They moved like shadows where no light remained.
A crooked sun peeked through layers of ash and broken sky, filtering softly across the shattered remnants of Chernobog. This part of the city had fallen long ago, but the scars hadn't faded—only deepened. Rubble lined the roads like broken teeth. Some buildings were flattened, crushed as if by an invisible fist. Others stood untouched, towering above the carnage like monuments that had been spared… or claimed.
Burngear muttered something under his breath, adjusting the strap across his shoulder. "Some of these towers don't even have dust on 'em... creepy."
Fang walked in silence, robes trailing faintly behind him, hands folded into his sleeves. His eyes remained closed.
The quiet wouldn't last.
From beneath a cracked vent, something wet and thick slithered forward.
Then another.
Slimes, bloated with mutagenic Originium, oozed from alleyways and craters in the street, bodies trembling with barely restrained instability. Behind them, corrupted hounds staggered forward, their flesh cracked and twisted, bones clicking wrong beneath their own weight.
Burngear tensed. Kharon didn't even break stride.
Fang… only exhaled.
A hound lunged at him—snarling, limbs wide. Fang leaned aside, letting it sail past his shoulder before grabbing it mid-air by the nape of its mutated spine.
With no resistance, he turned and hurled it toward Kharon.
The spear saint brandished both of his spears and met it mid-arc—shunk—splitting it in two.
Another slime shot forward, spitting acidic gunk. Fang raised a foot, planting it against the creature's side, and shifted his weight. The slime flung into Burngear's path, where it exploded under a metal fist—burned away by pressurized steam and red-hot claws.
More came.
Fang didn't fight them.
He danced.
Each attacker was a note in a song he already knew. A paw aimed at his back—he twisted and caught it, stepping into the blow's force and letting it carry him into a spin before slamming the creature into the ground and sliding it toward Burngear, who finished it with a single burst of volatile flame.
Slimes lunged—Fang turned them on their own momentum, redirecting them into Kharon's patient reach. One by one, they were removed.
Above, a drone beeped softly.
Then Kal'tsit's voice filtered through.
"It appears you're making good time."
Burngear looked up, one horn sparking. "Sister Sit," he grunted, wiping slime off his coat. "How come you can't come here yourself? And why the hell are we even wasting time saving him?"
There was a pause—one just long enough to sting.
"If I could be there," Kal'tsit replied flatly, "I would. You're standing in a layered suppression zone laced with Originium-static, deployed by the Black Roots. Your position is unstable, and I'm lucky this drone can even connect. So no—I can't."
Kharon was already moving forward, checking the corners ahead.
"Amiya initiated the mission. I approved it," Kal'tsit continued. "This was her call. But I… kept my promise."
Burngear opened his mouth to respond—
Fang raised his hand.
He stopped.
The air changed.
The silence wasn't just quiet—it was wrong. Too still. Too heavy. Even the hum of the drone seemed to hesitate.
Then—
BOOM.
A tower to their left exploded outward—stone and steel flying like shrapnel across the air.
Burngear instinctively swung both arms forward, forming a shield wall. The debris slammed against it and scattered. He shifted to shield the drone behind him, gritting his teeth.
Kharon didn't dodge. He slashed through everything in his path—steel, stone, limb—it didn't matter.
Fang didn't raise a hand.
A massive, sword-like claw erupted from the dust, driving for his chest.
He stepped once.
Then caught the limb by the wrist—just two fingers and a palm around bone and flesh—and stopped it cold.
The creature shrieked.
Fang's eyes remained closed.
He exhaled.
"…It's begun," he said softly.
Fang held the mutated limb for a moment longer, his grip unflinching.
Then, with a breath, he stepped forward and pushed.
The assailant flew back—not violently, but with the grace of something dismissed. Their body hit the dirt, rolled once, and rose without a sound.
Fang lowered his hand and placed his palm against the fractured stone below him.
Thoom.
A gentle ring pulsed outward. Fire bloomed, slow and radiant. A thin circle of amber-orange flame unfurled like a lotus, pushing the veil of dust away and casting warm light across the desolate street.
And then they saw them.
Four figures.
The first—the one who had attacked—stood at the front, posture bowed, robes shredded from what once looked ceremonial. Their face was hidden beneath a cracked choir mask, and the "violin blade" in their hand shone dully in the light. It had no strings. Only teeth.
Three more stepped out from behind, fanning around their leader in perfect rhythm.
Not a sound. No footsteps. No voices.
"…Friends of yours?" Kharon asked, twirling his twin pole-spears, now lowered into a defensive cross.
His voice was low, but even.
The drone hovered above, and Kal'tsit's voice came through a moment later—far quieter than before.
"… They were the forward team I dispatched. Vanguard specialists. I… didn't know." Her voice cracked faintly. "I didn't know there was a Collapsal singularity embedded in that zone. They never reported back."
Fang stepped forward, eyes half-lidded, his incense rods drawn from his sash.
"…Father Ruin," he whispered.
And then, he moved.
The corrupted operators surged forward as one. Their blades sang through the air—not quite screeching, not quite melodic. Somewhere in between. Like a dying hymn forced to play on.
Fang intercepted the first with a snap of his rod against the creature's elbow, the second by redirecting their lunge with his sleeve. His movements were mercilessly precise, yet never cruel. Each blow landed—not to kill, but to direct. Slow. Disrupt.
A rib cracked beneath his palm. A knee gave way from a pressure strike. The fourth raised its blade, and Fang caught its arm with both rods, locking it before spinning behind it and pushing it into its own ally.
He didn't make them bleed.
But they began to shake. Their movements grew jerky. As if something inside them protested the hesitation. The purity of the corruption was faltering.
Fang ducked under one last sweep and slid between them, driving both incense rods into the ground—
"Kharon."
He didn't need to say more.
Kharon moved.
In a blur of steel and wind, his twin pole-spears danced outward in twin arcs—fluid, efficient. One punctured the first's core, spinning them toward the second. The second caught both spears and was lifted from the ground in one smooth motion, crashing into the third.
The final tried to retreat, but Kharon's heel drove into the dirt—thrusting one spear through all three in a final, unrelenting push.
The corrupted bodies collapsed.
No blood. Just ash.
Dust where humans once stood.
Fang knelt in their midst, incense rods held before him like a prayer offering. Orange powder scattered from their tips, drifting lazily in the still air. His head bowed, and from beneath his robes, a thin trail of blood slid from the corner of his lips.
Kal'tsit's voice returned, quieter now.
"…Is that…?"
No answer.
Fang stayed silent.
Only when the prayer ended did he stand, wiping the blood away with the back of his hand. His face remained calm—but his eyes said otherwise.
"Fate is not finished," he whispered, opening his right eye fully. A faint ember flickered within.
He turned toward the far end of the street.
There, rising above the rubble and the corpses and the ruin, stood a building that still breathed. The center of it all.
And waiting within…
The past that refused to die.