Working on a Rainy Night

Philosophy is one of the catalysts for mental instability, but reality is far more terrifying.

Karyl lowered his head, a nauseating, blended stench filling his nasal cavity.

He knew exactly where the smell originated—in the shantytown three hundred meters away, where workers were burning corpses.

The emaciated bodies of laborers who had coughed their lives away on roadside cots were piled up and incinerated one by one.

When human muscle and tissue burn, they resemble the beef from Karyl's distant memories; the fat feels greasy, and the skin crackles like burning charcoal.

Hair is the most foul, smelling like sulfur multiplied several times over. The process usually begins with the scent of charcoal and sulfur, followed by muscle tissue. By the time the internal organs are reached, the stench becomes exceptionally putrid.

Karyl looked away, and the raging bonfire vanished from his sight.

The workers would not eat those corpses, but that did not mean no one had tried; it was simply that those who had were now dead.

Nowadays, they merely consumed their rations while watching the scene. As their own kind crackled in the pyre, hundreds of dark shadows ate their nutrient paste amidst the dilapidated shanties and streets.

Once you have seen such a sight, you never forget it.

He turned, leaped, and began to sprint through the darkness. The Great Purge was seven days away, and the gangs were becoming increasingly restless, especially within Quintus.

The streets were crawling with thugs patrolling their territories with predatory eyes, while leaders held tense negotiations in basements or high-rises.

The existence of the Vengeful Spirit was no longer a secret; Karyl had been uncharacteristically high-profile lately, even deliberately leaving behind evidence of his presence.

However, that was not what concerned the gangs most at the moment. Their agitation stemmed from the fall of the Skolevok Family.

The Skolevok Family, which had intended to seize control of the entire Hive City once and for all, had been destroyed—a fact the gangs had learned through their own intelligence channels.

At a time when the vast majority of medium and large gangs had sworn fealty to the Skolevok Family, this explosive and terrifying truth was enough to break their hearts.

Of course, misfortunes never came singly.

It was not as if no gangs had tried to defect to other major families, but the news they received plunged everyone into a chilling silence.

There were no longer any so-called "major families."

Every family capable of promising a future to the gangs had died in a single night, and the remaining nobles were currently busy tearing each other apart, scrambling for territory.

The Upper Hive had never been so chaotic; the once-quiet nights were now utterly shattered, and nobles draped in silk and smeared with powder brandished firearms, excitedly looting vacant titles and positions.

As for the Great Purge in the Underhive and the desires of the gangs?

Who cared?

Even the gangs themselves did not know if the Great Purge would proceed as scheduled in seven days. They knew what that day represented and had been preparing feverishly, but—

If the noble houses that initiated it had vanished, was there any point in holding the event?

If they were to ask Karyl, he would tell them: yes.

There was every reason.

He vaulted over a silver spire and casually patted the Thirteenth Gargoyle of the Night Haunter, treating it as a greeting.

The iron monster stared silently into the darkness as he vanished. Half a minute later, a drop of murky rain fell from the heights, shattering against its head. Faint, sporadic gunfire echoed from three blocks away.

The gargoyle remained unmoved.

It was raining.

This fact made Charles, who was on patrol, feel incredibly irritable. He did not like rainy days; he never had. Even though it rained in Quintus nearly five days a week, he simply did not like it.

In the past, he would complain about this incessantly to his only friend.

"The rain makes the air so damp, don't you think, Mao?"

He would drone on and on until Mao couldn't help but point a gun at him to make him shut up; only then would he be satisfied.

He loved the way his only friend pointed a gun at him—no reason, he just did.

At this thought, the pale young man gave a neurotic laugh.

A bizarre muscle twitch, born from a face ravaged by chemical agents, manifested the next second. His smile began to widen until it became a terrifying spasm.

"Damn it."

He muttered, and without hesitation, punched himself hard in the nose—a gruesome act that, aside from crookedly breaking his nose and drawing blood, stopped the spasms on his face.

Charles shook his head helplessly, pulled a syringe from his pocket, and injected himself.

The murky chemical agent vanished into the syringe bit by bit, followed by heightened senses and chaotic perceptions. Time stretched in his perception; Charles shook his head unconsciously and leaned against the wall, beginning to bang the back of his skull against it.

If he could turn back the clock a year, he wouldn't have liked injecting this drug known as "Quick," but he had no choice.

Injecting it and surviving the subsequent symptoms was the only condition for joining his gang. A year later, if he didn't inject a dose of Quick every six hours, he would suffer muscle spasms.

"Mao, I hate the rain so much," he muttered, leaning against the wall.

Even though he was slamming his head against the wall, Charles felt no pain at all.

He continued to mutter, a ceaseless, low sound bubbling in his throat. His eyes rolled back, and he leaned against the edge of the wall in a near-unconscious state—he was almost forgetting who he was.

That was what Quick did; it made you forget your own name. His fingers began to twitch neurotically, and a familiar sensation returned—the sensation of the first time he had killed someone.

He slit a man's throat with his blade, then tore it open. The sticky sensation of flesh and blood left Charles indifferent; he just wanted to get it over with quickly.

Wait, who is Charles?

"Mao, I want to die. Joining a gang is so boring."

He heard someone say in a low voice. "Aside from killing, it's just more killing. What's the point of it all? I just want to dress a little better and eat a little better. I don't want to do Quick."

"Quick?" a voice asked.

The man named Charles nodded unconsciously, his nose bleeding. The blood trickled out, mingling with the rain, tracing lines down his shattered face.

His consciousness and vision had been ravaged by Quick to a point of near-irreversibility; he wouldn't return to normal until the drug wore off.

Therefore, he had no idea who was speaking to him.

"Quick," the shattered consciousness said. "Quick, I hate it so much."

"I think I can see why," the voice said lowly.

The torrential rain hammered against the buildings overhead, shattering and disintegrating into a deafening roar. The filth on the road was gradually washed away by the acid rain, but it wouldn't be long before the rain created new grime.

Round and round it goes, nothing more than that.

"I want to die, Mao," the shattered consciousness said. "I can't go on living. I don't want to kill, I really don't."

"Do you really want to die?" the voice asked. "The process of death is not pleasant, and for someone like you, the end cannot be called rest."

"Who's talking?" the shattered consciousness asked suspiciously.

He was still banging his head against the wall; the back of his skull was already bleeding, and the cracks in the brickwork were filled with his blood.

"Does it matter?" the voice asked. "You just want to die."

"Ah, yeah."

The shattered consciousness answered unconsciously—he had no concept of where he was, nor did he know who was speaking to him. But he wasn't lying.

He was too dazed to lie.

"I want to die," he said. "Anyone, kill me. And kill Quick, too."

"Quick is a chemical agent; it has no life."

The low voice spoke through the curtain of rain. "I can only kill things that have life."

"Life?"

"Life."

"Then what about me? Do I have life?"

In the heavy rain, Karyl stared at the person who had asked the question.

He had a pale face, the bruises left by violence stark upon it. Blood was still dripping from his nose, his eyes vacant, nothing existing within those pitch-black pupils. The corners of his mouth twitched neurotically as he continued to bang the back of his head against the wall.

A microcosm.

"You used to," Karyl said.

He reached out, and a dull thud followed. A corpse collapsed to the ground; still under the influence of Quick before he died, he would never know who had killed him.

In fact, he hadn't known anything to begin with.

Karyl looked up, glancing at the sky fragmented by stacked buildings and neon lights, and left the alley.

He had four gangs to deal with tonight; the number was carefully calculated. He would finish everything within six hours and end his work for the day.

In truth, if anyone had investigated his movements, they would have discovered one thing.

Ever since two scions of the Skolevok Family were hung from the high tower of the Glory Warlords, gangs had been disappearing silently every day along that twenty-five-story tower.

If things continued at the current pace, by the day the Great Purge arrived, there would be no gangs left within four blocks of the tower.

Efficiency is always important, Karyl thought.

He crashed through the curtain of rain and stepped into a low-rise building. The floor vibrated with music, and the air was thick with the clamor of voices. A narrow corridor stretched downward before him, the walls filthy, covered in glowing graffiti made of blood and grime.

The stench caused by the gathering of too many people permeated the air, mingling with the scent of acid rain to create a terrifying, jarring odor.

Karyl, however, remained indifferent.

A cold blue light flashed in his eyes, and the walls began to twist. The building materials composing them melted within seconds, turning into boiling, scorching liquid, yet the structural foundation of the building remained unaffected.

Karyl closed his eyes.

Now, the corridor could accommodate him.

Opening his eyes, he walked inside.

The night was still long, but not for much longer.