03:00 AM. A thick blanket of coastal fog and salty sea breeze rolled over the abandoned shipping yard in Sector 4. The entire landscape was dead silent, save for the rhythmic crashing of distant waves. Inside Warehouse 3, ten of Draco's elite second-cell mercenaries were heavily fortified, completely oblivious to the fact that their operational grid had been fully compromised.
Outside the perimeter, the supercharged engine of Abir's **H2R** sat cold and silent. Abir and Arisa, flanked by Rider's top five marksmen, moved like shadows, pressing against the rusted corrugated steel walls of the main facility. Every operative was equipped with tactical night-vision arrays.
"Abir," Arisa whispered, checking her handheld scanner. "Ten thermal signatures confirmed inside. Two are stationed on the high catwalks with heavy anti-materiel sniper platforms. The remaining eight are ground-level, setting up RPG lines covering the main highway exits."
"Copy that," Abir murmured. "Rider, take the catwalks out cleanly. Arisa, override the warehouse's automated zoning locks. Keep them caged."
With a few keystrokes on her tablet, Arisa deployed a targeted malware strain that severed the warehouse's backup hydraulic power. The massive steel blast doors sealed shut with a heavy, pressurized echo. Before the mercenaries could react to the lockdown, the glass skylights shattered, and two suppressed rounds from Rider's team dropped the catwalk snipers instantly.
"Ambush! We're compromised!" a mercenary shouted, his voice echoing frantically.
He never got to finish his sentence. Abir kicked open the wooden auxiliary door, breaching the facility with terrifying speed. In the green hue of his night-vision goggles, he moved like a phantom—his twin Desert Eagles spitting high-caliber death into the dark.
To his left, a mercenary tried to level a shoulder-fired RPG. Arisa stepped through the threshold, her sub-machine gun barking a tight, three-round burst directly into his center mass. The launcher clattered harmlessly onto the concrete.
Within three minutes of clinical, military-grade efficiency, seven more of Draco's men lay dead. The air inside the warehouse was a toxic mix of cordite and copper.
Only one remained—the cell's tactical sub-leader, scrambling toward the rear loading docks. Without breaking stride, Abir flipped his tactical knife and launched it through the dark. The blade buried itself deep into the man's right calf, sending him crashing onto the floor with a scream of agony.
Abir walked over, his boots clicking against the concrete, and casually ripped the blade free. The mercenary writhed in pain, looking up at Abir with sheer terror.
"You're... you're a demon..." the man wheezed.
"I told your boss, brother—this city belongs to me," Abir said, pressing the hot barrel of his Desert Eagle directly between the man's eyes. "Now, give me the exact coordinates of your third cell at the power grid. Speak, or this is where your story ends."
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