When Astra opened her eyes, the vision of the Dead Moon still lingered like a burning afterimage. The silver light of the true Moon slowly faded, replaced once again by the familiar violet-rusted glow of the Labyrinth.
Lira and Kai sat by a small chemical flame, quietly discussing their next move. Between them lay an old, worn holomap—the projection flickering and distorting intermittently due to interference from the Labyrinth.
"We need 'Clean Nodes,'" Lira said, tracing her finger across the map. "Without them, Kai won't be able to crack Level 18 security protocols. You can only get those parts at the Night Market. It's a neutral zone between the lower ghettos and the elite middle sectors. Everything is traded there—from forbidden implants to fragments of old satellites."
Kai shook his head. His mechanical eye clicked nervously.
"There are mercenaries there, Corporate hunters, and lunatics who don't care whose side they're on. They'll recognize us in seconds. Especially after we wiped out an entire Cerberus unit. We're probably already on a red list."
Lira smirked slightly, though her smile looked tired.
"Not her." She nodded toward Astra. "With her new readings, she can mimic 'void noise.' To most cameras and scanners, she'll just look like a glitch—an artifact. No one pays attention to another system error. And we're just two ordinary shadow traders. The key is to stay invisible—and not let her… lose control."
Astra slowly stood up. Her body still hummed faintly from the vision, but the pain in her shoulder was completely gone. Only a clean, intricate violet pattern remained beneath her skin—the first true scar. She could feel a cold, pure current flowing through her veins—not blood, but something older, deeper, more absolute. Every breath felt easier. Every step felt sharper.
"Let's go," she said.
Her voice carried a frightening confidence—almost commanding. The exhausted girl from the lower tiers was gone. Now there was steel in her tone… and something else beneath it—a deep, hungry echo of Thanatos.
"I want to see this market," Astra continued, staring into the darkness of the corridor. "I want to see what they're willing to do for their 'order.' What they trade. What they hide. Who they sell… and who they buy."
Kai and Lira exchanged a glance. Concern flickered in Kai's eyes. Lira only nodded briefly, as if she had expected exactly this answer.
"Then we move," she said, folding the map. "We leave now. While the 'Purging' hasn't reached the middle levels yet. The longer we stay, the less chance we have of slipping through unnoticed."
They set out.
As they ascended from the depths of the Labyrinth toward a hidden exit into the middle tiers, Astra felt something shifting inside her. Thanatos was not merely observing—he was actively mapping targets. She could feel his cold attention spread across everything: every camera, every possible witness, every weak point in the structure of the market.
He did not want to simply acquire parts.
He wanted harvest.
Astra did not tell Kai or Lira. She simply walked on, wrapped in the new cloak Lira had taken from her pack. Beneath the hood, her left eye occasionally flickered with faint violet light, and when it did, the surrounding shadows seemed deeper, the air colder.
An hour later, they emerged into a hidden maintenance lift. When the doors opened, sound and light crashed over them like a tidal wave.
The Night Market.
A massive sprawl of the middle sectors, where all the shadows of Sector 01 converged. There was no single "Sky" here—instead, thousands of holographic advertisements, neon signs, and broken projection panels overlapped in chaotic layers. The air was thick with the smell of synthetic grilled meat, cheap synth-steak, ozone, and human bodies. Traders shouted their wares: "clean implants," "untraceable chips," "secrets of the upper tiers."
Mercenaries in worn armor moved through the crowd. Smugglers with empty eyes. Runaways. And those who came simply to sell the last pieces of their humanity.
Astra walked between Kai and Lira, her hood lowered. Overhead cameras occasionally jerked when her presence passed through their scan range—images distorting into brief static blurs. To the System, she was nothing more than an error.
But inside her, Thanatos was already smiling.
He saw weak points.
He saw greedy eyes.
He saw how easily order broke here.
And he was very, very hungry.
Astra clenched her fists beneath her cloak. The violet threads on her shoulder glowed faintly.
"Stay close," Lira said quietly, scanning the crowd. "And don't look anyone in the eyes for too long."
Astra nodded—but her gaze was already drifting across the market, the stalls, the dark alleys between them.
She hadn't come only for parts.
She had come to see how fragile their "progress" truly was.
And how sweetly it would break when the time came.