Tokyo – Subterranean Council Room beneath Nihon Bridge Tower.
The Phoenix Council convened for the second time in less than 24 hours. No wine glasses. No pleasantries. Only red alerts blinking on the digital board—nodes lost, operations compromised.
A woman's voice spoke from the central seat—Haruka, the council's White Bishop, marked ♗:
> "As of this hour, we've lost four secondary nodes, three internal trade tunnels, and a logistics station near the Syrian–Lebanese border."
> "He's using former allies. We underestimated the reach of his old network," another member added.
> "He's not using people," Haruka interrupted.
"He's using memory.
Those who owed him, those betrayed, those he once saved.
These aren't soldiers.
These are thinking pieces."
Silence fell across the council.
Then, another window lit up—no face, only the emblem: ♛ – The Black Queen.
> "It's time… to bring Harrow back to the board."
Another councilor growled:
> "She betrayed Hermes, but never truly served Phoenix.
She only serves herself."
> "Exactly," the Queen responded,
"...which makes her the one piece neither we nor Hermes can control."
> "We can't trust her."
> "We don't need to trust her.
We just need one betrayal to counter another."
---
Lisbon – A white stone villa by the sea.
The woman stood before the mirror, wearing a crisp white shirt and tailored black slacks. Her hair was tied back, her face calm and sharpened. Around her neck hung a black queen pendant—not a Phoenix symbol, but one from the original Blood Chess.
She opened her phone. An encrypted message lit up:
> "The King is awake. And this time, the board is mine."
She smiled—not with joy, but with the knowing clarity of someone who had waited too long for this moment.
> "Hermes," she whispered.
"You should've killed me back then."
She moved to her desk, pulled open a drawer. Inside lay a pistol, a key, and an old photograph: Hermes standing between two others—Echo… and her.
> Black Harrow was ready.
But not to return.
She came to see, this time—who would be sacrificed first.
---
London – Temporary command post.
Hermes sat alone at the table, a large map spread in front of him. Each region marked with custom chess pieces—black, silver, and blood-red.
Echo entered.
> "Message from Istanbul: Colt's retreated.
But Phoenix is sending Harrow back in."
Hermes didn't flinch.
> "Sooner than I expected."
> "You still think she might change sides?"
> "I don't need her to change."
"I just need her to show up at the right moment."
Hermes placed a new piece on the board—a black bishop, its base engraved with a flame symbol.
> "Signal the Fireline."
"Initiate Phase Two."
Somewhere Between Tripoli and Aleppo – Al-Badiyah Desert
The wind tore through the sand, slashing across the landscape like knives. Beneath the blood-red sky, an unmarked armored vehicle raced through territory that belonged to no country.
Inside, a man sat in shadow—wearing a dark shirt, a bone-conduction earpiece pressed to his temple. Inked across his left arm, a flame tattoo spread like a burning fracture.
> He wasn't a soldier.
He was Fireline—one of the three ultra-classified divisions Hermes kept hidden even from the original Blood Chess.
A voice crackled through the earpiece:
> "Target: Ghost-43 transit station.
Betrayal code signature: White Bishop ♗ – Phoenix internal encryption."
The man chuckled softly.
> "Been a while since I hunted white bishops.
Alright then. Time to burn the board again."
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece: a black pawn, its edges sharpened like a blade. His eyes carried no rage—only the frozen emptiness of someone for whom killing wasn't an act… but instinct.
---
Istanbul – An Abandoned Cathedral
Black Harrow descended the cracked stone steps, a blindfolded child walking beside her—around ten years old. No one knew why she had come. No one but her.
She stopped in front of a weather-worn wall marked with a red knight symbol, then took out a small blade and carved along a seam. Behind the wall was an old wooden box. Inside: an aluminum-sealed envelope… and a replica of the Harrow–Omega decryption key—the last known copy.
She opened the envelope. Inside, a single sentence written in jet-black ink:
> "When every piece learns betrayal, only blood remains law."
Harrow smirked.
> "Same old rhetoric…"
The child beside her whispered, trembling:
> "Are you the good guy… or the bad one?"
She didn't turn around.
She only answered:
> "There's no good or bad on the board.
Only the ones left standing… and the ones already taken."
---
Rome – International Surveillance Hub, Level 5 Clearance
Alarms flared.
> "Warning: Unauthorized signal breach into HARVEY-EU backup satellite.
Encryption matches Black Harrow's profile."
Engineers panicked. One of them pointed at the screen:
> "It's her code… but it wasn't sent by her."
The display lit up in blood red, revealing a single message:
> "The board is burning. Let those who betrayed it walk into the fire."
Ghost-43 – Covert Transit Hub, Hasakah Mountains, Syria
A stopover point in Phoenix's human and data trafficking routes—where sensitive backup transactions and unofficial personnel lists were stored.
Twelve guards. Infrared motion detection. Low-tier AI surveillance.
All neutralized within 73 seconds.
---
First Moment: 02:14 AM
One of the guards heard a faint hiss from an air duct. He turned—nothing there—only caught a flicker of bronze-colored eyes in the dark.
> A bullet pierced his forehead.
No alarm was triggered.
---
Second Moment: 02:15 AM
The operations room lost visual from the Southeast quadrant. A technician attempted a reset—only for the screen to flash one single message:
> "You were warned. Now you're watched."
CRACK! — The monitor exploded.
---
Third Moment: 02:17 AM
Seven corpses lay silent. None had even pulled their triggers.
A man moved through the carnage like fire through silk—
A member of Fireline. Codename: Ash.
In his hand, a knife etched with the ♗ symbol—its blade glowing red-hot.
---
Data Core – 02:19 AM
A silver-haired woman—White Bishop—was uploading Phoenix's encrypted key into the server. She turned, drew her pistol, fired three times.
> Nothing hit.
He was already behind her.
> "Phoenix feeds you lies," he said—calm, without rage.
> "And Hermes feeds you revenge?" she spat.
He gave no answer.
Only slid the blade across her neck—silent, surgical, bloodless.
Before he left, he branded the wall with a single, searing mark:
♗ in flames — the bishop had been taken.
---
Meanwhile – Phoenix HQ
Haruka received the alert.
> "White Bishop – ID 043 – terminated.
Bio-signal offline.
Ghost-43 is lost."
Another member scanned the board display.
> "What is this…? He's not just killing.
He's marking."
Haruka clenched her fist.
> "Hermes is delivering a message.
And he doesn't need words to do it."
She looked up at the Phoenix crest hanging on the wall.
A chill ran down her spine—not from the death itself.
But from the realization—
> The Blood Chess board had shifted.
It was no longer about strategy.
It was a message.
And when the message is written in blood—
no one controls the rules anymore.
Zurich – Phoenix Training Complex, Sublevel -6
A two-ton steel door slid open, revealing a room blindingly white. No windows. No names. No voices.
Inside, someone sat—eyes closed—surrounded by a wreckage of empty bullet casings, shattered sensors, dismantled sound traps, and shredded motion simulators.
A Phoenix officer stepped in and placed a black wooden box on the table.
> "You've been reactivated."
The man didn't open his eyes. He only tilted his head slightly.
> "Target?"
> "Fireline. Hermes deployed them at Ghost-43."
Silence.
Then—he opened his eyes. Cold steel sharpened by silence.
> "Kill order?"
> "No capture.
Directive: Erase the piece."
He stood, opened the box. Inside was a white knight chess piece, etched with a split-V insignia—the kind issued only to Phoenix's black-class operatives.
Codename:
> V-1 – Knight of Collapse.
---
Lisbon – Black Harrow's Villa
She stood on the balcony, dusk soaking her silhouette. In her hand: a photo of the White Bishop's corpse at Ghost-43—knife-burned, the Fireline mark seared into her chest.
Part of her wanted to laugh.
Phoenix, at last, was tasting the pain of having their pieces peeled off one by one.
But another part—colder—understood something far worse:
> Hermes wasn't playing to survive.
He was rebuilding a board where peace didn't exist.
She unrolled a map, tracing three coordinates:
Ghost-43. London. Zurich.
The only place left where Phoenix bred the kind of monsters they never admitted existed.
> "They've unleashed the White Knight…"
She closed her eyes, her finger drifting toward a faded black symbol—one only survivors of the Grey Night Purge would recognize.
> "It's him again…"
---
London – Hermes' Temporary Command Post
Echo entered, placing a file on the table.
> "Phoenix just released V-1."
Hermes showed no reaction.
> "I expected them to keep him locked longer."
> "V-1 is the only operative they train not to survive the mission."
Hermes closed his eyes briefly, then stood.
> "He's not a Knight.
He's a detonator—shaped like a piece, meant to bleed both sides."
Echo asked:
> "Who do you want to send against him?"
Hermes pointed at the map. A new red mark glowed over Eastern Europe.
> "No one."
Echo frowned.
> "You mean—?"
Hermes replied:
> "I want him to come for me.
When Knights start hunting Kings—
the board doesn't bend.
It breaks."
That night, in three cities, under three different skies, three figures stood.
In Zurich, a nameless white knight was released—like a bullet with no return path.
In Lisbon, a woman held the weight of the past, staring toward what should've been the future.
And in London, a man once betrayed, once presumed dead, was rewriting the board—one blood rule at a time.
No one spoke.
No one knew who would strike first.
Only silence remained…
…and the ticking of a countdown.
Across global surveillance systems, a new symbol appeared:
A chessboard in flames.
Beneath it, a single line of red text:
> "Every piece has a choice.
The board does not."