Radeon scuttled through the shallow sewers, keeping low where the slime smelled old and the water ran dirty and bitter.

Above, the Silvertoll Summit City kept breathing as if nothing had happened.

Maeron and Ewan slipped out of Radeon's shadow and shrank into smaller Preta forms, grotesque even when compacted.

They did not speak. They did not leak qi. They set to building like veterans. A simple cannon. Nothing grand. Just force shaped into direction.

They marked four corners and set spirit stones down, low grade and common.

Copper ink flowed from their personal storage, smeared into lines and nodes.

Heat arrays to build pressure. Wind tunneling arrays to give it a throat. Trajectory arrays to keep the shot honest.

In ten heartbeats, the formation was crude and complete, a weapon you would laugh at.

They retreated back into Radeon's shadow. Radeon pulled a bullet from his own arsenal and tucked it into his hollow shell for weight.

The array detonated. Pressure slammed him forward, a hard kick that turned the sewer air into a brief scream.

He became a bullet, a blur, a small moving speck too fast to be seen.

The street above reacted like a hive. Onlookers shouted. People looked for an attack.

The delirious man arrived in a rush, eyes wide, breathing broken, desperation dragging him by the throat.

He inspected the blast site like it could confess. He even tasted wet rock from ditch water, tongue darting, then recoiled when it told him nothing.

Diviners shoved him aside, impatient with his frenzy. That was Radeon's intent. A loud nothing that pulled eyes and methods to the wrong place.

Soon he was in another city. A divination thread was about to settle on him, so he let it tickle a random hair he had collected under the restaurant's cabinet.

A harmless anchor. A decoy scent. Let them chase the lint of some other man while he watched the first seed of the chaos he meant to raise.

His real location sat higher. Right above the largest auction house on Spendworth Hills, under tile roofing.

This was Libertybane Linx territory, called respectable by the locals. Radeon and the wraiths thought otherwise.

He rolled along the tiles until he found the hidden venting. He slipped in. The vent shaft swallowed him.

Air rushed past his shell. Dust coated him. He dropped, faster, then hit with a dull thud at the array core.

Down below, the weekly auction droned on, a singsong of bids and polite laughter.

Radeon was not here for the stage. He was here for what the stage hid.

Maeron and Ewan fanned out to scan for arrays.

The mapping began again, memory packets sent back through faith and system.

Then the returned images changed.

Cages. Cages stacked on cages. Men, women, children. Beastmen with dull eyes.

Spirit beasts pressed tight enough to pant. An asura boy with his four arms chained above his head, muscles trembling from the strain.

Floor after floor revealed itself as the ghosts kept crawling. Twelve levels down by the time Radeon stopped counting.

Deeper, there were elves too, thin and pale, ears pinned back like frightened animals.

Radeon felt a plan settle in his mind. Not pity. Not mercy. Practicality. The kind that asked how to turn suffering into leverage, without letting the world see your teeth.

He sent a new order meant only for the two premier wraith array masters.

[Array Premier Exclusive Task]

[Task: Make all air vent arrays malfunction after one week.]

[Initial Reward: 200 Contribution Points]

Maeron and Ewan moved at once. They slid through pipes, traced node chains, modified cores, and turned safety into sabotage.

They did not break everything now. That was not the point. They made failures that would bloom later, on a day and hour Radeon chose.

Some vents were tuned to choke. Some to flood hot air inward, cruel and sudden, the sort of heat that made guards abandon posts and locks.

They even fashioned a makeshift remote. When the last of the two hundred vents was altered, the notification arrived.

[200 Contribution Points have been added to your account.]

[50 Contribution Points will be awarded as a bonus for your initiative.]

Maeron and Ewan froze in the vent shadow, stunned enough that their eyes quite literally bulged out.

Ghost bodies allowed for indignities that flesh could not, and this one made them look like startled fish.

That was possible? They had thought work was work. You did what you were told. You did it cleanly. You returned.

That was the whole of existence for a long time. Yet the system had paid them extra, not for obedience, but for something else.

Initiative. The word rattled inside them. Questions came fast, clumsy, earnest. What was initiative?

Was it disobedience? Was it arrogance? Was it stealing another ghost's task? Was it simply doing more than the minimum?

They pushed the questions through the link without shame, and soon all five were gnawing on the same term.

They were about to ask Radeon. He cut them off before the first thought could become a plea.

"Another time," he said.

Radeon composed another task as they moved, feeding the system like a beast he wanted to train.

[Smithing Premier Exclusive Task]

[Task: Weaken the foundation of the Honored Lynx Auction House.]

[Reward: 50 Contribution Points]

He wanted to stress test the system. Not just the functions. The behavior. He needed to see how the old monsters responded when numbers were attached to destruction.

Would they rush. Would they cut corners. Would they compete like fools. Or would they plan like men who had survived centuries by not being stupid.

Oisin and Elsin went to work. They did not smash. They did not crack stone with loud arts. They became careful hands in dark places, hammering at crucial junctures.

The bottom section of the central pillar. The interlocking bracket sets. The tie beams hidden behind clean wood and polished aesthetics.

A few precise strikes in the right places, a few stresses introduced where no one looked, and strength became a promise that would fail on command.

They kept at it, patient, methodical. Then they stopped. They did not submit the task right away.

They were dissatisfied, not with the work done, but with how uncontrolled it was.

A weakened foundation could collapse at the wrong time, with the wrong witnesses, leaving the wrong survivors.

Old smiths did not like chance. Chance made orphans and enemies.

They called Maeron and Ewan back into the planning. Together they discussed a controlled collapse.

A trigger. A controller that could decide the hour and direction of failure, so the building fell like a well placed execution.

Only when that was set did they file completion. A flash crossed their sight.

[50 Contribution Points have been added to your account.]

[50 Contribution Points will be awarded as a bonus for your initiative.]

"Double. Oisin. Look." Elsin said as he won the lottery.

Oisin and Elsin went still again, shocked in a different way. Reward for planning beyond the minimum.

Reward for thinking like owners instead of tools. A moment later, Maeron and Ewan received their own notifications.

[25 Contribution Points will be awarded to you for being a team player.]

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