It was wet. Muddy. The dead of night.
The city had gone to bed.
But the underground hadn't.
Rain. That's all Arthur could think about. Cold sheets of it, slicing through his coat like knives. He stood in a dim alleyway where the streetlamps had long since died, the world flickering between shadow and silence.
This was his last bounty for the night.
"This is it."
He lit a cigarette with fingers gone numb, eyes fixed on the doorway at the far end of the alley.
"Lumine Avenue. Third alley left of the tinkerer."
He adjusted his trench coat, pulling the mask over his face. Leather creaked. The smoke curled upward.
"Another messy job."
From within the folds of his coat, he drew a revolver. Old. Rusted. But it hadn't failed him yet.
"It always is."
Arthur stepped inside.
The air shifted—sharp, metallic. Something buzzed just below the range of hearing. A hum behind the walls.
He placed a hand on the rusted stair rail leading downward. Still warm.
"Not long ago…"
He descended.
At the base of the stairs, he stopped—eyes narrowing at the far corner of the room. Shadows moved wrong there, slow and rippling like breath.
He raised the revolver.
"Silentium."
The rune carved into its barrel flared dimly.
"Crypti Exorcismus." he muttered.
His cross-shaped amulet pulsed, faint blue light bleeding through his collar.
He fired.
A sharp thud answered—flesh hitting metal.
"Whisperers," he muttered. Smoke curled from the barrel. "Yeah... this is the place."
Arthur dropped from the railing, his muddy boots thudding through the silence, each step a stark echo in the hollow building.
He paused, staring at the spot he'd just shot, igniting his luminator. The weak light cut through the darkness, revealing it—humanoid, ebony-skinned, five mouths on its head, and an unblinking eye on its chest.
"Deus Oculis." he chanted under his breath.
His pupils shifted, serpentine, as his gaze sharpened. And there it was—the mark. A summoning circle, as always, drawn in blood.
Arthur pulled out a journal, flipping it open with a practiced motion. A pen slid from his coat.
"Whisperer ritual. First category," he muttered while scribbling, his voice the only thing anchoring him to reality, keeping him awake.
He slipped the journal back into his coat, his eyes lingering on the rusted pipes, the decaying machinery. The smell of metal was thick, but something about it felt… off. Not the usual.
"Metallic, but different." he muttered, brows furrowing.
His boots clacked against the floor as he moved deeper into the building, his grip tightening on the revolver's trigger.
Same layout. Same broken tools. Same rusted pipes. The dark never changed.
After several minutes, the pattern repeated: rusted pipes. Worn-out machinery. No target.
"Trapped," he said softly. His voice barely cut through the stagnant air. "Second or third category?"
He stopped, frustration creeping into his movements. He'd been circling for too long.
This wasn't an ordinary setup. This was a trap.
"Arthur!"
The whisper tore through the air—then another. And another.
"Run."
"Hell."
"Killer."
Voices layered over one another, chaotic and dissonant. They came from everywhere—and nowhere. A cacophony that twisted in his skull, sickening and sharp, like barbed wire running through his brain.
His vision swam.
Arthur raised his revolver, turning in place, the barrel sweeping across the empty, flickering facility.
"Fourth category," he muttered, breath tight.
From his coat, he pulled a small circular device. Cold to the touch. Runes etched across its surface flickered with unstable light.
He hurled it to the ground.
The moment it hit, five runes ignited in sequence, pulsing with a sickly glow.
"Venatione Hora," he whispered.
The device began to rotate, slow at first—then faster. The runes contracted inward like a collapsing eye.
Then—
Everything went dark.
Not the dark of shadows or night, but a deeper void. Pure. Total. Absolute.
The kind that swallowed sound, breath, and thought alike.
The perfect hunting ground—for Whisperers to strike.
And just in time—they came.
No sound. No footsteps. But he felt them—like knives dragging across the air.
Five. All at once.
Fast. Twisted. Predictable.
"Crypti Exorcismus," Arthur intoned, the cross-shaped amulet flaring once more.
He didn't flinch. In the darkness he'd summoned, he was prey—but also the hunter.
A shot. One down.
He spun, fired blind. Another fell.
A third lunged low, too fast—almost caught him.
"Bastard," he muttered coldly. The revolver barked again. Three down.
Then the device sputtered. The runes died out.
The world returned—sound, weight, light—and with it, the Whisperers became untouchable once more.
Arthur exhaled, heavy and sharp.
"Sloppy," he growled, snapping open the chamber, reloading with fingers practiced but tired.
"I'm getting too old for this…"
He stood still, eyes scanning the dark.
Two Whisperers left. He hadn't taken them down.
But now... nothing. No movement. No sound.
They'd vanished when the darkness lifted.
"Fifth category," he muttered.
Then he noticed it—a door.
It hadn't been there before.
He narrowed his eyes. Mind Whispers.
A loop.
Arthur let out a short laugh, dry and low.
"Cute trick."
He approached the door, revolver still warm in his grip, and pushed it open.
What lay beyond was a lab—tucked near the sewer junction beneath the old industrial site. Probably where they used to dump waste, before abandonment made it a breeding ground for darker things.
The stench hit first. Chemicals and rot.
Rows of glass tubes lined the walls, filled with a faintly glowing green liquid.
Suspended inside—flesh.
Some human. Some... not.
Tubes plugged into them like leeches.
Arthur stepped inside, grimacing.
"Not my jurisdiction," he muttered.
Still, he moved closer, eyes shifting—serpentine slits drinking in every detail.
One tank held an undeveloped fetus.
Another, a malformed man, twisted and overgrown.
The next—his breath hitched—was the town priest.
And then he saw it.
A child.
White hair. Pale skin, almost translucent in the glow. Eyes closed. Unmoving.
Something ancient stirred behind Arthur's thoughts.
His pulse slowed. Not fear. Not yet. But something old inside him leaned back—watching.
"Varethians...?" he whispered, brow furrowing.
He stepped closer, revolver lowered.
"What are you doing here... in Gresya?"