The rain had not stopped.
It now softened the garden soil and misted the cracked windows, casting wavering shadows across the Dusk family manor. The threat was gone, but its memory lingered in the silence.
He stood before the mirror, eyes still sharp.
Golden. Piercing. A predator's stare. Not like his old self.
This was a face that could wear nobility and danger equally. Hair dark and swept back. A gentleman's jawline. Shoulders broadened by silent battles and swords. Henry Cavill's features with a hunter's soul inside.
He turned away and moved through the house.
---
The manor opened like a storybook from another time.
Dark oak halls. Velvet curtains. Oil portraits in golden frames—each signed in the corner by a familiar name: A.V. Dusk. His mother. An artist. Her work was everywhere—delicate brushstrokes, brilliant stained glass, polished silver sculptures.
He stepped into her art room. Dust lay thick, but her palette still held color. Her world remained, frozen in time.
Room by room, the echoes grew.
His father's study—clocks, bank ledgers, sealed ledgers with crests.
Eliya's nursery—tiny furniture now silent.
And behind a painting, strong door though slightly ajar now...
A vault room.
---
Inside: drawers. Banknotes. Keys. Documents.
He began to sift.
Property and Assets:
Rental income across Phelps Street, Crimson Block, and Avenue D — 34,300 pounds per quarter.
Bank balance —1,98,750 pounds.
Land deeds:
2 rural parcels.
Apartment in Cherwood Borough.
3 retail stores in North Borough.
Old money. Stable money.
And yet, despite this fortress of wealth, the family had died in sequence—silently.
He opened another drawer.
A mirror receipt.
> Acquisition: Tall Mirror. Estate of House Vignier. Auction Item 7.
House Vignier...
He remembered that name.
From Earth. From Lord of the Mysteries forums. A cursed noble house, annihilated by spiritual plague.
And the mirror—that mirror—was the last relic.
It had passed hands.
And ended up here.
> "Who gave it to us? Why?" he murmured.
> "Was it a trap? A sacrifice? Or something worse?"
The diary came back to him.
> "I think it's me. I think… I was meant to be last."
Leonel had resisted the longest. Why?
Not strength.
Sensitivity.
The Hunter's resonance had already begun inside him. That was why the spirit fed on him last.
And now, fused with him, it could no longer feed.
---
He sat in the study chair.
Outside, gaslamps flickered in the fog. Trams hissed in the distance. The city felt vast and waiting.
A calendar sat on the desk.
Year 1349. Eighth Month.
He blinked.
Klein transmigrated in the Month of Storms.
He was… three months early.
More than enough time to prepare.
---
He touched his temple.
His thoughts unraveled like a web.
Sensed a ghost. Killed it. Anchored instinctively to a spiritual object.
No talisman.
No chant.
No potion.
> "I'm already partially aligned to a Pathway."
The realization settled cold and clean in his spine.
Hunter.
Not just in name.
But by spirit.
By design.
And the Witcher's body, infused into this world, had answered its call.
He sheathed Lunaris. The darker blade, Pyrran, remained wrapped by the fireplace. Silent.
He wasn't ready for that one yet.
---
Outside, the fog began to lift.
The distant shape of Backlund emerged—faint towers and smoke stacks in a sea of mist.
And within that mist...
A new player had arrived.
Unknown. Unnamed.
But already hunting.