4:00 AM. Basement under a pawnshop in the Red District.
The room had no windows. Just a flickering LED light jury-rigged to the ceiling. An electronic map dominated the front wall, showing different city zones marked with QR-shaped symbols in red, yellow, white, and black.
Crossroads of the underground world.
A man sat at a makeshift mechanical keyboard, typing commands with thick, calloused fingers. His hair was shaved close. A scar ran across his left eye—but what truly drew attention was the blankness of his expression.
No anger. No joy. No emotion.
A voice whispered behind him, soft as drifting smoke:
> "You kept the system alive all these years, Echo?"
The man didn't turn around. He kept typing. Replied in one word:
> "Always."
Hermes stepped into the light, standing behind him. They didn't shake hands. No need. Those who've walked the edge of death don't require rituals. Only silence and data.
> "Is the Western line still connected?" Hermes asked, eyes fixed on the map.
> "I just reclaimed access through an old node in Antwerp. We're blind in Warsaw and Istanbul, but Prague is still ours."
> "Colt's in Prague." Hermes said, not as a revelation—but as confirmation of something he already knew.
Echo nodded slightly.
> "I can wipe him from every camera within twenty-four hours.
But if you want access to the black finance network he controls — we need the core key from Black Harrow."
Hermes was silent for a moment.
> "She's still alive?"
Echo looked up, locking eyes with Hermes for the first time:
> "No one leaves Blood Chess alive.
She's the exception. And exceptions always come at a price."
Hermes tilted his head slightly.
> "Then let's start paying."
---
Elsewhere. An old villa near the border – Prague.
A man entered the room with two bodyguards behind him. He was in sleepwear but carried a Glock at his hip. His face was pale, anxious. He was Colt — the one who signed the order to erase Hermes from the system.
> "Run a full sweep again. No one enters the control room except me and Markov." – Colt barked.
Suddenly, a hand rose — it was Markov, the taller guard to his right.
Silently, he opened a white envelope and pulled out a chess piece — a knight, carved in silver.
On its base, tiny etched letters read:
> "E4 to D2 – Your turn."
Colt stumbled back as if slapped. His face went ghost-white.
> "Impossible…"
Markov stared at him, expressionless.
> "We've been watched for a long time."
Colt turned toward the window — the city still slept quietly.
But he knew: the game had restarted, and he was no longer a player.
---
Back in the basement – Echo & Hermes.
The city map zoomed in on a building — Colt's current location.
Echo handed Hermes a wireless earpiece.
> "If you want to talk to Colt, I can patch you through."
Hermes smiled faintly, declined the earpiece. Instead, he pulled out something else —
a black steel chess piece, the King.
> "No. Let the pieces speak once the blood spills."
He placed the King on the console, right at the Prague coordinates.
"For now, we're taking the network back."
Echo nodded. For the first time, something flickered in his eyes — not joy, not fear.
War.
Five years ago – Da Nang City, Vietnam.
On the rooftop of an abandoned hotel, a man was tied to a rusted pipe, blood dripping steadily from his shoulder onto the cracked tiles. Three men in military fatigues surrounded him, speaking in Russian. The man tied up had one swollen eye, a mouthful of blood, but his gaze was cold—Echo, back when he went by another name: Kurt Evgeni.
One of the soldiers stepped forward and raised his gun.
> "Tell us where the drive is."
Echo spat blood onto the ground and smirked.
> "Even if I die, you'll never decrypt it."
> "Who said anything about killing you?" the soldier growled.
"We'll erase you. Bit by bit."
But before the gun was lowered, a shot rang out. Then three more.
Each soldier dropped in silence.
A shadow stepped into view—long coat, an empty Walther P99 in hand. His face hidden in shade, but his voice was ice:
> "I'm not here to save you. I'm here to ask you:
If you had another chance to live—who would you serve?"
Echo looked up. No surprise. No fear. Just quiet, measured words:
> "I don't serve the powerful.
I serve the one who knows how powerful he truly is."
The man nodded once.
> "Then stand up, Echo.
From now on, that's your name."
---
Present – Basement, Red District
Echo was working inside a core banking network called H.A.R.V.E.Y—a hidden financial grid spread through proxy nodes in Switzerland, Dubai, and Paraguay. Every transaction was encrypted using adaptive code—meaning each data string could morph itself to avoid tracking.
Hermes stood behind him, watching.
> "What are they moving?" Hermes asked.
Echo zoomed in on a block of data.
> "Not money.
A list.
Children orphaned from war zones in Sudan and Ukraine.
They're being sorted for... sale."
Hermes was silent for a long moment.
Then he pulled out his phone and tapped a sequence of numbers.
> "I want the names of every person who signed off. One by one."
Echo frowned.
> "It'll take hours. Over eight hundred IDs."
> "I don't need all of them.
I need the one who used my network to build hell."
A name lit up on the screen:
Colt Lazarre.
Beneath it, a string of access codes:
"PHX-Δ-Harrow–Key"
Hermes stared at the line for a long time.
> "Black Harrow isn't just a person.
It's a system."
"If we want to break Colt, we hit Harrow first."
Echo nodded.
> "And only one person holds the access key: her.
The one who betrayed you.
The one who nearly killed you in Morocco."
Hermes closed his eyes for a moment. Then:
> "Send her a message."
> "What message?"
> "Tell the Queen:
The King is awake. And this time, the board is mine."
Outskirts of Prague – Saint Elessa Castle. 06:12 AM
Colt stood in front of a tall glass window, clutching an untouched glass of whiskey. Down in the courtyard, the security team was changing shifts—all armed with submachine guns, internal comms, and biometric verification tech issued by Phoenix.
> But he didn't feel safe.
The silver knight chess piece left on his bedside table last night still lay untouched—no one knew how it got there. The cameras saw nothing. No prints. No traces.
> Only one thing was more terrifying than infiltration:
A reminder.
And only one man from the past was ruthless enough to use reminders as declarations of war.
A side door opened. A female voice echoed—cold, synthetic:
> "Emergency session of the Phoenix Council begins in 3 minutes."
Colt nodded and stepped into the conference room. Before him was a large screen divided into eight panels, each showing a face—men, women, Asian, European—no real names, only chess icons: Queen, Bishop, Rook, Pawn, King, and several symbols that didn't exist on any conventional board.
One of them spoke first—a platinum-haired woman wearing a half-mask carved from black jade. Her emblem: ♕
> "Hermes has reactivated the Blood Chess grid. Confirmed via HARVEY and Black Track traces.
Colt, you assured this council he was dead."
Colt hissed:
> "No one could've survived the purge.
If Hermes is back… then he's not human. He's a phantom."
A deep, African-accented voice interjected:
> "Phantoms don't hijack black bank networks.
He's reclaimed two nodes. If he gets the Harrow key, Phoenix will leak from within."
The jade-masked woman asked:
> "Any word from Harrow?"
Colt stiffened.
> "She… hasn't responded yet.
But if Hermes reached out, she'll reply."
> "And what if she chooses him over us?" — a voice like sharpened steel cut in.
Silence.
Colt set down his glass.
> "Then we move first.
Deploy an S-rank assassin to Istanbul. Hermes will show up to save one of his old brotherhood outposts. That's our chance to end him."
The woman nodded once.
> "Approved. Phoenix backs the operation.
But remember this, Colt… fail us again—
and we'll replace you."
---
Meanwhile – London, an abandoned dockyard.
Inside a battered van, Echo sat tapping at a laptop patched into a covert satellite link. A map blinked to life: Istanbul.
Hermes sat in the back, his eyes sharp as a blade honed by years of war.
> "Colt will strike that outpost first. They want us exposed."
Echo didn't ask how Hermes knew. He simply typed:
> "So what do we do?"
Hermes tilted his head, the corner of his mouth curling into a shadowed smile:
> "We get exposed.
But not with my name...
With a new piece on the board."
---
Istanbul – Warehouse 17, Karaköy Port. 03:47 AM
A steel door creaked open in silence. Inside, thick shadows clung to the walls, broken only by the hum of a backup generator powering dim control panels.
A group of bound individuals—data engineers once loyal to Hermes's old underground network—sat bloodied, bruised. Phoenix mercenaries surrounded them. Their commander, wearing a knight-rook insignia on his collar, paced between them.
> "Hermes is dead.
Tell me who's controlling the auxiliary nodes."
No one spoke.
He raised his hand. Bang.
Blood pooled across the concrete.
He aimed at the second hostage—
Then, the lights cut out.
Darkness swallowed the warehouse.
> THUD!
A body dropped from the rafters—lifeless before it hit the ground.
> CRACK!
A single shot disabled the backup power relay.
Three seconds of silence. Then—
A voice spoke—low, metallic, and precise:
> "Some play to win."
"Some play to survive."
"I came back to flip the entire board."
A line of LED lights snapped on behind the smoke. A silhouette emerged.
Not everyone could see the face.
But everyone recognized the name.
Hermes stepped from the shadows, pistol in hand like an extension of his will.
The Phoenix commander stumbled backward.
> "No… It can't be—"
CRACK!
One bullet. Right between the eyes.
Hermes knelt down and freed the surviving prisoners.
> "The first thing you need to know:
I'm not dead."
"Second:
We're not playing defense anymore."
One of them asked, voice shaking:
> "What do we do now?"
Hermes turned to the warehouse gates, where the first sunlight was breaking through the steel slats.
> "We strike back."
"Move by move. Piece by piece."
"Until their blood rewrites the rules."