After fermenting for a week, the panic in New York turned into a buzzing sound that permeated the air.
It hid in the overly shrill warning sounds of subway doors closing.
It hid in the whispers of people talking in office buildings.
It also hid in the tireless hovering sounds of police helicopters in the night sky.
The vanished monument became an invisible scar on the city.
When people walked past that empty lot in Central Park, they would subconsciously quicken their pace.
The government's incompetence and lies, along with Vought's silence, made this fear more concrete.
People no longer believed any official explanations, turning instead to the embrace of conspiracy theories.
An invisible "Ghost" capable of toying with this city at will was conducting its eerie "performance art."
This ghost left no demands and proposed no conditions.
Its silence was more chilling than any declaration of terror.
On the morning of the eighth day of the fermenting panic, the prelude ended.
The first act officially began.
The location was the Brooklyn Bridge.
This magnificent creation was one of New York's undisputed landmarks.
It was the perfect combination of human engineering and the spirit of the industrial age.
When the morning light pierced through the mist, pulling golden edges along the suspension cables, the first batch of commuters discovered that "exhibit."
It was on the side near Manhattan.
A face appeared out of thin air on the thickest granite bridge pier.
A human face, composed of concrete relief, was wailing.
It looked as if it had been forced to "grow" out from inside the pier.
Its material blended perfectly with the pier itself, as if it had been there for over a hundred years.
The expression on that face was filled with unspeakable pain, its mouth wide open in a silent scream.
Hollow eye sockets stared at every human passing over the bridge.
Most chilling of all, the surface of the relief was covered in fine cracks.
Dark red, rusty liquid was slowly oozing from the cracks, winding down the surface of the pier like unending tears of blood.
The initial shock quickly turned into a panic that swept across the city.
Traffic was completely paralyzed.
Countless vehicles were stuck on the bridge, and people got out of their cars one after another to film, discuss, and scream at that terrifying face.
"My God... what is this now?"
"It's that ghost! It appeared again!"
"Ghost Art Exhibition" — this term, coined by some media outlet, became a trending hashtag in New York within just one hour.
The government didn't even have time to concoct a lie.
The top team of structural engineers was urgently dispatched to the scene.
Carrying the most precise instruments, they conducted a comprehensive inspection of the bridge pier.
The conclusion they reached sent a chill up the spines of everyone present.
"This shouldn't be..."
An elderly engineer with white hair muttered to himself, looking at the data report in his hands.
"This completely violates all laws of physics."
"The bridge's internal load-bearing structure is intact, with no changes in stress."
"This... the density and composition of this relief are identical to the main body of the pier. It's not an external object; it is part of the pier."
This conclusion was more terrifying than any ghost story.
...
In that shadow kingdom beneath New York that never saw the light of day.
Just then, the ID named "Prophet" posted new content.
No warning, no title.
Only a babble from the depths of a nightmare.
"I see... a throne built of sorrow."
"I see... a ghost turning the city into a tombstone."
"Vought is feeding an unprecedented beast, and its food is our fear."
"He will begin with art and end with destruction."
"All heroes will be eclipsed, and the entire city will be his funeral."
This cryptic prophecy was like a block of ice dropped into boiling water.
After a brief silence came an even more violent eruption.
"Enough! Prophet, stop spreading your doomsday theories!"
A radical member with the ID "Iron-Fist" was the first to jump out.
"What we need now is action, is a counterattack! Not listening to you recite poetry here!"
"Exactly! A funeral? Too exaggerated. Do you mean to say this guy is another monster released by Vought? As long as we find him, there's always a way to deal with him!"
"I'm more inclined to believe this is a conspiracy directed and acted by Vought to introduce new heroes or push for stricter regulatory bills."
Most people on the forum had long since lost their patience, tortured by one failure and sense of powerlessness after another.
They would rather believe this was an enemy that could be defeated by fists than accept a god-like opponent they could not understand.
In their eyes, the "Prophet's" warning was too alarmist.
It seemed more like an act of cowardice that shook morale.
Only Rat felt something was wrong when he saw those words.
His instinct, belonging to a rat, surviving in the dark, was screaming at him frantically.
What others saw was poetry.
What he smelled was death.
Rat did not argue in the forum.
He silently closed his terminal, his thin face and small eyes filled with anxiety and unease.
He walked to his "kingdom."
Deep inside an abandoned subway dispatch room, which was piled with stolen wires and food.
He emitted a high-frequency squeaking sound.
"Go..."
He muttered to himself.
"My children..."
"Go into every vessel, every scar of the city."
"Go find the scent of that ghost."
The entire dispatch room came alive.
In the darkness, countless tiny, rustling sounds arose.
Black and gray shadows poured out from cracks in the corners, from pipes in the ceiling, and from holes in the floor.
They converged into a black tide, flowing along the intricate sewer network into New York City's vast, unknown underground World.
They would become Rat's eyes and nose, searching for that terrifying artist whom even Vought could not find.
...
In Dr. Hannibal Lecter's office, classical music was flowing melodiously.
He held a glass of Burgundy wine, appreciating the text on the screen in front of him.
That was the internal forum of the Awakened Mutual Aid Society.
A member he had carefully turned, who was dissatisfied with "Prophet's" leadership position, had provided him with unobstructed access.
He saw "Prophet's" desperate and precise prophecy.
He also saw the stupidity and arrogance of those radical members.
Of course, he also noticed Rat's silence, and after that, the sudden increase in tiny, abnormal heat source signals in the city's underground monitoring system.
"A group of interesting little mice."
Dr. Hannibal Lecter commented softly.
Not only did he not stop them, but he decided... to utilize this "sense of justice."
His artist needed some new pigments.
And these souls who offered themselves up voluntarily and possessed a spirit of sacrifice were undoubtedly top-tier material.
With the assistance of Motoko Kusanagi, a piece of forged intelligence began to be constructed.
He didn't give the location directly; that would be too deliberate.
He just "leaked" a tampered Vought internal energy monitoring log in a technical discussion section of the forum through an insider, quite casually.
The log showed that for several consecutive days, high-frequency energy reactions of unknown origin had appeared late at night in the abandoned industrial zone on the edge of the city.
"... This waveform is very similar to the data recorded from those whose abilities went out of control during the early stages of the S.O.M.S. outbreak."
The insider commented below the post, using a tone of having discovered a new World.
"My God, this location... didn't the government say they were going to renovate this area before? Could they be secretly imprisoning some victims with unstable abilities there to conduct experiments?!"
This speculation ignited the powder keg of the entire forum.
A victim secretly imprisoned and tortured day and night by Vought!
This setup perfectly satisfied the imagination of all members of the Mutual Aid Society.
It pulled that indescribable "Ghost Artist" back into a category they could understand — a "peer" worthy of sympathy and rescue.
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