Cities rot from the inside. Not all ruin comes from fire or rust. Sometimes it's in the paperwork that buries the truth. Sometimes it's blood beneath the marble floors, never cleaned. Sometimes it's the quiet smile of a man who knows no one will say no. But Ayla Serin did. And she didn't smile back.
The Baelridge Complex had been abandoned for twenty-seven years. Its glass was cracked, its elevators frozen in place, its top floor half-collapsed during a storm and never touched since. Everyone knew something was wrong with it. Developers tried. The last three either vanished or went bankrupt. The city itself attempted demolition—twice. The explosives didn't work. The permits dissolved. Blueprints changed on their own. Rumors grew. They said the building chose who could enter. And some, once inside, never returned.
So when Ayla walked through its front doors alone—no crew, no cameras, no fanfare—the security guard at the gate looked away. Pretended not to see. Pretended not to hear. Two hours later, when she emerged with clothes torn, her face streaked with ash, and a silent child in her arms—a boy who had disappeared in 2006—the city stopped. No words. No interviews. Damian buried the legal trail before anyone could follow it. The police didn't ask questions. And three days later, Ayla Serin's name appeared on the title deed.
She paid one dollar.
The building was worth one hundred and eighty million.
The story spread like ink in water. A teenage girl, barely out of school, now owned one of the most feared high-rises in the city. A company—Noctra Holdings—surfaced overnight. No board. No staff. No history. A ghost corporation with shadowed backing and Ayla at its center. People whispered. They called it a front. A scam. Blackmail. A few said magic. But none could prove anything. And within a month, the Baelridge Complex reopened. Restored. Modernized. Clean. Tenants moved back in. No more screaming stairwells. No more elevator doors that opened to the wrong decade. For the first time in thirty years, the building was quiet.
But not empty.
Somewhere above the skyline, in the tallest tower of the Eastern Empire, Riven Sol watched. The youngest real estate magnate in the region. CEO of SolGrave International. Known for conquering the cursed land and turning it into a luxury. Known for leaving no rival standing. They called him the God of Glass. He sat behind an obsidian desk, sipping black tea laced with cinnamon, watching silent footage of Ayla inside Baelridge. He replayed it over and over. Watching the air bend around her. Watching how the shadows didn't follow her, they stepped back. "She doesn't cleanse haunted buildings," he murmured. "She makes them loyal."
And for the first time in years, he smiled.
"I want her."
Ayla, meanwhile, had already moved on. In the weeks that followed, she acquired three more buildings. The first belonged to a man who ran human trafficking through the sub-basement. He vanished. The second was home to a piano that played itself—and killed any child who dared touch its keys. Ayla played it. And cried. The third was linked to a city councilman who once sold sacred land for profit. After Ayla arrived, he didn't sleep for days—he only dreamed of his dead sister. He signed over the deed without meeting her eyes.
No one stopped her.
Because the spirits had begun to follow her. They whispered warnings in her dreams. She showed him who lied. Protected her when assassins tried to end her life in silence. She didn't just walk with the dead now.
She was becoming their voice.
And the living had begun to fear her name.
But power attracts power. And three nights after claiming her fifth tower, Ayla received an invitation. No spirit brought it. No vision, no whisper. Just a black envelope slid under her door. No seal. No return address. Only three words, written in ink that shimmered like oil.
Come see me.
And beneath it, a name.
Riven Sol.
End of Chapter 5