Chương 124: THE CITY ABLAZE

The sky above Blackhaven had turned the color of old iron. Smoke did not rise in neat pillars; it bled across the firmament in torn veils, dragged sideways by violent winds born of ruptured Flow. The city's buildings—once proud silhouettes of stone and slate—were now broken teeth against a dark horizon. Flames guttered in shattered windows. Bells rang without rhythm. And beneath it all, something vast and animal moved.

Roric stood atop the fractured parapet of the western watchtower, observing and calculating his next move. His threads, not visible to the naked eye, stretched like a spider's web cast over the city. Each thread was connected to a person and through that he could feel sensations. Heat. Vibration. Breath. Panic. There were forty anomalous signatures caused this pulse within that web.

'Forty...' The creatures moved with the deranged irregularity of things that did not understand terrain or resistance. One bounded across a roof, crushing the building underneath as if it was made of reeds. Another burrowed through a cobbled street, erupting beneath fleeing civilians in a geyser of stone and blood. Two more tore through the market quarter, their limbs elongated and asymmetrical, their hides slick with black sheen. Monsters of the Saint level.

The City Guard and the Hunters had converged within minutes of the first impact. Knights in blackened plate braced shields along evacuation corridors. Hunters released volleys of Trait-infused arrows and long range abilities to distract the monsters long enough for the civilians to escape. Blasts rippled through streets, cracking facades and shattering glass. It did nothing. Steel dented. Fire dispersed. Flow constructs evaporated like mist against the monsters' obsidian colored flesh.

Roric flicked his wrist, and three threads tightened along a residential lane. He felt the tremor before he saw the creature: a quadrupedal mass with a spine that forked midway, both halves crowned with eyeless maws. It swerved erratically, doubling back for no discernible reason before plowing through a row of tenements. Families spilled into the street.

He redirected the threads, yanking people from being snatched while using these threads offensively, collapsing a balcony in a calculated cascade that formed a barrier between beast and civilians. His head throbbed as he split attention across several more zones. He was a puppeteer and for their own safety the people were his marionettes.

"Evacuate north," he muttered, sending the directive directly to a group of hunters through the threads.

"Do not cluster. Keep moving." The true horror though was not the strength of the monsters. It was the scratches. Their bodies oozed slimy black liquid which was left sticking to the areas they passed. A knight staggered into Roric's perception—left arm torn open by a glancing rake. Black seeped from the wound, not blood but viscous shadow. Within seconds it crawled up his veins like ink dropped in water. The man screamed once before turning on the guards beside him, blade flashing.

Just like the Sapphire Salamander months ago. Corruption transmitted by contact. Those marked became vectors. Only this time their forms changed slightly as well. Infected arms grew in size and those whose necks were slashed grew fangs. The Guard and Hunters had adapted quickly. They stopped trying to kill the primary beasts and focused instead on containing the corrupted. Sever infected limbs. Bind the wounded. If transformation progressed beyond salvage— Roric swallowed.

A knight holding a corrupted friend's hand before severing it. A hunter hesitating before his comerade killed an infected sister. A child's toy crushed in rubble. Roric felt all of these unpleasant happenings as he controled the strings of the bonds of the city. He snapped a thread and redirected a fleeing group away from a plaza where three corrupted townsfolk were tearing into anyone they caught. His role was not to duel monstrosities.

Each minute that passed widened the distance between the escapees and the epicenter. He tracked them as dim motes moving toward outer wards and forest roads. Children clutched by soot-streaked mothers. Old men supported by apprentices. He calculated routes, closed alleys, collapsed stairwells to slow pursuit. The creatures did not coordinate. They did not hold back. They simply destroyed. A pressure wave rippled from the eastern district. Roric's gaze shifted.

Eddie Gable stood amid the ruin of a square, his black shirt torn, hair askew, one gloved hand pressed to his temple. Around him, the air vibrated faintly, like heat above a forge. His Resonant was active. Sound, thought, pattern—Eddie's Trait threaded into cognition itself. He projected harmonics into the minds of the creatures, attempting to destabilize impulse and enforce paralysis. Against lesser beings, it worked beautifully. Minds faltered. Limbs seized. Predators froze.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Here, the effect was… partial. Two of the quadrupeds convulsed, collapsing as their inner rhythms shattered under Eddie's assault. A third staggered, shrieking in a register that cracked stone. Hunters capitalized, driving spear and spell through its skull until it stopped moving. Then the others adapted. The remaining beasts lurched unpredictably, their mental signatures splintering into chaotic spikes.

Eddie's resonant met resistance like a singer drowned by a thunderclap. One creature slammed into him, and he was flung through a marble colonnade, vanishing in dust. Roric tightened threads, cushioning the fall as best he could, diverting debris. Eddie rose again, staggering but alive. Blood streaked his jaw. His resonant surged once more, this time broader, a desperate attempt to dampen all hostile cognition in the vicinity. It bought them seconds.

Seconds in which another infected civilian lunged at a hunter, forcing comrades to restrain rather than pursue the larger threat. They needed a solid method. A counter to the corruption itself. Roric felt sweat trickle down his spine despite the cold. Forty beasts had become thirty-eight. The cost had already exceeded a hundred lives. He closed his eyes briefly and expanded perception outward. The escapees were reaching the second ring. Good. Keep moving. Keep breathing. Another tremor.

One creature vaulted a clocktower and landed amid a barricade of shields, scattering knights like leaves. Roric pulled harder on his web.

"Move," he whispered to the city. By the time Elias and Jamie crossed the final ridge and saw Blackhaven's skyline, the night was a furnace. They slowed without meaning to. Columns of smoke climbed, blotting out the moon. Sirens—horns and bells—overlapped in frantic discord. Carriages overturned in the main avenue as guards shouted directions, herding civilians toward designated safe centers marked by glowing sigils. Panic throbbed like a second heartbeat in the air.

Jamie adjusted her grip on Elias, who had insisted on walking but was still pale from the ritual backlash. He slipped from her back now, landing unsteadily on his own feet.

"What's going on?" she demanded, scanning the chaos.

"I don't know," he said honestly, though his eyes were already moving, assessing angles, density of smoke, direction of tremors.

"But it's not random." A deafening crash interrupted them. Across the square, a shape crashed through two adjacent buildings as if they were curtains. Masonry exploded outward. Through dust and falling timber, a familiar figure burst free, skidding across cobbles. Flow blazed around him as he launched himself back into the fray like a fired bullet. Jamie blinked.

"Papa?" The scale of it settled in her chest like ice. Another tremor rippled through the district. Windows shattered in a cascading ring. Somewhere nearby, someone screamed—a sharp, high sound cut short. It came from Beth's shop. Jamie didn't wait. She sprinted down the side street, Elias following despite the weakness in his limbs. The door to the apothecary hung half off its hinges. Inside, shelves lay overturned, glass vials shattered across the floor.

In the center of the room, Beth clutched the edge of a worktable, sweat plastering hair to her forehead. Her face was flushed, eyes blazing with pain and fury. Wilcris hovered beside her, white as chalk.

"You two!" he exclaimed in relief when he saw them.

"Thank the gods. What do we do?" Jamie stared.

"Why are you asking us?"

"It's our first child!" he snapped, hands shaking.

"I don't know how this works!" Another tremor rattled the ceiling, dust drifting down like ash.

"Go," Beth growled between clenched teeth.

"Help the city, you idiot."

"I'm not leaving you—""You are if you want this place standing when the baby comes." Elias's thoughts flickered to his mother. If the tremors had reached here, they had reached the manor. She had been close to term. Too close.

"With this chaos," he began, voice tight, "finding a healer will be difficult. They'll be deployed across the districts. We may need to improvise—" The door banged open again. Jamie rushed in, having gone out at some point, dragging a young woman by the hand. The girl's braid had come loose, ash streaking her cheeks. Fear shone in her wide eyes, but there was steel beneath it.

"Found her outside!" Jamie panted.

"She was helping with evacuations." Elias recognized her. Liora Vale. The knight Gael's lover.

"I'm a healer in training," Liora said quickly, already moving toward Beth. Her hands hovered, assessing posture, breathing, dilation with practiced calm.

"We need clean cloths, boiling water, anything sharp and sterile. And space." Jamie was already sprinting toward the back shelves, grabbing what Liora listed. A shape lurched in the doorway. Black seeped from a gash across the man's cheek. His eyes were glassy, mouth twisted in a snarl that was not entirely his own. He staggered toward them, fingers clawing. Wilcris reacted first, seizing a broken table leg and swinging.

"Don't kill him!" Elias shouted. The wood cracked against the infected man's shoulder, knocking him sideways into the wall but not stopping him. Elias stepped forward, ignoring the tremor in his knees, and thrust his palm outward. A compressed burst of Flow slammed the man through the wall and into the street. He followed, placing his hand against the writhing figure's chest. The corruption pulsed beneath skin like living tar. Black ooze. The same texture that had once invaded his own veins. His body remembered it.

Where others felt revulsion or fear, Elias felt recognition. He inhaled slowly and let his internal Flow shift—not outward in force, but inward in intent. He did not purge. He predated. He had not perfected is pseudo predation into true soul predation but this particular subject was mundane. Elias would exert little to no effort spreading his own corruption. The man became the perfect test subjcet to perfecting soul predation. The ooze reacted instantly, surging toward him in hungry instinct.

Elias altered the cadence of his energy at the last moment, flipping polarity with a subtlety born of bitter experience. The corruption lunged—and found itself consumed. He drew it in, not into flesh but into a controlled spiral within his core, grinding it against balanced Flow until it dissolved into inert residue. The man convulsed once, then sagged. Color returned gradually to his face. Wilcris stared from the doorway, mouth open.

"How did you—?" Elias did not answer. He guided the man gently aside and stepped back into the shop. Inside, Liora worked with brisk competence, issuing instructions between Beth's labored breaths. Jamie moved as told, tomboy bluntness replaced by sharp focus, though anxiety flickered in the tightness of her jaw. Another tremor shook the street. Dust fell. Somewhere distant, something roared. Elias swayed slightly. He could feel his strength thinning, the earlier ritual still draining him.

His mind, however, sharpened around a single point. His mother. Jamie caught the direction of his gaze. She saw it immediately.

"You should go," she said quietly, not looking up from where she handed Liora a cloth. He hesitated.

"Once this is done, I'll…" She trailed off, then flashed him a quick, crooked smile.

"Just go. Before you pass out dramatically again." He almost smiled back.

"I'll come back," he said, voice low.

"So don't do anything stupid." She snorted despite herself.

"Me? Never." Another contraction wracked Beth, who swore with impressive creativity. Liora murmured reassurance, steady and firm. Outside, the city groaned under monstrous weight. Elias stepped into the street once more. Smoke stung his eyes. In the distance, Roric's threads trembled like a web in a storm, unseen but holding. For a heartbeat, Elias stood still. Then he ran.