The darkness came suddenly, swallowing the underground sanctum whole.

The candles lining the chamber had sputtered out one by one as if snuffed by unseen fingers. Emergency lights along the walls clicked on a heartbeat later, casting thin, surgical beams of crimson that stretched across the stone floor like veins beneath translucent skin.

The air, already cold, seemed to grow sharper in the absence of warmth.

Pastor Delrio rose slowly from one knee. His breath fogged faintly as it touched the frigid air. For a moment, the chamber was silent except for the distant hum of generators kicking in. Then his gaze shifted toward the faint glow of the emergency monitors along the northern wall. Their dim, flickering screens painted his face in dull shades of red.

He clenched his jaw.

He thinks he can humiliate me… in my own house.

I'll show him what happens when a serpent bares its fangs.

"Lock down the exits," Delrio ordered, his voice slicing through the silence like a whip.

His lieutenants snapped into motion. Boots slammed against the grated metal flooring. Keypads beeped as security doors slid into place with heavy mechanical thuds.

Then, without warning, a scream shattered the chamber.

It was brief sharp as a snapped wire and ended abruptly, cut off mid-breath.

Every man froze. The sound had come from the western corridor.

One of the henchmen staggered into view, eyes wide. His hands clawed instinctively at his throat, but no sound emerged. Blood bubbled between his fingers. He collapsed before anyone could react. For the briefest second, a thin wire shimmered in the dim red light, then vanished like mist.

Delrio's gaze hardened. "Intruder."

The word seemed to ripple through the chamber. Men gripped their rifles tighter. Flashlights clicked on, beams slicing through the crimson haze.

Near the control panel, a technician barely had time to turn his head before a gloved hand emerged from the shadows behind him quick, precise, surgical. The blade that followed sank cleanly between his vertebrae. He went down without a sound. The attacker withdrew before the body even hit the ground.

Panic rippled through the room.

Guns were raised. Beams crisscrossed the chamber like frantic searchlights.

He's here.

Cloud… or one of his shadows.

"STAY TOGETHER!" Delrio barked. "Form a circle—don't give him angles!"

But Cloud's network didn't need angles. It thrived on chaos.

….

Eastern Corridor

Two lieutenants moved down the narrow hallway, backs pressed together. Their footsteps echoed too loudly in the confined space. The overhead lights flickered again, sputtering like a candle in wind. Then, abruptly, one flashlight died with a low electric whine.

The corridor plunged into pitch black.

They froze.

A soft step echoed. Left. Right. Behind. Nowhere. Everywhere.

Then came the whisper so close it brushed against their ears.

"Too slow."

Something blurred through the dark. One man stiffened as a clean line opened across his throat, blood spraying silently into the air. He crumpled. The second man spun, firing wildly. Bullets tore into the walls, ricocheting into the void. The last thing he saw was a silver glint a mask catching the faintest hint of light before darkness claimed him too.

….

Back in the Chamber

Gunfire from the eastern wing echoed back through the sanctum, making the remaining henchmen flinch involuntarily.

"Pastor, they're dying out there! We need to retreat—"

His voice was cut off by a sharp crack. A sniper round punched clean through his skull. He dropped before he hit the floor.

Delrio grit his teeth so hard they ached.

He's not just dismantling my network digitally… he's here, cutting the roots.

"SHOW YOURSELF!" he roared. His voice reverberated against the chamber walls like a beast's bellow. "CLOUD!! You think this scares me?! You think killing insects will bring me down?! FACE ME!"

Silence answered him.

Then… footsteps.

Slow. Deliberate. Echoing from the spiral staircase that led to the upper sanctum.

Delrio turned sharply. The emergency lights flickered once more.

A figure appeared at the top of the stairs.

Tall. Clad in black tactical gear that absorbed the crimson glow like ink. A silver mask gleamed faintly through the haze, featureless except for its cold, mirrored surface.

The remaining henchmen opened fire in a panic.

But the figure moved like smoke.

Bullets tore through empty space. Each step he took was measured, almost graceful. One man lunged; his wrist was caught, twisted until the bone snapped like dry wood. Another rushed him and was sent sailing over the railing with a single motion, his scream cut short by a sickening thud below.

Halfway down the staircase, the masked figure paused. His gaze or what passed for it locked on Delrio.

Cloud. Delrio felt his pulse quicken despite himself. He came in person.

"YOU…" Delrio growled. "YOU DARE TO SET FOOT HERE—"

The figure tilted his head slightly, almost in curiosity. Then, like a conductor raising his baton, he snapped his fingers.

The emergency lights died.

For ten long seconds, the sanctum descended into absolute darkness.

Gunfire erupted. Screams. Abrupt, wet sounds. The chaos drew closer with each heartbeat. Something was moving through them fast, methodical, unstoppable.

When the lights flickered back to life, every henchman lay dead.

Some with necks twisted at impossible angles. Others pinned silently against the wall with throwing blades driven clean through bone. Not a single one had managed to land a successful shot.

Only Pastor Delrio remained standing.

Sweat trickled down his temple. His breath came in harsh bursts, but he forced himself to straighten his spine. Before him, at the altar, the masked figure stood motionless.

Delrio lifted a hand slowly, channeling the dark authority he had cultivated through fear and devotion. "You… you think this ends here?"

The figure spoke for the first time. His voice, distorted by the mask, was low and cold.

"You touched something you shouldn't have."

Delrio's eyes widened.

The ledger…

Tsk…

"Who are you?" he hissed.

The figure gave no answer. He simply stepped backward into the shadows of the altar. For a heartbeat, his mask caught the red light then he was gone, swallowed by the darkness as if he had never been there.

The aftermath was silence.

Smoke from gunfire hung thick in the air. Blood pooled around the altar steps. Bodies lay strewn like broken puppets. The scent of iron was overwhelming.

Delrio stood alone. His hands trembled, not with fear, but with fury barely restrained.

"Cloud…" His voice shook like a taut wire on the verge of snapping. "This is war now. You think you can erase me? I'll find you. I'll find what you're protecting. And I'll crush it."

But deep inside, buried beneath rage, a whisper of unease stirred. For the first time, Pastor Delrio had seen the Masked Phantom in action. He had expected a hacker hiding behind screens.

What he saw was a hunter.

….

Rooftop Above the Church — Minutes Later

The night air was sharp, cool, and eerily still. From the rooftop, Cloud watched the crimson light still bleeding faintly from the church windows below. His boots rested on corrugated steel that groaned softly beneath his weight. He stood at the edge, hands at his sides, the silver mask reflecting the moonlight.

Beneath the mask, his heart beat with the steady rhythm of someone long trained to control fear. But tonight, that rhythm carried something heavier.

He crouched, fingers brushing the grappling line that stretched to the opposite building. His gaze lingered on the shattered skylight of the underground chamber, the graveyard he had created in less than five minutes.

They touched the ledger.

They touched him.

His hand tightened on the rope. A faint tremor ran through his wrist not fear, but contained emotion. For years, he had built his network like a ghost. He was the whisper that made empires vanish, the shadow governments never saw coming.

And yet, tonight felt different.

Under the distortion of the mask, his voice slipped out softly, almost like a confession to the wind.

"Ethan… you're walking through fire without even knowing it."

The moon hung overhead, a pale sentinel. Cloud pulled his hood tighter and exhaled slowly.

…..

Flashback, Years Ago

A summer sunset bathed a cracked outdoor court in orange light. The air was thick with the sound of sneakers squeaking against pavement. Two boys played basketball with boundless energy.

The older one wore a makeshift mask fashioned from a torn bandana, pretending to be some kind of mysterious player. The younger bright yellow hair messy, laughter infectious was chasing him down the court.

"Pass it here, Ethan!" the older boy called.

Ethan grinned, launching the ball in a perfect arc. It sailed through the air, weightless, and the older boy caught it effortlessly. One spin, one shot clean.

"You're too slow, Cloud!" Ethan laughed, running after him.

The older boy smirked, ruffling Ethan's hair.

"Yeah? One day, kid, you'll be faster. And when that day comes, I'll be watching."

Back to the Rooftop

Cloud closed his eyes beneath the mask, letting the memory wash over him like a wave he had long kept buried. He hadn't thought of that day in years. Not since everything fractured.

He doesn't know.

He doesn't remember me.

And that's good. He's safer that way.

Below, sirens wailed faintly in the distance. Authorities would swarm the area soon, but Cloud's cleanup crew had already erased every trace of his presence—no prints, no cameras, no digital trail.

He pulled out a compact communicator from his jacket. Streams of encrypted data scrolled rapidly across the small screen. Delrio's financial networks were collapsing. Informant nodes were going dark. Every pressure point Cloud had planted triggered the moment he set foot inside.

Pastor Delrio thinks he can retaliate.

A soft, humorless chuckle slipped from behind the mask.

He's playing checkers on a chessboard he can't even see.

Then, softer almost breaking through the iron exterior, just for a heartbeat:

"They won't touch you, Ethan. Not them. Not anyone."

The wind caught his coat as he stood. Against the moonlit skyline, his silhouette looked like a phantom guardian, unseen but ever-watchful.

He fired the grappling line across the gap. As he swung to the next rooftop, his communicator buzzed with an incoming report.

[Network Report: Delrio's secondary funds compromised. 62% of his lieutenants eliminated. Tracing retaliation patterns.]

He typed his response with mechanical precision:

"Let him retaliate. It's easier to control the board when the king panics."

For a moment, his thumb hovered over the send button. A rare, almost human hesitation.

I promised Aunt I'd keep him safe…

Even if he never knows.

He pressed send.

The message disappeared into the encrypted web, and with it, Cloud melted back into the darkness no footprints, no echoes, only the whisper of a vow carried by the night wind:

"Stay strong, Ethan. I'll handle the monsters in the dark."

To be continue

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