The Time Has Come

The time has come.

Looking down at Quintus is not a particularly enjoyable experience.

To Karyl, every corner of this city appears grotesque and terrifying. Although he is familiar with every inch of this place, he is not accustomed to it; he has never been able to get used to it.

What makes it worse is that this feeling intensifies when looking down from a great height. And yet, looking down is precisely one of the requirements of his work.

By comparison, it is as irritating as forcing someone with a fear of heights to fly a plane.

Accompanied by the foul, frigid wind, all these factors converge in a tacit understanding, roaring at Karyl with their own unique, overwhelming sense of presence.

"I see it, yes."

Karyl shakes his head and murmurs, offering his promise once more to the nameless departed. "I will not forget my vow."

Standing atop a grim spire, he begins to rub his fingers against his two blades.

Wraith is not behind him; he vanished fifteen minutes ago, dissolving completely into the night.

It took him only a day and a half to learn the techniques Karyl spent over a decade practicing, and he has mastered them entirely. By now, Wraith is fully worthy of his name.

A wraith of midnight.

If he so desires, no one could find him in such a pitch-black night. This is a great boon to his work. Furthermore, Wraith possesses terrifying strength and speed.

At this thought, Karyl smiles silently, a complex expression evident in his smile. His gaze drops; a straggler missed by Wraith is on the move.

He exhales softly, then stands up and begins to loosen his shoulders and arms.

The clicking of bones echoes incessantly, followed by subtle, sharp pains. Karyl frowns slightly, feeling a sense of helplessness, but it does not last long. He quickly returns to his expressionless state.

He is accustomed to endurance.

Moreover, these pains will not last much longer.

The time is near.

With a leap, Karyl jumps off the grim spire, skimming across the dark horizon like a ghost.

The biting, frigid wind carries countless tiny blades, viciously slicing at his face. Pain and numbness follow, soon beginning to torment his body, yet the Ghost remains indifferent.

He lands lightly, his feet touching the filthy ground and splashing a puddle of mud. The hem of his cloak sweeps across a dirty corner as he walks; two sharp blades emerge from his sleeves, and he approaches the patrolling gang members ahead, swift and silent.

Wraith missed him, but this time, it does not matter.

A flash of cold light passes, and blood gushes out. The victim's eyes widen, but the scream born of pain and terror never leaves his throat—his windpipe had been slashed open before he could utter a sound.

Two strikes, two wounds, a simple math problem. Taking a life with a flick of the arm is so simple it is terrifying.

Violence.

The Ghost sighs silently.

He withdraws his blades, supports the man, and carries him back to the corner. After closing the pair of lifeless eyes, Karyl tosses the corpse into a dark nook.

He does not need to clean up the blood left along the way; there are many creatures in the Underhive that crave it. He does not need to dispose of the body, either; the hungry beasts lurking in the darkness will naturally track the scent of blood.

A man-made ecosystem.

Cruel, efficient, and deeply challenging to the human moral baseline. Like Nostramo, it is like an absurd joke.

Karyl narrows his eyes, hearing the faint sound of running above. He moves to the side without a sound, and a second later, a dark shadow descends from the sky.

"Karyl," the shadow whispers. "I have finished."

"Well done, Wraith, but be more careful next time."

Karyl turns his head, pointing his blade at the corpse in the darkness: "The patrol routes must be fully confirmed; the fourth sentry you handled was on his patrol path."

Wraith bites his lip in frustration, wanting to say something, but Karyl speaks first.

"No, do not apologize."

"But, I—"

"—Do not apologize, Wraith."

Gazing into his eyes, Karyl shakes his head gently and slowly.

"You have officially begun your work, and you are gradually mastering the ropes. Therefore, do not apologize to me; I am not responsible for your work."

"Responsible?"

Wraith frowns in confusion, tilting his head, looking a bit dejected.

"But I didn't do my best, Karyl."

"Best is an absurd word, Wraith. Everyone defines it differently. You do not need to achieve what I consider the best; you only need to have a clear conscience."

As always, Wraith does not understand his meaning. But he commits these words firmly to memory.

Clear conscience. He chews on the strange phrase.

There is no equivalent in the Nostramo tongue, so Karyl used an eight-syllable compound to express his meaning precisely.

Wraith muttered it to himself, and in the next instant, he felt a sudden, eerie tremor.

The source of this sensation was impossible to trace, as if it had emerged from the void. Yet, Wraith had been struck by it in earnest; his breathing remained as quiet and cautious as ever, but the dead stillness in his eyes began to churn once more.

--Until a hand gripped his wrist.

Wraith trembled as he looked down, seeing two points of blue light flicker and vanish.

"You must learn to reject them, Wraith," Karyl said in a low voice. "This instinct—this talent, or curse—that allows you to glimpse the future briefly, it relies on you to exist. You are its master."

He released his grip and said calmly, "Master it, will you?"

Wraith nodded blankly, forgetting even to ask how Karyl knew he possessed such an ability.

Silence descended, the cold wind blew, and the empty alleyway was left devoid of shadows. In a filthy corner, a dense mass of shadows crawled over one another, and a moment later, the faint sound of chewing began.

Back atop the gargoyle, overlooking the plaza below, Karyl couldn't help but frown.

Their objective for the first half of the night was not this plaza, which was obviously intended for a public address; striking here now would be no different than alerting the enemy.

Before the main event began, using gangs on the other side of the city for practice was a far better choice.

After all, with The Great Purge looming, the gangs had all coincidentally imposed curfews within their territories, setting up guard posts and patrol routes.

"Their numbers are wrong."

Karyl spoke in a low voice, though there was no real need for him to vocalize his thought process. He knew this sort of thing by heart.

However, there was someone who needed this insight from the shadows.

That person was currently crouched behind the gargoyle, listening quietly.

"This deployment of firepower has nothing to do with security for a speech, Wraith. They clearly came with other intentions."

Karyl paused, fixing his gaze on the center of the plaza. An exquisite metal podium had appeared there at some point, the emblem of the Skolevok Family shimmering prominently on its front.

To go as far as making the emblem glow—how ostentatious. But to deploy so many men in advance...

Have they already sensed something?

Karyl narrowed his eyes, silently heightening his vigilance. He scanned the rooms with tightly shut windows once more, carefully and cautiously, followed by the empty plaza and every gloomy alleyway surrounding it.

Yet, he could find no other evidence.

Beyond the obvious discrepancy in numbers, nothing else supported his grim suspicion.

"Karyl?"

At that moment, Wraith spoke softly.

"What is it?"

"I feel," Wraith said hesitantly, "that something is wrong."

Karyl frowned sharply.

He certainly wouldn't take Wraith's "something is wrong" as a definitive conclusion about the situation below; Wraith had not yet learned how to discern the malice hidden within such minute details.

But that did not mean he would ignore Wraith's words.

"Is it acting up again?"

Karyl turned his head and asked sternly, "Two episodes in such a short time? Has there been a precedent for this, Wraith? How do you feel now?"

Before he could finish, blue light already ignited in his eyes.

"No, no!" Wraith hurriedly stopped him. "That's not it. I just feel like someone is—"

He didn't get the chance to finish.

Karyl saw Wraith's expression turn savage in that instant. The next moment, his perception of time slowed, and a single second shattered in a bizarre fashion.

Karyl could have left his position immediately. Yet, for some reason, he chose to stay put.

Wraith let out a low growl, thrust his right hand out with lightning speed to grab Karyl, and then leaped away with incredible velocity.

--And then, the shattered time snapped back together.

"Bang!"

A dull gunshot rang out, breaking the silence of the late night. The gangs below remained completely unresponsive.

A massive bullet streaked through the air, turning the gargoyle they had just been perched upon into flying, pulverized dust.

Wraith carried him away from the spot with a few rapid bounds. Karyl turned his head silently, just in time to see a pitch-black gun barrel retracting from beneath the podium.

Interesting.

He smiled silently.

Half a minute later, they stopped on the roof of a church a few hundred meters from the plaza. Wraith set him down and looked at him with concern, gasping for air, his heartbeat clearly audible.

He didn't speak, but the question was already written on his face.

And Karyl knew that, given Wraith's stamina, he wouldn't be exhausted by those few jumps.

"I'm fine," Karyl replied softly. "However, it seems the head of the Skolevok Family is not a very patient man, Wraith."

Wraith nodded in silence, failing to grasp the metaphor Karyl was driving at. His expression was visibly contorted, a slow-seeping rage flowing across his features.

"Calm yourself," Karyl said with a faint smile. "Do you remember what I taught you, Wraith?"

After a long silence, Wraith finally answered.

"Calmness is the deadliest weapon, save for the blade."

"Yes," Karyl said, tilting his head back. "Calmness is the deadliest weapon, save for the blade—but that saying actually has a second half."

"A second half?"

"Indeed."

The Ghost bared his teeth, answering Wraith's question with a forced, jagged grin. "Rage is sometimes even more terrifying, provided you know how to harness it."

He turned his head, a sharp blade already sliding out from his sleeve.

The time is near?

No, the time is at hand.

Standing at the edge of the cathedral, Karyl took a deep breath of the foul-smelling air. Wraith stood behind him, silent and wordless. The former was prepared and resolute, while the latter remained oblivious to it all.

The night was still long—long enough for many things to come to pass.