The district felt wrong before anything even appeared.
First a pulse—soft as a heartbeat underwater.
Then a second, sharper one—like the world hiccuping.
Responders stiffened.
Tools rattled on gurneys.
Rafe, the colonel who try to halden earlier, shifted, while Lio the kid whom his mother I saved, stand behind him without looking away from the street.
Halden whispered, "No… not this soon."
The breach at the far end flickered like a dying screen—
glitching red, then black, then red again—
before stabilizing into a narrow vertical wound.
Air got sucked inward.
Dust spiraled.
A traffic light bent toward the crack like it was bowing.
I twirled my staff once.
"Aight," I said. "Warm-up round continues."
Lio peeked from behind Rafe's leg.
"Mister Benedict… is it gonna be like the other monster?"
"I hope it's worse," I said, smiling.
The rift split wider with a clean snap.
Something stepped out like a drawing being sketched in fast-forward.
Arms first—four of them.
Legs next—digitigrade, jointed wrong.
Torso wrapped in shifting glyph-scars.
Head tilting at an angle that would get any chiropractor arrested.
It finished compiling with a metallic chime.
Then the creature slowly rotated its head to face me.
Halden gasped.
"That's… a C-Plus class. This close to the Cathedral district—"
System flickered:
[ Assessing Entity… ]
[ Dimensional Grade: C+ ]
[ Behavioral Pattern: Predator ]
[ Threat Level: Manageable ]
The last word was almost smug.
The creature vanished.
One frame it was crouched.
Next frame—gone.
Responders screamed.
Rafe raised his gun.
Halden pulled Lio down behind a barrier.
I didn't move.
Until the creature reappeared beside me.
Its blade-arm scythed downward—
fast enough to shear steel.
I caught it with one hand.
Metal shrieked.
Pavement fractured.
Wind exploded outward in a ripple that shook loose dust from rooftops.
The creature's eyes widened—
or glitched wider.
I tightened my grip.
"You're early," I said. "I wasn't ready."
Then I flung it across the street like a failed prototype.
It smashed through a barricade and tumbled into a crater of its own making.
Halden stared at me like he was updating his definition of reality.
"That wasn't… a technique," he said.
"That?" I shrugged. "Just a warm wrist."
The creature climbed out of the crater—
limbs glitching, glyphs spasming.
Then it screamed.
The sound hit like a pressure wave.
Responders covered their ears.
Rafe winced. While Lio flinched behind him.
The creature twisted.
Folded.
Tried to bend space around itself.
Halden blanched.
"It's initiating a dimensional hook! If it destabilizes this block—"
System answered for me:
[ Sacrament Tier: Not yet charged ]
[ Alternative combat mode: INQUISITION ]
[ Authorization: Granted. ]
Heat bloomed under my skin—
controlled, powerful, clean.
My halo sharpened into a perfect blade of light.
Wings unfurled in a slow, quiet arc.
Veins glowed neon gold along my arms.
Lio whispered, "He's glowing again…"
Rafe nudged him.
"Stay behind me. But yeah. Kid's got style."
The creature blinked out—
teleporting in staccato bursts—
reappearing above me with both arms slashing inward.
I flash-stepped upward—
a single clean movement—
meeting it mid-air.
My staff hammered into its jaw.
The impact rippled through the fog—
a shockwave that rumbled like distant thunder.
The creature's skull jerked backward; its body rag-dolled across the air before crashing onto the pavement.
I landed lightly.
"That was nicer than you deserved," I told it.
The monster convulsed, pulling corrupted code into its core.
Its glyphs twisted into something jagged, unstable.
Then it screamed again—
a deeper tone, almost a chant.
Halden recoiled.
"It's trying to overload its form!"
System chimed:
[ Calamity Energy Detected. ]
[ Extraction Possible. ]
[ Begin Purification? ]
"Yes."
I was in front of it before the creature realized I'd moved.
My hand closed around its skull.
Its body locked.
Glyphs spasmed violently.
Golden cracks spread across its flesh like fault lines.
Rafe muttered, "Oh hell—he's doing the thing again."
Light surged—
not bright, but dense—
compressing into the creature's core.
The monster shrieked in corrupted prayer fragments—
a forgotten language begging favors no one would grant.
Then it shattered quietly.
Golden ash floated upward, dissolving into the air like reversed snowfall.
System hummed
[ Entity Purified ]
[ Calamity Energy Archived ]
[ Sacrament Threshold: Rising ]
I exhaled and let Inquisition Mode fade.
My halo dimmed to a warm glow.
Wings folded neatly.
Heat cooled.
Lio lifted his head.
"Amazing! Mister Benedict, that one looked really dangerous!"
"It was trying," I said.
Rafe barked a laugh.
"Your scale is broken, kid."
Halden didn't laugh.
He was staring at the breach.
Not because it had closed—
but because it hadn't.
His face drained, jaw clenching so hard the muscle twitched.
A man who'd spent thirty years studying breaches, cataloging horrors, losing friends, losing soldiers—
and right now?
He looked like someone watching a nightmare remember his name.
His breathing hitched, sharp enough that Rafe glanced over.
Halden didn't blink.
Didn't move.
Didn't even seem aware of the dust drifting around him.
It wasn't fear of the monsters.
It was fear of the pattern.
"The breach… shouldn't still be active," he whispered—voice cracked, small, like the words cost him something.
"It should've collapsed after the C-plus. That's the rule. That's the rule—"
He took half a step back.
"That means something is HOLDING it open."
A pulse trembled through the street.
Halo-lights flickered above us.
Halden swayed, as if the ground itself had betrayed him.
He wasn't terrified of what was coming.
He was terrified because he knew exactly what kind of entity could manipulate a breach this way.
"A Choir…" he breathed.
"That's not a monster. That's— that's a voice from the other side."
Halden didn't laugh.
He was staring at the breach.
Not because it had closed—
but because it hadn't.
The rift pulsed—
slowly, deeply— like something enormous inhaling.
A second pulse followed—
cleaner than anything corrupted.
Too structured, in the same time look deliberate.
Halden staggered back.
"No… that signature… that's not C-class… that's—
[ WARNING: MAJOR ENTITY APPROACHING ]
[ Choir Classification: Unknown ]
[ Advisory: Prepare for Sacrament. ]
The breach widened—
not tearing not it unfolding.
Light poured through it—
and a silhouette stepped forward.
Tall, calm, purposeful, and smiling.
I lifted my staff.
"Well," I said softly.
"Aight."
"Let's see who you are."