After finishing his scribbling, He put Umbra inside on his index finger. The familiar, psychotic screaming came in. He put on his harness with all its gear and his reinforced coat just in case, he stashed the piece of paper in his pocket.
The loose board in the back wall yielded to his touch with a practiced, silent pressure. He slid through the gap and into the alley, the cold, fog-laden air a shock after the warehouse's stifling heat. The city was asleep, or pretending to be. He moved through the streets not as a man, but as a slice of moving shadow, his senses parsing the night for threats. His route was a circuitous, paranoid maze, doubling back twice, pausing for minutes in doorways to listen for the tell-tale rhythm of a tail. There was none. The Church was mustering its forces, not wasting them on random patrols.
He arrived at the derelict scrapyard. It was unchanged: the same skeletons of machinery, the same pools of stagnant water, the same air of forgotten industry and decay. But this time, he didn't need the pendulum.
He stood in the same spot as before, and the feeling washed over him immediately, he was sure without the need for divination. There was a murderous intent coming from the shadows. The attacker from the shadows was here, watching him, his presence a palpable stain on the night.
'He must be almost fully recovered,' Lutz thought, the analysis instantaneous and cold. 'The backlash from his fight with Krieg must have faded by now. And his rage… it's a physical force. He's not just observing. He's restraining himself. He wants to leap down and tear me apart right now, but his pride is probably stopping him, he wants to end me on the warehouse as a show of power. Good.'
That was the entire point. He wasn't here to confirm a suspicion; he was here to exploit a certainty. He didn't look around. He didn't tense up or reach for a weapon. To show any sign of detection would be to break the spell, to acknowledge the hunter as an equal. Instead, he performed the simple, deliberate action he came for.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out the folded paper, and let it drop from his fingers. It fluttered to the damp ground, a pale square against the dark earth. He didn't weigh it down. Let the wind take it if it wished. The message was for the one who was already here, watching.
Then, he turned. He didn't hurry. His walk back out of the scrapyard was as casual as his entrance, his back a deliberate, unconcerned target for the murderous gaze he could feel boring into it. Every instinct screamed to run, to put distance between himself and the predatory presence. He overrode them with an act of pure will. He was the fisherman, and the line was Sett's own hatred. He couldn't afford to seem like prey in flight.
Only when he was three blocks away, swallowed by the twisting alleys of the Salt-Weep district, did the oppressive weight of Sett's gaze begin to fade. Lutz allowed himself a single, sharp breath, his heart hammering against his ribs. The adrenaline was a live wire in his veins. The bait was laid. The most dangerous creature in the city was now perfectly primed.
He returned to the warehouse the same way he left, slipping through the rotten board and into the stifling darkness. The sentries were none the wiser. In the washroom, he pumped cold water into the basin and splashed it on his face, the shock doing little to calm the frantic energy coursing through him. He looked at his reflection in the sliver of mirror. The face was calm, but the eyes held a wild, electric light.
He took of the harness and coat, he lay down on his cot. He closed his eyes and began Cogitation, visualizing the geometric cube, trying to force his mind into the still, placid lake required for sleep. But tonight, it was like trying to calm a stormy sea with a whisper. The image of the cube fractured and swam. The sheer, monumental scale of what was to happen tomorrow—the convergence of armies, the betrayal, the theft, the fire—thrummed through him like a constant, low-grade current.
Sleep was a distant country. He lay in the dark for hours, listening to the sounds of the warehouse: the snores, the mutters, the restless shifting of men trapped in a nightmare they didn't understand. He was the author of that nightmare, and even he, lying at the very center of his own design, could feel a primal, bone-deep tremor of anticipation. It was a countdown. And he was the one holding the clock.
The scrapyard was silent once more, but the silence was a lie. It was the silence of a coiled serpent, of held breath before a scream. From the rusted cab of the steam crane, a shadow deeper than the night itself detached and flowed soundlessly to the ground.
Sett stood over the spot where the phantom had stood. The air still carried a faint, static-tinged residue. a scent that was an insult to his senses. His body, though not yet at its peak, thrummed with restored flesh and blood, scalding hatred. He had watched the young man drop the paper, that casual, contemptuous flick of the wrist, as if discarding garbage. The arrogance of it was a palpable blow.
His eyes, capable of perceiving the subtle decay in all things, scanned the folded square on the ground. It was no trap—he would have sensed the woven intent of a ritual or the chemical promise of an explosion. This was simpler. This was a message.
With a grace that belied his fury, he knelt, his fingers closing around the paper. The cheap, rough texture was an affront. He unfolded it.
The drawing was crude, sketched in haste, but the intent was surgically precise.
On the left was a figure with a beautiful, effeminate face, rendered with just enough detail to be unmistakable. Jhin. The Instigator. From his chest, a bold arrow was drawn, pointing to a stiletto dagger. The label beneath it was a single, mocking word: "Creed."
Next to Jhin was another figure, an old man wearing a long tunic. Taric. Another arrow, this one pointing to a ring with spherical gems embedded in it. The label: "Umbra."
Sett's breath hitched. The violation was not just of their bodies, but of their very essence. To reduce their sacred characteristics to named tools, to possessions…
But it was the third figure that made the air around him shimmer with suppressed power. It was a hooded form, shrouded in cross-hatched lines of shadow. From this figure, a final arrow was drawn. It did not point to an object. It pointed to a crudely drawn human skull. And above this entire, blasphemous diagram, were two words, written in a clear, steady hand:
"Tomorrow Night."
The paper in Sett's hand crumpled, his fist clenching with a force that would have pulverized bone. A low, guttural sound escaped his lips, a noise not entirely human, ripped from a place of pure, unadulterated fury.
"You… you piece of filth…" he whispered, the words a toxic hiss in the silence.
His mind unfolded into a raging monologue, a silent scream that twisted the very air around him. A faint scent of ozone and rotting roses began to emanate from his form.
You think your shitty little drawings, your stolen trinkets, your clever words mean anything? You have taken servants of a higher power and turned them into… into inventory! You have defiled the sacred process of our Almighty Master! You have smeared the beauty of degeneration with your grubby, filthy thieving fingers!
He saw it in his mind's eye: the Marauder, in some filthy hovel, using his cheap, crude abilities to warp and twist the glorious potential he had harvested. He wasn't just an enemy; he was a blasphemer, a polluter of the art. A mockery of the sacred power they represented.
You led me to the Church's attack dog. You thought you could have me put down like a rabid animal. But I am not so easily erased. I am a Bishop of the Master! I am the bloom that follows rot, the peace that follows plague! And you… you are just a rat, a parasite hiding in the walls of a dying city!
The finality of "Tomorrow Night" was not a threat; it was an appointment. The phantom was telling him where and when to find him. The sheer, staggering arrogance of it was like a spark on a pool of oil.
You think your warehouse is a fortress, your gang a shield. You are wrong. You have built your own pyre, and you have invited me to light the match.
He looked towards the direction of the Salt-Weep district, as if his gaze could pierce the walls of the warehouse and find the Marauder cowering within.
Tomorrow night, the thought crystallized, cold and sharp as a shard of ice in the furnace of his rage. Tomorrow night, I will walk through your doors. I will not be subtle. I will not be clever. I will be a truth. I will be the rot that consumes your wood, the blight that withers your flesh. I will find you amidst your stolen toys and your desperate allies, and I will take back what is mine. I will peel the skin from your bones and show you the corruption that has always lived within you. I will make you watch as I unmake everything you have touched.
Your death will be the first sacrament of my new strength.
He opened his fist. The crumpled ball of paper was now brittle, its fibers breaking down, a few edges already flaking into a fine, gray dust. In moments, it was nothing more than a stain on his palm, which he brushed away.
"Tomorrow night," he vowed aloud, the words a sacred oath to the twisted powers he served. There was no more doubt, no more calculation. The phantom had issued his invitation. And Sett, Rose Bishop of the Aurora Order, would most certainly attend.
He turned and melted back into the shadows, a vessel of pure, focused annihilation.