"It is indeed an Ash Transformation," Jo confirmed, his voice quiet but certain as he straightened from the pile of blackened residue. The faint stench of scorched air still clung to the night.
They were still at the clock tower, high above the sleeping city, the moon casting pale light over the two figures standing in tense silence.
Nicholas's gaze sharpened. "Are your men nearby?" he asked, his tone clipped.
Jo gave a short nod. "Waiting for orders," he replied evenly.
"Then send them out," Nicholas said, his eyes scanning the shadows below. "Have them sweep every corner of this city. That old man is here. I can feel it."
Jo's lips curved into a faint smirk, but he said nothing. In one fluid motion, he melted back into the darkness, vanishing just as soundlessly as he had appeared leaving EJ and Nicholas alone in the cold wind.
"Who is this old man?" EJ pressed, stepping closer, his brows furrowed in suspicion and curiosity.
Nicholas's jaw tightened slightly, his eyes narrowing as he gazed down at the quiet streets below. For a moment, he didn't answer, as though weighing how much to tell.
Finally, his voice came, low and edged with disdain.
"He's a rogue from the Underworld. A high-ranking member of the Death Order," Nicholas began.
"The Death Order?" EJ echoed, his grip on his sword tightening.
Nicholas glanced at him, his expression grim. "They are… a faction that formed centuries ago. Shadowers who abandoned even the faint laws of the Underworld to embrace complete chaos. They kill without purpose, steal lives to fuel their dark magic, create curses that defile both mortal and celestial realms. Parasites."
EJ's stomach churned at the thought.
"They feed on life itself," Nicholas continued, turning his gaze back to the horizon. "But this old man… he isn't just any of them. He's clever. He doesn't waste his kills. He weaves them into something else. Like this." He gestured faintly to the ashes at their feet, where the phoenix had dissolved.
EJ swallowed hard, struggling to keep his voice steady. "If you already know what he does… then what does he want? Why here? Why now?"
Nicholas shook his head slightly. "That's the part I don't know yet," he admitted. His tone turned colder, almost to himself. "But if he's here, it means he's after something worth his trouble."
EJ studied him for a long moment, the weight of Nicholas's words sinking in. For the first time, he noticed the faint tension in Nicholas's stance, not fear, but restrained fury.
Day broke, and their investigation pressed on.
EJ closed his shop for the day, flipping the wooden sign to Closed before locking the door behind him. Together, he and Nicholas headed to the other side of the city, a part seldom spoken of and even less often visited.
The further they walked, the thinner the air seemed to grow, the streets narrowing and darkening as the familiar clamor of the city faded behind them. Here, life clung weakly to the edges, broken stalls, torn banners, walls stained with ash and mildew. Even beggars kept to the shadows, their eyes hollow and wary.
It was the slums. Forgotten and unwanted.
"This place…" EJ muttered under his breath, taking in the cracked stones underfoot and the smell of damp decay.
At the end of a crooked alley, they found an old man sitting on an overturned crate, wrapped in a thin, tattered cloak. Despite the state of his surroundings, his eyes were clear, his posture straight. He regarded them with suspicion at first, then only a quiet, resigned awareness.
"This place has always been abandoned," the old man said flatly, his voice roughened by years.
EJ stepped closer, lowering his hood just enough to meet the man's eyes. "Why?" he asked. "Did the mayor never come here? Never try to do anything about it?"
The old man scoffed, his lips twisting into a bitter smile. "That sly mayor?" he said with a harsh laugh that cracked like dry twigs. "Ever since he got his position, he never once looked back at this place. Not once. Takes his taxes from us when he remembers we exist, but otherwise?" He spread his arms in a mocking gesture at the desolation around him. "We rot. And he doesn't care."
Nicholas stood silently beside EJ, his gaze sweeping the street, eyes narrowing slightly as though noting something unseen, a faint trace in the air, a whisper in the shadows.
The old man's gaze darted to him, then back to EJ. "You two don't belong here," he said finally. "You smell… different. You should leave before the wrong ones notice you."
"The wrong ones?" EJ pressed, his voice low but firm.
The old man froze at the question, his gaze darting toward the mouth of the alley as though expecting someone to emerge from the shadows at any moment. His fingers tightened on the edge of his crate, knuckles white.
"They…" he began, then leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping to a whisper. "They wear hoods. Dark, heavy things. Faces you can't see."
EJ and Nicholas exchanged a quick glance but said nothing, letting him continue.
"They always come just before the sun sets," the old man went on, his tone laced with quiet dread. "Every evening, like clockwork. They take what they want — children, women, even the sick. Anyone they can grab. And no one stops them. No one dares."
His eyes glimmered faintly in the dim light, bitter and afraid.
"We stopped fighting back long ago," he added after a beat. "Those who tried… didn't come back."
Nicholas finally spoke, his voice calm but edged with something colder. "How many? How many of them usually come?"
The old man hesitated, thinking. Then he shook his head. "Sometimes three. Sometimes ten. Doesn't matter. They take what they came for and vanish into the dark."
EJ's hand instinctively brushed against the hilt of his sword as he absorbed the words, his chest tightening.
Nicholas, however, only straightened and muttered quietly, almost to himself, "So they've been here longer than I thought…"
They left the old man quietly, neither speaking as the weight of what they'd heard hung in the air between them. When they were far enough away, Nicholas finally murmured, "We wait until sunset. But until then… we go deeper."
EJ nodded in agreement, adjusting the clasp of his cloak. "If they have been hiding here this long, they might have left more traces than just fear."
The sun was still climbing the sky, the light from it weak and unable to reach far into the slums. As they pressed deeper, the air grew colder and the streets narrower, winding like veins through the city's neglected underbelly.
The further they went, the darker it became, so much so that the faint daylight above barely filtered through the leaning, broken buildings. EJ frowned and flicked his fingers; a soft golden circle of light bloomed into existence in front of them, floating gently ahead to guide their steps.
The glow threw long shadows along the crumbling walls, chasing away just enough darkness for them to see where they were going.
Nicholas didn't comment, but his eyes stayed sharp, his hand never straying far from his own weapon.
Then, faintly, so faintly they almost missed it, a sound.
A cry.
EJ froze mid-step. It was soft, muffled, but unmistakable. A child's cry, echoing weakly from somewhere ahead.
His eyes darted to Nicholas, who had already turned his head toward the sound, his expression unreadable but his stance tense.
Without a word, they both broke into a run, their footsteps light but urgent, the golden light bobbing ahead of them as the cry grew louder.
Deeper into the slums they went, following the desperate sound through twisting alleys and collapsed doorways, until they rounded a corner and saw where it came from.
It was a young girl — small, frail, and trembling from fear and cold. She sat huddled in the corner of a collapsed doorway, her thin arms wrapped around herself as tears streamed down her cheeks.
EJ immediately moved closer, his instincts overriding any caution.
Nicholas, standing behind him, didn't follow at once. Instead, his sharp gaze swept the area around them, the narrow, crumbling alley, the broken walls, the darkened windows above. His senses flared as he probed the shadows, looking for what might be lurking nearby. Something about this place, about the air here, felt… wrong.
Meanwhile, EJ knelt in front of the girl and slipped off his coat, draping it gently over her shivering frame. "Hey… hey, it's all right now," he murmured, his voice calm, coaxing. "You must have been so cold."
The girl's sobs continued, louder now, but her body no longer shook like a frightened child's.
Nicholas took a slow step closer, his hand brushing the hilt of his blade as his eyes narrowed. There was something… off.
"EJ," he called, his voice low, warning. "Be careful."
EJ glanced back at him with a frown. "What? She's just a child-–"
Then the girl laughed.
The sound was sharp and wrong, echoing through the alley like a knife scraping stone.
EJ froze as shadows erupted from the girl's body, rising like black smoke, twisting and coiling around him before he could react. The darkness climbed his arms, cold and suffocating, pinning him in place.
Nicholas's eyes darkened. "Damn it!"
He lunged forward, his palm igniting with shadow flame as he hurled it toward the mass of darkness trying to swallow them both.
The flames collided, lighting the alley with a flash of black-violet fire, but it was too late.
The last thing EJ saw was Nicholas turning toward him, his eyes blazing with fury, before the shadows consumed him and everything went dark.