The wind had changed.
It no longer carried the rot of Umuk's sanctimonious cathedrals or the copper tang of nobles carved open mid-toast.No.
The air now tasted of cloves, iron… and arrogance.
Omnia.
The Empire of Crowns.
The land where kings drowned peasants in taxes, where princesses wore the bones of farmers as anklets, and where orphans were crushed beneath banquet carriages because they "ruined the view."
And now…
They had a new visitor.
But they didn't know it.
Not yet.
Beneath a dying tree, its bark flaking like scabbed flesh just miles from Omnia's eastern border, Mormond crouched barefoot in the mud — grinning.
His coat, once lined with velvet and blood, had been discarded.
Beside him, Nini bent low like a blackbird ready to snatch carrion, pale skin tight with anticipation. Her corset whispered as it breathed with her, laces vibrating with restrained violence.
They were no longer who they had been yesterday.
Not by appearance.Not by presence.Not by design.
"Too many eyes," Mormond murmured, fishing a glimmering black thread from the pouch at his hip. His voice was a half-laugh, half-sigh, as though he were confessing a secret to the soil. "They know the face I wore in Umuk."
Nini gave no reply — only a nod. Her fingernails shivered, strings humming faintly beneath her cuticles.
Mormond closed his eyes.
And then his flesh rippled.
It began at the lips — shrinking, softening, folding inward. Then the cheeks. Then the bones. His spine twisted with a series of tender, wet cracks as his body shrank, melted, warped.
When he stood again, a boy of seven winters blinked back from the broken puddle at his feet.
Hair the color of dirty copper.Eyes wide with mock innocence.A freckle across the nose.A stammer when he breathed.
He looked like prey.
But the predator still smiled behind the mask.
Nini bowed slightly. Her black dress shivered, folding in on itself like a cocoon — until she wore a drab gray gown, patched and weary, with a stitched pin that read: Housemaid to House Kareth.
A fake house.A false name.A real hunt.
Mormond — now Milos — slipped his small hand into hers, and the two walked toward Omnia like a child and his caretaker.
But behind their innocent steps…Puppets swayed on the wind, unseen.
Omnia was nothing like Umuk.
Where Umuk had been decay in silk, Omnia was poison in diamonds.
White stone paved the streets, polished until the sun itself flinched at its reflection. Six-legged horses clattered by, their hooves plated in beaten gold. Aristocrats swanned about in coats threaded with hummingbird feathers and powdered vanity.
The poor?
Of course they existed.
But here, poverty was buried — literally. The slums were sunken below the streets, tunnels and pit-homes where the desperate toiled unseen. Omnia's beauty was a stage. Its cruelty was the backstage.
In the gutters beneath the marble, peasants bled into drains while nobles above them toasted eternity.
Milos wandered the grand market, hand-in-hand with Nini, eyes wide in false wonder. Vendors cooed at him. Women pinched his cheeks, laughing at his shy stammer.
"Such a sweet little orphan!" one noblewoman cooed, heavy jewels hanging from her throat like shackles of pride.
Milos blinked up at her. Tilted his head.
Then sneezed.
In that sneeze, a thread slipped from his wrist into her sleeve — so small, so fine, it was invisible to her eye.
By sundown, her throat would strangle itself.
But for now? He sniffled. She giggled.
And the hunt continued.
That night, the Kareth Estate blazed with music and perfume.
It was their turn in Omnia's cycle — every fortnight, a different house opened its manor for the empire's gathering of filth. They called it a ball.
They dressed it with violins, chandeliers, and lakes of wine.
But behind the curtain?
Children danced in cages, shackled wrists tinkling with bells for the nobles' amusement.A servant was branded, his screams passed off as "theatre."And in the basement, crystal decanters of soul-essence were auctioned like plum wine.
"Youth must be preserved.""Suffering keeps the skin young.""Pain is the language of purity."
This was not the secret of one family.This was Omnia itself.
Soul harvesting was lawless, not outlawed — but praised in whispers. Nobles spoke of it as a luxury, like imported silk. Whole houses funded their beauty on the backs of the drained, calling the practice "The Crown's Grace."
Omnia's system was not wealth and titles.It was blood and chains.
Milos watched from the corner.
He wore a little blue suit, charmed into place by a servant girl who had giggled about how adorable he looked.
The girl was gone now.
Nini had made a puppet of her, her mouth still stuck in that same simpering smile, tray balanced perfectly forever.
From the shadows, Mormond — beneath the child mask — watched as
Lord Van Kareth chuckled greasy laughter over roast duck, fingers slick with wine and stolen joy.
He had no idea.
None of them did.
They were drinking at the serpent's tongue, feeding the throat that would devour them.
"Begin the performance," Mormond whispered.
And so it began.
The first death was quiet.A violinist's bow split mid-note, strings coiling around his throat until the music played itself from his scream.
The second death came with a crash — a maid's tray shattered mid-step. The shards flew upward, embedding themselves in noble eyes.
Panic bloomed.
Then, the stage curtains fell.
And Nini stepped through.
No longer a maid. No longer gray.
Her corset gleamed black.Her hair burned like midnight fire.She walked barefoot across marble, each heelprint blooming with the echoes of children's screams.
In her hand? A single silver needle.
Lord Van Kareth staggered upright, spittle flecking his chin.
"Who—who let this filthy whore in here!?"
The needle flew.
His tongue pinned to his throat.He gagged.He drowned in his own silence.
"Milos," Nini sang.
The boy stepped forward.
And as he walked, he grew.
Bones cracking.Spine lengthening.Face unfurling like a rotting blossom.
Mormond.
Tall. Pale. Reeking of thread and old blood.
"You feasted while the world screamed," he said softly.
"You crushed children under your carriages and called yourself noble."
He lifted a single hand.
And the floorboards split open with the sound of graves cracking.
Strings burst upward like skeletal arms, latching onto nobles' wrists, throats, ankles — twisting them into a grotesque ballet.
A woman spun so fast her limbs snapped free.A duke's face folded into origami.The chandelier rose, then dropped again with bone-splintering finality.
And through it all…
Mormond laughed.
Not like a villain.Not like a madman.
But like a boy at a puppet show.
By dawn, the Kareth Estate was emptied.
No laughter.No music.No vanity.
Only puppets.
Hung from balconies like decorations.Seated at dining tables, eternally clapping with broken hands.Propped in corners, lips grinning long after rigor mortis should have stiffened them shut.
They would not decay.They would not fall.
Mormond's threads kept them dancing even after death, jerking endlessly in silence, rehearsing their ball for no audience but the flies.
And upon the grand table lay a note, stitched in crimson thread:
"I'm only here to play.You gave me the mask.Now I'll give you the stage."
— Mormond
Epilogue – A New Stage: Omnia's Thorns Tremble
Far from the carcass of the Kareth Estate, Mormond danced along a cliff's edge, the wind tugging at his coat.
Nini spun with him, their shadows twirling across the rocks like the echoes of some forbidden waltz.
Below them, the towers of Omnia's capital sparkled like a jewel waiting to be cracked.
Mormond's voice was sing-song, childlike:
"It's time to harvest the cloves… hahahahaha…"
He stopped mid-spin. His grip on Nini's hand tightened.
And his voice changed.
A snarl beneath silk.
"I said I'd visit the empire…"
"I said I'd play with her noble friends…"
His teeth clenched, the threads in his jaw creaking taut.
"And when I'm done…"
His voice dropped into venom.
"…I'll come for you Tifa." just wait "HAHHAHAHHAHA"
The name was spit like poison. His eyes glowed like threads pulled too tight, fury burning in each fiber.
Tifa — the cursed harlot. The one who had slipped the noose he wove. The one who still breathed where his other toys did not.
She was unfinished business.A broken thread he could not ignore.And in Mormond's mind, nothing screamed louder than an imperfect weave.
He snarled, then smoothed his face into a boy's again.
Milos.The mask.The bait.
His laugh was sweet. High-pitched. False.
Nini giggled, brushing dust from his shoulder like a mother's hand.
Behind them, dozens of puppets swayed — not rotting, not resting. Still animated. Still bound. Waiting for their cue.
And in the jeweled cities ahead, nobles dined beneath chandeliers, utterly blind to the monster seated already at their feet.
Already sipping their tea.Already shaking their hands.Already planting threads in their skin.
They searched for him desperately.
But he was right there.
Smiling.Curious.Kind.
Their worst nightmare…
…hidden behind a child's mask.
🕸️ To be continued. 🕸️