Huang Yanyan's POV:
The vault's dead consoles sparked, their screens black, Island B's secrets—routes, weapons, power—gone, burned by my dagger's strike, but the tower shook, boots thudding outside, voices cold: "Secure the keys." My star-etched dagger trembled in my hand, its scratched seal—Yue's mark, my curse—dim but heavy, tying me as the Huang key to a war I didn't start. My knife stayed up, blood crusted on my cheek, shoulder and thigh oozing, ribs screaming from the vault fight, but I stood tall, Wuhan's heart pulsing around me. Master Wu was gone, his smirk a ghost, but these new elites—not his, not star-crested, crests alien, global—were worse, their hunger for me and Haoyu, the Wu key, a blade at my throat.
