Matt moved through the streets of East Borough like another shadow among shadows. Night had fallen heavily over Backlund, and the smog from the Tussock River tangled around the gas lamps like a living shroud. A thin rain made the cobblestones slick, mixing the smell of burned coal with the stench of rotting fish drifting from the docks. The factories to the north belched black smoke that hid the stars, and the few passersby—exhausted workers, prostitutes wrapped in tattered shawls, barefoot children running through puddles—kept their eyes on the ground. No one wanted to see too much. No one wanted to be seen.
The scar on his side throbbed with a steady rhythm, warm, almost insistent.
Nourish the garden, it whispered in his mind—not with words, but with the sensation of roots twisting beneath his skin.
Matt clenched his teeth. He still didn't fully understand that "Mother" Elara spoke of with such devotion. The pure goddess, the one who made wheat grow from corpses and healed with fertile soil. But she had also mentioned the usurper—that other Mother, the one of depravity, the one the Naturists worshiped as if she were the true one.
That's why she's sending me to kill them, he thought as he walked. It's not revenge. It's cleansing. The cycle doesn't tolerate corrupted imitations.
He stopped for a moment beneath a broken brick arch and closed his eyes.
Cogitation.
The method Elara had taught him was still clumsy, but it worked. He imagined a rusty dagger wrapped in thin roots, then replaced it with something nonexistent: a blade of living soil that bled green sap, withering only to sprout again.
His mind quieted.
The criminal buzzing in his chest—that urge to hurt simply because he could—lowered in volume. It didn't disappear. It never did. But now it had direction.
Act the role, he reminded himself.
You are the Criminal who nourishes the garden. You steal life, but you return it to the earth. It's not evil. It's the cycle.
Black Palm Street appeared at the end of the alley. A forgotten stretch wedged between abandoned warehouses and half-sunken piers. The tavern Elara had mentioned was called "The Broken Anchor." The sign hung crooked and rusted, barely readable under the dim glow of a single gas lamp.
The windows were boarded with rotten planks, but through the cracks leaked a weak orange glow—oil lamps.
Matt smelled cheap pipe smoke and stale sweat. Low voices. Laughter that didn't sound happy.
He moved closer along the wall, his fingers brushing the nail in his pocket. In his mind he was already calculating: throw it like a dagger, drive it into a throat, or use it to force the back lock.
Anything can be a weapon.
That was his gift.
The Abyss had given it to him.
The Mother was… refining it.
He pushed the back door carefully. The wood gave way without noise; the hinges were so rusted they nearly fell apart. The inside was worse than he expected: overturned tables, shattered bottles, a floor sticky with beer and old blood.
At the far end, beside a makeshift bar of stacked barrels, a man sat alone.
Joren Vex.
Tall, thin, wearing a dark worker's coat and a face that looked serious—almost monastic. Short black hair. Sunken eyes that seemed to look through things rather than at them. He looked more like a fallen priest than a fanatic.
But Matt felt the aura.
Something twisted—like invisible chains tightening and loosening around his body.
Sequence 9. Prisoner.
The same level as Matt.
Different pathway.
Joren sat over a crude map of Backlund, marking sections of East Borough with a pencil. Beside him were a glass of cheap liquor and an open knife.
He didn't look up right away.
Matt stayed in the hallway's shadows, the scar burning with approval.
Extract the information first, Elara had said.
Who are his contacts. Why they're expanding now.
Then death.
Then the body for the garden.
Matt had barely taken twenty steps outside "The Broken Anchor" when the memory hit him like a punch to the stomach.
The Beyonder characteristic.
Elara had explained it clearly during the lesson: when a Beyonder died, their body left behind an indestructible mass containing the full essence of their Sequence. If it was left unattended for too long, the characteristic would fuse with whatever was nearby—a bottle, a plank, even the ground—and grant defective, twisted powers, dangerous to anyone who touched it afterward.
He, as a novice Criminal, hadn't even thought about it. He had only wanted to leave before someone walked in.
"Damn it…" he muttered, turning on his heel.
He ran back. The tavern was still silent. Joren's corpse lay exactly where he had left it, but something had changed.
From the crushed chest seeped a dark, viscous mass the size of a fist. It writhed slowly, like living blood that breathed. It wasn't red; it was black with purple veins, pulsing with a slow, sick rhythm.
The Beyonder characteristic of the Prisoner pathway. Indestructible. Waiting.
Matt swallowed. His hand trembled for a second before he extended it. The scar on his side pulsed with approval, as if the Mother were reminding him that this too was part of the cycle.
He closed his fingers around the mass. It was warm, almost hot, and it moved against his palm like a small, corrupted heart.
An electric tingling traveled up his arm—fleeting knowledge of locks, wires, improvised explosives—but he suppressed it with a deep breath.
Not now. Not without Elara.
At that very moment, the floor beneath the corpse began to move.
Thick, bright-green roots burst from the rotten earth beneath the tavern.
They coiled around Joren's arms, legs, and torso like hungry serpents. With a wet, organic sound, they pulled the body downward. The wooden floor split open as if it were cloth, swallowing first the legs, then the torso, finally the head.
In less than ten seconds nothing remained. No blood, no clothes, no bones.
Only a faint smell of fertile earth and the soft creak of roots returning to their place.
The cycle had claimed its offering.
Matt stared at the empty floor, the dark mass still pulsing in his hand.
"Well…" he whispered. "At least I did that right."
He wrapped the characteristic in a torn piece of his own shirt, tying it carefully. He didn't have a bottle, but at least he wouldn't leave it exposed.
Then he stepped back out into the fog of the East Borough.
The walk back was longer than he remembered.
His wounds burned, his left arm barely responded, but the scar drove him forward—a constant warmth keeping him on his feet. When he finally pushed open the discreet door of the Harvest Church, the scent of damp earth and fresh herbs wrapped around him like an embrace.
He descended through the root-lined passage into his hidden corner behind the main altar.
The narrow, damp space welcomed him as always: thick vines woven together like a living curtain, compacted earth beneath his boots, a faint emerald glow filtering down from luminescent roots in the ceiling.
It smelled of fresh moss and something deeper, as if the church itself breathed beneath him.
Elara was already there.
Standing in the center of the small refuge, wrapped in her dark green coat, she looked at him with those toxic yet maternal eyes.
At first she said nothing.
She simply extended her hand.
Matt took out the knotted cloth and placed it in her palm. The dark mass writhed once more before going still.
"Everything went well," he said, clearly proud of himself. "Here's the characteristic."
Elara closed her fingers around it. She looked at it skeptically for a moment before letting out a sigh.
"You've learned quickly, son of the Abyss. The Mother already claimed the body. And you… brought the gift. Now sit down. There is much to discuss about what that Prisoner knew."
The scar pulsed warmly.
Matt dropped onto the compact earth floor, exhausted but strangely at peace.
The garden was still waiting.
And for the first time, he felt that he truly belonged to it.
Matt let himself fall onto the compact dirt floor of the hidden corner, still wearing clothes stained with blood and smoke.
The vines that formed the living curtain closed softly behind him, and the faint emerald glow from the roots in the ceiling illuminated Elara's face.
"I spoke with Joren's spirit," Matt said without preamble, his voice hoarse but clear. "He was direct, like you said. His main contacts in Backlund are two: Elias Crowe, who runs the tavern 'The Drowned Crow' on Pier 7 of Tussock, and Lira Voss, a tailor who has a secret basement on Veil Street. They receive orders from above."
The scar pulsed slightly when he mentioned the names, as if the Mother approved of the information.
"As for why they're expanding now… they're looking for 'corrupted seeds.' Beyonders with suppressed desires. They lure them by promising total freedom—no chains. He said the… true Mother wants more devotees before the orthodox churches close the net."
Elara nodded slowly, without interrupting. Her green eyes flashed for a moment with a toxic gleam.
"Well done, son of the Abyss. That information is worth more than Joren's head. Now… sit up straight and look at me."
Matt slowly straightened his back against the wall of tangled roots. The pain from his wounds had dulled somewhat, softened by the steady warmth flowing from the scar on his side.
Across from him, Elara watched silently.
Her gaze carried a maternal patience, yet it never softened completely. It was the kind of look that examined, weighed, and judged all at once.
Without speaking, she reached toward a small niche carved into the packed earthen wall. From it she retrieved a yellowed sheet of parchment and a graphite pencil.
The scratching of the pencil echoed faintly in the hidden chamber.
Her strokes were quick and deliberate, each line precise. When she finished, she folded the parchment once and extended it toward Matt.
"This is the potion formula for Sequence 8: Wingless Angel," she said calmly.
"Read it carefully."
Matt unfolded the parchment.
Elara's handwriting was elegant but restrained, the characters arranged like intertwined roots.
Main Ingredients
The remains of a Rat King
One heart of a Skinless Bloody Cat
Supplementary Ingredients
40 ml of Rat King blood
90 ml of Skinless Bloody Cat blood
The heart (or a similar organ) of the first being killed by the Beyonder advancing, belonging to the same race as the Beyonder
13 drops of Twinflower Hydrolate
Matt's eyes paused at the third line.
A heart from the first being I killed…
A faint chill ran through him.
Does that count as human? And if it does… then Joren…
He suppressed the thought for now and looked up.
By then Elara had already sat down opposite him. The moss beneath her shifted slightly, forming a low seat as if the earth itself welcomed her weight.
"Now," she said, her voice calm and measured, "let us review your fight with Joren."
"It was not terrible… considering you have spent most of your life fighting drunk thugs in alleyways."
Her green eyes sharpened slightly.
"But it was far from good."
Matt remained silent.
"You threw your improvised weapon too early," she continued. "And you had no contingency afterward."
"A true Criminal never runs out of tools. Whatever lies within reach should present at least three different methods of killing."
She raised one finger.
"Second: you did not use Cogitation at all during the fight."
"You reacted purely on instinct. Like an animal cornered by a predator."
"If you had calmed your mind for even five seconds, you would have noticed the wire hidden in his sleeve before it reached your neck."
Matt lowered his gaze slightly.
She saw everything…
The realization made the skepticism she had shown earlier suddenly understandable.
Elara raised another finger.
"Third: Joren understood the battlefield better than you."
"Yes, you observed your surroundings. But you did not exploit them."
"You could have overturned the bar to crush him beneath it. You could have redirected his explosive back toward him."
She paused.
"You fought like it was a street brawl."
"He fought like a man who has spent years escaping prisons."
Matt nodded slowly.
His pride stung, but he could not deny her words.
"However…" Elara continued, leaning forward slightly, "there was one detail worth noting."
"When the wire tightened around your neck, brute strength alone did not break it."
"You felt something else."
"A cold clarity."
"The instinctive realization that crime is natural… and everything can become prey."
Matt's fingers curled slightly.
He remembered that moment.
The calm.
The certainty.
"That," Elara said quietly, "is the essence of the Abyss pathway beginning to settle within you."
"You have lived as a criminal for years without understanding it."
"In fact, your potion should already be digested between sixty and seventy percent."
"The Mother merely accelerated the process when she anchored you."
Her gaze softened ever so slightly.
"But the majority of the work… you accomplished yourself."
Matt flexed his hand slowly.
He could feel it now.
Not guilt. Not justification.
Just instinct.
The ability to look at a room and immediately see the ways someone might die.
"…So what now?" he asked quietly.
Elara leaned back slightly.
"Now you must stop acting unconsciously."
"The Acting Method exists so that Beyonders do not lose themselves to their own pathways."
She raised her index finger.
"You have two options."
"First: I can send you to hunt another Beyonder of your pathway."
"There is a Wingless Angel operating near the northern docks, close to the border of Awwa County."
Her voice grew colder.
"He has already lost most of his humanity."
"Killing him will nourish the garden… and it will show you what awaits those who sink too deeply into the Abyss."
"If you choose this path, collect 130 ml of his blood along with his Beyonder characteristic."
"That blood can replace the Rat King and Skinless Bloody Cat ingredients."
She lifted a second finger.
"Second: you may gather the ingredients yourself."
"I can direct you toward locations in Backlund's black market where such creatures appear."
"But the Acting will be entirely yours."
"Finding them will force you to embody the Criminal role more deliberately."
The vines around her shifted slightly.
"The Mother does not impose choices."
"The cycle moves forward through your will."
Her gaze settled on him.
"Which will it be, child of the Abyss?"
Matt stared down at the parchment.
The formula seemed simple on paper.
But the meaning behind it was far from simple.
Finally he spoke.
"I'll hunt the Wingless Angel."
His voice was hoarse but steady.
"Killing someone on my own pathway will teach me more than scavenging in markets."
He paused.
Then he sighed.
"But… how am I supposed to survive that?"
"Joren was only Sequence 9 like me, and he nearly killed me."
Matt gestured at his injuries.
"That Wingless Angel has already lost most of his humanity."
"Do you really think a scar and Cogitation will be enough?"
"He'll tear me apart before I get close."
Elara stared at him silently for a moment.
Then she sighed.
The sound carried the faint exhaustion of a mother watching a stubborn child repeat the same mistake yet again.
Without responding verbally, she slipped a hand into the inner pocket of her coat.
A moment later she tossed something toward him.
Matt caught it instinctively.
A bracelet.
Black leather reinforced with dull metal plates.
"That," Elara said calmly, "should reduce your complaining."
"It is a Sealed Artifact I obtained years ago from a fallen devotee of the Giant pathway."
"It contains the power of Sequence 8: Pugilist."
"While you wear it, your physical strength will weaken certain Beyonder abilities that target you."
"You will also gain the combat instincts of a Pugilist."
"You will be capable of using your body to disperse supernatural force and endure blows that would kill a normal Criminal."
Matt rotated the bracelet in his hand.
It was heavier than it looked.
The leather felt warm.
Almost… alive.
"Sounds perfect," he muttered.
Elara raised an eyebrow.
"Perfect?"
"No."
"Like all sealed artifacts, it has a flaw."
"It carries the indomitable pride of a Giant Pugilist."
"Each time you activate its power, you will feel a powerful urge to challenge worthy opponents in pure hand-to-hand combat."
"Running away or relying on cowardly tactics—ranged weapons, tricks, stealth—will cause the artifact to punish you with intense muscular pain."
"Additionally, after each use, your body will temporarily grow heavier and denser."
"Your footsteps will become impossible to conceal."
"If you fail to remove it for at least one hour each day, the accumulated pride will cause hallucinations of endless battles."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"And eventually… exhaustion."
Matt slipped the bracelet onto his left wrist without hesitation.
A heavy warmth immediately spread through his arm.
His muscles twitched subtly.
"Understood…"
He paused.
Then frowned.
"Wait."
"For the potion… I need the heart of the first being I killed."
"But Joren was the first."
"And the Mother's roots swallowed him whole."
Matt scratched the back of his head.
"So how exactly am I supposed to retrieve his heart now?"
"Dig up the garden?"
Elara smiled.
The expression was warm.
Yet strangely unsettling.
"Little blessed one… have you already forgotten the bestowal ritual I taught you?"
"You may perform it directly to Mother Earth."
"Prepare a simple altar. Light the candles. Offer a drop of your own blood as payment."
"Then ask."
"She accepts everything that returns to the cycle."
"If Joren's heart still serves the garden… she will grant it."
"The Mother does not forget what belongs to her."
The scar on Matt's side pulsed softly.
Warm.
Reassuring.
Elara rose to her feet.
The vines around the chamber shifted gently as she moved.
"Rest tonight."
"At dawn… I will give you the exact location of the corrupted Wingless Angel."