(Chapter 9)
The Purge Knights gathered at dawn. Armor buckled, blades sharpened, banners raised. The steady thunder of boots on cobblestone echoed through the city streets as they prepared to march for Arvalione. The air carried a weight of urgency, sharpened by Captain Viera's words.
Azre stood among them, pale and still shaken from the dream that haunted her. Her body felt heavy, her mind fragile, yet she fastened her armor with trembling hands. The others could see the unrest lingering in her eyes, but none dared to question her resolve. She had already made her choice.
Enix lingered nearby, watching her closely, as if ready to catch her should she falter. "You don't have to force yourself," he murmured.
Azre only shook her head.
"If I stay behind… the shadows will haunt me more than the road ahead".
Her grip tightened on her sword.
"I will march."
With Eldhar at their head, the knights began their march eastward, their figures swallowed by the rising sun.
---
Far across the sea, in Arvalione, the port city of Seiran slept uneasily beneath a crooked moon. Its narrow streets, slick with salt and spilled ale, twisted between leaning taverns and warehouses, where shadows pooled like stagnant water. The air stank of fish, smoke, and something fouler—an undercurrent of rot that clung to the harbor.
From the swinging doors of the "Salted Gull," a sailor stumbled out, his boots dragging against the cobblestones. His breath reeked of cheap rum, his voice slurred as he muttered to himself, cursing bad luck and a lost gamble. He pulled his coat tighter, shivering though the night was warm.
But then—he froze.
Something moved behind him. No footsteps, no sound of breath. Just a ripple in the darkness, stretching longer than any man's shadow. The sailor's drunken haze dissolved in an instant as his blood ran cold.
"...Who's there?"
Silence. Only the groan of wood and the lap of waves at the docks.
Then the shadow shifted again—closer. Too close. Panic flared in his chest, and he bolted down a narrow alley, stumbling over crates and garbage. His boots splashed through puddles as he gasped for breath, heart hammering against his ribs.
But the alley ended in a dead wall.
Shadows coiled at both ends, creeping like smoke, sealing his escape. From their depths, shapes emerged—cryptid horrors, their twisted forms floating weightless above the ground. Their eyeless faces glowed faintly with sickly light, and their clawed hands stretched hungrily toward him.
The sailor fell onto the mold-slick cobblestones, his legs giving out beneath him. His palms scraped stone as he scrambled back against the wall, wide eyes darting wildly. "No… no, please…"
Then—another figure stepped into view at the mouth of the alley. A hooded man, robes ink-black with crimson sigils woven into the fabric. Around his neck hung a necklace of iron, its pendant a pentacle that gleamed unnaturally in the moonlight. In one hand he carried a ceremonial dagger, curved and serrated; in the other, a black book bound in cracked leather.
His voice was a low chant, heavy with ritual.
"Let us feed your soul to Daath."
The sailor screamed, clawing backward, shaking his head violently. "No!! No!! Don't you dare—don't you dare come closer!!"
The shadows tightened around him, the cryptids looming.
Then—
A howl split the night.
Not human. Not beast. Something sharper, wild and terrifying enough to freeze the cultist mid-step. The sound rolled through the alleys, carrying the edge of steel in its cry.
From atop a barrel, casually illuminated by the lantern glow, sat a woman. A knife glinted in her hand, slicing an apple with unhurried grace. She bit into the fruit with a smirk, the taste of defiance lingering on her lips.
Her long, wavy chestnut hair tumbled over her shoulders, catching the faint shimmer of the moon. Puple eyes pierced through the shadows like lanterns, unblinking, alive with both sorrow and fire. She wore a corseted leather coat over tailored blues, built for battle at sea, and twin revolvers gleamed at her sides—Issyl and Friddert, their barrels etched with runes that whispered of magic and blood.
Brooke Arick, pirate huntress of the sea, let the knife spin between her fingers before pointing it toward the cultist.
"Funny thing about shadows," she said coolly, her voice cutting through the night. "They vanish when the sun rises. Shame for you—tonight, I'm the one bringing the dawn."
The sailor's terrified breaths hitched as the hooded man stiffened, chanting faltering, cryptids writhing at the edges of the alley. The tension thickened, as though the city itself held its breath.
And then—Brooke rose from the barrel, revolvers flashing into her hands, eyes narrowing like a hawk's on its prey.
The hunt had begun.
The drunk sailor's body slumped against the wall, lifeless eyes staring at nothing, blood trailing down the moss-stained stones. Brooke's jaw tightened. She was too late.
Her revolvers spun in her hands with practiced ease, barrels flashing with silver fire as each shot tore through the phantom cryptids. They burst apart like smoke ripped away by a storm, their shrieks vanishing into the blackened night.
"You can do whatever gruesome shit you want, whenever you like," she growled, her voice low and venomous, "but do it somewhere else. Not here. Not when I'm watching."
The hooded man tilted his head back and laughed. It was not a human laugh—wet, jagged, echoing like rusted iron dragged over bone. The sound slithered down the alley, clinging to the stone walls.
Brooke spat on the ground, eyes narrowing.
"Tsk. So that's how you wanna play, huh?"
The cultist's silence was an answer enough.
"Then so be it."
Her boots struck the barrels in quick succession as she dashed forward, a blur of motion. Bullets cracked like thunder, tearing phantoms to ribbons mid-leap, the alley flashing with bursts of blue-white gunfire. Shadows shrieked and writhed, dissolving around her.
But just as she closed the gap, the cultist froze—then his jaw unhinged with a sickening crack. From his mouth poured a tide of insects, spilling like a waterfall of chittering legs and black wings. Thousands, then tens of thousands, erupting in a swarm that swallowed the air.
Brooke skidded to a halt, pulling back as the air itself seemed to writhe. The swarm spread, a living curtain of wings and mandibles, blotting out the stars. Beetles, centipedes, moths the size of daggers—all vomiting forth from the cultist's throat.
The stench of rot and iron hit her like a punch. She raised her collar over her mouth, grimacing.
"...Son of a bitch."
The hooded man's voice slithered from within the swarm, distorted and layered with something inhuman.
"Daath feeds on the carrion of men… and tonight, Seiran will feast."
Brooke's hands tightened around Issyl and Friddert, her purple eyes blazing through the chaos.
"Over my dead body," she spat, stepping back into the glow of a flickering street lantern as the insects closed in.
And with a sharp spin of her revolvers, she fired into the heart of the swarm.
The insects surged, blotting out the lantern's glow as the swarm rushed her like a living tide. Brooke leapt sideways, boots striking a crate, rebounding off a wall to flip back into the open street. Her revolvers spat silver fire mid-air, cutting through the closest wave of chittering wings.
The swarm scattered, reforming around their master, who stood unmoving in the eye of chaos. The hooded man's head jerked unnaturally, crimson light pulsing in the sockets beneath his hood.
"Slippery little rat," he rasped, his voice vibrating with the hum of the insects. "You think your bullets mean anything in the shadow of Daath?"
Brooke smirked, reloading with a flick of her wrists, the moonlight glinting on the etched barrels of Issyl and Friddert.
"They mean one thing, sweetheart—your ugly face gets a little less ugly every time I pull the trigger."
She fired again, this time not at the swarm, but straight at him. The cultist raised his hand, insects coiling together to form a shield of chitin and wings. The bullet cracked through it, the shield exploding like shattered glass. The hooded man staggered back, black ichor dripping from his palm.
"Got your attention now?" Brooke taunted, spinning both guns before aiming low and firing—splintering the barrels beneath his feet. The cultist lurched as the ground gave way, stumbling into the open street.
Brooke closed the gap, holstering one revolver and drawing her knife. She slashed upward, the blade tearing through his hood. His scream split the night—half human, half monstrous. As he reeled back, one of his eyes burst under her strike, black fluid spraying across the cobblestones.
Brooke landed with a roll, turning to face him again, but the swarm exploded outward in a frenzy. The insects enveloped him completely, dragging him backward into the alley's shadows. His voice echoed, twisted and furious:
Brooke readied her revolver to finish it—
—but the air behind her bent, a low hum vibrating through the stones.
A shadow peeled itself from the alley wall, forming into the tall, crooked figure of another cultist. His mask was smooth, featureless save for a single carved sigil glowing faintly red. Chains coiled lazily around his arms, clinking like serpents ready to strike.
Before Brooke could fire, the newcomer's hand snapped upward. The chains lashed out, wrapping around the injured insect-user, yanking him back into the darkness.
The faceless cultist tilted his head toward Brooke, silent… watching.
Then, in a voice like rust scraping iron, he whispered only two words:
"Not yet."
The shadows swallowed them both, leaving Brooke alone in the alley, knife still dripping with ichor, her pulse hammering in her ears.