The sky was pitch-black, as it always was. The rain was the same, falling without end as usual. It rained often on Nostramo, but there was no thunder or lightning, only a frenzied curtain of torrential rain.
On Nostramo, that was what rain was like. It did not come from nature. It was wastewater dumped down from the Upper Hive by the nobles.
Among the tiered spires, countless heaters waited patiently.
They had no awareness, but they had been programmed. All their lives, they waited for this rain, waiting for it to become condensed mist. In the final moments of its life, the rain would rise again, little by little, in another form.
It would pass through ancient machines and be quietly transported through rumbling pipes, eventually becoming the heating that kept the nobles warm, allowing them to dance gracefully through their splendid courts wearing nothing but their own skin, without losing their composure.
This was the best description of Nostramo's ecosystem: all the benefits went to the nobles, while the people of the Underhive were left to have their skin seared by acid rain, be surrounded by stench, and eventually rot into corpses in the gutters.
Karyl was still crouched atop that enormous Gargoyle. His cloak protected him from the acid rain. The smell was still sour and foul, but it was bearable.
He gazed down at the chaos below, and a cold smile spread across his pale face.
Just as he had expected, Wraith had made the same mistake every novice hunter made—he had focused only on the enemies in front of him and forgotten to watch those still lurking in the darkness.
Carelessness was always the greatest enemy.
Hunters could come and go in the dark, but that did not mean the darkness welcomed them. In fact, at times, the darkness itself became a monster, devouring their flesh and blood.
Karyl rose to his feet, his cloak fluttering slightly in the wind. He had no intention of helping. He simply watched with cold detachment.
Just as he had said, this was a hunt that belonged to Wraith alone.
But—
He shook his head with a sneer, a glint of icy blue flashing briefly in his eyes.
Run.
Wraith leaped back and forth between dark, damp walls. Using both hands and feet, he climbed one rooftop after another, jumping incessantly across tiles slick with rain.
Sometimes, nervous, fearful whispers came from beneath the tiles under his feet. But most of the time, bullets were there to greet him.
Now and then, he dropped down into a heap of trash or a patch of filthy mud, then clambered out in a sorry state and kept running.
He did not stop for a moment.
But it was no use. His pursuers had been chasing him for most of the night, and so far, they showed no sign of stopping.
They pursued him relentlessly, speeding along the streets in a two-wheeled vehicle. Wraith did not know what it was called, and honestly, he could not be bothered to care. He had more urgent things to deal with.
Gunshots erupted through the curtain of rain, never letting up.
Bullets whistled past him. Several times, they flew so close they grazed his scalp.
Raucous shouts rose from the streets below, mingling with the roar of engines. By the time they passed through the rain and reached Wraith's ears, they no longer sounded human.
Wraith did not understand.
He did not understand why they were so persistent, or why they were so crazed. He understood even less how they could still have such good eyesight while constantly using drugs.
But—
Wraith thought Karyl had been right.
He really should have stayed quiet.
He had killed the woman, but there were more to kill. Karyl had told him to clean out the entire gang. So he had walked out of that room and begun killing his way through the gloomy, three-story building.
Everything had gone smoothly. No one had noticed him. He had been like a breeze passing through the corridors, carrying away the warmth of life. But he had forgotten one thing.
He had forgotten to close the window.
The storm roared inside, and the wind blew the window back and forth, banging it against the wall. The floor gradually grew slick with the sour, foul rain, which mixed with the blood and seeped under the carpet, eventually soaking through the floorboards and falling onto the head of someone below.
That was when things began to go wrong.
The moment alarms and shouts pierced the night, Wraith realized something was about to happen. His instincts were always right. He immediately chose to leave, but it was already too late.
He had been discovered.
At first, there were only a few scattered pursuers. Within minutes, their numbers had grown to more than thirty.
Half an hour later, there were hundreds. And now, Wraith reckoned at least four gangs were chasing him.
They did not even know what had happened, but they enjoyed exercising their violence.
It was a privilege bestowed upon them, the opposite of oppression, the end of suffering.
They threw themselves into it with satisfaction, sprinting through the night for the flesh of someone they had never even met, shouting excitedly as they slaughtered every innocent person they encountered along the way.
There was no reason behind it.
It was like a carnival, and he was not one of its participants. He was its prize, so he ran.
Every human had to learn to walk, then learn to run, and he was no exception. He had learned to run long ago, entirely on his own.
In the past, his superhuman stamina had meant he never felt tired from running.
Now, Wraith felt it.
Breathing grew difficult, and his heart beat so fast that he could barely keep his balance between strides.
His hearing began to fade, leaving only a monotonous noise. Rain fell from the sky, soaking his clothes and tracing winding lines across his pale skin.
Some of it even ran past the corners of his eyes and dripped from his chin. It would have caused ordinary people a searing pain, but all Wraith felt was warmth.
But he did not want that. He did not want the rain to warm him.
As he ran, Wraith let out a low growl without meaning to.
It rose from his throat, yet it was unfamiliar to him. For the first second after the sound emerged, he even mistook it for a monster roaring at him in the darkness.
Only the next second did he realize it was his own voice.
—Then came the pain.
It surged from his back, hurting like hell, so badly that he could hardly fight back, breathe, or keep his thoughts clear.
He could no longer keep his balance. His hands flailed through the rain, and then he crashed down hard onto an asphalt-covered rooftop.
I'm bleeding. Wraith thought in agony.
He could not ignore that cruel fact. In a way, blood was no different from life. He valued it, but could do nothing to stop it from leaving him.
In a daze, Wraith could almost hear their voices.
"Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Foolish child, we're leaving you. The darkness will embrace you. Welcome it."
No. Don't go. Please.
Wraith let out another muffled growl.
This was not the first time he had been hit by a bullet.
Long ago, when Wraith had survived on rats in a mine, the owner of the mine had shot him with a shoddy firearm.
In the seconds after the projectile touched his flesh and brought him pain, Wraith—who could not even speak at the time—had realized that he was being shot.
He had not even needed to think. The realization had simply appeared in his mind. Then came more cold terms: the type of gun that had shot him, the bullet's caliber, what he needed to do after being wounded—
This time was no different.
As he lay on the cold rooftop, several obscure terms surfaced in his mind. One of them was something he desperately needed now, but Wraith ignored them. He only wanted to get up and keep running.
That was the biggest mistake he had made tonight.
I have to leave.
I have to. Get away from the darkness.
His thoughts were in disarray, so it was only after a forceful tug and pain tore through his back, as if his flesh were being ripped apart, that Wraith snapped to his senses.
And realized something.
The thing buried deep in the flesh of his back was not a bullet.
"Got him!"
No. No. I can't—
Wraith's eyes flew wide as he let out a shrill roar. Pain veiled his vision in a thin red haze. Worse still, something was pulling him downward.
What was below?
He did not know.
The ground? A trash can in a filthy alley? Or a hundred gang members, armed and waiting for him like predators?
He had no time to think. He began to fall. Wraith hit the ground hard, then scrambled to his feet and climbed the wall again, using both hands and feet, trying desperately to escape.
"You're not getting away!" someone snarled. "Try this, you bastard!"
The shrill roar of an engine suddenly erupted, and the tugging sensation came again.
Wraith roared as he was yanked off the wall once more. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of three of those two-wheeled vehicles used to chase him. A black cable stretched from his back to the front of each vehicle.
That was where the force pulling him came from.
"Kill it!"
From the dark mouth of the alley, someone shouted viciously, "Skin it, hang it up, and let it bleed to death!"
"I want its head! I want its head!"
"Shoot it! Blow its legs off! Let's see if it can still run!"
"Why not roast it? I want to eat its meat!"
I have to get away.
I have to. Leave here, leave the darkness.
Amid the chaos in his mind, only these two thoughts rose and fell. Wraith roared and flailed his arms, trying to drive the monsters away. But he failed. His hands swept through empty air, his sharp nails digging into the wall without touching any flesh.
"It's still moving!" someone shouted.
"Then give it a taste of this!"
A wave of agony struck, and then his consciousness sank into darkness.
Wraith watched its arrival in utter despair.
Before you continue