Chương 76: 75: The Gloom Dweller

Sphinx's knees buckled. It wasn't the poison. Zeinai felt it too. He turned toward Sphinx. Her grin had disappeared. Every trace of arrogance had gone with it. She stood frozen, jade lenses fixed on something beyond ordinary perception. Genuine terror gripped her so completely that even breathing seemed difficult. His chest tightened. Fear didn't belong on her face. If Sphinx looked like this...... whatever had arrived eclipsed anything he'd ever encountered. The temperature dropped. Reality trembled.

Broken buildings assembled themselves piece by piece. Concrete flowed upward. Steel untwisted. Shattered glass streamed back into window frames as though time itself had reversed. Within moments, the plaza looked untouched. People returned. A man reduced to ash moments earlier blinked halfway through a sentence. A little girl laughed as she ran into her mother's embrace, completely unaware death had ever claimed either of them. This wasn't reconstruction. Reality itself had begun erasing what had happened.

Something had entered the city. An immense presence settled over everything. Invisible. Silent. Its weight pressed across the skyline like an endless veil, dimming the world without stealing a single ray of light. Every instinct in Zeinai's body screamed that something ancient had arrived. Life ignored it. Engines continued humming. Conversations never faltered. Rain still hissed against broken pavement. A traffic signal calmly shifted from red to green. Only those capable of sensing it understood.

"The Gloom Dweller..." Sphinx's voice barely carried above the rain as ripples spread across her body.

"Leave... while you still can." Her outline distorted. Another heartbeat passed. She was gone. Zeinai remained alone in the restored plaza, surrounded by people who continued living their evening, utterly unaware they'd died only moments before.... He knew of the Sin War. Every Magpie did. They'd spent it in underground bunkers while the surface burned. Billions died. Nations vanished.

When it ended, crime had fallen by ninety-five percent, world hunger had nearly disappeared, and humanity had somehow emerged better than before. No one spoke about what truly happened. But everyone knew one name. The Gloom Dweller. Crook's greatest enemy. Any enemy of Crook was an enemy of his. He stepped outside. The Gloom Dweller was already there. Just... a man? Gray eyes. A soft, almost androgynous face framed by impossibly long lashes.

Thick curls cascaded nearly to the middle of his back, their dark strands shifting gently despite the still air. Light brown skin. A black coat draped over a white shirt, brown trousers, a loosely wrapped scarf and polished shoes completed the otherwise ordinary appearance. Two small beauty marks rested beneath each eye. For a fleeting moment, Zeinai almost mistook him for a woman. The voice dispelled that thought. His visor lingered on the stranger's features.... Or perhaps not. The symmetry felt almost unnatural.

Neither distinctly masculine nor feminine. He wondered whether he was looking at some hermaphroditic deity of shadows rather than a man. Zeinai silently slid his helmet back on. The visor immediately began analysing the figure. No detectable energy source. Only... A single black loop earring hanging from the man's left ear. UNKNOWN ARTIFACT DETECTED. SHADOW SUPPRESSION: APPROXIMATELY 90%. The earring wasn't decorative. It was restraining him.

Holding back something vast enough that the remaining ten percent alone made reality buckle. Is that how he stays human...... instead of the Shadow God everyone fears? He didn't look frightening. He was helping people. Steadying the confused. Guiding the lost. Calming those who had unknowingly returned from death. Zeinai froze. Everyone who'd died...... was alive. If this power could undo death... Could it bring Bora back? Hope - dangerous, impossible hope - flared inside him. He needed that power. He lunged.

The attack never landed. The world changed. A rooftop. Dawn had broken. The rain was gone, leaving only dry air and a steady wind sweeping across the roof. Endless city lights stretched beneath a pale orange horizon as the first rays of morning spilled over Tokyo's skyline. LOCATION: TOKYO, JAPAN. DISTANCE FROM ORIGIN: 5, 842 KM. Teleportation. The Gloom Dweller sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"Another Magpie. Red and gray... New Zealand? Russia? I forget. There were too many factions." His tired gaze settled on Zeinai.

"I don't want to kill you. But I will if you force me." Zeinai's eyes burned beneath his mask.

"Go home to your family."

"I have no family." The words escaped before he could stop them, a door slamming shut on a room full of ghosts. The Gloom Dweller regarded him for a long moment, as though looking at a wound that had never healed.

"Your leader is dead," he said quietly.

"The world is better for it."

"What are you still fighting for?" Zeinai's blood ran cold. Crook... Dead? He'd seen her once. In the first days of the Sin War, before the bunkers sealed and the world above became a screaming wound. Crook had come to the New Zealand faction to discuss alliances before the coming storm. Alarms had blared for hours. Emergency protocols. Evacuations. No one knew what was coming, only that something was terribly wrong. A Magpie sprinted toward the observation deck. Zeinai followed.

Through reinforced glass, he saw her. Crook. Standing alone in an empty field, her blue-black iridescent suit shimmering beneath a sun that seemed afraid to shine. She was beautiful, but never in a way anyone would dare call attractive. It was the beauty of the world's deadliest snake, admired from a distance for its impossible colours while every instinct warned against taking a single step closer. Looking at her inspired awe, never desire. Touching something so exquisite felt synonymous with dying.

Then the earth split open. The first Sin Gorei crawled free. Different shapes. Different species. All forged from the same impossible flesh, black as coal with molten veins and sickly yellow eyes. His HUD erupted with warnings. COSMIC RULE DETECTED. INVIOLABLE LAW IN EFFECT. They could only be destroyed by the one whose sins had created them. No weapon would work. No shield could stop them. They were absolute. Dozens charged the first person they saw. Crook didn't move.

She barely raised a hand, tracing a few idle gestures through the air, as though the sky itself had pressure points only she could touch. The Sin Gorei ceased to exist. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Every one of them. No energy spike. She had simply... removed reality's permission for anything inside that space to exist. The monsters. The insects. The bacteria in the soil. Every living thing within that radius ceased to be.

A deafening WHUMP followed as air rushed back to fill the void. It was the most terrifying sound Zeinai had ever heard. The sound of existence reclaiming a place where reality itself had briefly been denied. For nearly a minute, the air remained unnaturally clean. As Crook walked away, the space beside her suddenly shimmered like polished glass. She turned sharply. And flinched. It was so brief Zeinai almost believed he'd imagined it. Almost. It was the only time he had ever seen Crook startled.

For the smallest instant, she'd believed something stood beside her. Something equal. Something capable of matching her. The mirror-like distortion faded as quickly as it had appeared. There had been no one there. Only her own reflection. No one else could compare. Zeinai had never believed someone like that could die. The Gloom Dweller met his gaze. Then he nodded, as though he'd witnessed the memory himself.

"No one could kill her," he said quietly.

"No one was skilled enough. Not even me." His gray eyes held Zeinai's.

"Crook killed herself. I saw it with my own eyes. To this day, none of us know why." Zeinai's blood boiled.

"LIARRRRR!" The outburst shocked even him. Why would Crook kill herself? If anyone alive could've challenged her, it was probably this man. Maybe he simply wanted to avoid the wrath of every Magpie on Earth. The explanation didn't matter. The fact that he'd reached into Zeinai's mind and read his most guarded memory like an open book didn't matter. If he could read thoughts, then he should already know this. Nothing would stop him. Crook dead or alive. The world better or worse.

None of it changed the truth that had driven him for years. He would kill this man. Take his power. Avenge Crook. If possible... bring Bora back and give her the life she deserved. For the briefest instant, her face appeared behind his eyes. Smiling. The way she had before the island. Before the buyers. Before years of captivity hollowed her out until she'd died in his arms. The memory broke. Her hand slipped from his cheek. Her fading voice whispered.

"오빠... 같이 가?" Oppa... are we going together? Tears came before he could stop them, streaming silently beneath his mask. They struck the heated metal and vanished into steam. His eyes never left the man before him.... His hand moved. A hidden device activated. Ever since the teleport, his suit had been synchronizing with the Gloom Dweller's energy, forging a tether. If the man tried to send him elsewhere again, he'd be dragged along too. Zeinai raised the bat. The weapon shifted in his grip.

Its upper casing unfolded into interlocking petals, revealing a brilliant white core that screamed as impossible amounts of energy condensed into a single point. TARGET LOCK. He pulled the trigger. PWEEEEUUMM. A shriek unlike any weapon Zeinai had ever heard tore across the rooftop, a sound so violently high-pitched it seemed to rip through the air itself. The world became white.

A beam erupted from the barrel, so bright it erased colour itself, carving a blinding scar through the sky before swallowing the Gloom Dweller whole. Silence. Steam drifted through the fading light. When his vision cleared, the man was still standing. His head hung low. A large hole smouldered through the centre of his chest, smoke curling from the wound as though his heart had been replaced by a furnace. The beauty of the weapon lay in its efficiency.

He still had a dozen shots before its charge was exhausted, and each blast saturated the target with Apis so dense it halted regeneration, resisting both magic and biology even under days of intervention. Few weapons were better suited for killing enemies who relied on healing or cheap tricks to escape death. He had died standing. Zeinai watched. No neurological activity. Every system in his suit confirmed the same thing. TARGET ELIMINATED. The corpse twitched. Zeinai froze.

His visor still insisted the target was dead. Every reading agreed. Another convulsion rippled through the body. Its head sagged farther forward. A wet crack echoed from deep inside its throat before the mouth slowly fell open. The eyes had lost all life. They simply stared through him, dull and glassy. Something shifted behind the teeth. A single horsefly crawled onto the lower lip, its wings still folded. Another followed. Dozens became hundreds.

They poured from its mouth, eye sockets, ears and the smoking hole in its chest, wings unfolding one after another until the corpse seemed hollow, nothing more than a shell packed with insects. Zeinai didn't move. The buzzing swelled. Skin caved inward. Muscles collapsed. Bones crumbled into dust beneath the endless tide of wings until nothing remained except the living swarm. It hovered where the corpse had stood for a moment before bursting apart.

Hundreds of horseflies scattered into the air, climbing high above the rooftops. Their translucent wings caught the city lights one last time before they disappeared into the sky, leaving only emptiness behind. Zeinai's head snapped left. The Gloom Dweller stood there. Untouched. He looked almost disappointed.

"How much of reality can those lenses really decipher?" Zeinai's thoughts raced. Had that been a clone? An illusion? A copy? He didn't know. He didn't care. — Zeinai attacked. The bat swung. It froze mid-arc. An invisible force caught the blow and hurled him across the rooftop. He crashed into the edge as his suit erupted with warnings. TELEKINESIS DETECTED. IMPACT EQUIVALENT: METEOR STRIKE. SUIT INTEGRITY: 43%. A casual push. His suit hadn't dispersed it. This wasn't ordinary telekinesis. It was metaphysical.

If his Apis reserves ran dry... could it force his soul out of his body? He couldn't let them. A direct fight was impossible. His hand dropped to his belt, closing around a prototype device: a small yellow square with a single tiny red button. Click. MAGIC REVOCATION FIELD ACTIVE. DURATION: 60 SECONDS. The air fell unnaturally still. The pressure lifted, and the impossible hum that had filled the world a moment ago simply fell silent. A countdown spread across his visor. 59... 58... 57...

The Gloom Dweller's eyes widened as they settled on the device. Zeinai attacked. To his horror... The smaller man blocked. One forearm met the bat head-on. The impact never reached him. Zeinai felt the force die against that single arm, as though reality itself had decided the strike would go no farther. The Dweller glanced at the bat, then back at him.

"…You hit quite hard." His gaze drifted over Zeinai's towering frame.

"As expected of a giant your size." The same bat that crushed abominations couldn't touch an unarmed human. One arm. Every desperate swing, punch, elbow, knee, and kick was deflected with effortless precision. Blows that could flatten buildings and shatter city blocks were redirected as though they weighed nothing. MAGIC: SUPPRESSED. SUBJECT PHYSIOLOGY: BASELINE HUMAN. Baseline human. How? Rage surged beneath Zeinai's mask, older than the Syndicate, older than the suit. He switched styles. Muay Thai.

Elbows, knees, shins. Every strike slipped aside. Taekwondo. Spinning kicks, hook kicks, axe kicks. The Gloom Dweller shifted by inches, each attack brushing empty air. Kalaripayattu. Zeinai coiled low, then erupted into a storm of palms, fingers, sweeps and strikes from impossible angles, each aimed at joints and vital points. The Gloom Dweller's arm flowed like water. A sweep missed by a hair. A flying roundhouse was caught by the ankle and gently redirected, sending Zeinai flipping through the air.

"You're remarkably agile for your size," he remarked almost conversationally.

"What extent of training do they put your Enforcers through?" Zeinai landed on his hands, spun into a breakdancer's whirlwind of kicks, then sprang upright with a straight punch capable of blasting through a bunker. In the instant before impact... The Gloom Dweller was no longer there. He simply wasn't there. Just... elsewhere. He'd stepped aside before Zeinai's punch had even begun. The fist carved through empty air, its shockwave cracking the rooftop. It should've landed. It didn't. 53... 52... 51...

Zeinai's breathing grew heavier. Every discipline he'd mastered - Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, Karate - failed. The Dweller lowered his arm and raised one leg instead. That single leg guided every strike away with effortless precision, redirecting the force into the rooftop, the air, anywhere but himself. A transcendent master. Every kick was perfectly placed, every angle impossibly efficient. There wasn't a single wasted motion, only countless decades of refinement distilled into effortless simplicity. This wasn't fighting.

It was something beyond it. 50... 49... 48... Zeinai swung the Eventide Bat behind him. Magnetic locks along his utility belt snapped open, swallowing the weapon in a single fluid motion before sealing shut. A memory surfaced. One of the countless techniques he'd practised in silence. One almost no one would willingly use. Its entire purpose was to turn overwhelming size and weight into an unstoppable weapon.

Zeinai launched himself skyward, twisting into Heaven-Reversing Meteor Claw, an almost suicidal Baguazhang technique that sacrificed control for sheer impact, trusting gravity, momentum and his immense frame to become a living meteor as he descended. The Dweller didn't move. His leg rose impossibly high and met the attack. THOOOOOOM. For a heartbeat, they hung suspended. Then Zeinai felt his own power flow through him...... and into the skyscraper. 47... 46... 45... Every window burst at once.

Thousands of panes rained across Tokyo as the tower groaned beneath the redirected force. Sirens wailed. Screams drifted up from the streets below. Zeinai landed, sliding backward. Broad daylight. Witnesses. Helicopters would come. He had to end this. Fast. His HUD flickered violently. ANALYSIS: INCONCLUSIVE. ENERGY DISPERSAL: 100%. TARGET STRUCTURE: UNCOMPROMISED. RECOMMENDATION: EVACUATE. The Dweller lowered his leg, his gray eyes never leaving Zeinai.

"... That was an exceptionally good technique. Had it landed cleanly, it would've driven you through a mountain the size of Everest almost instantaneously from top to bottom, like a rifle bullet, eradicating the entire thing." His gaze drifted across the skyline.

"It was also incredibly dangerous. Miss by even a fraction, and the force behind that descent could've unfolded this entire city into nothing." Zeinai said nothing. Every exchange had confirmed the same conclusion. He couldn't beat this man hand to hand. His hand shot to his belt. Discs. Grenades. Gadgets. Anything that might work. Every option suddenly felt inadequate. The Gloom Dweller simply ceased to occupy the space before him. It wasn't teleportation.

Reality itself seemed to forget he had ever been standing there. 42... 41... 40... Agony detonated through Zeinai's ribs. The rooftop disappeared beneath him as he hurtled off the skyscraper, his HUD flooding with warnings while it desperately tried to reconstruct what had just happened. TECHNIQUE ANALYSIS INITIATED...... MOTH THROUGH THE LANTERN'S FRAME DETECTED. CLASSIFICATION: INSTANTANEOUS RELOCATION VIA TEMPORAL FRAME SKIPPING. Before Zeinai could even blink, he blasted through one skyscraper... then another.

Glass, steel, offices, apartments - entire floors exploded apart as screaming civilians scattered from a blur that couldn't stop. The strike hadn't merely launched him. It had been woven into his momentum itself, carrying him relentlessly through building after building as though reality had already decided where he would end. 39... 38... 37... Zeinai twisted mid-fall, just enough. A palm descended toward his chest. The Gloom Dweller was above him, falling with him, perfectly positioned to finish it.

WARNING: VIBRATING PALM TECHNIQUE RECOGNIZED. DO NOT ALLOW CONTACT. TERMINATION PROBABILITY: 100%. Their eyes met. There was no hatred in the Dweller's gray gaze. Only exhaustion. 36... 35... 34... Zeinai changed tactics. Every feather lining his suit began vibrating at hypersonic speed. A crystalline hum swelled into a shrill, crushing whine. SHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMM— The oscillation generated lift enough to defy gravity.

He rose as the Dweller continued falling, hovering above the skyscraper, waiting to see how a powerless man survived a four-hundred-meter drop. Blink. The Dweller was gone. A foot slammed into Zeinai's mask. BLAM! He rocketed downward, punched through asphalt, buried himself beneath the street, rupturing a water main that erupted in steam and sewage. He lay in the crater, staring upward. His HUD finally understood. Moth Through the Lantern's Frame couldn't be predicted because it didn't exist beforehand.

Even its user didn't consciously choose it. The technique emerged only after it had already happened, instinct refined beyond thought, like a heartbeat. Until then, reality had nothing to record. What unsettled Zeinai even more was the force. A baseline human striking with what felt like continent-breaking power through technique alone, without magic. Zeinai had believed only Crook could reach that level. The possibility that this man had truly killed her became harder to dismiss. 33... 32... 31...

Zeinai understood. He couldn't predict the unpredictable or track something that didn't exist until after it happened. If he couldn't counter the technique, he'd have to stop the man from using it. His HUD caught the thought before it fully formed. QUERY: COUNTER-TECHNIQUE REQUIRED. TARGET: MOTH THROUGH LANTERN'S FRAME. ANALYZING... TECHNIQUE: Subconscious reality editing. Exists only after activation. COUNTERMEASURE FOUND: COGNIZINE (CX-849). A powerful acetylcholinesterase inhibitor.

EFFECT: Conscious override of autonomic function. SUBCONSCIOUS REFLEXES: DISABLED. TARGET TECHNIQUE: INOPERABLE. Zeinai understood immediately. He couldn't defeat the technique. He could poison the man using it. Cognizine would force him to feel everything - every heartbeat, every breath, every nerve firing, every drop of blood coursing through his veins. The Moth demanded surrender, instinct, an empty mind. Cognizine left no room for any of it. Every dodge would have to be chosen.

Every step would have to be thought through. In that sliver between thought and movement, Zeinai would finally be faster. His hand closed around the injector. 27... 26... 25... The Dweller stood at the crater's edge.