A deafening roar shook the very foundations of Chisanatora. It was not the sharp crack of a common explosion, but the deep, guttural bellow of a force unleashed; a single, brutal note that tore through the city's industrial symphony, silencing for an instant the pneumatic hammers and the grinding of gears.
The explosion erupted from the wall of the dry duct, a white flower-of-fire and metal shrapnel that blossomed for one hideous instant. It consumed everything in its radius, painting the abyss with a blinding flash that banished the shadows before plunging everything back into darkness.
In the factory, one level above, the metal floor trembled with a violence that knocked heavy tools from workbenches and made the giant gears groan in protest. The hot, metallic air filled with high-pitched screams of pure panic. Workers, their bodies already bent with exhaustion, now ran without direction, their soot-stained faces twisted in primal terror.
The Sentinels, who moments before had been patrolling with a weary authority, turned pale as ghosts under the industrial light. Their hands flew instinctively to the hilts of their swords, their wide eyes fixed on the duct entrance from which the heat and the echo of the detonation still emanated.
"Another attack?!" one of them shouted, his voice cracked with disbelief.
The question hung unanswered amidst the chaos.
In the Lower City, the shockwave swept through the alleys like the breath of an angry god. The tremor that rose from the uneven stones sent everyone staggering. People were knocked from their chairs in front of taverns, and precarious merchant stalls overturned, scattering their meager goods across the filthy ground. Fear, once a constant murmur beneath the surface of this forgotten society, became a collective shriek of panic. Children cried, and the inhabitants, accustomed to distrusting one another, now looked in the same direction—toward the fissure that cut the city—their faces united by a shared terror.
Near the tavern, Vernh, who had been observing the movement with his usual torpor, felt the tremor beneath his feet. He was not startled. Instead, his red eyes narrowed, the haze of alcohol dissipating to give way to a dark and calculating seriousness as he stared into the abyss.
The muffled sound of the explosion, like distant thunder, reached even the clean air of the Upper City. On the golden avenues, the flow of people and elegant vehicles faltered. Conversations died, smiles froze. Heads turned in a confused search for the sound's origin, the once-serene faces now marked by a crease of concern. The peace of that opulent world, the "constant farce," had been scratched.
At the headquarters, Captain Briggs was listening to a frantic sentinel's report on the situation in the ducts. His expression, already hard as stone, became a mask of incredulity and contained fury when the sound of the second explosion reverberated faintly through the fortress walls.
Far from there, at the city's apex, the party continued. Amidst the boisterous laughter of the Orcs and the grandiose music of the orchestra, no one heard the explosion. The sound of death could not climb so high.
But Gunder felt it.
It was not a vibration in the floor or a muffled sound. It was a psychic shockwave. A wave of pure panic, a collective scream that spread like a disease through the lower layers of the city. He felt the collective terror, the agony of hundreds of souls screaming in unison. The feeling rose up his legs, chilling his spine.
He stopped walking, the champagne flute in his hand motionless, Vicent's conversation becoming a distant hum. His feline eyes, once veiled by a false politeness, became dangerously serious, focused on something only he could see: the echo of a disaster.
Vicent, the well-dressed and rotten-inside man, noticed his abrupt change. "Lamont's" facade had wavered.
"Lamont? What is it?"
Gunder blinked, returning from his thoughts. The mask of indifference returned to his face with the speed of a chameleon. The icy fury within him was locked away once more.
"It is nothing," he replied, his voice smooth and controlled. "Forgive me. I was merely distracted by the grandeur of your party."
◇ ◇ ◇
The smoke was a world. Dense, gray, and suffocating, it covered everything, muting light and color, leaving behind only the silence of a universe in collapse.
It was impossible to see. It was impossible to hear anything beyond the high-pitched, deafening whistle that pierced Tom's ears, a phantom echo of the detonation that had thrown her to the ground.
Fallen to her knees on the deformed metal, she tried to stand, but her limbs trembled, refusing to obey. The air, thick with the taste of burnt metal and dust, scratched her throat with every gasping breath.
Then, as the curtain of smoke began to dissipate, the first thing that hit her was not the pain of her own wounds.
It was despair.
A scream, torn and guttural, echoed through the desolation. A sound so laden with agony it seemed to have a physical form. The crying followed, a broken, inconsolable wail.
The metal manipulator was on the ground, cradling his brother's inert body in his arms. Tears carved clean tracks down his soot-stained face as he screamed in unending agony.
The smoke still blurred her vision, but small slivers of sunlight, coming from the duct's destroyed exit, cut through the gray gloom like blades. In that instant, all sound vanished from Tom's mind. The high-pitched whistle, the screams, everything was replaced by the heavy pounding of her own heart. Her eyes widened. The icy chill of the threat from minutes ago turned into the paralyzing cold of dread.
It was then that she saw.
The spearfighter's head was cut in half. The wound began just below his left eye, a grotesque, unnatural line that split his skull in two.
But, amidst the brother's cries of mourning, another sound caught Tom's attention.
The sharp click of light footsteps, which somehow resounded with an oppressive weight on the metal.
A woman walked elegantly toward the scene, her silhouette materializing slowly from the smoke. A mocking, melodious laugh escaped her lips, as if she were watching mere insects squirming in their final moments.
"Ara? You couldn't protect your dear brother?" Her voice was soft, forcing a treacherous innocence that dripped venom.
"You bitch!" the manipulator screamed, his eyes injected with tears and hatred, his brother's body still clutched to his chest. "This wasn't part of the deal!"
"Eeehh? What deal?" the woman replied, the tone of feigned confusion in her voice a pure insult. "I don't know anything about any deal…"
As she approached, the smoke dissipated around her, as if afraid to touch her. Little by little, Tom could make out the details. And when she finally saw her completely, her eyes, once wide with horror, narrowed, becoming firm slits of pure wrath.
On her feet, the wooden clogs that produced that dissonant sound. Her hair, a dull yellow, was tied in a high, impeccable ponytail. Her face was a perverse work of art: dark scarlet shadows contoured her eyes, and lipstick of the same color painted her lips in a cruel smile. Her dark blue eyes shone with a cold, amused intelligence.
And then, the missing piece. The piece Tom had been looking for.
The robes she wore. A deep blue cloak, purposefully torn on the side of her waist, revealing slender legs covered in black fishnet stockings.
The woman stopped. Her gaze wandered over the scene and landed on Tom, still fallen on the ground, her teeth gritted, the expression of fury etched on her face. The woman's gaze sharpened, and a smile of pure pleasure formed on her lips. Her tongue slid over them, slowly.
"You are so pretty!"
"WHY?!" Tom screamed, her voice hoarse and broken by the smoke and rage.
The woman forced a surprised reaction, blinking her eyes like a doll. "Hm? Why what?" She tilted her head to the side, the gesture perfectly rehearsed.
"WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KILL HIM?!"
"Because…" The woman smiled, an elegant smile, but one that overflowed with psychopathy. She brought her hands together in front of her face, closed her eyes for an instant, and, with a pose of absolute disdain, answered. "…I don't need them anymore."
Tom clenched her own fist with such force that her nails dug into her skin, her teeth on the verge of shattering.
The robe! That bluish cloak! That psychopathy! That explosion! It's her. It's definitely her. This monster…
An insane laugh escaped the woman's lips, echoing through the silent duct. The brother cried in despair and panic. Tom growled, an animal sound of pure rage. The sight of that woman enjoying the scene, delighting in the pain she had caused, was the only thing that branded itself onto Ingrid's mind.
"…I… will… definitely… kill you!"
Tom rose.
Every muscle, every bone in her body screamed in protest. The pain from the fall pulsed in nauseating waves, but she ignored it, locking it away somewhere deep in her mind. The rage was a white-hot, incandescent fire that consumed her, hotter and more urgent than any wound.
She extended her hand. Her staves, like extensions of her own soul, answered the call, flying from the ruins and snapping into her palms with a comforting familiarity.
Gripping the right rod, she spun her body, the movement an explosion of contained fury. The central shaft dissolved, transforming into the silvery, almost liquid metal thread that hissed through the air. The other end was hurled at the woman like the head of a metal serpent.
The woman merely smiled, a gesture of pure disdain.
And then, the world broke.
There was no sound, no flash. For a fraction of a second, Tom felt an overwhelming vertigo, a sense of displacement so violent it turned her stomach. The metal floor beneath her feet vanished. The woman, her target, was gone. The dense, foul air of the duct was replaced by an icy vacuum that roared in her ears, sucking the breath from her lungs.
She was in freefall, plunging into the endless abyss.
The shock was so absolute that the fury extinguished, replaced by the pure adrenaline of survival. The wind lashed at her, a deafening howl. Below, the darkness called to her. In an act of pure instinct, she reconfigured the weapon. The chain solidified again, becoming a rigid bar. With the rod she still held firmly, she aimed it upward, toward the distant silhouette of the duct.
The rod she had thrown at the woman had detached from the liquid chain. She had merely dodged it with a fluid, disdainful motion, the metal rod passing harmlessly by her. Her eyes followed the projectile on its journey into the abyss, a victorious smile on her lips. It was then that her smile faltered, replaced by an expression of genuine surprise.
The rod stopped in mid-air, as if it had hit an invisible wall.
For an instant, it floated in the nothingness, and then, with violent speed, it reversed its course, shooting downward. The loose staff slammed into the part Tom still held with a brutal thud that echoed through the fissure. The force threw her backward like a stone from a catapult, sending her colliding with the side of an ancient structure.
Tom fell, rolling down a slope of stone and corroded metal, her body battered with every jolt. The landing was terrible, a cacophony of pain that almost made her black out. Gasping, vision blurry and the taste of blood in her mouth, she tried to rise, her arms trembling beneath her weight. Finally, bracing herself on a stone pillar that partially crumbled at her touch, she stood.
And it was then that she found herself in the old city.
It wasn't just ruins. It was a cemetery. Buildings of dark stone and ancient metal, devoured by a rust that looked like a disease, clung to the precipice's edge like skeletal fingers. The place was a labyrinth of broken walkways, forgotten plazas, and buildings whose roofs had collapsed centuries ago, revealing a sky of metal and darkness—the base of the Lower City, far above.
The air here was heavy, laden with the smell of humidity, decay, and the pungent chemical odor rising from the depths. The only illumination came from torches fixed in iron brackets, their flames crackling slowly with a sickly greenish glow, releasing a smell of sulfur that scratched the throat with every breath. Those spectral lights cast long, dancing shadows that transformed the ruins into sleeping monsters.
She was on a deeper level of Chisanatora's forgottenness, a layer of the city that had been built upon another, and another, until the sunlight had become only a legend.
And she was not alone.
Figures shuffled through the shadows. They weren't workers, nor the suspicious inhabitants of the Lower City. They were specters dressed in rags, the abandoned, those who had fallen through the cracks of Chisanatora. Hell had a basement, and she had just been thrown into it.
The people in this place were empty. Bodies of flesh without any soul, they merely crawled through the corners of the ruins, moving with the resigned slowness of those who had given up long ago. Their eyes focused on nothing, their hands sought nothing. They were like insects, automatons of misery trapped in an eternal cycle of decay, their souls eroded by the misery of this lightless place.
Tom stared at them, confused and horrified. She tried to understand what was wrong with these people, what kind of despair could extinguish the light of a soul so completely.
But before she could process the tragedy around her, the woman was already in front of her.
She simply appeared there. There was no sound of footsteps, no displacement of air. In the blink of an eye, she was there, standing a few feet away, her presence a stain of vibrant color and life in that gray world.
"I was quite curious about what you did while you were falling," the woman said, her melodious voice contrasting grotesquely with the surroundings.
Tom glared at her, fury rising through her body like poison. All she could see was the woman's dark silhouette, cut out against the greenish light of the flames and the distant sunbeams penetrating the fissure. The psychotic smile on her face was a sharp detail, and the evil aura she contained was a physical pressure, cold and suffocating.
"Do you know what these ruins mean?" the woman asked, a professorial tone in her voice.
Tom, suspicious, did not answer.
The woman laughed. "This is where they throw the city's trash. They call it the 'old city,' but it's more like a dungeon, an open-air sewer."
Then, with the same casualty as one swatting a fly, she swung her arm. It was an elegant gesture that cut the wind, but the air whistled with an unnatural force, distorting for an instant like molten glass.
The invisible blade of pure pressure struck its targets.
A group of those empty people, who were huddled near the pillar, was instantly obliterated. Their bodies weren't cut; they were dismantled.
There was no explosion, no flash. Just a sound.
A sickening, wet, and terribly final sound—the sound of leather bags filled with liquid being torn apart, the dull crack of bones pulverizing in a single instant, like rotten fruit smashed by an invisible hammer.
Where, a second before, there had been human forms, there was now only a red mist settling over a dark stain spreading rapidly across the ancient stone. The rags that covered them fell onto the puddle, suddenly empty.
"NO!" Tom screamed, fury exploding in her voice. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!"
The woman looked at her with feigned surprise. "Why? Why not? They aren't even seen as people."
That was the trigger. Tom's rage became white-hot. She attacked, using the same move as before, the staff becoming a chain and the metal tip hurled with all her strength.
But the woman didn't dodge. She just smiled. And then, she cut the air again, the gesture identical to the last, but this time toward another group of helpless people.
Tom's eyes widened. No… not again!
The invisible blow of air hissed through the space, a distortion in reality that promised annihilation. The woman smiled, watching the dust rise from the point of impact, waiting for the wet sound of flesh being torn.
But as the dust began to settle, her smile widened, delighting in what she saw.
"I knew you would do that, Herald…"
Tom was no longer in her original spot.
She was there, exactly where the blow had struck. Her back to the group of cowering specters, she held a low defensive stance, her body tense and vibrating, her arms spread wide like a shield. She hadn't dodged. She had taken the attack.
The price of that protection was etched into her flesh. Her forehead bled from a deep cut, the hot blood running down past her eye, painting a red tear on her face. Her clothes were marked by dozens of small lacerations, as if she had been lashed by glass shards, and every tiny cut wept blood, soaking the fabric. The air around her was thick with the metallic scent of her own blood.
And behind her, like a protective shroud, runes of icy blue danced in the air. Her eyes glowed with the same lunar power, a cold, furious light that illuminated her bloodied face in a phantasmal way.
She stared at the woman, teeth gritted so hard that a trickle of blood ran from her gums, staining her lips and dripping from her chin. Every breath was a painful whistle.
"I… definitely… will kill you!" she murmured, the promise tearing through the silence of the ruins, her voice broken by pain but solidified by hatred.
The woman replied with disdain, her voice returning to an innocent, sweet tone that was the purest of profanations. She brought a finger to her red-painted lips, feigning shock and sadness. "Ara, ara… What kind of hero protects the dregs of society, but vows to reap the life of a beautiful lady like me?"