move. He did not speak.

Not out of obedience.

Because there was no one left who could disobey.

The straps that held him against the backrest were designed to restrain more than muscles: they bore the weight of a bomb shaped like flesh.

The suit, incomplete but active, exhaled small, intermittent hums, like an electric heart on the verge of arrhythmia.

The lights of the internal panel, lodged before his dead eyes, flickered without sense.

Red. Blue. Red. Blue.

There were no instructions.

There was no hope.

Only time counted.

Not to escape…

But to burn.

In the passenger seat, a man without a name —one of so many ghosts with false badges and a severed tongue— watched a small screen integrated into the dashboard.

The route was not marked as a destination.

It was a circuit.

A dance around the nightclub.

Like wolves circling the corpse that still breathes.

—First round complete. —the driver reported in a hollow voice, not expecting an answer.

In a corner of the vehicle, hidden behind a polarized partition, a female figure monitored the suit's vitals from a tablet.

Selena.

Her expression was a mask carved from calculation.

—Do not release him yet. —she said without looking—. There is still too much order in the air.

—Movement in sector three. —the driver added—. Two civilians. Possible witnesses.

—Note them. If they survive the event, we eliminate them afterward.

From the farthest seat, Helena said nothing.

But her eyes, emptied of wonder, read the world like a language already deciphered.

—We will not activate him until silence hurts. —she said at last—. This is not a message for the ears. It is for the stomach. For the dream. For them not to close their eyes again without remembering what they let escape.

The van turned again.

The third lap.

Like a ritual.

No one on the sidewalk suspected.

No one in the buildings marked it.

It was just another vehicle.

A disguise on wheels.

Inside, the prisoner began to sweat.

Not from fear.

His mind no longer allowed it.

It was the body, perhaps, the last thing that remembered what it was to be human.

And it trembled…

as if it knew it was about to become something worse.

Or nothing.

—Two more laps. —Selena murmured—. And then, let the echo begin.

The city did not scream.

Not yet.

But the warning…

was already breathing.

The city did not sleep.

But at that hour… it pretended.

The streets breathed with closed eyes, and the buildings, with their lights barely lit, seemed to hold their breath before something they did not yet understand, but already feared.

A civilian van, white paint and reflectionless windows, slid down the avenue as if trying not to be noticed… or as if it already belonged to the landscape of oblivion. Inside, the silence was just another corpse.

Not out of respect.

But because none of those in that cabin wanted to break it.

The driver —a face without a name, without history, without visible soul— held the steering wheel like one holds the neck of someone begging for air.

Helena, seated behind him, did not speak.

She didn't need to.

She had already killed with less than words.

Selena, beside her, reviewed the control panel that activated the suit's systems. The numbers were unstable. The core was absent, but the containment battery had been overloaded. Just enough. Just what was necessary.

In the back, the criminal breathed as if the air did not belong to him.

His eyes were empty, and his skin sweated in silence.

They had dressed him. They had tied him.

And still, he did not seem to resist.

Not from resignation.

But because the beast that lived in him… had understood that this was his place.

A death that would feel like glory.

The suit —an imperfect, almost grotesque replica of the original model that Sebastián had taken as a trophy— vibrated with a dirty, heavy energy, tainted by hatred.

The sensors read 87% stability.

But the explosion did not require perfection.

Only timing.

—Four minutes left —Selena said. Her voice was the edge of a scalpel before the cut.

Helena looked through the slit.

The club was there.

With its music already blaring.

With its façade illuminated.

With its people dancing, unaware that the abyss… had arrived.

They did not step down.

They did not approach.

They only let the vehicle move slowly down the side street.

The command system was activated remotely.

The criminal inside the suit began to murmur.

Not prayers. Not pleas.

But fragments of names.

Fifteen names.

His fingers trembled.

Not from fear.

From hunger.

Because even now, on the verge of death… he wanted to keep going.

And that made him perfect.

The suit vibrated.

The systems failed one last time.

The improvised reactor reached 100%.

And then, the world took one last breath… before breaking.

An explosion with no sound at first, as if the universe hesitated to let it be born, and then…

FIRE.

Black smoke rose like a faceless being. The façade of the club was torn away completely.

The ground split as if hell itself had pushed from below.

The nearby bodies were thrown like broken promises.

The music stopped.

The city, for an instant, believed it had returned to war.

From the van, half a kilometer away, Helena and Selena watched the flames rise like warnings written in blood.

—Will they understand? —Helena asked, without emotion.

—If they don't… —Selena said, her eyes reflecting the embers— someone else will for them.

The vehicle turned in silence, disappearing into streets that did not yet know they had just witnessed a signal.

A warning.

A judgment.

Because in that world, only those who destroy without hesitation… are taken seriously.

The night had already settled violently over the city.

Not like a cloak… but like a sentence.

The news had not yet managed to weave a coherent version of what had happened. The external cameras of the nightclub showed only a flicker… and then darkness. No one had seen anything coming. No one had understood anything. They only knew that the heart of the place —that façade masking transactions, secrets, and power— had collapsed in seconds.

The smoke still clung to the streets, as if unwilling to leave until making sure everyone understood: this was no accident. It was a message. One that used no words.

On the networks, blurry recordings began to circulate, fragments of phone videos, muffled screams, and silhouettes fleeing. The media spoke of "terrorist attack," "criminal revenge," "underground conflict between organizations." No one knew, but everyone felt: something had awakened.

And while the world tried to understand… Helena and Selena were already planning the next move.

The office had not changed. But the air had.

Everything smelled of invisible ash, of accumulated caution.

Helena sat in front of the screen, her fingers crossed over the cane. She said nothing yet, but her eyes had already read between the lines of the preliminary reports.

Selena was not checking screens: she was listening.

The city, the chaos, the reactions. The collective breath after the explosion.

—It has not been enough. —Helena murmured, as if reading the thoughts of her shadow.

—It was not meant to be. —Selena replied—. This was not an execution. It was a reminder.

Helena nodded slowly.

—But some reminders must hurt more.

—And to hurt more… requires another kind of precision. —Selena added, sliding an image across the table—. The impact was surgical, but emotional. The losses were minor. Structural damage, symbolic damage. Do you want more?

—Not now. But I want them to know we can.

Selena crossed her arms. Not with hardness, but with balance.

—The replica worked. The reaction was as expected. They did not link the suit to us. The criminal was incinerated in the explosion. The message remained clean.

—And the police?

—Our contacts handled it. They will see it as a score settled between cells. They will investigate… but without direction.

Helena closed her eyes for a moment.

Not from fatigue. But to better visualize what was coming.

—Begin outlining the next scenario.

—Another attack?

—No. A seeding. This was a thunderclap. Now… we are going to plant storms.

Selena understood without asking.

That club was only one. One of the many nests where power rots without oversight. If that was the way to speak to the underworld… then they needed to find a way to make it scream.

The night remained silent.

But in that office, there was no darkness.

There was intention.

And that is always more lethal.

The hallways no longer slept.

Though no one walked through them, the energy pulsing beneath the concrete walls made clear that something had been set in motion. And it would not stop.

Selena descended to the second operations level, where protocol was managed without words, without records… and without questions. There, discretion was not a requirement: it was oxygen itself.

In one of the isolated rooms, the main screen displayed flow data, district cameras, hot zones. But what mattered was not in the images.

It was in the silence with which Helena read the list that had just been brought to her.

No names.

Only numbers.

Codes.

Possibilities.

—I want two false reports leaked. —Helena said, without lifting her gaze—. One suggesting a political attack. Another, a foreign operation. Nothing pointing toward us… but enough to unsettle everyone.

Selena was already expecting it. She opened her tablet and began typing.

—And the seeding? —she asked, without turning.

—Underway. We already have the next point. —Helena slid a sealed folder toward her—. This time we won't strike the body. We will strike the tongue.

Selena skimmed the documents. It was a local media outlet. Sensationalist. But with contacts in circles of power. A nest that fed on fear.

—Will it be another message? —she asked.

—It will be a mirror. —Helena corrected—. So that each one sees what they fear. And believes we put it there.

Selena closed the folder.

She knew what that implied.

No more blood —not yet—. But paranoia.

A war without visible corpses, but with more weight in every whisper.

—And what about those who want answers?

—Let them search. —Helena said—. They will find only echoes.

The monitor shifted its feed. It showed the ruins of the club. The smoke had not fully cleared. And yet, traffic was already beginning to circle it. As if the city knew it had to move on… but not how.

—Chaos is easy. —Selena murmured—. Direction… is what defines power.

—And we have already chosen one. —Helena replied—. Only the rest don't know it yet.

There was a pause.

Not from doubt. From contemplation.

The kind of silence that precedes the irreversible.

—Activate the observers. —Helena ordered—. I want eyes on the bridges, in the alleys, in every mouth that speaks more than twice.

—Do you suspect a response?

—No. I expect it. —Helena rose—. But I don't want them to strike first. I want to see them tremble before they try.

Selena did not reply. She only nodded.

And as both left the room, the system reconfigured itself behind them, as if their steps had left an imprint on every server, on every fiber.

Because this was not only about a message.

It was about building a silence so dense… that when the world spoke again, it would be with their words.

The city had not yet closed its eyes.

Outside, among the buildings that did not sleep and the avenues that never emptied, the smoke kept extending its invisible fingers across the rooftops, dragging not only ashes… but questions.

In an office hidden under a ghost name —a façade among hundreds in the financial district—, the lights turned on before any alarm sounded.

Floating screens began to unfold data into the air, projected from interfaces that no government had approved but all pretended not to see.

There were ten people in that room. None spoke.

Their faces, bathed in the blue glow of technology, showed neither surprise nor rage… only calculation. They were operators. Architects of trafficking. Founders of a network that wove drugs, weapons, and favors across the city with surgical precision.

And one of their centers had just burned.

—It was not a random explosion. —said one of them at last, his voice dry, synthetic, modified so no one could trace his tone—. The shockwaves were directed inward. Clean. Efficient. No lateral energy leakage.

—As if someone… not only wanted to destroy the place. But to purge it. —added another, with an eastern accent. His left hand trembled over the table. His right had been amputated years ago. Not from war. From betrayal.

The central screen displayed a three-dimensional map of the club before its destruction. Then, the same map after the explosion. The building's inner lines were ruptured from the core, as if a bomb had awakened… from the monster's chest.

—And the suit? —asked the only one seated at the back. No one knew his name. But everyone knew he did not ask twice.

One of the technicians slid the analysis onto the main projection.

—It's not one of ours. —he said with a tense voice—. But the core is similar. A design of forced energy transfer. Short autonomy. High volatility. Clearly… a replica. Unstable. But functional.

—Where did they get it from? —asked the man with the eastern accent, his voice even more strained.

—From us. —the technician admitted, lowering his head—. Not directly. But it's our work, our lines, our patents… dismembered and reassembled by someone who knows what they're doing.

Silence.

The man at the back leaned forward, resting his fingers on the table like claws waiting to tear out the truth.

—And the operator?

—Dead. Charred remains. DNA matched a prisoner who disappeared two weeks ago. Rapist. Serial killer. Someone who would not have been missed.

—Perfect. —the leader murmured—. Whoever did this not only has access to our technologies. They also have access to our waste. And they know how to use it against us.

Another screen lit up.

Social network. Underground news channel. Private contractors' forum. In all of them, the same word began to float like a silent poison:

Warning.

—Who is behind this? —asked one, already knowing there would be no answer.

—We don't know. —the technician said—. But if they can build, infiltrate, manipulate, and destroy without leaving a trace…

—…then they are not just rivals. —the leader interrupted—. They are architects of something greater.

The final screen showed a frozen image of the moment before the explosion. Just a single frame. A blink before silence. The suit standing. Motionless. Like an offering. Like a curse.

And then: nothing.

The fire had consumed everything, but the message remained.

It was not just an attack.

It was the first movement of an unknown symphony.

One not played with notes… but with warnings wrapped in fire.

And in the city that does not sleep, in that dawn that refused to end, the powerful began to fear not what they knew…

but what they could not yet see.

The city did not sleep. It only pretended.

The smoke still crawled through the ruins of the club, and though the firefighters were gone, and the press drones lowered their lights, something remained… something that did not scatter with the wind nor dissolve with the headlines.

From a nameless rooftop, where only dust and silence dared to climb, two hooded figures watched.

One tall, upright, with the scythe still crossed over his back.

Another smaller, sitting on the edge, swinging her legs as if the void below meant nothing.

—They moved ahead of schedule —he said, without emotion or judgment—.

It was not a question. Nor admiration. Just a fact.

The young woman laughed, a dry sound, almost childlike.

—But they did not hide. Or not enough.

—They did better than others.

—Not better than us.

The holographic screen floating between them projected news reports, live broadcasts, comments on clandestine forums.

Some spoke of terrorist attacks.

Others of gang wars.

But all, without knowing it, spoke of one thing: fear.

—It was not a declaration of war —he added, crossing his arms—. It was a warning.

—A seed —she whispered—. One that bleeds in the wrong soil…

He looked at the site of the explosion carefully.

The club's cameras had not captured the origin, but he had felt it.

Not the fire. Not the blast.

But the intention.

That contained energy that only arises when one wants to leave a mark, not a corpse.

—Do you think they know what they caused? —she asked, leaning back against the concrete—.

—No.

—Do you think they care?

—No.

—Then… should we do something?

—Not yet.

She turned toward him. Her eyes were hidden beneath the hood, but the twisted smile was clearly drawn.

—I get bored if we only watch.

—We observe to understand.

—And if we already understand?

—Then we wait for the next move to fail.

Silence rose again between them.

Below, the city writhed in its speculations.

The names of Helena and Selena were in no one's mouth.

But the shadow of their warning… had already darkened more than one clandestine table.

—And Sebastián? —she asked suddenly.

—He still breathes.

—And when he stops?

—Then… the board will become unrecognizable.

The young woman stood up.

He did not move.

Both knew the game had begun long before the explosions lit the night.

And still, only one of them was clear… about who was truly moving the pieces.

The dawn no longer smelled of smoke…

but of what comes after smoke.

That heavy silence. That calm that exists only when the vultures have not yet decided whether to draw near… or wait for another explosion.

The office still had no open windows.

But the screens did.

Each displayed different news. Official media, underground forums, encrypted transmissions.

Selena did not look at just one: she devoured them all at once.

And each piece of data was a thermometer.

Each silence, a warning.

—They've changed their tone. —she murmured without turning—. The human trafficking organizations have lowered their activity by 37%. The illegal arms networks… are speaking in old codes. As if they wanted no one else to listen.

Helena did not answer immediately.

She was seated. Not motionless, but static like an idea too dense to float.

Her fingers brushed the cane, not out of need, but for structure.

—Some have understood the message. —she said at last—. Others pretend they didn't see it… but they are bleeding.

Selena nodded without emotion.

—And some are too quiet to be innocent.

A screen shifted.

It showed a map.

Zones that once pulsed with illegal movements… were now dead.

Not in order. Not in peace.

Dead like someone holding their breath before launching an attack.

—They are waiting. —Selena said—. They don't know if it was an accident… or a declaration.

—It was both. —Helena corrected—. And it was only the beginning.

Selena slid a file.

Names. Faces. Codes.

All marked as possible next targets.

—What comes next?

Helena did not answer immediately.

She lifted her gaze, not toward Selena, but toward one of the screens.

One where there were no faces. Only shadows.

Figures the world would never recognize.

But that had already begun to react.

—We are no longer speaking to shadows. —Helena murmured—

Now the shadows… are speaking back to us.

Selena said nothing.

But she knew that phrase was not a metaphor.

It was a statement.

The underworld had not stayed still.

It had understood.

And now, like wounded beasts, some of those shadows would begin to respond.

The difference was… Helena and Selena were already ready.

For the next screams.

For the replicas.

For whatever came.

Because they did not throw warnings.

They knew how to harvest storms.

And there were still many seeds left to sow.

The office had no clocks. It did not need them.

Time there was measured in decisions, not in minutes.

And right then, the city burned in murmurs while Helena and Selena watched the embers from the center of the board.

—At least three organizations have suspended operations in the last two hours —Selena reported, her voice without emotion but filled with living data—. Two trafficking networks, one biotechnological weapons cell… all in a state of temporary paralysis.

Helena barely blinked.

—And the silences?

—There's one that hasn't emitted signals for twenty-two minutes —Selena said—. Before, they posted every five.

Helena nodded very slowly.

—We are no longer speaking with shadows… now the shadows are speaking back to us.

The air in the room did not change, but the tension grew sharper.

The screen projected a map of the continent, with heat points, cold zones, digital pulses. It was a map of fear. And they read it like a prophecy.

—Select the new target. —Helena ordered, with that calm that cut like the edge of a thought.

Selena slid several files.

They were not faces. They were echoes. Routes, shipments, patterns unseen… except to one who knew how to look beneath the skin of the world.

—This one. —she marked a port zone, where the containers carried not only metal and merchandise, but silences bought with blood—. They control routes to the east. They have ties with the market of unregulated implants and modifications. They know how to hide bodies.

Helena looked at the point. She did not say yes. She did not say no.

—Does it require direct intervention? —she asked.

Selena hesitated for a second. Just one. And it was not insecurity. It was analysis.

—Not yet. But it could escalate. And if it escalates, we will need Sebastián.

The name fell like a drop of lead.

—Not yet. —Helena replied—. Not until we have something that can be compared to what he is… and move him without breaking more than he solves.

Selena nodded, but her eyes did not leave the image on the map.

She did not contradict her. But neither did she deny it.

—It's not a matter of power. —she murmured—. It's a matter of direction. Of pulse. Sebastián doesn't follow orders. He follows impulses. And that can make him a useful tempest… or an error impossible to contain.

The phrase held no judgment. It was a report.

But Helena heard something more.

A tone barely perceptible, an almost invisible variation in the way Selena spoke Sebastián's name.

It was not affection. It was not tenderness.

It was something more dangerous: interest.

Not as a tool. Not as an asset.

But as a possibility.

Helena did not comment. She did not raise an eyebrow. She did not question anything.

But she noted it.

Not out loud. Not in her files.

But in that part of herself that still knows how to recognize when something is beginning… even if no one admits it yet.

The screen shifted.

The new target was marked.

The systems began calculating routes, movements, projected shadows.

—This is a seeding. —Helena said—. But in this one… we don't want sprouts. We want rotten roots surfacing.

Selena closed the tablet with a precise motion.

The game had changed.

And it was no longer played with fire alone.

Now, the shadows were watching.

And they… were going to teach them how to blind those who believe they can see in the dark.

—Any updates on the internal frequencies? —Helena asked, breaking the brief silence left by the closure of the previous objective.

—None. —Selena replied, with another screen already open—. No signals. No traces. Sebastián, Virka, and that… creature, Narka, are on no network. As if they didn't exist.

—Are you certain?

—I've used every pulse, every hidden-spectrum satellite. I checked thermal logs, psychoelectric emissions, layered image traffic. Nothing.

Selena paused. Pressed her lips, just slightly. Then spoke with a calm that, in her, was always more revealing than any emphasis.

—There is no footprint. And that, in this world… can only mean one thing.

Helena looked at her. She already knew what she was going to say. But she needed to hear it.

—They're in the Veil. —Selena said—. Or whatever it is Sebastián calls it. That space where no one enters. Where not even logic operates.

—A plane beyond tracking… —Helena murmured, unsurprised—. Not a void. A refuge… or a trap.

Selena nodded, but her eyes were not those of someone afraid. They were those of someone calculating, measuring, waiting.

—We don't know how to enter. Only that he… can. That they, the three of them, can. And that changes everything.

A pause. A silence. But not an empty one. It was a dense silence, as if the air remembered something the bodies could not yet put into words.

—We could speculate. We could theorize. But no. —Selena said at last—. All we can do is wait. For them to return. To come back. Not to be lost.

Helena said nothing. But she was watching.

Not the screen.

Her.

Watching how her words about Sebastián were beginning to stain with a new substance.

It was not weakness.

Nor was it desire.

It was a kind of attraction born when the unknown stops being a threat… and becomes a challenge.

Selena had spoken of Sebastián many times. But this time… she did not speak of him as a variable.

She spoke of him as a phenomenon.

As a blind spot she could not dominate… but also could not ignore.

And Helena, who never deceived herself with what others said, filed it away.

Inside herself.

Like an incomplete equation.

Like a fact that was not yet useful, but soon could be.

She too was beginning to wonder…

What kind of man was this, capable of going where not even the shadows follow?

And the most unsettling part was not that Selena was waiting for him.

It was that Helena was beginning to want to know what he would bring when he returned.

Not for control.

But for that need belonging to those who have already seen everything… and still wait for one last revelation.

_________________________________

END OF CHAPTER 25