The streets remained silent as usual.
They walked side by side towards another section they didn't yet explore. Not a single banner hung crooked. Not a single window was shattered. It was civilization preserved in glass. Asenane glanced around with unconcealed discomfort.
"I know I said I like the silence but this place unsettles me. It's too intact."
"It doesn't have any life."
She did not like the emphasis on that.
Eventually, they reached a building that stood slightly elevated above the others, fronted by shallow steps and framed by carefully sculpted hedges that had wilted but never fully withered. A bronze plaque near the entrance bore a polished engraving:
Administration Hall.
Beneath it, a smaller inscription read: Office of the Mayor.
"What is a mayore?"
He used Memory Implantation to enable her to read English words but as you can see, the pronunciation is still strange to her.
"It's mayor. A mayor is a civil administrator. They oversee a city, handle infrastructure, law enforcement, resource allocation and other political stuff. They're elected by the people."
"Elected?"
"Yes. The citizens vote for who governs them."
"So they choose their ruler?"
"More or less."
"That seems inefficient."
"It is. But it also keeps power from consolidating too permanently. It keeps cities functional."
She looked at the immaculate structure before them.
"It did not keep this one functional."
He had no answer for that.
They pushed the doors open. The hinges did not creak.
The interior was breathtaking in a way that felt obscene given the circumstances. Floors gleamed without a single scuff mark. Tall windows allowed sunlight to pour in, illuminating walls adorned with framed city plans and portraits of former officials. Polished desks lined the main chamber with papers neatly stacked, ink bottles sealed and chairs pushed in with deliberate care. And yet beneath the scent of polish and paper lingered something else.
"That smell."
"Yeah. I noticed."
It was not overpowering at first. It did not slam into them the way battlefield rot did. Instead, it was organic decay trying and failing to hide behind sterile cleanliness.
They moved deeper into the building.
The long hallways were lined with closed doors bearing brass nameplates: Finance Director. Urban Development. Public Safety Commissioner. Archives. The silence here was thicker than outside, pressed flat by carpet runners that absorbed their footsteps. No dust gathered in corners. No cobwebs claimed the ceiling. Everything remained impossibly maintained.
They turned a corner and saw the cause of the stench.
Corpses.
The first lay slumped against the wall with its spine twisted unnaturally and skin clinging to bone in shriveled patches of gray. The suit he wore had not decayed the way he had. The fabric remained mostly intact, though it was stained dark where fluids had seeped and dried. His mouth hung open. His eyes had collapsed as if something had drained them from within.
Further down the hallway, more bodies lay scattered in positions that did not suggest violence. One leaned over a desk, pen still in hand. Another sat upright in a chair with hands folded in their lap as though waiting for a meeting that would never begin. A third lay face down on the carpet. There was no blood or any sign of struggle.
He stepped forward slowly and activated his Soul Vision.
Color drained from the physical plane as he only saw nothing but black and white. Threads of Soul Energy, normally faint but always present around living beings or recent dead, glowed in muted blues and gold. Even corpses retained residual traces of a soul's departure.
He focused on the nearest body. He moved to the second and the third.
"What do you see?"
"Nothing."
"That's not unusual, is it? The souls should have moved on."
"Even when a soul departs naturally, it leaves an imprint. A trace of Soul Energy lingers. It fades over time yes, but it doesn't vanish instantly. It stains the body. There's always something."
He crouched beside the man slumped over the desk, studying him more closely.
"This is too clean. It's like the soul was never there. Their souls weren't released. They were taken."
"Consumed?"
"Most likely."
She inhaled slowly, as though tasting the air beyond the rot.
"I don't sense lingering souls."
"You wouldn't. Whatever did this didn't just kill them. It extracted their souls too."
He deactivated Soul Vision and the normal world snapped back into place. Colors returned with brutal normalcy. The corpses looked no less horrific.
"Fortunately, if it's something that feeds on souls, then it's still operating within that spectrum. That means I can fight it."
"You sound confident."
"I am. Soul creatures follow certain rules. They're bound to metaphysical constraints. They can't just ignore someone like me."
"And yet this one consumed an entire administrative body without leaving residue."
He did not appreciate that reminder.
They continued down the corridor, stepping carefully around the dead. The stench thickened near the far end where a large set of double doors stood slightly opened. The brass plaque read:
Mayor.
He pushed the doors open fully.
The office beyond was expansive and immaculate. The sunlight cast its rays across a massive wooden desk carved from dark wood. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with organized binders and framed commendations. A city map dominated the far wall with tiny colored pins marking districts.
Behind the desk sat the mayor, or what remained of him.
The body had not fallen. It remained upright in its high-backed leather chair. His hands rested calmly atop the desk as if presiding over paperwork. The suit was crisp. The tie was perfectly knotted. The face however, had shriveled like wax left too close to flame. The skin had tightened around the skull and his lips were peeled back to expose teeth in a permanent, skeletal grin. The eye sockets were dry hollow depressions. There was something obscene about the posture.
He approached slowly and activated Soul Vision again.
Asenane stepped closer, studying the corpse without flinching.
"There are no wounds or defensive injuries. There are no signs of forced entry anywhere in the building."
"Which means it didn't attack in a conventional way."
"Then how?"
He leaned slightly over the desk, scanning the room.
"Either it infiltrated subtly, or it was invited."
"Invited?"
"Think about it. This place isn't damaged. There was no panic evacuation. They didn't barricade. They didn't run. They stayed at their desks."
"You believe they did not know they were being consumed."
"That's exactly what I think."
Somewhere deeper in the building, something shifted. Asenane's fingernails immediately turned to claws.
"You heard that?"
"Yeah."
He closed his eyes briefly and reached outward with his senses. Sensing Soul Energy was not hard for him. He opened his eyes slowly.
"It's still here."
Another soft scrape echoed from the hallway beyond the office, followed by a wet, dragging sound. The stench intensified again.
"This raises too many questions. Why target governance? Why consume only souls? Why leave the city intact?"
"Those are exactly the questions I don't like."
He stepped forward slightly, positioning himself between the doorway and Asenane
"Stay behind me."
"I am not fragile."
"I know, but this thing hunts souls. That makes me the better shield."
Something moved in the shadows beyond the threshold. He flexed his fingers, drawing Soul Energy, letting it hum faintly around his skin.
"Alright. Let's see what's been stealing thse souls."