A chilling gust of night air rushed against their faces the moment Jason shoved hard against the iron grille covering the ventilation shaft at the end of the utility stairs. With his remaining strength in his left hand, he crawled out of the narrow opening, followed closely by Leo, who scrambled out gasping for breath, his body caked in concrete dust.

They landed on the ground floor of a sprawling, dimly lit structure. The pungent scents of motor oil, cement dust, and gasoline instantly pierced their nostrils.

"W-where are we, Jason?" Leo whispered tremulously, wiping sweat and grit from his face with the back of his hand as he peered around through the gaps of a massive concrete pillar.

Jason slowly rose to his feet while fighting off the excruciating pain in his right shoulder, his free hand clutching the suppressed Glock tightly. His eyes swept every corner of the room with a razor-sharp, lethal gaze. Dark corridors lined with rows of neatly parked cars, blinking neon overhead lights, and multi-tiered concrete structures loomed high above them.

"Commercial vertical parking complex in District 4," Jason answered in a heavy, cold voice. "And it looks like we didn't just crawl out of the frying pan into the fire. We walked straight into a wolf's den."

Before Leo could process the meaning of those words, a harsh metallic squeak grated from the vehicle ramp on the lower floor. That was followed by the rhythmic, echoing crunch of tactical boots hitting the cement floor.

Clack... clack... clack...

"Damn it," Jason hissed softly. "They've been waiting for us here."

"Waiting?!" Leo shrieked hysterically, his voice cracking. "How the hell did they know we'd come out at this exact spot?!"

"Marcus didn't need to know this exact location. He just had to order his men to seal every single exit point along the underground utility lines," Jason cut in swiftly, grabbing Leo's arm to pull him behind a thick concrete pillar near the corner wall. "Stay behind me. Don't make a sound."

From the third-floor emergency stairwell, three members of the Ouroboros syndicate commando squad slowly stepped down. They wore all-black tactical gear, ballistic helmets with night-vision goggles, and carried short-barreled assault rifles equipped with tactical weapon lights underneath the barrels. The blinding white beams swept back and forth across the floor, hunting for their prey.

"Bravo Unit, report. Second-floor sector is clean. Check the eastern corner pillar area," the squad leader's voice crackled from a walkie-chain carried by one of the hitmen nearby.

"Copy, Commander. Sweeping the eastern sector now," the hitman replied in a flat tone.

Two of them began walking closer to the pillar where Jason and Leo hid. The distance between them shrank rapidly—less than five meters away. Leo held his breath tight, eyes shut in sheer terror while cold sweat streamed down his temples.

Jason glanced down briefly at his own hand. The magazine in his pistol was nearly empty, and engaging three fully armed men out in the open with a severely wounded shoulder was outright suicide. He needed to use his head, not just lead.

His sharp eyes scanned the surrounding parking deck structure. Overhead, an exposed electrical panel hung open, with high-voltage cables dangling wildly from a previous renovation effort. Across from it, a main fire sprinkler pipe ran low along the concrete wall, fitted with a rusted high-pressure valve.

Jason flashed a faint, dark grin in the shadows. A tactical plan formed instantly in his mind.

"Leo," Jason whispered ever so softly right into the young man's ear. "When I make my move, sprint toward the steel pillar across from here and hit the deck. Don't look back."

"But Jason, your wound—"

"Do it now!" Jason barked, his voice restrained yet radiating absolute command.

Before the hitman could swing his flashlight beam around the back of the pillar, Jason stepped deliberately out from his hiding place, scuffing his boot loudly against the cement floor.

"Hey! Looking for someone?" Jason called out coldly.

Both hitmen snapped around in shock, leveling their weapon muzzles in unison straight at Jason. "Target spotted in the eastern sector! Shoot to kill—"

Before their fingers could haul back the triggers, Jason fired a single suppressed round straight into the electrical panel box hovering above the enemy's heads.

Bang!

The high-voltage cables blew in a blinding burst of blue sparks, instantly killing the overhead lighting across the floor and plunging the area into pitch-black darkness pierced only by flickering embers. Both hitmen flinched, momentarily blinded by the electric arc.

"Damn it, my night vision's washed out!" one of the hitmen roared, frantically fumbling with his NVG toggle.

Simultaneously, Jason darted like lightning out of the dark. With his strong left arm, he slammed a nearby iron pipe hard against the wall's fire-suppression valve, cranking the rusted wheel to its maximum setting with a single full rotation.

Ssssshhh!

The high-pressure fire line burst open, jetting a roaring torrent of water with devastating force that slammed squarely into the bodies of the two hitmen like a crashing wave. Both were blasted backward by the sheer water pressure, dropping their weapons onto the flooded floor.

Before they could even push themselves up, Jason was already on top of them. With efficient Close Quarters Battle (CQB) form, Jason smashed the pistol grip into the first hitman's ballistic helmet, knocking him out cold instantly, then swept the second hitman's legs out and cracked his head against the cement floor until he slumped into unconsciousness.

"Jason!" Leo cried out from behind the opposite pillar, running over with ragged breaths. "You... you took down both of them without a single bullet?!"

"Bullets are expensive, Leo. Brains are a lot more lethal," Jason muttered shortly, chest heaving and temples dripping cold sweat as he fought off the blinding throb in his shoulder. "Grab the assault rifle from one of them. We need firepower to reach the upper level."

Leo swallowed hard, bent down, and snatched the assault rifle from the unconscious hitman, clutching it awkwardly yet tightly. "I... I've got it."

"Good. Head for the emergency stairs now before the rest of their squad hears that water pressure," Jason ordered.

The two of them sprinted up the vertical concrete steps of the parking garage floor by floor, leaving the battle zone below behind them. The howling roar of the night wind greeted them as they finally breached the uppermost tier—a wide open-air rooftop parking deck bounded by a low concrete railing and rows of municipal floodlight poles.

The chill night air lashed across their faces. Amid the open rooftop expanse, only a sleek white private helicopter sat parked with its rotors unspun, alongside a black luxury sedan with its keys dangling right from the visor mirror.

"We made it to the roof, Jason! We can take that car or the chopper!" Leo blared with a burst of hope, pointing toward the vehicles before them.

Yet, that hope shattered in the very next heartbeat.

It wasn't the roar of a car engine that revved to life, but a sudden, violent whipping of the wind roaring overhead. The deafening, concussive whir of heavy helicopter blades tore through the night sky with a jet-engine shriek.

Whirring-whirring-whirring!

Jason snapped his gaze upward, squinting his eyes against the violent prop blast.

Out of the dark night clouds hovering above the towering skyscrapers, a pitch-black military tactical helicopter—belonging to the Ouroboros syndicate's shadow corporation—dipped sharply downward in a rapid dive. A massive searchlight mounted beneath the chopper's belly flared blazing white, instantly snapping tight and locking onto Jason and Leo out in the open expanse of the rooftop deck.

The blinding glare forced both of them to throw their arms up to shield their faces.

From the wide-open cabin door of the hovering chopper, a burly man clad in a sharp suit with a heavy machine gun in his hands—Commander Marcus—stood framed in the doorway, staring down at them with a horrifying, cold smirk cutting through the rushing rotor wash.

"Game's over, Jason!" Marcus's voice echoed loudly through the chopper's external loudspeaker, cutting through the roaring jet turbines high above the city streets. "Surrender now, or this concrete roof becomes your graveyard!"