[Ethan’s POV]

Fifteen seconds.

I burst violently through the heavy wooden doors, my shoulder slamming into a waiter carrying an extravagant silver tray overflowing with expensive caviar and crystal flutes of champagne. The startled man cried out in shock as the silver platter spun wildly through the air before crashing loudly onto the polished marble floor. Black caviar, shattered crystal, and golden liquid exploded across the pristine tiles in a glittering mess, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.

The massive ballroom was still trapped in a state of localized panic and mounting confusion from Claire’s perfectly engineered distraction. Alexei Rostova was furiously shouting at the visibly nervous man in front of him, his face twisted with irritation and suspicion, while heavily armed PMCs aggressively pushed through the dense crowd with military precision. Around them, clusters of billionaires, politicians, aristocrats, and corporate elites murmured anxiously among themselves, their expensive jewelry and designer clothing shimmering beneath the enormous chandeliers.

I scanned the endless sea of bespoke tuxedos, polished dress shoes, glittering diamonds, and flowing designer gowns, my heart hammering violently against my ribs so hard it felt ready to crack through my chest.

Ten seconds.

There.

A sudden flash of emerald silk near the shattered remains of the towering champagne fountain caught my eye immediately. Claire was carefully backing away from the commotion, her sharp eyes nervously darting toward the kitchen doors as she waited for me.

I sprinted recklessly across the polished marble floor, nearly slipping on spilled alcohol as I shoved a furious Russian oligarch out of my path with enough force to send him stumbling sideways into another guest.

"Ethan!" Claire called out the moment she saw the absolute terror written across my face. "Did you find the—"

"Get down!" I roared at the top of my lungs.

I grabbed her tightly by the waist and tackled her violently to the floor. As we crashed down hard against the marble tiles, I reached desperately toward the edge of a massive water-soaked linen tablecloth draped over a nearby ice sculpture display table. My fingers locked onto the thick fabric, and I yanked it down over us with every ounce of strength I had just as a loud, unnatural mechanical HISSSSSS echoed ominously from the ceiling above.

Zero.

From the ornate brass ventilation grates embedded carefully within the massive Renaissance frescoes overhead, a pale, shimmering mist slowly descended over the ballroom like an enormous funeral veil.

For two horrifying seconds, there was absolute silence.

Then the screaming began.

Not ordinary panic.

Not confusion.

Not fear.

It was raw, agonizing, soul-tearing shrieks that sounded like people were being burned alive from the inside out. The aerosolized white phosphorus and synthetic capsaicin mixture didn’t even need to be inhaled to unleash devastation. The moment the chemical dust made contact with moisture—the sweat dripping down a man’s forehead, the tears streaming from a terrified woman’s eyes, the spilled champagne soaking into Alexei Rostova’s expensive tuxedo—it reacted instantly and violently.

Through the narrow gap beneath our wet linen shelter, I watched the nightmare unfold before my eyes.

Rostova dropped heavily to his knees, clawing frantically at his face as his skin blistered and transformed into an angry, horrifying shade of violent red. Veins bulged beneath his flesh as he screamed in pure agony. On the balcony above, the Isabella Vane body double shrieked hysterically, dropping her crystal glass before collapsing hard against the cold marble railing.

The PMCs reacted immediately with disciplined military efficiency, pulling sleek black rebreather masks from hidden compartments inside their jackets and strapping them tightly over their mouths and noses. Varga had prepared them carefully for knockout gas.

But the masks only protected their lungs.

Within mere seconds, the elite soldiers were dropping their rifles onto the marble floor, screaming as they tore desperately at their exposed necks, foreheads, and eyes while the corrosive chemical dust settled onto their skin like invisible fire. Some slammed into tables. Others collapsed entirely. One man clawed so violently at his own face that blood sprayed across the white tablecloths nearby.

The trap was flawless.

Jake had taken Varga’s own tactical preparations and turned them directly against him.

"Don’t breathe!" I shouted desperately to Claire while pressing the wet linen tighter against our faces. The cold water soaked into the fabric acted as a crude but desperately effective filter, trapping the chemical particles before they could reach our skin and lungs. "Keep your eyes closed!"

The ballroom had become a blinding fog of pale smoke, flashing emergency lights, and unimaginable agony. The temperature inside the room climbed rapidly as the violent chemical reactions intensified all around us.

I had to get us out.

I kept the heavy tablecloth draped over both of us like a burial shroud while wrapping one arm tightly around Claire’s waist and hauling her back to her feet. "We’re moving to the terrace!" I shouted through the suffocating haze. "Keep your head down!"

Blindly, desperately, we forced our way through the thrashing, screaming crowd. Bodies slammed violently into us from every direction. Panicked guests stumbled blindly through the smoke, clawing at their burning faces and collapsing against overturned tables and shattered glass. Someone grabbed desperately onto my leg, begging for help in frantic French, but I kicked them away hard.

If we lost the wet linen, we were dead.

Suddenly, a massive force slammed directly into my chest like a speeding truck, knocking the breath violently from my lungs.

I stumbled backward in shock, the heavy tablecloth slipping partially off my right shoulder. The contaminated air instantly bit into my exposed skin like thousands of burning needles stabbing into my flesh all at once. Pain exploded across my shoulder and neck. I gritted my teeth hard against the burning sensation and looked upward through the stinging smoke.

Standing directly in front of the shattered glass doors leading toward the terrace was Varga.

He wasn’t wearing a rebreather mask anymore. He had ripped off his tuxedo jacket and wrapped it tightly around the lower half of his face, but the exposed skin around his eyes, forehead, and temples was blistered, cracked, and bleeding horribly. Under the flickering emergency lights, he looked less like a man and more like a demon dragging itself straight out of hell itself.

But he didn’t care.

He didn’t care about the agony consuming his body.

He didn’t care about the dying billionaires screaming around him.

His cold, dead eyes were locked entirely on me.

"Where is he?!" Varga roared furiously, his voice muffled beneath the jacket wrapped around his face. In one fluid motion, he drew his serrated combat knife, the wicked blade gleaming sharply beneath the pulsing red emergency lights.

"Run!" I shouted at Claire as I shoved her violently toward the terrace doors while drawing the ceramic push-dagger hidden inside my cummerbund.

Varga lunged instantly.

He moved with terrifying speed and brutal efficiency, every motion precise and practiced like a machine built purely for violence. He slashed diagonally toward my throat in a lethal arc. I stepped aggressively inside the attack, raising my left forearm instinctively to block. The serrated steel bit deep into my flesh, tearing through skin and muscle, but I ignored the pain entirely while driving the ceramic dagger toward his ribs.

Varga twisted sharply at the last possible second, the ceramic blade only grazing his side before he brought the heavy cast on his right forearm crashing downward like a steel club directly into my stitched shoulder.

Agony exploded through my body.

The stitches tore open instantly.

Hot blood flooded down my back beneath the tuxedo jacket, and my left arm went horrifyingly numb.

I staggered backward, gasping desperately for air, accidentally inhaling a lungful of the burning chemical dust.

It felt like swallowing shattered glass and razor blades.

I coughed violently, my chest convulsing painfully while tears blurred my vision.

Varga didn’t give me even a single second to recover.

He stepped forward aggressively, grabbing the lapel of my tuxedo with brutal force before driving his knee directly into my stomach. The impact folded me over instantly. As I doubled forward in pain, he raised the combat knife high above his head for a brutal downward strike aimed directly at the back of my neck.

Break the leader.

Darius’s voice echoed sharply through the pain consuming my body.

Strike the weakness.

I didn’t even try to block the knife.

Instead, I dropped my weight suddenly, collapsing onto one knee while driving the ceramic push-dagger straight upward with every ounce of strength left in my body. The blade buried itself directly into the underside of Varga’s cast-covered forearm.

The ceramic punched violently through the plaster cast and deep into the already fractured bone underneath.

Varga released a muffled roar of absolute agony. His fingers spasmed uncontrollably, and the combat knife clattered loudly onto the marble floor.

I ripped the dagger free, pivoted sharply on my knee, and drove a brutal palm strike upward beneath his chin. Varga’s head snapped violently backward, and he stumbled away in disorientation before crashing heavily into a toppled banquet table.

"Ethan!" Claire screamed from beside the terrace doors.

She had grabbed one of the heavy brass stanchions lining the ballroom and smashed it repeatedly through the reinforced glass doors, allowing freezing, clean winter air to pour violently into the smoke-filled ballroom.

I didn’t look back at Varga.

I scrambled desperately to my feet, my shoulder screaming in agony, my lungs burning with every breath, and sprinted toward the shattered terrace doors.

I dove violently through the broken glass, crashing hard onto the snow-covered stone terrace outside before rolling painfully to a stop. Claire dropped the brass stanchion beside me and collapsed onto the freezing ground, gasping desperately for the clean winter air.

Behind us, the Hofburg Palace ballroom had transformed into a vision of absolute hell.

Pale chemical smoke billowed outward through the shattered doors in thick clouds, carrying with it the endless screams of Isabella Vane’s collapsing empire into the freezing Vienna night.

I slowly looked upward toward the dark, starless sky above us, my chest heaving violently while blood dripped steadily from my torn arm and ruined shoulder onto the snow beneath me.

Jake hadn’t just robbed Isabella.

He had burned her entire court to the ground.

The Feral King had made his opening move.

And the entire world was about to feel the devastating aftershocks.