It had been five days since he moved into the hotel.
Moon sat up in bed, his bare feet pressing against the wooden floorboards.
They felt a bit chilly.
In a hellhole like this, a lot could happen in five days.
It was enough time for the order of several streets to be overturned, or for entire districts to be destroyed and rebuilt.
Yet, life in the hotel moved slowly—so slowly it felt as if time itself had lost its potency here.
Every morning, Alastor’s jazz would ring out punctually.
He would sit at the breakfast table, smiling as he stared at Moon, trying to discern something from his face.
When Moon pushed the chili sauce toward him, Alastor would take it.
Angel no longer spent all day slumped on the sofa.
He had started helping wipe down the piano, humming tunes Moon had played.
Although his mouth was still full of filth, that “dead-man-walking” vibe had faded considerably.
Charlie would still have her evening meltdowns, her desk often piled high with crumpled drafts of her redemption plans.
At those times, Moon only needed to hand her a glass of warm water for her to regain her spirits.
Vaggie, as usual, remained on guard against him.
The days passed like this, one by one.
Moon walked to the window.
An airship drifted through the sky.
The hull bore Vox’s electronic face, with a line of text scrolling beneath it: TRUST US.
It was crude, bold, and altogether laughable.
Moon watched for a moment before mentally reorganizing the clues he had gathered.
The timeline seemed clear now.
Alastor had just returned, giving this rundown joint a shot of adrenaline—or perhaps a dose of poison.
The annual Extermination had just ended, and the scent of ozone and scorched earth still lingered in the air.
Charlie hadn’t yet embarked on her destined journey to Heaven to be humiliated.
Good.
The game wasn’t over, the players hadn’t all arrived, and there was still time to change everything.
He traced a finger across the glass and began to calculate.
On the enemy’s side:
First, the Vees.
Vox, Valentino, and Velvette.
Technology, lust, and trends.
These three had draped the entire city in a web of networks and desire; there was very little that didn’t involve them.
If the hotel wanted to expand its reach, a confrontation was inevitable.
They set the rules and dictated the trends—they were the hotel’s natural enemies.
Then, there was the Extermination.
It arrived punctually every six months to harvest lives and reap hope.
This was the ultimate test for all of Charlie’s ideals.
And then there was the contract bound to Angel.
The leash Valentino had looped around his neck.
As long as that thing existed, Angel would never be able to hold his head high, and the hotel’s “redemption” would remain a joke.
Any one of these three challenges was enough to crush ten hotels.
So, what did he have in his own hand?
Alastor.
Powerful, mysterious, and temperamental.
A perfect ally, but also a perfect time bomb.
But he wasn’t free.
His power came from another, older contract: Rosie, the Queen of Cannibal Town.
The “philanthropist” act he played here was nothing more than a move on the Queen’s chessboard.
But a pawn always harbors the desire to jump off the board.
Beneath that eternal smile of his lay the deepest longing for freedom.
That desire was the weakest link in his chains.
In the future, to break free from Rosie, he would even bow his head to Vox, the man he despised most.
Though it was a risky move, knowing the script, why couldn’t Moon give him a push?
It was a desire that could be guided.
Then, there was Lucifer.
The King of Hell.
Charlie’s father.
Theoretically, the ultimate weapon who could solve every problem in an instant.
Everyone thought he had given up, seeing him only as an irresponsible father and a failure discarded by the times.
But Moon knew the truth: he had been “silenced.”
The tragedy of the Fallen was not the loss of wings, but the wearing of shackles.
Heaven’s punishment for him wasn’t just exile; it included a dead-letter law: he was forbidden from acting against Sinners.
This was a secret unknown to the vast majority of demons in Hell.
An exquisite information gap.
If the Overlords of Hell knew that the sword hanging over their heads was actually made of rubber…
Or conversely, if Adam was made to believe Lucifer might strike at any moment.
Of course, Lucifer could only exist as a strategic deterrent—a silent golden statue.
Unless someone dared to touch his only sore spot: Charlie.
A passive but infinitely powerful guardian.
And further up, there was Adam.
The First Man.
An angel with golden wings but a heart more cruel than any demon’s.
Why did he hate Sinners so much?
Behind that arrogant, nearly hysterical loathing, was it just Heaven’s “justice”?
No, he was venting.
It wasn’t just God’s judgment on man; it was the despair of a failed father toward his unfilial descendants.
When he looked at the twisted souls of these Sinners in Hell, he saw his own failure.
Every fallen soul reminded him of that original mistake—free will.
That was the gift he had proudly bestowed upon his progeny, and now it had become the arsenic that poisoned them.
The existence of every Sinner here mocked the choice he once made in the Garden of Eden, constantly reminding him: *Look, this is the humanity you created.
This is the freedom you wanted.*
And so, he began to slaughter, wanting to erase the evidence of his “incompetence” or perhaps to prove that humanity was beyond saving.
Pathetic.
Distorted.
He hated himself—the version of himself trapped in the title of “The First Man,” watching everything become tainted by freedom and depravity while being powerless to stop it.
That self-loathing was the source of his power, and his greatest flaw.
The night wind rattled the glass.
Moon looked up, focusing once more on the massive electronic face outside the window.
Vox.
The Emperor of VoxTek.
The incarnation of media.
The spokesperson for the new era.
His arrogance was written into every frame of his advertisements.
His madness manifested in his absolute obsession with controlling the market.
And then there was his pathologically deep fixation on Alastor—a mix of jealousy, fear, and warped admiration.
He wanted to replace Alastor, to trample him underfoot, yet also to merge him into his own currents.
This contradictory desire drove all his business decisions and private actions.
It was the strongest engine of Vox’s empire, but also the most fatal bug in his logic.
Moon watched the airship slowly pass by.
He gradually closed his fingers, forming a fist as if he were clutching that airship—and the lights of the entire city—within his palm.
The center of every storm.
The node where all causes and effects intertwined.
“The breakthrough,” he said to the haughty, pixelated smiling face outside the window.