The rain always made the slums quieter.
Children hid inside. Merchants locked their doors early. The lamps in the narrow alleyways flickered with unstable mana, shadows stretching like claws across the pavement.
Tonight, the rain fell hard enough to wash away footprints—something useful for people who didn't want to leave a trace.
A soft click echoed.
A wooden puppet's shoe tapped the wet ground.
Arc Modeus walked alone.
His hair, black and ragged, clung to his forehead. His eyes—haunted, tired, too old for a fifteen-year-old—never looked straight ahead. They watched the reflections in puddles, the shifting shadows on walls, the strings running from his fingers to the puppet dangling from the wooden handle in his hand.
The puppet was only five inches tall.
But everyone who saw it felt something wrong.
Its painted smile was stretched too wide. Its triangular teeth glinted under the lamplight. Its tiny hands twitched even when Arc didn't move.
It whispered sometimes
—only Arc heard it.
Tonight, the puppet whispered again.
"Hungry…"
Arc's grip tightened on the control handle. "I know."
He turned the corner—and stopped.
Two bodies lay collapsed in the alley.
Not dead. But close.
A healer knelt over one of them, hands glowing faint blue as she tried to seal a gash across his chest. Her face was pale. Exhausted. Her hair stuck to her cheeks from the rain.
"Please," she begged her unconscious patient, "don't die—don't die yet—"
Arc stepped closer, silent.
She flinched. "W–wait, I'm just— I'm just trying to help them!"
Arc didn't answer.
He stared at the bodies. The blood. The slashed brick walls. Something powerful had attacked here—too powerful for ordinary people. The healer wasn't strong enough to save them alone.
But Arc wasn't here to save anyone.
He crouched, the puppet dangling.
"Monster," the puppet giggled.
Arc's fingers twitched. The puppet twitched too, matching him. Its tiny hand pressed to one victim's throat—the man jerked, only barely conscious.
"P—please…" the wounded man whispered.
Arc's voice was cold. "Who did this?"
The healer trembled. "I—It w-was a Beastborn. A hybrid. He—he was chasing a child. These men tried to stop him."
Arc said nothing. Rain dripped off his chin.
The puppet leaned forward. "We're hungry."
Arc closed his eyes briefly. He hated when the puppet said we.
He hated that it was true.
A massive roar thundered from deeper in the alley.
The Beastborn was still close.
The healer screamed as something heavy crashed against a metal dumpster. Claws scraped. Something sniffed the air.
Arc stood slowly.
The puppet's strings tightened. Its smile widened.
Arc whispered, "Act One."
The strings shivered. His shadow expanded.
Then he turned toward the roar.
The Beastborn came barreling into view—eight feet tall, fur matted with rain, jaw unhinged wide enough to crack bone. It smelled like wet iron and decomposed meat.
Its eyes locked onto Arc.
A child stood behind it, cornered, crying silently.
Arc walked forward.
"Yes… yes!" the puppet cackled, jerking with excitement.
The Beastborn lunged.
Arc didn't dodge.
The strings snapped downward—
and the puppet moved.
It shot like a knife through the air, landing on the Beastborn's shoulder. Its tiny wooden fingers stabbed into nerve points, twisting. The Beastborn roared, dropping to one knee.
Arc raised his hand.
Strings tightened.
The Beastborn's muscles locked.
Arc whispered, "Puppets don't get to choose how they move."
He pulled one string sharply.
CRACK.
The Beastborn's head snapped sideways—
—but before Arc could finish it, a blur tore through the alley.
Something ripped through the Beastborn's spine. A blade? A spike? No—too fast to see. The body dropped instantly, blood mixing with the rain.
Arc froze.
His puppet dangled mid-air, still attached to invisible threads.
The healer gasped. "Wh—who was that?"
Arc didn't answer.
But he felt something.
Something cold.
Something watching him.
He turned slowly.
At the far end of the alley, half-silhouetted behind the rain, stood a boy.
Thin. Frail. Hood drenched.
Sharp eyes.
A knife held low, dripping with blood.
He didn't approach.
He didn't speak.
He just watched.
Arc's puppet whispered, almost afraid:
"Not him… not that one…"
The boy stepped back into the darkness.
Gone.
The healer exhaled shakily. "W-Who was that?! Was he… one of you?"
Arc stared into the empty alleyway.
"No," he said quietly.
"Something worse."
The rain washed the blood away.
But Arc's pulse didn't slow.
He didn't know the boy's name.
Not yet.
But soon, the world would.