[A Few Moments Earlier]

Twenty men stood outside the Central Detention building, their forms barely visible in the moonlight.

Each one wore black combat gear that seemed to absorb the light. Their masks were identical, white porcelain painted with bloody smiles that stretched too wide, too wrong.

Patrolling officers spotted them and froze.

One figure stood apart from the others.

He wore a perfectly tailored black suit, a fedora pulled low over his face, and sunglasses despite the midnight hour. His posture radiated authority, the kind that made men either follow or flee.

Behind him walked another figure, massive and broad-shouldered. His mask was different from the others, completely white with no smile, no expression, just blank porcelain that somehow felt more threatening than the grins surrounding him.

The patrolling officers reached for their weapons.

"Stop right there! Identify yourselves!"

The suited figure kept walking, his footsteps echoing on the pavement.

"I said STOP!"

Damian didn’t stop.

And the Mafia members exploded into motion.

****

The first officer died before he understood what was happening.

One moment he was reaching for his communication device. The next, a blade opened his throat and blood sprayed across the building’s facade.

SHLK

He dropped, hands clutching uselessly at the wound.

The second officer managed to draw his weapon, managed to pull the trigger.

BANG

BANG

The bullets streaked toward the suited figure.

Damian tilted his head slightly, the first bullet passed through empty air where his face had been a fraction of a second before, his body shifted with minimal movement, and the second bullet missed by inches.

He didn’t break stride.

The officer’s eyes went wide.

’What the–’

A massive hammer obliterated him before his thoughts could complete.

BOOM

Brian’s weapon reduced the man to paste against the pavement, blood and bone fragments splattering in a wide radius.

The Mafia members flowed past Damian like a tide, engaging the officers who were now pouring out of the building.

Damian walked through it all, unhurried, his hands in his pockets.

Bodies fell wherever he passed.

An officer tried to intercept him, Aura blazing around his fists.

CRACK

One of the Mafia members caught him with a blade across the ribs. The officer screamed and went down, clutching the wound as blood poured between his fingers.

Another officer fired from a window.

BANG BANG BANG

Damian’s body moved like water, flowing around the bullets with movements so minimal they seemed impossible, his head tilted, his shoulder rotated and his torso shifted.

Every bullet missed.

Brian raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

SNAP

The sound echoed like thunder.

A massive dome materialized around the entire Central Detention building, shimmering with translucent Aura. The structure wasn’t wide, maybe 100 meters across, but it stretched upward to encompass all seven floors.

From outside, anyone looking would see the building wrapped in a sphere of barely-visible force. Nobody could enter or leave without Brian’s permission.

The moment the domain settled into place, something changed in the atmosphere.

The police officers inside started feeling it almost immediately. A heaviness in their limbs that hadn’t been there before. Their movements became slightly slower, their breathing a fraction more labored.

It was subtle at first, barely noticeable in the chaos of combat.

But with each passing second, the drain became more apparent.

Their stamina was being siphoned away, pulled into the domain itself and redistributed to Brian and the Mafia members fighting alongside him.

One officer threw a punch that should have shattered ribs, but found his arm moving slower than it should. The Mafia member he was fighting dodged easily, suddenly moving with enhanced energy that hadn’t been there moments before.

Another officer tried to run up stairs and found himself winded halfway up, gasping for breath like he’d sprinted a mile instead of climbing one flight.

Inside, officers who’d been reaching out for their communication radios found their signals dead.

"What the–"

"It’s a domain! They have a–"

SHLK

A Mafia member’s blade silenced him mid-sentence.

The fighting intensified.

Auras blazed to life throughout the building, different colors clashing as D rank, C rank, and B rank awakeners engaged in brutal close combat.

BOOM

CRACK

BANG

The sounds overlapped, creating a symphony of violence.

An officer with some sort of fire skill sent a wave of flames toward a cluster of Mafia members.

WHOOSH

Two of them dove aside, but the third took the blast full-on and screamed as his clothes ignited.

BOOM

Brian appeared in a blur of motion, his massive frame covering the distance in less than a second. His A rank speed made him nearly impossible to track.

He grabbed the burning Mafia member and rolled him across the ground, smothering the flames with his own body. The fire died quickly under Brian’s Aura reinforced clothes.

The fire-wielding officer tried to capitalize on the distraction, flames gathering in his palms for another attack.

CRACK

Brian’s hammer took him in the chest before the flames could form, caving in his ribcage with a sound like breaking wood.

A Mafia member with enhanced strength grabbed an officer and slammed him through a wall.

CRASH

The concrete crumbled, dust filling the air.

Damian kept walking, ascending stairs, moving deeper into the building.

Officers tried to stop him.

But Brian moved in front of each one, his hammer swinging in devastating arcs that left nothing but corpses.

BOOM

An officer’s chest caved in, ribs shattering like glass.

CRACK

Another one’s skull split open like a dropped melon.

The stamina drain was becoming more pronounced now. Officers were breathing hard, moving slower, their enhanced stats struggling against bodies that felt increasingly exhausted.

The Mafia members, meanwhile, were fighting with energy that seemed to grow with each passing moment. Their movements were sharper and faster.

Brian was directing the stamina flow subconsciously, spreading it among his allies while keeping a portion for himself. It wasn’t a massive boost, but in a sustained fight, that extra edge made all the difference.

Damian reached the second floor without breaking stride.

A woman sat behind a desk, her hands shaking violently as she watched the carnage unfold. She was civilian staff, just someone who kept records and filed paperwork.

Her face had gone completely white.

Damian stopped in front of her desk.

"Ming."

The woman stared at him, not comprehending.

Damian’s voice was soft, almost gentle.

"Tell me where he is."

Understanding dawned on her face, followed immediately by terror. Her hands scrambled through papers, knocking half of them to the floor as she searched the records with trembling fingers.

She found the file and pointed, her finger shaking so badly she could barely hold it steady.

"D-detention room seven... T-third floor... Down the hall, last door on the right."

Damian smiled behind his sunglasses.

"Thank you."

He turned toward the stairs.

Four officers burst through a doorway ahead, fresh from torturing Ming. They saw the suited figure and the masked giant, saw the blood on Brian’s hammer and saw the bodies littering the floor.

They charged anyway as the Mafia members met them head-on, and the fighting exploded into close-quarters brutality.

Damian walked past it all, Brian clearing the path with methodical efficiency.

"Are there any strong police officers here?"

Damian’s voice was casual, like he was asking about the weather.

Brian shook his head, his mask showing nothing.

"Strong awakeners aren’t exactly cabbages in the Northern Region. Most of the strong and capable of this city are already taken by the military... While there are indeed many more, they should be at the headquarters. And the criminals here are all in Aura cuffs, so there was no reason for them to be here at this hour."

They reached the third floor.

Then the world changed.