The city was quiet—too quiet.
Kairen walked the abandoned streets, his boots crunching over broken glass and gravel. Streetlights flickered like dying stars, throwing fractured shadows across the empty roads. He had expected panic, screaming, chaos—but there was only silence. The kind of silence that presses against your ears until you can hear your own heartbeat pounding like a war drum.
The Hollow Vein incident had not gone unnoticed. A wave of reports had poured into the authorities—missing people, flickers of strange lights, whispers of a creature stalking the old quarry. But the city had grown numb. Decades of hardship, crime, and fear had made the people forget how to react to something truly unnatural.
Kairen felt it in his bones. The silence was deliberate. Something was watching. Something was waiting.
He reached the edge of a collapsed overpass and looked down at the streets below. The sigil on his hand pulsed softly—a heartbeat of gold against the cold night. It throbbed in rhythm with the faint pulse emanating from the fissures in the Hollow Vein.
The disorder had changed him. That much was certain. The Shard-Maw Stalker had been his first test, but it was only the beginning. He had felt the power surge through him, had felt the raw instinct awaken. And with it, an unspoken warning.
You will not survive by yourself.
The thought was foreign, but not unwelcome. It was practical. Rational. Something deep inside, beneath the disorder, whispered of allies, of other humans who could fight alongside him—or perhaps against him.
A sound broke his reverie. A faint metallic clatter from an alleyway, almost imperceptible under the drone of the city's silence. Kairen froze, hand tightening over the sigil. His instincts screamed at him to ignore it, to focus on survival, but curiosity—a dangerous, human curiosity—pulled him forward.
He moved like a shadow, silent and precise. Around him, the buildings leaned inward, forming a narrow canyon that seemed too close, too suffocating. Dust motes danced in the faint light of a flickering streetlamp.
And then he saw her.
A girl crouched in the corner of the alley, back against the wall. She was small, perhaps no more than sixteen or seventeen, with sharp eyes that glinted in the faint light. Her hair was cut short, framing a face that was pale, exhausted, and yet intensely alive. In her hands, she clutched something metallic—a small blade, more improvised than weaponized—but her grip was steady.
She was watching him.
Kairen stopped, raising a hand in a gesture of peace. "I'm not here to hurt you," he said softly, though the words felt foreign in the emptiness.
The girl didn't move. Her eyes flicked to the sigil on his hand, and for a moment, Kairen thought she might attack. But then her expression shifted, wary recognition replacing fear.
"You… you're infected," she said, her voice low but clear.
Kairen's heart skipped. He had expected fear, suspicion, maybe even hostility—but recognition? That was… unsettling. "How do you know that?" he asked.
The girl's eyes narrowed. "Because I am," she said simply. "And I can smell the disorder on you."
It was a simple statement, but it carried weight. A predator speaking to a predator. Kairen didn't answer immediately. Instead, he studied her, taking in the tension in her stance, the way her fingers tightened around the blade, the faint glow of another sigil etched into her forearm.
She was like him.
"You shouldn't be here," she said finally, her voice sharper now. "The city… it's dangerous. The Hollow Vein… the creatures… you're not ready."
Kairen felt the disorder pulse under his skin, responding not to fear but to challenge. "Then help me," he said. "Show me. Teach me how to survive this."
The girl's lips pressed into a thin line. For a long moment, she didn't respond. Then she sighed, sliding the blade into her belt. "Fine. But first, we move."
---
They moved together through the city's empty streets. Kairen found himself oddly attuned to her presence. Her steps were measured, cautious, but her eyes missed nothing. Every shadow, every whisper of wind, every flicker of movement—it was all accounted for.
She led him to a hidden stairwell at the back of an abandoned office building. The walls were crumbling, graffiti peeling away like skin. Below, the basement had been cleared and reinforced, turned into a makeshift hideout. Maps, weapons, and stacks of food lined the walls. A faint scent of incense and smoke lingered in the air.
"My name is Liora Thane," she said, watching him carefully. "I've been tracking the Ruin Beasts for months. Observing. Surviving. And you…" She tilted her head, examining him as if weighing his worth. "…you've awakened your disorder. That makes you… dangerous."
Kairen felt the sigil on his hand throb. Dangerous was a word he was getting used to. But he didn't flinch. "I know," he said. "But I can fight. I already survived once tonight."
Liora's gaze softened slightly, though it didn't lose its intensity. "Survival isn't enough anymore," she said. "You'll need control. The beasts… they learn. They evolve. And there are worse things than what you faced tonight."
Kairen frowned. "Worse than a Shard-Maw Stalker?"
Her expression darkened. "Much worse. Those were just the foot soldiers. The real threats… are the Crowned Ruin Beasts. They're the apex predators. They understand humans. They understand disorder. And they want us… for reasons you can't even imagine."
A cold shiver ran down Kairen's spine. He had felt power surge through him tonight, felt the predator within awaken. But this… this was a different weight. A different predator. One that might not be fought with instinct alone.
Liora moved toward a small table, spreading a series of maps and photographs across it. Pins marked locations across the city—craters, collapsed buildings, areas of extreme distortion in reality. "These are the zones the Ruin Beasts are active in," she explained. "I've cataloged every encounter I could witness. Every fragment. Every death. And each one… leaves behind something. Something that grows stronger the longer we ignore it."
Kairen leaned closer, examining the maps. He could feel the disorder stirring in response, curious, hungry. "The fragments," he said. "They feed the disorder?"
Liora nodded. "Exactly. Every time a Ruin Beast dies, it leaves behind a fragment—a crystallized essence of its core instinct. That fragment… it can be absorbed. Gives power, yes. But it's not without cost. Instability. Corruption. Madness. That's how people become monsters. And that's why the Crowned Ruin Beasts exist—they're fragments perfected, multiplied, evolved."
The room felt smaller suddenly. Kairen's pulse quickened, not with fear but with the thrill of understanding. The disorder had always been a curse in his mind. Now, he saw it as a tool. A weapon. Something that could give him control—or destroy him entirely.
"Then I'll need to learn how to control it," he said, his voice steady. "I can't fight blindly. Not anymore."
Liora studied him for a long moment, her sharp eyes softening slightly. "You're braver than most," she said. "Or maybe foolish. Either way… you'll need more than courage. You'll need training. Discipline. And most importantly…" She paused, looking him square in the eyes. "…you'll need allies you can trust. Because tonight was just the beginning. The city is waking. And it doesn't like what it sees."
Outside, the wind howled through the broken streets, rattling the empty windows. Somewhere, a distant rumble echoed through the city, shaking dust from the ceilings.
Kairen clenched his fists, feeling the disorder stir beneath his skin. The sigil on his hand pulsed, as though responding to the invisible tremors of the city. He could feel it—the hunger. The predator. The raw, unrefined power waiting to be shaped.
And for the first time, Kairen didn't feel fear.
He felt anticipation.
The Hollow Vein had been just the start. The city was alive with monsters. And he… he was ready to hunt.