"Successful hunting comes down to one thing: silence."
Perched atop the massive bronze gargoyle, Wraith listened quietly to Karyl. He had indeed been born knowing a great deal, but not the things Karyl was talking about.
He was still too young to understand the rules governing the world beneath his feet. His innate knowledge only left him with more questions.
"As you can see, there are tens of thousands of gangs across Quintus. Their territories are divided with painstaking precision—even down to a single, unremarkable alley. That means if you're not quiet, the sounds of killing will reach the other gangs."
"But aren't they used to killing by now?" Wraith asked, puzzled. "Would they care about noises coming from another gang's turf?"
"Civilians and gang members make different sounds when they die, Wraith."
Karyl grinned, his smile cruel.
"When civilians die, they die. Few of them have much to live for, and plenty even kill themselves. Where do you think the corpse incinerators get all those bodies without many visible injuries? Do you think they all died of illness?"
"As for gang members, you've killed them. Tell me, Wraith, what do they sound like when they die?"
"Curses," Wraith replied after a moment's thought. "They curse me and say someone will avenge them."
"That's not all."
Karyl waved his left hand, his smile growing more pronounced against his pale face. "There's gunfire, too, Wraith. They'll keep firing. If you can't silence the noise like I can, you'd better stay quiet."
"Then why don't you silence the noise for me?"
"Because this is your solo hunt."
Karyl rolled his shoulders and neck, narrowing his eyes.
"Listen, one day I'm going to die. I'm just an ordinary man. I can't wave a hand and tear an armored vehicle apart like you can. And you, Wraith, clearly share a certain goal with me."
"So I'm going to teach you everything I know. That way, even if I die, you can change this damned place. If that happens, I'll be happy even after I'm gone."
Karyl finished and shrugged. Wraith listened quietly, his expression calm.
He kept nodding, but his face plainly revealed the truth: he still couldn't really understand what Karyl meant.
Once again, Kael Lohars was struck by the bitter irony of such innocence.
You naive little monster. Why did you have to appear on Nostramo of all places?
Karyl smiled and shook his head.
"Go," he said. "Take out a gang. Every last one of them."
Wraith went to the edge of the gargoyle. Just as he was about to leap, he suddenly stopped.
He turned back to Karyl. "Killing doesn't solve problems. That's what you told me."
"That's right."
"Then why do we keep purging these gangs?"
"Finish the job, and clear them out without the other gangs finding out. Then I'll tell you."
"Really?"
"I've never lied to you."
Wraith hesitated no longer. He nodded and leapt from the top of the gargoyle. Karyl watched him until the towering shadow vanished into the night, then sighed.
"Only eighteen months old," he muttered to himself. "What kind of deranged psychopath made this monster and then tossed him into Quintus?"
--
"The coroner for the Skraivok family is dead," said a bald man.
He had no lips, and countless piercings had made his face almost unbearable to look at.
He was bare-chested. Chains emerged from deep within the flesh of his wrists and ran down to his waist, giving him a bizarre and terrifying appearance.
The piercings were nothing unusual. Plenty of gang members liked to decorate their faces to set themselves apart. Body modification was no different; pain-loving freaks were everywhere here.
But the lips that had been cut away were the real problem.
They meant he belonged to Tremor-Tooth.
They meant he belonged to one of the noble families of the upper Hive City.
"I heard that woman had a custom metal arm powerful enough to punch a Sharp-Tooth Ox's head apart. How did she die?"
Another woman asked from within the candlelit room.
She wore a flamboyant white gown in layers. Her waist was slender, and her exposed chest was soft and pale. She looked lovely, but a necklace of delicately polished human bones hung over her chest.
The bald man shot her an impatient look and spoke harshly.
"Are you just making conversation, Guvas? Everyone knows the Skraivok family is rolling in wealth. If you're willing to be their dog, you can have anything. Does it matter who killed her? What matters is where her body is!"
"Oh, who knows, Konjar. Maybe I really am just making conversation. But you'd better speak to me more politely."
The woman smiled seductively, her blood-red lips slowly parting.
"I've just acquired a batch of hallucinogens from the upper levels. If you don't want to wake up one day to find your own men hanging you up to flay you, you'd better show me some respect."
The bald man called Konjar snorted. He raised his right hand and stroked his exposed teeth. With his free left hand, he kept piercing the flesh of his thigh with his sharp fingers.
He needed a little physical pleasure to remind himself not to lose control.
"That's enough."
The third person in the hall, who had been silent until now, finally spoke. Compared to Guvas's extravagant court gown and Konjar's brutal body modifications, he looked like the only normal person in the room, dressed all in black.
He said expressionlessly, "We have nothing to do with the Skraivok family. This isn't our problem."
"But the Skraivok family has always paid well, Prey," Konjar said. "Shouldn't we get a piece of the action?"
"Anyone bold enough to murder a Skraivok family coroner on the eve of the Great Purge is beyond our reach."
Prey shook his head calmly.
"And even if we're lucky enough to find her body, how are we going to deal with the trouble the Skraivok family will cause afterward? Of course they'll want to know who murdered their coroner."
Konjar nodded thoughtfully, a stark contrast to his earlier irritability with Guvas.
"So, are we declaring a curfew?" the beautiful Guvas asked.
She narrowed her eyes as she spoke and took a syringe-like device from the handbag on the table.
Through its transparent casing, the disorienting crimson liquid inside was clearly visible.
"Not yet—and use less of that. Type III Blood Mixture is far too addictive. You'll fry your brain. Look at your lips. You're already addicted to human blood, aren't you?"
Guvas licked her lips, savoring the taste of blood, and nodded absentmindedly.
Just looking at the syringe made her vision grow hazy. Her breathing quickened, and her cheeks flushed.
Konjar, watching from the side, sneered.
That was what happened to Type III Blood Mixture addicts. Without warning, at any moment, they could be swept up in a sudden surge of craving.
Unless they drank their fill of blood or injected a syringe of Type III, the frenzied state could last for days.
At the sight, Prey irritably picked up a gold-trimmed plate from the long table and flung it at Guvas, knocking the syringe from her hand.
The woman's first reaction wasn't anger. Instinctively, she pounced like a dog and groped frantically across the carpet, trying to find the syringe.
She kept at it until a black leather boot pinned her right hand to the floor.
Guvas looked up and saw Prey's expressionless face.
"I never should've agreed to let you deal in hallucinogens," Prey said quietly, bearing down with his left foot and grinding it hard into Guvas's palm.
Konjar grinned. Guvas was pale with pain, but she didn't dare move.
"You have no self-control at all. That would be bad enough on an ordinary day, but this is a matter of life and death, and you're still thinking about taking a hit?"
Prey kicked her hard, sending her flying to the other side of the long table. At last, he lost his temper and cursed her out.
"Forget about which damn lunatic family sent the Vengeful Spirit as their private army. Think about the priest and Razor! They were torn to pieces and dumped in that damned church, and we even have to clean it up!"
"The Great Purge is coming soon, Guvas!"
Prey rose from his chair and glared fiercely at the bleeding woman. But instead of trying to stop the bleeding, she kept touching her nose with both hands and bringing the blood to her lips.
Her face was rapt with bliss.
A trace of undisguised disappointment finally crossed Prey's face.
He looked at Guvas and spoke again. As a result, he missed a shadow that flashed past the window, and ignored the faint sounds that kept coming from the rain.
They sounded like flesh being torn apart.
"Konjar has connections with Tremor-Tooth. That means we finally won't have to pay our way through this Great Purge. And you're so deep in hallucinogens you can't pull yourself out—"
"Look at yourself. Even a black-lunged factory worker dying of disease is better than you—"
"...Prey?"
Konjar blinked, unsure why Prey had stopped.
He was certainly glad to see Guvas punished, or even stripped of her authority and thrown out of the gang. He'd have been more than happy to teach the hallucinogen dealer a lesson. But Prey's sudden pause brought everything to a halt.
He turned to look at Prey. Then his eyes widened.
He couldn't see Prey.
More precisely, he couldn't see Prey's head.
A headless body swayed by the window. The sour rain poured in, yet they hadn't noticed when the window had opened.
Konjar sprang to his feet, reaching for his gun as he tried to shout for the gang members waiting outside to come help.
Unfortunately, he was never going to manage it.
A long, pale arm had already seized him by the throat.
"Goodbye," Wraith said politely. "By the way, your window is very easy to open."
A dull thud followed. The last thing Konjar saw in his life was a length of white bone stained with scarlet blood.
Half a second later, as his consciousness began to fade into darkness, he finally recognized the bone.
It was a section of spine.
Whose was it?
With that question in mind, he sank into eternal darkness.
Wraith dropped the head, still attached to a length of spine, and turned to look at the only one left in the room: Guvas.
He'd heard the three gang leaders' conversation clearly from outside. He knew her name, and he knew she was addicted to blood.
In fact, he could have figured out the latter just by watching what she was doing.
No normal person would crouch over a companion's corpse and ravenously suck at its blood.
Wraith walked over without a shred of pity.
Outside the window, the downpour continued.
Before you continue