The harbor district of Xinjiang Port never truly slept. Even at two in the morning, the low rumble of steam engines rolled through the narrow streets like distant thunder. Gas lamps flickered along the iron railings, casting long yellow tongues across wet cobblestones. Halen Wang pulled his coat collar higher against the damp chill and stepped over a puddle that reflected the brass clock tower in the distance.
He was twenty-six, still low in the Brass Gear Realm, and tonight he was chasing ghosts.
The anonymous report had arrived at the Imperial Guard station two hours earlier: strange noises from Warehouse 17, the one leased to the Ministry of Relics. Missing workers. A smell like burnt coal and rotting metal. Halen had drawn the short straw because the senior officers were already drunk on rice wine and qi-infused tea. Typical.
He pushed open the side door of the warehouse. The hinges groaned. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the faint metallic tang of qi residue. Rows of wooden crates stood like silent soldiers, each stamped with the imperial seal and the warning "Forbidden Relic – Do Not Open Without Clearance."
Halen lit a small qi-lantern. The soft orange glow revealed a body sprawled between two crates.
The dead man wore the gray uniform of a relic handler. His eyes were wide open, pupils dilated to black pits. Thin brass tubes protruded from the sides of his neck like crooked veins, leaking wisps of black smoke. Halen crouched and pressed two fingers against the corpse's dantian.
Nothing.
No warm qi flow, no steady pulse of a boiler core. Instead he felt something wrong: a jagged, stuttering rhythm, like a piston jammed on half-stroke. The dantian felt... corroded.
Before he could pull his hand away, the corpse twitched.
The dead handler's fingers curled. Brass tubes in his neck hissed louder. His head snapped up. Eyes now glowing dull red. Mouth opened in a silent scream, releasing a puff of scalding black steam straight at Halen's face.
Halen rolled backward, coat flapping. He slammed his palms together in the basic Seal of Suppression. A thin barrier of orange qi snapped into place just in time. The steam hit it and sizzled, leaving dark scorch marks on the floorboards.
The thing that used to be a man lurched to its feet. Its arms jerked unnaturally. From the elbows downward the skin split open, revealing spinning gear wheels where muscle should be. It lunged.
Halen drew his service blade—a short, straight sword with a piston chamber in the hilt. He channeled qi into the mechanism. The blade's edge glowed faintly orange as the internal pistons cycled.
One strike. He aimed for the neck.
The zombie cultivator blocked with a forearm that had turned to interlocking brass plates. Sparks flew. Halen felt the impact rattle up to his shoulder.
He pivoted and drove his left fist forward in the Piston Fist technique. The mechanical bracer on his forearm whined as it compressed then released. The punch connected with the creature's chest. Metal crunched. The thing staggered back, boiler-like core in its torso cracking open. Black steam erupted in a violent plume.
Halen didn't wait. He stepped in, blade flashing. One clean cut through the neck. The head tumbled, still grinning with glowing eyes. The body collapsed in a heap of twitching gears and leaking fluid.
Breathing hard, Halen wiped sweat from his brow. His dantian felt warm, almost overclocked. He had pushed the Brass Gear Realm harder than training allowed. Stupid.
A soft click of heels echoed from the shadows behind the crates.
Halen spun, sword raised.
A woman stepped into the lantern light.
She wore a deep crimson cheongsam modified with subtle brass fittings along the sleeves. Thin steam vents peeked from the cuffs. Long black hair fell straight past her waist. Her face was sharp and beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful—precise, dangerous. Almond eyes regarded him with faint amusement.
"You're late, Investigator Wang," she said. Her voice was low, almost melodic. "The plague started leaking yesterday."
Halen kept the sword steady. "Who are you?"
"Someone who knows more than you do." She tilted her head. "Call me Rose if you must have a name."
He narrowed his eyes. "This is a restricted area. Leave or I arrest you."
She smiled thinly. "Arrest me after you survive the next wave."
As if on cue, wood splintered behind Halen. Five more crates burst open. Five more figures staggered out—former workers, now mechanical horrors. Their eyes burned the same dull red. Steam hissed from joints and mouths.
Rose flicked her wrist. Three slender needles appeared between her fingers, each tipped with a faint green glow. She threw them in a single fluid motion.
The needles struck true. One buried in a zombie's forehead, another in its throat, the third in its chest. The creatures froze. A heartbeat later green poison qi spread through their corrupted meridians like ink in water. Their bodies convulsed, boilers exploding inward. Gears and black fluid sprayed across the floor.
Halen didn't waste the opening. He charged the remaining two, blade singing through steam. One down with a thrust to the core. The second caught his sword arm in a gear-lined grip. Pain flared. He gritted his teeth, overclocked the piston bracer again, and smashed his elbow into the thing's face. Bone and metal shattered.
Silence returned, broken only by dripping fluid and his own ragged breathing.
Rose walked forward unhurried. She stopped beside one of the destroyed zombies and nudged it with her shoe. "Yin Plague," she murmured. "Corrupted steam essence fused with forbidden qi. Someone opened a relic they shouldn't have."
Halen lowered his sword but didn't sheath it. "You seem very calm about all this."
"I've seen worse." She met his gaze. "You have two choices, Investigator. Run back to your station, report this, and wait for the city to fall. Or come with me. I know where the source is."
Halen glanced at the black smoke rising through the rafters toward the skylight. Outside, distant screams began to echo. A siren wailed—imperial lockdown.
He looked back at the woman called Rose. She held out a small glass vial filled with pale green liquid.
"Drink this," she said. "Partial immunity. Enough to buy you time."
Halen stared at the vial, then at her face.
"I don't trust you."
"You don't have to." Her smile returned, small and sharp. "You just have to live long enough to hate me properly."
Outside, the screams grew louder.
Halen took the vial.
The warehouse door slammed shut behind them as they slipped into the fog-choked alley.
The city had begun to burn.
And something far worse was waking up.