Climbing.
Ten thousand meters in the air.
Karyl clenched his hands and felt along the edge of the building, searching for a good handhold.
The building's cold, rough exterior made his fingers ache. His palms did, too. But he was used to it.
Friction was an unavoidable part of climbing, just as blood inevitably stained your palm when you swung a blade.
The wind howled.
The higher he climbed, the stronger it blew. It seemed to be warning Karyl off in a relatively gentle way, hoping he would know when to quit.
Karyl didn't answer. He merely breathed out and glanced down.
Thin clouds had already veiled Quintus from his current vantage point. The city seemed dreamlike and strange, its neon lights torn apart by distance and reflected in Karyl's retinas as glowing halos.
All he could hear was the howling wind and a strange echo from inside the immense spire. Karyl knew it was the sound of machinery at work.
Shadow's memories held many things, including the strict security at the junction between the Underhive and the upper levels, as well as the exact locations of these machines. The spire belonged to the Skolevok Family. Shadow had every reason to know it well.
A pitiful creation, its flesh covered in metal by others, its feelings and understanding blurred.
A slave who had never owned his own life, regarded by others as a precious, replaceable commodity.
A sharp blade in the hands of a monster, stained with blood by foul means.
"No," Karyl said quietly. "After tonight, you won't have to anymore."
He continued upward, moving lightly and nimbly.
He had never felt so full of strength and stamina. The pitiful nutrients in the nutrient paste had never made this body so strong.
Now, he only needed to push off lightly to leap three or four meters upward. Even the biting wind could no longer affect him.
It was unbelievable.
Karyl knew this was definitely one of the side effects of that power. He had loosened his restraints, and now it was dancing through his body.
The increased strength and stamina might only be part of its reward.
But in some ancient fables, good fortune and wealth that came for no reason usually came from the devil. The more you gained, the more you would eventually lose.
After climbing another three hundred meters, he reached a small circular platform. Twelve enormous machines hummed around it, regulating the temperature and purifying the air.
Karyl had seen many platforms like this. This was the only one worth stopping at.
Standing at the edge of the platform, Karyl took off his cloak and casually dropped it into the void. It quickly vanished into the thin clouds below, leaving no trace behind.
He stared into the emptiness and fell silent for a moment, then suddenly chuckled and shook his head.
"I'll help you finish your Vengeance, too."
Muttering to himself, he rolled up his right sleeve, revealing the tattoo of House Lohars, which seemed to be dripping blood.
In Nostramo, a noble family that had been wiped out was nothing worth mentioning. Once they lost their power, few people would remember their name.
But even while they were alive, few people remembered the workers of the Underhive.
What an ironic contrast.
Karyl closed his eyes and took a few brief, deep breaths. When he opened them again, an icy blue glow had replaced the black, becoming the only color left in his eye sockets.
Then he walked straight into the wall, like a real Ghost.
A spear had pierced through a man's chest and abdomen, impaling him completely.
He lay expressionless upon a great stone, its surface drenched in his blood. Light poured down from the sky, illuminating him, while all around him was darkness. Countless hungry eyes waited within it, eager and ravenous.
Mantas Skraivok gazed at the painting and shook his head gently.
"Our ancestors had truly appalling taste in art."
He spoke to himself. "Whoever painted this should have been executed, and the painting destroyed immediately. It should not have been preserved until today."
After saying this, he paused deliberately and glanced toward the darkness in the corner of his study.
Mantas Skraivok fell silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed.
In the past, Shadow would have answered him during that brief pause. That was how he had picked up this little habit.
He shook his head with a smile and slowly returned to his desk.
Several documents lay upon it, their difficult-to-read cursive letters elegantly linked together. Bright red ink flowed quietly across the pale parchment.
They had been left out long enough to set. A slight rub would no longer make the words bleed into one another and turn into a mess.
Mantas Skraivok picked up the first document. He spent a few minutes checking the paper he had written himself, then put it back, already losing interest.
The deal with Tremor-Tooth had been settled. From then on, only three noble houses in Quintus remained for the Skolevok Family to deal with.
And in twelve hours, the Great Purge would arrive ahead of schedule.
There was no way those three families could match the Skolevok Family's strength at this point. They could only suffer heavy losses in Quintus and then slink away from the competition.
At the thought, Mantas couldn't help sneering. He was already looking forward to the opening of the noble council in half a month.
Then, he would make a perfectly reasonable and legal demand for compensation at the council. If they refused—
No. There was no "if."
He burst out laughing.
They had to agree. They had no other choice.
But my children...
Count Tattoo closed his eyes and sighed in his expensive, comfortable chair.
There had been seventeen to begin with. Twenty years later, there were only three.
Now, the number was zero.
Zero.
It could mean starting from scratch, or it could mean losing all one's wealth.
At that moment, Mantas Skraivok was more inclined to believe the latter.
Deep furrows formed between his brows. This matter had to be investigated thoroughly. The culprit would be executed in front of everyone, and whoever was behind it would have to pay a terrible price.
He opened his eyes impassively, bringing his thoughts to an end. Then he rose, intending to leave the study and get some rest. The night was still long, and he had no intention of waiting any longer.
After all, Shadow never failed.
He reached the study door and pushed it open. Its hinges were meticulously maintained every day, and the gilded door swung open easily under his hand, meeting no resistance.
The servants could only touch their foreheads to its surface and wait for the built-in mechanism to slide it open automatically. But Mantas Skraivok preferred doing things himself. Taking matters into his own hands was one of his trademarks.
He entered the long corridor and walked slowly, as if out for a stroll.
The lights came on of their own accord, bathing the corridor in a soft, warm yellow glow. Even the ancestors glaring out from their portraits seemed gentler. In Mantas's eyes, they were looking at him with pride.
He couldn't help smiling.
Yes, you should be proud of me.
In my lifetime, I will make the Skolevok Family the only noble house in Nostramo. Everyone else will bow before us.
My ancestors, you will surely cheer for me.
Even his frustration at losing the heirs he had so carefully raised was swept away by this feeling. He smiled as he walked down the corridor, only to be splashed with scalding blood at the next corner.
Mantas Skraivok's right hand jerked.
What was going on?
"Oh, good evening."
A gentle voice came from the darkness, carrying a hint of sincere apology.
"I didn't mean to splash blood on your clothes. You just arrived at a rather inconvenient time. I've only just finished dealing with the last hidden sentry."
"You really are suspicious, though. You've kept so many traps, mechanisms, and security measures inside a spire that belongs entirely to you."
"You—"
Mantas Skraivok began in shock and fury, but was immediately cut off.
"Shh."
A blood-covered, icy hand suddenly reached out from the darkness. With tremendous force, it clamped Mantas's jaw shut, its middle finger and thumb settling just so against his cheek.
Then the hand's owner squeezed gently.
With a sharp crack, Mantas Skraivok was seized by sudden pain.
His jaw sagged, held in place only by stubborn muscles resisting gravity. His nerves burned as if on fire.
Mantas's body jerked. Instinctively, he tried to cry out, but a blade plunged into his throat the next moment.
The blade came back out, followed by an icy gust that tore through his mouth. The blood about to gush from his wound froze, too.
It became a column of blood studded with countless tiny icicles, continuing to injure its owner.
Mantas Skraivok abruptly dropped to his knees. He was no one from Tremor-Tooth, obsessed with physical pleasures, and his tolerance for pain was nothing special. He was already in too much pain to stand.
"Shh," the voice said gently. "It's late. Everyone's asleep. Keep it down, all right?"
At this, Mantas raised his trembling head. Fury drove him to do it, briefly drowning out the pain.
He had to see the face of the man who dared to act so brazenly.
At the same time, he was still trying to figure out how to turn the tables.
This skilled assassin was clearly from another family, just like the Skolevok Family's Shadow—a trump card belonging to each house.
He also seemed familiar with the family's layout and had a strange sense of humor. The latter was easy to explain: he was simply mentally ill. Shadow was, too. Perhaps all "Shadows" had something wrong with them.
But how could he explain the former? Especially the timing of the assassination—it had happened on the very day Shadow left.
No, wait. How had he bypassed the spire's layers of security?
I didn't hear a single gunshot. Did all the sentry robots fail? What about the built-in alarm system? Why hadn't it sounded?!
Could there be a traitor? Had someone colluded with another family to assassinate me at this time? Tremor-Tooth? That was very likely. They could have guessed I would make a move...
"Don't bother, Count."
The voice in the darkness spoke as its owner crouched down, allowing Mantas to see his face more clearly.
It was a pale face.
His brows and eyes were somber, his nose high-bridged. He wore a gentle, almost tender smile.
"You won't guess the truth unless I tell you. Those guesses of yours are pointless. Of course, if they distract you and help you ignore the pain for a little while, I don't mind."
Mantas opened his mouth and angrily forced a broken sound from his throat. It sounded like a whimper, and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.
"No, I'm not an assassin. Killing you wasn't my main reason for coming here."
Karyl patiently explained. He crouched beside the kneeling Earl, relaxed, as if chatting with an old friend.
If you ignored who they were and where they were, someone might well have thought they were friends.
After all, Mantas Skraivok had answered Karyl's question with no more than a few whimpers.
"You see, Count, you have your own rules for how the world should work."
"You turn everything into a simple exchange of interests. Some of you may prefer a brief moment of physical pleasure, but interest is still the main thing."
"I like the idea of using rules to make the world run. But your rules..."
Karyl sighed softly.
He reached out with his right hand, grabbed Mantas by the jaw, and dragged him toward the other end of the corridor.
Pain followed. Mantas struck at the icy hand, cold as a corpse, but it did no good.
He couldn't even bite through its fingers. His jaw was now useful for nothing but causing him pain.
As they lurched and turned through the corridor, Karyl moved with extreme familiarity, as if he had lived here for decades.
Even then, he didn't forget to finish what he had been saying to Mantas Skraivok.
"...Your rules are so rotten that even someone like me, who should have no reason to care, can't stand them. Do you know what that feels like, Count?"
Karyl shook his head, swung his arm, and hurled the Skolevok Family's supreme Earl into a room.
The door had already been opened. The Earl spun through it and crashed into a jumble of tables and chairs.
He lay on the floor in unbearable pain, his vision spinning and his mind a blur.
He had won the title of Earl through his wits. He had sent all thirty-two of his siblings who competed against him into death traps. He didn't like using violence, either. It was too crude.
So although he still wanted to get up and fight back, his body wouldn't obey him.
Karyl ignored him, wiped the blood on his clothes, and closed the door.
Then he dragged over a chair, sat down in front of Mantas Skraivok, tilted his head at him, and waited patiently.
This is so easy, Karyl thought. He had loosened his restraints and thrown away the rules. Was it really that easy to make a ringleader poisoning the Hive City suffer like this?
He couldn't help laughing.
Yes, killing was easy.
Humans were born knowing how to use violence, and he was no exception. Violence could achieve a goal faster than anything else. But what came after?
Mantas Skraivok shakily got to his feet, interrupting Karyl's thoughts.
He glanced at Karyl, then pulled over a chair and sat down himself. As he did, his gaze swept over the tattoo on Karyl's exposed right wrist.
He narrowed his eyes.
Karyl noticed.
Mantas Skraivok took a deep breath and slowly raised both hands, trying to find a way to fix his dislocated jaw.
Just then, a tattooed hand reached out, its icy touch brushing his cheek.
The wound and pain vanished.
Count Tattoo's cheek twitched.
"Surprised?" Karyl asked.
"A little," Mantas Skraivok answered quietly.
"Are you surprised by this power of mine, or by my identity?"
"Both."
Count Tattoo shook his head, looking somewhat moved.
He was strangely relaxed now, leaning back in his chair. The change in his posture made Karyl smile silently.
He could roughly guess what Count Tattoo was thinking.
"You're still alive, Karyl Lohars," Mantas Skraivok said quietly.
Karyl didn't answer. He knew Mantas still had plenty to say.
For a dying man, he was willing to offer a little respect.
"You came here to ask me about the truth of what happened back then, didn't you?"
Mantas Skraivok spoke slowly.
"That's right. It was that traitor who brought your family to ruin. Since he's dead, I assume someone has already told you?"
Karyl still didn't answer.
Mantas brushed past the matter without showing a reaction and continued. Still, he rapidly considered the answer to the question in his mind.
"Your father, Gaius Lohars, begged us to spare you in exchange for the location of your family's hidden treasure. That inhuman executioner asked, in the final moments of his life, that we leave his son a way out. We agreed."
Mantas held Karyl's gaze and paused, intending to use the moment to observe every reaction Karyl might have.
"Was that way out to throw a seven-year-old child and two daggers from House Lohars into the Underhive?" Karyl asked with a laugh.
"You can't ask for more than that," Mantas replied calmly.
"The crime of murdering an Earl should have meant death for all of you. Even the traitor's name was erased. Afterward, he lived in the Underhive as an obscure priest, far removed from the life a noble should have had."
"But he still lived better than the people of the Underhive."
Karyl laughed and shook his head. "You don't know the whole story, Earl. That traitor you forced into the Underhive could still throw his weight around there. Frankly, he was still a noble. He just lived in the Underhive."
Inevitable—Mantas Skraivok frowned.
He hadn't gotten the reaction he wanted.
That meant he would have to overturn all his assumptions about Karyl Lohars. Karyl hadn't come for personal gain. At least so far, this descendant of House Lohars hadn't shown any desire to reclaim his name and standing.
More importantly, Karyl Lohars had survived.
That meant one of the families involved in the conspiracy had secretly protected him and raised him.
It also meant that, in their telling, Mantas Skraivok must be the source of all their hatred.
And that was true enough.
Mantas really had orchestrated the destruction of House Lohars.
But why did Karyl Lohars seem so indifferent now? He could even laugh so easily. Mantas could tell that his laughter wasn't an act.
He couldn't help swallowing, his saliva still tasting of blood. Somehow, the upper hand in the conversation had changed hands once again.
"Are you confused?" Karyl asked softly.
"But, as I said, Earl, unless I tell you, there's no way you'll ever guess the truth."
"You seem very confident, descendant of House Lohars," Mantas said gravely.
"Mm, I'm not actually confident," Karyl said. "I just know what I'm going to do."
"What are you going to do?"
Karyl smiled faintly and stood. Silver flashed at his wrists as he raised his hands, two blades spinning into his palms, gripped in reverse.
Then he turned and threw them. The blades punched through the air with tremendous force, shrieking ominously. They pierced the thick wall in an instant, followed by the clatter of machinery starting up.
Then another section of wall abruptly swung open, revealing a massive black machine.
Mantas Skraivok's expression changed dramatically.
Nostramo's nobles had many ways to communicate with one another. They could send messengers, deliver letters, or use a communications system for convenient, if undignified, instant messaging.
Among all these methods, one was used only in emergencies.
"You see, Earl, I know a lot of things. I know how you indulge yourselves. I know how you murder one another. And this, without a doubt, is the most interesting thing I know."
Karyl burst into laughter, his voice echoing through the room.
"What are you going to do?" Mantas asked, leaning forward and gripping the armrests.
It was the first time he'd felt that he'd lost control of the situation—not even when he'd been dragged down the corridor had he felt this way. A terrible unease began to well up inside him, then gnaw at his heart.
"What do you think?" Karyl countered. "What do you think I'm going to do? Weren't you so confident just now, Earl? Didn't you think this descendant of House Lohars had come to take revenge on you?"
"Isn't that right?!"
"No, it isn't, Earl. You're not worth all this effort, all this sacrifice."
Karyl turned and slowly approached the machine. "The descendant of House Lohars died long ago, Earl. The one standing before you now is just a Ghost."
"What are you going to do, Karyl Lohars?!"
The Ghost stopped and looked back, smiling gently as a piercing blue light shone in his eyes.
He answered softly, his words ringing out in a language utterly unlike Nostraman.
"I'm going to set it all on fire, Earl. I'm going to burn you damn beasts alive. I've had enough."
On a cold night, a voice suddenly rang out in the Upper Hive of Nostramo.
It came from afar, hissing through ancient machines in the night. It passed through the nobles' splendid, sinister courts, through the gloomy dungeons steeped in blood, through vaults piled high with gold and silver treasures.
At last, it reached the ears of every noble.
At that moment, whether they were asleep in bed or dancing slowly to soft music in their human skins, they all heard the gentle voice.
"Nobles."
"Lords of the Eternal Night Court."
"Good evening."
"Remember my voice, and be ready. You can flee, fight back, or hide. Do whatever you like. But I will put an end to everything tonight."
"Of course, there's one last thing..."
A quiet laugh sounded, circling in their ears with a chill and madness from some unknown source. It grew louder and louder, like thunder.
"Remember, I'm coming for you."
Before you continue