At two in the morning, the dead silence of the night was torn apart by a single, piercing scream.
The uproar from the mayor's mansion rippled through Graythroat Town like a boulder crashing into a still lake. Servants, trembling, lit oil lamps, their flickering light revealing a scene straight from a nightmare.
Young Master Duren—the arrogant, pampered heir of the mayor—was curled up in front of his own bedroom door in a grotesque, inhuman posture. His limbs were twisted at impossible angles, as though some unseen force had snapped them one by one. White foam clung to the corners of his mouth, and his eyes bulged wide, staring blankly at the ceiling. In those pupils, frozen in the moment of death, was a terror so pure it seemed he had glimpsed hell itself.
The old physician, summoned in haste, was shaking so violently that the medicine box rattled in his hands. After a brief inspection, he staggered back two steps, face pale as ash. "It's as if… something invisible strangled him," he rasped. "But there isn't a single mark on his skin!"
Mayor Dumas stood in the shadows, his broad frame unnaturally rigid under the swaying lamplight. He said nothing for a long time—so long that the air itself seemed to freeze solid.
But paper can never fully cover fire, especially when the death was this grotesque. That same night, before Dumas's orders had even finished echoing through the halls, something far more horrifying appeared before the eyes of every resident in Graythroat.
Beneath the great bronze bell atop the church tower, Duren's body was hanging.
His wrists were bound by strands of black, ink-like thread of unknown origin, holding him fast to the crossbeam. His toes hung three feet above the floor, swaying gently in the cold night wind like a broken pendulum.
And every time the wind passed through the bell, the sound that came out was not a toll, but a low, mournful sob—like the weeping of the dead.
Panic spread through the town faster than any plague.
Doors and windows were nailed shut. Candles of holy wax flickered behind every window as trembling voices prayed for divine protection.
On the roof of an abandoned granary on the west side of town, a dark silhouette stood motionless.
Cain's eyes cut through the darkness, coldly observing the chaos below—the frightened people running in the streets, their fear thick enough to taste. Before his eyes, the faint red text of his system interface pulsed violently.
[Mass Collective Fear Detected! Soul Essence +4.8 strands!][Mental Threshold Surpassed! Rank Up: Listener – Intermediate Stage!]
A wave of clarity surged through his mind. For a heartbeat, it felt as if his skull had been washed clean by a cool stream. Every sound, every whisper, every heartbeat in the night became painfully distinct.
He could even hear, from over a hundred paces away, the hushed voices of a husband and wife in their home, trembling as they speculated about Duren's death.
But Cain didn't stop there.
While the entire town was still in disarray, his figure melted into the darkness once more, silent as a ghost, slipping into the town's infirmary.
In the farthest corner bed lay a girl—Aria—curled up like a dying animal. The light that once danced in her eyes had faded, leaving only emptiness. Her lips trembled as she murmured over and over, "The shadow… the shadow came back… it ate my voice…"
The nurse beside her sighed to the doctor, saying the girl hadn't eaten or drunk anything since last night, only stared at the same corner of the ceiling, shaking uncontrollably.
Cain was standing in that very corner, unmoving.
He knew what this was. The lingering aftershock of his Shadow Bind—the faint psychic tremor it caused when triggered on the brink of death. That creeping sensation of being swallowed by darkness had shattered the girl's mind.
And yet, that same madness made her the perfect witness—no one would ever believe the babbling of a broken girl.
He turned to leave, but then he saw it.
In the reflection of Aria's wide, glassy eyes, there was a faint silhouette—a human shape—standing in the same position he was, identical in stance and stillness.
A chill flickered through his chest, but he forced it down.
Survival didn't need compassion. Only precision.
Three days later, an emergency meeting of the Graythroat Town Council was held under a suffocating air of dread.
Mayor Dumas, pale and gaunt, publicly extended the town's curfew indefinitely and sent an urgent plea to the Church—requesting the arrival of the Hand of Purity, the fanatical inquisitors said to purge heresy with holy flame.
Hidden within the shadows of the council chamber's air ducts, Cain listened to every word, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.
The real hounds were finally being unleashed.
But instead of fear, a strange anticipation welled up inside him.
His soul essence had reached 7.2 strands. His reflexes, strength, and even his night vision had all surpassed the limits of ordinary men.
More importantly, he had confirmed a new and efficient method of harvest—by crafting a single, symbolic act of horror, he could trigger a chain reaction of collective fear and reap soul essence in abundance.
Before leaving, he placed a small stone shard inside the vent. Etched upon its surface was an ancient symbol: a broken chain—the forgotten emblem of an Old God whose name the Church had erased.
That night, Graythroat's oldest night watchman woke from a nightmare, screaming that he had seen "a gravedigger in black robes, riding a wolf made of shadow through the streets." He never woke sane again.
By then, the man responsible—Cain—was already on the northern road, the barren pass stretching endlessly ahead.
Behind him, Graythroat Town fell into a deeper, heavier silence.
And in the shadow of an empty street corner, a small girl holding a tattered doll looked up toward the north.
Her name was Sera.
In a voice only she could hear, she whispered, "He said he'd come back."
The wind howled through the mountain pass, scattering sand and stone like whispers of the dead. The air smelled of dust and decay.
Cain pulled his cloak tighter, walking into the grey wasteland beyond the horizon.
This road led not toward life, but toward a graveyard vast as the world itself. And at its end, his next feast awaited.