Relentless Haunting

"Fifteen years old"

Fer gestured to Jairzinho Guzman: "Isn't he a bit too old?"

"As long as they are under seventeen, it's fine," the physician replied.

He was looking down, tapping on Dataslate, and the various instruments in the room moved with his movements. These extremely complex machines looked almost unrelated to medicine, their cold gleam even inspiring a sense of dread.

Guzman spent three minutes performing a routine check on them, then looked up and finished the sentence he had been leaving unsaid.

"You seem very worried, Fer Fell."

"Of course I'm worried." Fer crossed his arms, the insignia on his cuffs gleaming.

He appeared calm, but his taut muscles betrayed his true emotions to the medical officer.

"I was the one who brought this up with the instructor, so if anything goes wrong, I have to take responsibility. Do you understand, Jairzinho?"

"I have little experience with medical malpractice," Guzman replied casually. "Therefore, I don't quite understand what taking responsibility means, Fer Commander."

Are you subtly showing off?

No, you've misunderstood me.

"You bastard, I absolutely did not misunderstand you," Fer muttered, his expression one of Chief Librarian fury.

After that day, they spent another month and a half searching for a suitable candidate in Nostramo. With the help of surveillance footage, population screening, and some rumors, they successfully found the boy who had named himself Jago Sevatarion.

Unfortunately, when the Night Lords arrived at the Third Mine, he was lying on the ground convulsing, with very obvious psionic phenomena around him. So, Jago Sevatarion was immediately brought back.

Everything was going smoothly, but there was one thing that Fer Zalost found almost unbearable.

--He spent too much time with Jairzinho Guzman. Long enough that he finally saw through the latter's terrible character.

Moreover, before this, Fer even thought that Jairzinho Guzman was one of the few good physicians among them.

It's important to know that, both before and after the name change, the Legion's medics and Apothecary were a bunch of bastards who would mock patients while treating them.

Only Jairzinho Guzman was somewhat different, and for that reason, he was jointly elected by the company commanders as the chief medical officer. But now it seems that this guy was probably just hiding his true intentions.

"Say whatever you want." Guzman put down the Dataslate and began to wait in the room.

He leaned leisurely against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, one foot crossed over the other and swinging back and forth, looking very lazy.

"After all, I'm just a lowly medical officer; how could I dare to harbor any resentment towards the great Fer Fell Zalost's evaluation?"

"."

The great Fer Fell Zalost fell silent, his expression grim, and began to consider whether he should use psionic magic to teach Guzman a lesson he would never forget.

But his thoughts didn't last long; at least, before he reached a conclusion, a perfectly clear sound of footsteps echoed in the corridor outside. Very rhythmic and very faint, so much so that the Night Lords only needed a second to know who it was.

Jairzinho Guzman immediately resumed his serious posture, picked up his Dataslate, and began to wait professionally for the door to open.

Fer looked at him with disdain, shaking his head to show his contempt while straightening his collar and cuffs, before walking over and opening the door.

Their instructor, Karyl Lohars, stood there, along with a boy hiding behind him.

"Go in," Karyl said. "The inspection site is right here, Jago Sevatarion."

The boy walked out with a stiff upper lip—he thought he had concealed it successfully, but Fer saw through his forced composure at a glance.

The Chief Librarian let out a snort, "Kid, don't panic, we don't eat people."

"You never know," the physician said casually from behind him. "Some of our cousins used to really enjoy using the abilities of certain organs."

"Did you have to sabotage me at this time?" Fer turned around and asked fiercely.

"I'm just telling the truth, Fer Fell." The medic shrugged, stepped forward, and led the boy named Jago Sevatarion to an iron chair.

It already looked anything but comfortable, and the long needles and scalpels floating above its head, held by robotic arms, made it look even more terrifying.

The boy's face twitched noticeably. He looked at Fer, then at the physician, and finally turned his gaze back to Karyl.

The latter nodded to him. "Is there a problem, Jago Sevatarion?"

"Just call me Sevatar," the boy muttered. "That's what my friends and everyone who knows me calls me. My own name is too long—am I supposed to be sitting in this thing?"

"Yes, Sevatar."

"No, no, I'll ask again." Sevatar pointed sternly to the chair and the gleaming syringes and blades. "I want to sit in this chair?"

"Yes," the doctor said softly. "You have a test to do, child."

"."

Sevatar glanced silently at Karyl, who was smiling at him, then looked up at the physician, and sighed resignedly, "You're not going to cut me open and put something else inside, are you? I've heard plenty of stories like this before."

Fer grinned.

He had to admit, he really liked the kid—so he decided to add a little something extra.

"Maybe," Fer said. "Maybe we will take you apart and add something to you, but maybe we won't. It's up to you, kid, so get in there. That chair's not going to bite you."

"Why don't you sit down yourself?" Sevatar retorted, her face growing even paler.

After a half-minute silence, he nimbly sat down in the chair under the watchful eyes of the three giants. He leaned back against the cold backrest, clasped his hands tightly against his chest, and breathed rapidly.

"How do you know I haven't sat here?" Fer asked, raising an eyebrow.

He reached out and gently took the boy's hands, placing them on the armrests of the chair. Immediately, handcuffs, like shackles, flipped out and locked him to them.

Sevatar's cheek twitched violently.

When he spoke again, his voice trembled slightly. "Let's make this clear first: if you're really going to cut me open because of those Ghost, I hope you'll give me some anesthesia while you're doing it."

"You also know about anesthetics?" Jairzinho asked, tapping back and forth on the Dataslate as he looked down. The robotic arm behind the chair began to operate, the syringes started to vibrate, and colorful liquids began to appear in the previously empty syringes.

Sevatar grinned—he was terrified, but he still managed a laugh, "I grew up in the Shantytown, what haven't I seen?"

"Pretty proud, kid." Fer smiled at him and tapped Sevatar's chest with a finger. "You've seen a lot of things. Well then, get ready."

What to prepare? Sevatar wanted to ask that question, but his tongue was suddenly paralyzed, as were his teeth, then his eyes, his face, and even his entire body—he could no longer feel any of these things, only silence and darkness enveloped him.

His head lolled to the side, and he slumped back in his chair, losing consciousness and falling into a deep sleep. Jairzinho lowered his head, raised the room temperature slightly, and simultaneously manipulated the chair to tilt backward even further.

Fer stepped back a few paces to make way for their instructor.

Karyl's eyes Radiance blue as he approached the iron chair, then slowly closed them.

"Let's proceed with the examination, Jairzinho," he said softly, his eyes closed. "It will be more efficient to perform both examinations simultaneously."

"Understood, Instructor."

--

Cold.

It's so cold! Why is it so cold?

Jago Sevatarion thought, his teeth chattering.

He crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders as he walked forward—everything around him was shrouded in mist, possessing a repulsive quality. He didn't know where he was, but a voice inside him whispered, telling him to keep going.

Sevatar trusts this voice.

He had heard this voice countless times throughout his life.

He had heard it when his father contracted tuberculosis. The voice told him to take his mother away, but he was only three years old at the time and didn't understand what it meant.

Later, his father and mother died of lung disease on rotten wooden planks by the street in the Shantytown, where rats ate them to death. At that time, Sevatar also heard that sound.

It said, "You should leave, and you should give yourself a new name. Your father and mother are dead, but they still have debts, and they owe the factory a lot of working hours. If you don't leave, you will only die in the factory like them."

Sevatar listened to it for the first time in his life, but certainly not the last.

He ran away and gave himself a new name. He hung out with a group of orphans who lived by stealing and aimlessly drifted through life. They would either join gangs after reaching a certain age or simply die mysteriously before that.

Sevatar could have joined the gang a long time ago, but a voice inside him told him not to.

The voice asked him, "You've already seen what kind of monsters they are. Do you want to become a monster too?"

Sevatar didn't answer, but he didn't join the gang either. Then the name that would be widely circulated descended upon Quintus Hive.

The Vengeful Spirit, that's what people call it. Some say it's Ghost returned from hell, destined to kill everyone sooner or later. The reason it's only killing gangs now is simply because they killed it.

Some people call him a hero, a human, a monster, or a mutated mutant.

The workers in the Shantytown fabricated countless identities and pasts for it, and no one knew the truth. However, in that environment, the mere existence of the Vengeful Spirit, and its nightly killings, became an inspiration for them.

As for Jago Sevatarion, he had seen the Vengeful Spirit once, though only from a distance, but he was certain it was him.

At that moment, a voice deep within him told him that the time had come.

Sevatar didn't know what those words meant, but in just six months, everything changed.

"Call"

He recalled these events and exhaled a breath of cold air.

His body could no longer retain warmth, and with his innate optimism, Sevatar felt he probably only had a few minutes left to live. But he drew strength from his memories, intending to rely on this potentially fleeting warmth to walk a little further—he didn't know what those people had done to him, but...

This is, after all, Nostramo.

The young boy grinned: Who cares about the death of an orphan? Countless people die every day on Nostramo. One more or one less makes no difference. But, if death is truly inevitable...

Will you Vengeance me? He asked silently.

The fog was thick, rolling in from all directions, carrying with it tiny whispers. Sevatar knelt wearily on the ground, watching the fog roll in and listening to the sounds, shaking his head helplessly.

"At this point," he said, opening his arms wide. "Can't you just leave me alone for a while?"

No one answered, only increasingly loud whispers and wails. Sevatar lowered his head, panting as he regained his strength. He was so cold that he had almost lost all feeling in most of his body; at this moment, he felt as if only his tongue could move—he didn't know how much time had passed before he spoke again.

"Alright." He tilted his head back. "Bring it on then. I'm going to die anyway, so there's no need to be afraid of you anymore. Come on, you bunch of dead bones. I've always been curious whether there's anyone among you I know."

As he spoke, his voice gradually faded until, in the end, almost only he could hear what he was saying. He collapsed to his knees and lost consciousness completely.

Then, a hand pulled him up from the ground.

"Boom--!"

Lightning flashed, followed by a deafening roar. The fog was dispersed by the gale, and raindrops began to fall incessantly. The sky was overcast, and the surrounding area was a vast, silent wasteland.

Countless Shadow stood silently in the darkness. Among them were children who had lost their skin, miners who were emaciated and coughing up blood, women who had been cruelly hung up, and workers' leaders who had lost their bodies and were left with only their heads.

They are dead.

They were vengeful spirits, ghosts, and mindless dead. They were the nightmares that had haunted Jago Sevatarion. But now, they simply stared silently at a pale-skinned giant and the boy he held in his arms.

"How amusing," the head resting on the ruined pavement whispered again. "Are you going to give that so-called false light you speak of to another child?"

"Stop making fun of me." Karyl turned and glanced at him. "Dead men should keep quiet."

The head grinned and burst into laughter. "Then you shouldn't have come here!"

I'll be leaving soon.

"Then leave, take him with you," said the head, and a chilling blue light slowly emanated from its empty eye sockets, mirroring the surrounding dead. Millions of points of light completely illuminated the darkness. The souls began to smile.

"Never come back, Karyl Lohars," the head whispered. "And thank you for Vengeance us."

Karyl did not answer, but simply carried Jago Sevatarion away. The rainy night blurred his silhouette, making him appear both tall and short, as if he were merely a Shadow.

This chapter is in 4K format; there's one more chapter to go.