The streets of Eldberg smelled different the morning after the flames, not of fire or blood, but of confusion, thick and sour like spoiled wine left under the sun, the usual rhythm of street vendors and gossiping tavern girls had turned sluggish, merchants spoke in hushed tones, relic peddlers glanced over their shoulders, and even the city's drunkards sobered up long enough to mutter about one thing—the Gun Saint was fake, or dead, or never existed at all, depending on which version of the lie you were sold.
Kaito stood on the balcony of a crumbling tower that used to be one of the Vault's safer safehouses, the charm locks had been burned through with acid spell powder, and someone had scrawled "False Flame" across the back wall in blood, he didn't need to ask who did it—the Ash Vultures had started marking every place the Vault had touched, declaring a new era, one built not on relics or silence, but chaos and noise.
"You going to tell me why you're staring at nothing, or should I keep assuming you're brooding dramatically?" Lilyeth asked as she stepped up beside him, wiping dust off her coat, she'd been the one securing the reroutes for supply nodes all night, barely two hours of sleep in her eyes and already back in the field, like always.
"Just thinking," Kaito muttered, adjusting his gloves as he scanned the street below.
"We lost three charm runners last night," she said bluntly, "They weren't killed. They defected. Left behind their gear and joined the Vultures."
Kaito's jaw tightened.
"How?"
"Money. Influence. They're spreading something bigger than relics now," she said, "They're preaching a new Saint. One that bleeds. One that kills for real. They're calling him the AshTrigger."
Kaito didn't respond.
Not at first.
Because part of him already knew this day would come.
When you build your legend out of smoke and fear, someone will always try to blow it away with a bigger fire.
"What do we know about the Ash Vultures?" he asked.
Lilyeth flipped open a folded parchment and handed it over.
"Started as a minor relic gang three years ago. Smuggled cursed staves from the southern catacombs. Got wiped out by the Church's Ember Guard. But apparently, that was just the surface layer. The real group stayed underground, rebranding every few months until they came back as a syndicate with religious overtones."
"Faith-based crime," Kaito muttered, reading.
"Worse," she said, "Faith-based rebellion."
He looked up sharply.
"They're not just selling relics," she continued, "They're offering a cause. A new myth. And the scary part? It's working. The public doesn't know who's behind what anymore. Vault, Vultures, fake Saints—they're all bleeding into the same rumor stream."
Kaito folded the parchment slowly.
"That means we can't kill them."
Lilyeth blinked.
"…What?"
"If we kill them now, while the city's confused, it'll only make them martyrs," he said, "People will believe the Vault silences rivals. That the Gun Saint punishes believers. We lose the myth either way."
Lilyeth groaned and leaned on the rail.
"Then what, we just let them walk all over us?"
"No," Kaito said, eyes narrowing, "We destroy their foundation. Quietly. We make the public doubt them before they even realize it. And when they start turning on each other, then we finish what's left."
She gave him a sideways glance.
"…You're planning a disinformation war."
"No," he replied calmly, pulling out a silver-etched coin with a sunburst crest—the Vault's emergency doppel route seal, "I'm starting one."
Lilyeth smiled faintly.
"About time."
And across the rooftops, from a distance too far for mortal eyes to see, a cloaked figure watched Kaito with a monocle charm, muttering under his breath.
"He's starting to move."
A second voice responded, cold and sharp.
"Let him. The Ash Vultures are ready."
Then both shadows vanished into the smoke.
Kaito didn't return to the Vault's main safehouse that night, not because he was avoiding it, but because the moment he declared a disinformation war, he became something more dangerous than a myth—he became visible, and visibility in his world wasn't power, it was bait, he moved through the city using the shadow paths Rook had mapped three months ago, routes so forgotten that even the rats had stopped nesting there, narrow canals under smithing districts, crypt runs sealed with old mageblood, rooftops only accessible through third-story alchemy labs with rotating illusion windows, each step took him deeper into a city that had once feared his silence and now mocked his voice.
The Ash Vultures were loud.
Too loud.
They were broadcasting relic sermons on rooftops using illusion projectors disguised as lanterns, scripted monologues delivered by hired actors dressed in soot-black robes, reciting fake scripture about the Ash Trigger, the so-called Saint who "fired without remorse, burned without bias, and walked where no god dared step," they played into the broken faith of the masses, twisting Kaito's old relic myths, stealing words and turning them into calls to arms, and worse—they started naming targets.
Merchant guilds aligned with the Vault were being "condemned by ash," their storehouses raided, their runners publicly beaten, their relic stock burned in alley bonfires while Vulture agents handed out new charms to the crowd, promising "real salvation" and "true fire," Kaito knew the moment he saw it—that this wasn't about relics anymore.
It was a war of belief.
And the only way to win a war of belief was to poison the well.
That was why Kaito sat now in a stolen cloak, across from a suspicious information broker named Peel, in a spice tent near the outer market, the smell of burnt nutmeg covering the air like thick smoke, Peel was short, bald, twitchy, with one eye twitching and the other glass, and his fingers never stopped counting invisible coins on the table.
"You're late," Peel hissed, glancing left and right.
"I'm never late," Kaito replied, placing a cloth-wrapped box between them.
"What's this?"
"Information. Misdirection. Dirt."
"Whose?"
"Yours," Kaito said flatly, "Unless you take my job."
Peel narrowed his eyes.
"…You Vault people still think you run things. But the city's changing. Fast."
"Which is why I need your network."
Peel licked his lips nervously.
"I'm listening."
Kaito leaned forward.
"I want to circulate five rumors. All untraceable. I want them spread through three markets, two taverns, and a beggar theater on Whisper Street. I want one to leak into the noble zone via their barbers, and another whispered into Church-run bathhouses."
Peel blinked.
"You trying to confuse nobles, drunks, and priests in one shot?"
"Yes," Kaito said.
Peel laughed, but it wasn't a real laugh.
"What's the message?"
Kaito unwrapped the box.
Inside were charms, forged to resemble Ash Vulture relics, but all slightly off, the spellwork janky, the scripture misaligned, the activation seals designed to fizzle and fail after the first use.
"Start telling people the Ash Vultures are faking relics," Kaito said, "Say they're using old Church trash. Say their 'Ash Trigger' was once a Vault runner we executed for treason. Say their entire myth is a lie designed to recruit orphans and wipe them when they're done."
Peel stared at the fake relics.
"You… you realize if any of this is traced back to me—"
"It won't be," Kaito said, standing.
"And if I say no?"
Kaito smiled.
"Then that glass eye of yours might see a bullet before your good one does."
Peel gulped.
"…I'll take the job."
Kaito turned and walked into the night.
By the time he reached Node Five, Lilyeth had already returned and rerouted all Vault runners to emergency ghost zones, the whole building had been cloaked in triple-layer illusions, and the ammo crafting chamber was running again at 60% capacity, she handed him a small scroll with an updated map.
"You're sure about this?" she asked.
"Yes," Kaito replied.
"Because if these relics go public, even if they fail, the Vultures might pivot—start pushing new charms, maybe real ones."
"Then we'll adapt," Kaito said, "Let them burn their resources faster. I want them reacting. I want them making mistakes."
Lilyeth nodded.
"Rook and Darius are prepping a trace route on Ash Vulture sermon hubs. They've found three locations so far."
"Good," Kaito said, tapping the wall map, "Once the rumors spread, we're going to let the public burn one of those hubs for us."
"…You're serious?"
"Absolutely."
Lilyeth stared at him for a long second, then turned toward the door.
"You've changed."
"No," he replied, watching the city smolder beneath the moonlight.
"I just stopped playing fair."
The public sermon started at dusk, just outside the Sandglass Bazaar where nobles rarely tread and guards only pretended to patrol, Kaito stood on a shadowed balcony three levels up, cloak drawn, expression unreadable as he watched the Ash Vultures assemble below, a circle of black-robed men and women surrounding a street performer painted in ash, standing atop a cracked barrel with arms outstretched like a martyr, flames crackled from illusion-charms above them, casting light too perfect to be real, and when the fake prophet spoke, the crowd actually listened, eyes wide, hearts open, like they were starving for someone to hate.
"The Vault lied to you," the prophet shouted, voice echoing with the help of sound-scrolls disguised as prayer flags, "They told you relics came from saints, but they hoarded power and sold fear, and now the true fire speaks—not through silence, but through flame, not through hidden bullets, but through a name that dares to burn!"
The crowd erupted.
Coins flew.
Children cheered.
And Kaito watched it all with stillness colder than steel.
Lilyeth's voice cracked into his ear through the covert comm charm.
"Target confirmed. Ash Vulture sermon leader: alias 'Marek the Ember.' Real name: Jon Radel. Former relic crafter. Expelled from the Church's Artifice Guild six years ago."
Kaito nodded, eyes narrowing.
"Darius?"
"Already in position," she said.
Across the plaza, behind a fake produce stand, Darius sat cross-legged with a single hand on a small metal rod disguised as a market umbrella hook, the relic trap had been placed two hours earlier—a feedback bomb that would activate if the crowd got too close, not to kill, but to flood the area with malfunctioning relic noise, enough to send panic through the streets and short-circuit the Ash Vultures' illusion net.
Rook chimed in next.
"Vault relics planted. Your fake Vulture charms are mixed in with their donation chest."
"Confirm activation time?" Kaito asked.
"Seventeen seconds after detonation," Rook said, "Long enough to get a few believers to scream about false relics."
"Good," Kaito whispered, "Begin."
The plaza exploded—in color, not flame.
A dome of flashing relic light burst from the sermon stand, not a real explosion, but a high-intensity surge of magical echoes—scrolls fizzed, illusion-charms screamed in reverse, and the fake flames turned blue, then green, then started spinning out of control, panic spread instantly as the crowd shouted in fear, dozens of Vulture believers scrambled to shut the display down, but it was too late—every relic on their stage began to warp, sparking, screaming, twisting with failure.
The donation chest burst open.
And from it rolled several charms—marked not with ash symbols, but with the Vault's own logo, upside down and bleeding ink.
Kaito's whisper reached Darius through the charm link.
"Now."
A false relic exploded.
But not in violence—in truth.
A projection glyph cracked open midair and broadcast the pre-recorded confession of one of the Ash Vulture traitors, face blurred, voice disguised, but words clear.
> "There is no Ash Trigger. It's just a story. They made him up to recruit. They used Vault relics, then burned them to make it look like prophecy. The sermons are scripted. The fire's fake. The myth is fake."
The crowd went still.
Then people started screaming.
The fear wasn't about fire anymore—it was about being lied to, used, manipulated, every merchant who had just bought a Vulture relic, every orphan who pledged to their myth, every back-alley priest who sold prayers on their behalf—they all turned at once, and chaos followed like a wave, not because Kaito had destroyed the Vultures, but because he made them destroy themselves.
Marek the Ember tried to shout over the din.
"This is a Vault trick! They planted—!"
Kaito raised his gun.
One Echo Round.
One shot.
The sound didn't kill Marek.
But it did shatter the illusion spell above him and replay the same confession again in full.
In front of two dozen underground press runners.
And just like that—
The Ash Vultures became a joke.
Back at the safehouse, Rook was already writing up the next distribution cycle.
"Three more sermon hubs will collapse by morning," he said, "The rumors spread too fast. By sunrise, everyone will be laughing at them."
Lilyeth was silent, staring at the city from the window.
Kaito sipped his tea.
"Not everyone will laugh," he said, "Some will look for a new story to believe in."
She turned to him.
"And what will they find?"
Kaito didn't answer at first.
Then he looked up, eyes calm.
"They'll find us."
But before he could explain—
A message slipped through the Vault's highest-priority charm line.
Only two people had access to that channel.
Lilyeth read it first.
Then handed it to Kaito without a word.
A simple message, wrapped in gold-threaded parchment.
No name.
No seal.
Just one sentence.
> "If you want to kill nobles for profit, meet me at the Shifting Swan at midnight. Come alone."
Kaito stared at it.
Then smiled.
"Looks like business just got interesting."