"Hannah Ashton, also known as ’The Violet Wraith’. Level thirty Herald Slayer. She is part of a group called the Ghost Unit, led by a Herald Slayer known as ’Sato Nagi, The Lightning Blade’."

The name was new. Unfamiliar. A cold anchor in the flood of information. Jagger registered it, but it didn’t stick. His focus remained locked on the grainy image of Hannah, the faint violet light clinging to her like a second skin. The designation ’The Violet Wraith’ sounded like the title of a story about someone else, not the sister who used to steal his socks and hide his textbooks.

"She’s a Herald Slayer," Jagger said, the words tasting like something unrecognizable.

"Yes."

Adriana’s tone gave him nothing. No comfort. No judgment. Just the stark fact.

Then Director Ng continued.

"Under Sato’s leadership, the Ghost Unit operates out of the western regions, primarily hunting down Herald of Collapses. From the intel we have gathered, they have cleared the whole of Jurong and are going down to Boon Lay." Her eyes remained fixed on him. "They are effective. They are also dangerously autonomous."

Jagger finally tore his gaze from the hologram, his eyes finding Adriana’s. "Where is she now?"

"Boon Lay. Her group’s last confirmed location was a high-rise residential block, less than twenty klicks from here."

’Twenty klicks.’

The distance felt like a chasm. Close enough to feel the heat from the fire, but too far to reach. He could be there in hours on a clear road. A few days through this ruined city. A lifetime if they kept moving.

Director Ng swiped on her tablet. And another image popped up.

The still image dissolved into motion.

The surveillance footage shook slightly at first, the angle taken from high above and too far back, but there was no mistaking the scene. A ruined street. Hunters ringed around a Herald. Smoke rolling through broken storefronts. And at the center of it all, Hannah.

Jagger went still.

The video played in grainy, fractured clarity. He saw the Ferrinox lower its horns. Saw the pulse of violet around Hannah’s eyes. Then the psionic hands came. Purple smoke surged. The invisible tearing force descended on the Herald, and within seconds, the beast was being ripped apart from every direction at once. Metallic hide split. Blood and blackened flesh burst across the street. The hunters around her did not move in to help. They only watched.

The clip ended a moment after the golden pillar fell on her.

Silence took over the room again.

Jagger stared at the darkened projection for a second longer, as if the image might come back if he refused to blink.

"That was her," he said.

It was not a question. It was worse than one. It was the stunned, disbelieving weight of recognition forced to wear the face of certainty.

"Yes," Adriana said.

Director Ng tapped the tablet again. This time, data windows opened beside the paused final frame of Hannah standing in the street under the dying gold light. Lines of combat telemetry, threat classification estimates, and observer notes filled the air in clean white text.

Adriana folded her hands once more.

"Hannah Ashton is not simply a hunter," she said. "She is one of the highest-value awakened assets currently in Singapore. She holds the Herald Slayer title. She has already participated in multiple Herald eliminations under Ghost Unit command, being the main damage dealer of her team and allowing others within the Ghost Unit to claim titles."

Jagger’s jaw tightened. His eyes never left Hannah’s image.

Adriana continued anyway.

"Her ability profile is still incomplete, but what we have confirmed is enough. She possesses a high-order psionic class with extreme destructive output, broad-area suppression capability, and signs of mental instability. When she engages at full force, she can immobilize or tear apart targets several threat levels above the average hunter response threshold. The Ferrinox was an Elite Herald. She dismantled it in seconds."

Director Ng swiped again.

A second pane appeared. Bullet-point observations. Casualty probability ranges. Urban risk estimates.

"Signs of mental instability, what does that mean?"

Adriana gazed at Director Ng, nodded, and continued.

"From what we have gathered, other hunters are beginning to fear her almost as much as the things she kills." Her voice remained level. "And if she fractures in the wrong environment, the damage radius will not stop at monsters."

Jagger’s hands curled on the table.

"You’re describing her as if she is a ticking time bomb."

"She is." Adriana did not say it mockingly. She said it as if it were the only responsible way to say it.

Jagger finally looked at her.

The fury was gone.

What replaced it was worse.

It hollowed him out from the inside, leaving behind something cold enough that even the room’s sterile air seemed warm by comparison. Jagger looked at Hannah’s image without blinking, his expression stripped bare of anger and sarcasm alike. The girl in the footage did not look like someone waiting to be saved. She looked like someone the world had cornered hard enough that it had finally started changing shape around her.

His voice, when it came, was quiet. "Who did this to her?" He was not asking what had happened. He was asking who had made it necessary.

Adriana knew the difference.

"Surviving in this world did," she said. "And from communications with their group, it seems Sato Nagi is the one holding the leash."

"Leash?" Jagger’s eyes cut back to her. "She’s not a dog."

Adriana’s expression didn’t shift.

"No," she said. "She’s a weapon."

The word hung between them, too honest to ignore.

"A very dangerous, very unstable, very effective weapon that Sato Nagi uses to hunt Heralds at a rate that dwarfs any other independent groups, and us. And we believe he is the only reason why she has not killed herself or everyone around her."

Jagger’s mind raced.

He remembered the alleyway where they first got attacked by the goblins. The reason she ripped and crushed them was not a hunter killing a monster. It was a storm. He remembered her face after she fainted.

He looked down at his hands and clenched them tight, ’If only I were strong enough back then, I could have...’

Ophilia’s voice surfaced in the back of his thoughts, cool and precise.

’Regret is a useless indulgence. If you had been stronger then, you would have changed the outcome. If you want to change the next one, stop staring at your hands and start deciding what you are willing to become.’

Jagger’s jaw tightened.

He hated that she had said the exact thing he was already telling himself.

Across the table, Adriana watched him in silence for a brief moment before speaking again.

"Sato Nagi does not answer to us," she said. "We have sent him and his group many opportunities to join us, but all have been rejected by him and his companions. They operate under their own rules. Which means Hannah operates under his rules. And from what our observers have noted, his rules prioritize results over restraint."

Jagger stood up.

The move was abrupt enough to make Director Ng’s gaze sharpen, but she didn’t react otherwise. Adriana simply watched him, calm and still.

The overhead lights made the white walls feel like a cage.

"You have everything you need from me," Jagger said. His voice was low, stripped of everything but purpose. "Information. Cooperation. A signature on your damn contract."

He took a step toward the table.

"Now, tell me how I get to her."

Adriana’s gaze remained level.

"We cannot authorize an independent operation just because you want to run off after your sister."

Jagger’s eyes narrowed.

"I didn’t ask for your authorization."

"They have eight Herald Slayers. Beneath them, twenty-five Awakened-rank hunters. The rest are high-level Newborns," Adriana stated matter-of-factly. "And that is only their fighting force."

Her gaze remained fixed on Jagger.

"Hundreds of survivors follow them. Not out of fear. Out of loyalty. They would die for Sato Nagi and his crew without hesitation." Her voice hardened slightly. "If you tried to approach them carelessly, you would be dead before you came within a hundred meters of their perimeter." She paused. "And they would think it was a mercy."

Jagger stopped.

The truth settled over him, colder and heavier than he had expected. He was no longer just a brother chasing after a lost sibling. He was a level seventeen hunter stepping toward a high-level crew powerful enough to rival Blood Claw and the Bastions if both hunter forces combined.

The room’s silence deepened.

Then Adriana stood up and made her way towards Jagger.

Adriana stopped a few feet in front of him.

Up close, the room’s clean white light only made the age in her face sharper. The scars at her temple stood out like old knife marks beneath the skin. She did not loom over him. She did not need to. The weight in her gaze did that well enough on its own.

"I understand more than you think I do," she said.

Jagger’s expression didn’t shift, but something in him went still enough to listen.

"I understand what it is to see someone you care about turned into something this world can use. I understand what it is to look at the distance between where you are and where they are, and hate yourself for not being enough to cross it." Her voice remained low and controlled, but it was no longer the cold voice she had used when talking about contracts and leverage. There was iron in it now. Burnt, lived-in iron. "So do not mistake restraint for indifference."

Jagger held her stare. "Then let me go to her."

Adriana’s eyes hardened.

"That is the one thing I cannot do."