The city of Erevos didn't heal. It festered.
Days after the swarm, smoke still clung to the skyline. Cracked billboards flickered warnings from the Hunter Association, each screen distorted by static but still repeating the same hollow mantra:
"Fear is temporary. The Association protects. Trust only regulated Nocturnes."
The words didn't calm anyone. They only deepened the muttering.
In the alleys and markets, in the broken tenements where survivors huddled, another name spread instead. A whispered brand carried by fear itself.
"Fear Architect."
Some spat it like a curse. Others spoke it like they feared the name alone might draw shadows. Children dared each other to say it aloud, only to run shrieking after three syllables.
And Clara Weissburg's report—ink-stained, sensational, written with a journalist's flair for the morbid—poured oil on the fire. 'A Nocturne who shapes nightmares. Who fights by twisting the terror around him. Architect of Fear.'
The rumor had roots now. And roots always spread.
---
I walked those streets with my hood low, not to hide—because hiding was impossible. My presence left traces. Civilians knew me by the twitch in their throats, the way the air thickened around me, the way their shadows leaned a little too close.
Fear followed me like a stray dog. I didn't chase it away. I fed it.
The abandoned quarter near the railyards had become my refuge. No Association patrols came this far; too many cracks in the ground, too much leftover EN from the last incursion. Spirits lingered here, weak fragments—shades born from memory and rumor. Perfect test subjects.
The first appeared like a child's silhouette, thin as paper, eyes blank.
I extended my hand. Shadows coiled from my palm like ink in water.
> [Fear Arena – Minor Activation]
The warehouse around me warped into a labyrinth of broken lockers and long, suffocating corridors. The shade froze, its form shaking as if it, too, recognized the shape of its own nightmare.
I willed the corridor to narrow. The lockers bent inward until the space closed on the spirit. The shade shrieked, dissolving into static.
> [Fear Harvest +10 EN]
My chest burned with the surge. The whispers inside me clapped like hands against glass.
"More. Test again. Build bigger."
---
By the third experiment, I could pull entire mazes into being with a thought. Floors collapsed into endless staircases, phantom doors slammed shut, chains burst from walls.
But every creation demanded more of me. Every trap cost pieces I wasn't sure I could afford.
> [Corruption Gauge: 16%]
I stared at my reflection in a cracked pane. My eyes were no longer eyes. The violet fractures spread like lightning across a storm sky, glowing faintly even when I closed my lids.
For a moment, the reflection smirked without me.
"Not yet," I hissed, slamming the glass with my fist.
---
Far across the city, others were watching.
The Silverveil Choir's hall had been erected in a gutted cathedral, its spires blackened, its stained glass shattered. Here, Daenerys stood before her guild.
Her shield rested against the dais, silver veins still pulsing faintly. She hadn't slept since the swarm.
"You saw it," said one Mourner elder, robes heavy with ash. "He doesn't restrain fear. He births it. That is not the way of a Nocturne."
Another voice, sharper: "And yet he caged an Eidolon. No Choir has ever managed that. If he can trap them, he can end them."
Murmurs rippled like tides.
"He's corrupted."
"He's useful."
"He's both."
Daenerys clenched her hands until her knuckles whitened. "He saved lives," she said at last. "But I won't deny—he terrifies them more than the spirits do."
Her words left the hall colder than before.
---
Back in the railyard, I felt it before I heard it: boots striking stone in unison. Too precise to be scavengers. Too confident to be survivors.
Association agents.
Silverveil's crest glinted faintly on their armor as they stepped from the mist. Five of them, formation tight, weapons gleaming with regulated EN.
Their leader raised a hand. "Chiel Veylen."
I straightened slowly, shadows curling tighter around my shoulders. "Congratulations. You got the name right."
"You are to submit to an inspection by the Association," he said. "Corruption readings, EN regulation. Voluntary compliance is expected."
I tilted my head, smiling thin. "Inspection. Is that what they call a leash now?"
His eyes narrowed. "Your methods are dangerous. Civilians fear you. That is not how a Nocturne operates."
"Civilians fear the dark too," I said, stepping forward. "Do you leash that as well?"
---
Tension snapped like a wire pulled too tight.
The leader raised his weapon. His squad shifted.
And the whispers in my skull screamed with laughter.
> [Fear Arena – Partial Expansion]
The railyard warped. Train carriages elongated into endless corridors, tracks twisted into skeletal mazes, shadows multiplying into faceless commuters.
The agents froze, stumbling as the world shifted under them.
One gasped, "Wh-what—where are we—"
Another screamed as the lockers of my earlier design reappeared, slamming shut around him, echoing with phantom cries of his childhood.
I didn't kill them. I didn't need to.
Their own fears did the work for me.
---
But as the Arena pulsed, as shadows writhed tighter, my veins screamed.
> [Corruption Gauge: 18%]
The reflection of myself in the window of a phantom train smiled wider, teeth too sharp.
I staggered, gripping my chest. Not yet. Not now.
The agents fell back, trembling, broken—not by wounds, but by what I'd shown them.
And then a shield slammed into the ground between us.
Blue light burst outward, tearing my Arena at the seams.
Daenerys stood in the glow, cloak whipping, eyes locked on mine.
"Enough."