Location A Forgotten Monastery, Tibetan Highlands 3:47 AM
The wind screamed through the ruins, carrying the scent of burnt incense and old blood. Snowflakes hissed as they touched the blackened stones, dissolving into steam.
He stood motionless in the shadows, his silhouette broken only by the jagged edges of his mask a plague doctor's beak, tarnished silver, its glass eyes reflecting no light. The heavy robes draped over his frame bore no insignia, no mark of allegiance. Only the faintest shimmer of Obsidian thread woven into the fabric hinted at something beyond mortal craftsmanship.
Then the chanting began.
Not human voices. Not anymore.
From the depths of the monastery's collapsed sanctum, something slithered into the open air. A mass of fused limbs, its skin pulsing with glowing Phrygian script the language of dead empires, of pacts signed in damned blood. Six mouths yawned open along its spine, each whispering a different name for hunger.
"Little bird," it crooned, the words slithering into his mind. "You smell of the Void. Of the needles. Did they send you to die again?"
The masked figure didn't answer.
He moved.
A blur of black cloth and silver steel. His weapon a serpentine dagger forged from the same alien ore as Atlas's armor cut through the demon's flesh like it was parting smoke. The creature wailed, its many voices harmonizing in agony as its form began to dissolve.
But this one was smarter than the others.
As it died, it laughed.
"You think you hunt us?" it gurgled, its body collapsing into embers. "We are the feast, not the feeders. The Archons are coming, little bird. And they will pluck your feathers one by one."
The last of its essence curled toward him like a beckoning finger before he crushed it in his fist.
Silence.
Then, from the darkness behind him, a voice:
"That's the third this week."
A woman stepped into the moonlight, her face hidden beneath a hooded cloak. The hilt of a curved knife gleamed at her hip.
"They're getting bolder," she said. "The wards along the Silk Road are failing. Whatever's waking up… it's calling them home."
The masked figure tilted his head, the beak of his mask catching the pale glow of the rising sun. When he spoke, his voice was a dry rasp, as if his throat had been stitched back together too many times.
"Then we move faster."
He reached into his robes and withdrew a small, obsidian vial. Inside, a single drop of black liquid slithered like a living thing.
"This one remembered a name," he said. "A place. Shanghai. The Hungry Ghost Festival."
The woman tensed. "That's two days from now. If they're gathering there "
"Then we burn them out," he interrupted. "Before the Veil thins any further."
She hesitated. "And your brother? If the Archons are really coming"
The mask turned toward the east, where the first light of dawn stained the horizon blood-red.
"Atlas will fight when the time comes," he said quietly. "But this war isn't his yet. Let him keep his peace… a little longer."
With that, he strode past her, his boots leaving no prints in the snow.
Behind them, the ruins of the monastery groaned then collapsed inward, as if something deep below had finally stopped holding its breath.
--- To be continued…