The Forsaken Web had been licking its wounds after the encounter with the Crimson Coil. Bruises healed, blades were sharpened, and whispers grew in the slums about Rayon Veynar—the boy with hollow eyes who bent reality itself.
But then the news came.
One of the Coil's squads had torched an orphan den in the slums. Dozens of children were dead, burned alive, their screams echoing through the alleys. For no reason other than "a warning."
Rayon didn't send his people. He didn't strategize. He didn't calculate.
He went alone.
The Crimson Coil's headquarters sat in a gutted cathedral on the west side of the city, torches burning in stained-glass windows, shadows of killers dancing on cracked stone walls.
Rayon walked through the front doors, black hair draping his face, hollow eyes unblinking. Dozens of seasoned enforcers, assassins, and string-users turned their heads. Laughter and mockery filled the air.
"What's this? The gutter rat come crawling?"
"Didn't you run last time? Come to beg, boy?"
Rayon said nothing. He walked to the center of the cathedral floor, strings humming faintly in the torchlight.
"I came to ask," he said, voice flat, too calm, "why you touched what was mine."
The laughter grew louder. Kael wasn't here tonight. Only lieutenants, killers, and mercenaries. But they weren't weak—they were veterans of blood and war.
"Boy thinks he owns the slums now?" one sneered, stepping forward. "That's our message, gutter trash. Your Web dies with your rats."
Rayon tilted his head. For a moment, he almost smirked. But then—he remembered.
The smell of burning meat. The empty streets where his parents abandoned him. The hunger, the cold, the beatings, the endless suffering the world had shoved down his throat since birth.
Something snapped.
The cathedral went silent as the torches flickered. Hollow Strings burst from Rayon like black veins across reality, threading the air, coiling around walls, floor, ceiling.
The Coil laughed—until the first man's head twisted a full ninety degrees, his body collapsing like a puppet with cut strings.
Then chaos.
A fist came swinging; Rayon tugged the attacker's balance string, making him stumble mid-strike. The punch smashed into another man's face, shattering his jaw. Blades flashed; Rayon bent perception, making two men see each other as him. They tore each other apart in seconds. An archer loosed a bolt; Rayon flicked a string, curving it midair back into the archer's throat.
Rayon moved like a ghost through the melee. His fists connected with bone, but every strike was amplified by threads snapping muscles, breaking balance, twisting pain receptors. One man tried to grapple him; Rayon smiled faintly as he tugged at the man's sensory threads—suddenly he couldn't feel his arms, stumbling into Rayon's elbow that caved his skull.
Blood sprayed across the cathedral floor. Screams filled the air. The Coil veterans, men who had gutted nobles and crushed gangs, were dying like cattle in a slaughterhouse.
Rayon's face was calm, blank, but inside he burned.
Why did I ask? Why did I expect reason? This world doesn't give answers. It only takes. Takes and takes until you tear it back.
Every scream was a memory of the gutter. Every corpse was his vengeance made flesh. He wasn't just fighting anymore—he was unraveling them, one string at a time.
By the time Kael's lieutenants realized what was happening, half their force lay dead or broken, their strings cut and discarded like toys. Rayon stood in the center, drenched in blood, Hollow Strings coilingaround him like living serpents.
But Kael wasn't here. That was the only reason Rayon stopped.
He pulled the last few strings taut, snapping necks in unison. Silence fell. The survivors stared at him in horror, too afraid to move.
Rayon's hollow eyes scanned the room. For a moment, it looked like he might finish them all. But then he exhaled slowly, strings fading back into nothingness.
Not because he couldn't kill them. But because he wanted survivors. Witnesses. Messengers.
He turned his back on the cathedral, stepping over broken bodies, leaving a trail of blood.
By dawn, the entire city knew.
A boy had walked into the Crimson Coil's stronghold alone. Dozens of killers lay dead. Veterans torn apart like amateurs. And he walked out alive, untouched, hollow-eyed, calm as a shadow.
Rayon Veynar was no longer just a whisper in the slums. He was a myth, a nightmare, a shadow that could not be stopped.
And the Forsaken Web's influence stretched farther than ever.
Back in the warehouse, Rayon sat alone, staring at his bloodstained hands. His recruits didn't dare approach.
This is the world, he thought, hollow and bitter. There are no answers. Only predators and prey. And I've chosen what I'll be.
His lips curled into the faintest smirk.
"The Weaver doesn't beg. The Weaver doesn't bow. The Weaver pulls."
And the city would dance.