Kai couldn't believe himself. His hands were still slick, trembling, refusing to unclench even after the body stopped thrashing. He had killed someone. Not a demon, not a creature spilling through a rift, but a man. Flesh and blood, as human as he was.
The memory of it replayed in his skull with cruel precision: the knife sliding into the neck, the warmth that sprayed across his arms, the strangled breath, the gargled choke. His victim's eyes had been wide, not with malice anymore, but with disbelief, as if neither of them had expected the fight to end that way. The last exhale had sounded too fragile, too mortal, rubbing Kai the wrong way in a way no demon's shriek ever had.
And yet, in the aftermath, something clicked.
This city.
It wasn't like the academy, where survival was couched in trials and lectures. It wasn't like the battlefield, where demons marked themselves as enemies by existing. Here the law was simpler, sharper: kill or be killed. The realization sank into Kai's gut like a weight, and with it came shame. How had he been so blind? How had he not noticed what everyone else seemed to live by?
The streets answered with silence. A few passersby had watched, but none interfered. They saw the blood, saw the corpse, and simply looked away. To them, this was background noise. Nothing worth more than a shrug.
Stumbling back into the alleys, Kai pressed the knife to his thigh, as if grounding himself. His mind was tangled—half horror, half clarity. He wanted to vomit, to scrub the blood off his skin, but another part of him whispered: Now you understand. Now you belong here.
That was when he overheard the conversation. Two men in muted cloaks stood at a corner, voices low but sharp enough to carry. They spoke not of gangs or wagers but of politics, of enemies of the Concord.
"Another one fell," one murmured. "Choked on his own fear before the knife. The Shadows never leave a trace."
"Efficient," the other replied. "That's why the Concord still stands. Light on the surface, dark beneath."
Kai froze. The words hit him harder than he expected. Concord Shadows. He didn't know what that meant, but the way they said it—casual, unquestioning—made his skin prickle. Whoever these Shadows were, they weren't rumors. They were real, moving in silence, killing quietly for the supposed good of humanity.
He didn't linger. If they noticed him listening, he'd join their corpse tally. Still, the phrase dug into him. Shadows working for the Concord? The very body that preached order and survival, that claimed to keep humanity safe, had a darkness stitched into it?
Kai didn't know what to make of it. He only knew the city had stripped another layer of his innocence. His first kill had opened one door; overhearing the Shadows cracked open another.
Kill or be killed. Silence or disappearance.
This was the Lawless City.
And now, he was inside its law.
Kai had been walking aimlessly, shoes dragging over cobblestones, eyes catching on nothing and everything. He didn't know where he was going, didn't know what to do now that his hands were stained with human blood. The city seemed endless, streets folding into one another like a maze designed to mock him.
He turned a corner and froze.
A cart rattled past, chains clinking in rhythm. But it wasn't horses hauling it — it was demons. Thin, gray-skinned things with collars driven into their flesh, eyes clouded with obedience sigils. They pulled the load with jerks and stumbles, ribs showing beneath stretched skin.
That was when it clicked.
Demons weren't the terror here. They weren't even predators. They were prey.
"Brutal," Kai whispered under his breath, throat dry. The sight twisted everything he thought he knew. In the Human Realm, demons were nightmares. Here, they were shackled, beaten, repurposed like broken tools.
His thoughts spiraled. Ok Kai, let's think… Rifts are faction controlled. They don't just appear; someone owns them. If I want out, I need to find who pulls the strings. I need a way back.
He muttered to himself as he walked, his voice the only companion he trusted. The words grounded him, gave the illusion of control. But each plan unraveled as soon as he spoke it. Who knew where a rift would lead if he even found one? Back to the Human Realm? To another prison? To something worse?
He stumbled into a plaza and stopped. Ahead of him, a massive glass dome rose like a bubble of light, reflecting the city's neon and ash sky. Inside, shapes moved — too far away to make out clearly, but they looked organized, ritualistic. His curiosity flared, tugging him forward.
One step. Two.
Then hesitation caught him like a hook.
Curiosity here wasn't innocent. It was dangerous. The wrong glance, the wrong question, could end with chains around his throat or a knife in his ribs. He stood still, staring at the dome, torn between the urge to understand and the instinct to survive.
If he was being completely honest, he didn't know what to do. Every option felt like another blade waiting to cut him. The Lawless City wasn't a place of choices, only consequences.
Kai turned his head away from the dome. The city was watching, even when it pretended not to.