The man who had run away didn't get far before ducking into a seedy-looking bar.
Five men saw him burst in and startle, then recognized their companion.
"Hey, don't come up. The boss is with that scary guy."
"Hey, idiot!"
"Never mind!"
He ignored their shouts and rushed toward a back door.
Noah reached the bar shortly after. His expression was strange — like a predator on a hunt. The five men stared at him as if prey had wandered into a lion's den.
There were no customers, only men who looked like they wore a "thug" sign across their foreheads. One look was enough to know they were trouble.
"You picked the wrong place, kid."
"Lost your mommy?"
Noah felt an irresistible urge to laugh.
"HAHAHAHA!"
He laughed uncontrollably, reason slipping away for a moment, replaced by something wilder. Several things had triggered it.
One was the chaos his mind had been fighting these past two years because of the memory of that alley.
The other was something deeper, living inside him without him fully knowing — or perhaps he did know.
If he looked in a mirror now, his left eye would no longer be blue but red. A faint red, as if almost fading, but there nonetheless.
"That kid's an idiot. Let's break him."
"Break him? Break him?" Noah murmured.
"I like breaking things."
He reached out, palm toward the fat man who had spoken.
Then, slowly, he closed his hand, finger by finger.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Each finger that folded was followed by a scream and the sickening sound of bone snapping.
The fat man stopped screaming at the third finger. His body sagged, all twisted like a ragdoll.
Noah waved, tossing the "doll" aside.
His gaze fell on the other four, who looked at him with terror.
Then came more screams as bones were snapped.
Until the noise stopped, and the smell of blood and urine filled the room — as it should have: horrible.
The red in his eye deepened.
Noah moved through the back doors. His movements were slow as he walked down the long, dark corridor. His steps took him to an old staircase that creaked with each tread.
At the top of the stairs, he halted. His body trembled as he turned.
He peered into a half-open room. Inside were women — chained, gagged, bruises all over them.
He did not go in. He kept walking.
His eye grew redder.
With every step, it was as if he sank into a lake. His body drifted away from the light, swallowed by darkness.
His mind dulled.
His eye became even more crimson, and his gaze was calm and serene, as if on a stroll — sad and indifferent, as if pitying the world.
All his good feelings were gone.
It was as though he were being split in two.
The good part of him — his happy feelings, his positive emotions — had been erased, leaving him hollow, empty.
The hollow self seemed to sink into the depths.
A part of him that lived in darkness rose up into the world. Made of all that was rotten, only negative feelings.
Hatred, rage, fury.
Hidden beneath the calm in his eyes, the monster took control of his body.
The next room was like the one before. There were women there — young and old, different hair colors — drugged and unresponsive.
He sank further into the darkness.
His eye shone bright red now, and his magic felt consumed, like into a bottomless black hole.
The women were too drugged to notice him; when they sensed his steps, they became passive, instinctively still. They made no provocation — only the empty motion of people who had been broken.
Redder still.
In the following room, his feet hesitated. Children were there — boys and girls.
Tears streamed down his face.
A single drop of blood rolled down his cheek.
He averted his eyes from the children, as if afraid he might hurt them. Somehow he knew that if he looked, harm would follow.
"Hehehehehe," a laugh echoed in his mind.
His eye became fully red.
He stood there and breathed deeply.
The entire place was filled with negative energy. This cursed place was filthy, rotten. In that moment, all of it poured toward him, as if he were drawing it in.
Devouring it all.
His gaze shifted to another staircase. The air seemed to tremble under his stare. Reality lost its color; space itself seemed fragile.
As if a pinch could tear it and break the world.
He ignored it and climbed.
Upstairs, two men waited, guns trained on him.
At the end of the corridor, a tall man watched. He took a drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke out.
"Is that the demon you were talking about?" he asked with a laugh.
The alley fugitive knelt, panic in his eyes.
"Y-yes, a monster… monster."
"You must've been drinking too much," the man snorted. "Still, thanks for the new toy."
"Bring him to me, but do not harm his face. It's too good to ruin."
But the two men didn't move. Both stared at Noah, trembling.
"You should feel honored," Noah said. His voice was different — unpleasant, frightening. "To be killed by me."
"Your lives, I take them." His voice was low, but everyone heard it.
Then, as if their bodies had turned to jelly, the men dropped to the floor. Their forms went limp and lifeless.
The boss standing there widened his eyes, bewildered.
His instincts told him to run, and he tried. But before taking two steps he heard that cold voice again.
"You cannot walk. I deny you."
Then his legs went rubbery, and he collapsed. Terror and fear contorted his face as he tried to crawl away.
Noah passed the alley fugitive without a glance, but suddenly the man put his hands to his face and pressed, digging with force until his head opened like a cracked watermelon — no sound, no resistance.
Noah's steps didn't stop until he reached the boss, who was trembling against the wall.
The man sobbed with terror, snot running from his nose. His pants were wet with urine. He lifted his head and met Noah's eyes — that eye…
"Boss, help!" he managed, voice failing.
A crack sounded in the room. A man appeared in the middle of the floor.
"Who dares interfere with my business?" he demanded, looking around at the bodies.
Then a boy came into his sight, and at the boy's feet his subordinate lay crying and terrified.
"A child?" he was confused, but when the young man turned he froze.
"What a frightening look you have there," he said after a moment. Then he raised his wand and spoke.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Although he had laughed before, terror filled his chest. At the sight of that red eye, his magic faltered. It terrified him to death. He had decided to end it quickly — to kill.
But then something impossible happened. His unforgivable curse was… blocked.
No — "blocked" wasn't the right word. It had been erased.
The beam of green light dissolved the instant the child looked.
Noah stood motionless, watching. It seemed impossible for his left eye to redden further — but it did.
Now it wasn't a trickle. Blood flowed like a tap. His skin paled, sickly. A thin strand of hair turned white.
In that moment, the world Noah saw through his left eye resembled what he saw when he activated his right eye long ago, but different.
The world wasn't beautiful or colorful.
It was all black, gray, and red.
The man before him appeared a tangle of red and blue — thousands of colored threads sprouting from him and scattering in every direction. It was impossible to tell where those lines connected.
The man felt terror and only one thought: flee. His body began to vanish. He disappeared.
Then something happened — his escape magic failed. As if space itself had been sealed.
"Apparitions are forbidden here," the young man's voice sounded in his ear.
Terror.
He felt it.
'What kind of magic is this?'
He couldn't believe such an ability existed… First erasing a killing curse, then "sealing" the area to prevent escape.
If he could go back, he'd never have answered that useless lackey's call.
But he would not surrender without a fight. He had his pride as a wizard, and no matter what aberrant magic this thing used, he also knew forbidden spells.
"If I cannot flee, I will kill you," he shouted. Adrenaline pushed him to act. He thrust his wand into his own arm, blood spilling.
"Suffer before my magic."
The air grew heavy as he muttered an ancient incantation. "From blood comes death, and…" His voice cut off suddenly.
"Impossible."
A look of terror crossed his face before it twisted into despair as the young man spoke again.
"What magic?" A chilling smile played on the child's lips.
The dark wizard felt emptiness and despair. His mind broke as he understood what had happened. His body had lost all connection to the world's magic.
At that moment, he had completely lost his magic.
His shattered mind drained him of strength and will. He didn't want to move. Then he heard:
"Give me your heart," Noah said.
The stunned man used his own hands to open his chest, digging into flesh and tearing out his heart. He had no life left, but somehow he walked to Noah and dropped it at his feet.
Silence took over. The stench was horrible — a mixture of blood, feces, and urine.
"Don't kill me, please," the last living man in the room croaked, breaking the silence. With his legs disabled, he dragged himself away.
Noah stared at the heart, still beating. Then he turned to the crawling man.
Where his legs had been, there was only darkness, as if merged with that world of error and denial.
Noah felt like breaking bone by bone, ripping out every tooth before killing him. But death seemed too easy. If he died, he would leave this world of darkness. He didn't want that.
Images of the women and the children flashed in his mind.
No — death was too easy for him.
'Tch, still influencing me.'
Something echoed in his mind, and he felt himself weakening. His thoughts clouded…
"It seems I don't have much time…" He smiled and walked toward the fallen man.
"I will show you my power… Then one day, when despair is all you have left, you will seek me of your own will." Though he spoke to the man, the words were really for himself.
He stopped in front of him and, ignoring his pleas, said:
"I deny you speech, hearing, feeling." Noah's eye was a dark red, almost black. His words were low, almost a whisper, but carried a terrifying weight.
It seemed to frighten even the world; the space began to crack. Tiny voids the width of a hair opened around them. The night grew darker as if a storm were forming.
But it wasn't only in Paris. It was across Europe.
And, without Noah knowing it at that moment, wizards and witches and every magical creature throughout Europe felt something.
A discomfort, like a breath being taken from them.
It was the moment Noah finished speaking.
"My commands are eternal. Beyond magic, time, love, life, and death."
A thunderclap rolled above the bar. A lightning bolt pierced the night as if trying to strike Noah down.
When he finished, Noah's mind clouded. Pale and sickly, he seemed on the verge of fainting.
His eye remained red, and the world as seen through it was still wrong.
He looked up, and in that altered vision he could see the lightning even through the bar's ceiling.
He didn't say a word, but his gaze fixed on the bolt. Then, as if swallowed by this world's error, the lightning was denied and vanished.
Noah spat blood and sank to his knees.
Blood flowed from his nose and ears. His skin was pallid and ill; the white streak in his brown hair grew.
He almost fainted. His mind went dark, and his body felt drained. He could not feel a drop of magic in himself, and no matter how he tried, he could not sense the magic in the environment.
"I will be waiting…"
Pulled as if from the bottom of the sea, Noah felt his mind clear and gulped air like someone surfacing from drowning.
The void and lack of magic made him fall and cry out.
"Ahhh."
A searing pain shot from his left eye, like a hot iron had pierced it.
When his left eye returned to blue, it seemed duller, and the pain forced him to keep it closed.
With effort he rose and felt dizzy.
He had to fight to keep from collapsing. Somehow he found the strength to stand and walk outside.
He moved like a zombie, but his slow steps took him out of the bar. Little by little he returned from the darkness, as if swimming back to the surface.
. . .
Some time after he left, dozens of pops echoed down the bar's street and about a dozen men and women appeared from nowhere. Their faces were serious and cautious, wands at the ready.
"Are you sure this is the place?" asked one of them. He was tall, attractive, with blond hair that shone in the weak streetlight.
"Of course it is," replied a woman. She was pretty, with hair as black as night, fair skin and blue eyes that pierced the dark. "I can smell blood for blocks." She seemed to smile as she said it, as if pleased by the thought.
"Sometimes you scare me," the blond teased, trying to ease the tension. "Careful or I'll drive a stake through your heart."
The woman laughed, a low, seductive sound. "You? Stick something in me? Somehow I doubt it."
"Ouch, that stung," he said, pretending to be offended.
An older man in the group stepped forward, cutting the banter. "Enough. Some kind of strange magic was used here. We don't know exactly what." He looked around, assessing. "You three, patrol the left side. You three, the right. Stay sharp. Attack to kill if necessary." Without waiting for replies, he entered the bar.
Three others followed, stopping as soon as they crossed the threshold. The scene was grim: five corpses scattered across the floor. None of them were new to bizarre crime scenes, but this was different. No one vomited or turned away, but the horror showed on their faces.
A brown-haired woman approached the bodies, murmuring spells as her wand glided over them. "Hard to say for sure, but…" she began hesitantly.
"But what?" the blond demanded.
"All of them were killed in seconds. Their bodies were broken by an external force, but there are no marks of crushing. No trace of dark magic. Whatever did this used some different kind of power… as if their bones were snapped like dry branches." She sighed in disbelief. "I'd say it took no more than thirty seconds."
"For each one?" the captain asked, his deep voice echoing.
"No. For all. Between the first and the last, less than thirty seconds passed."
A heavy silence fell. Each of them tried to imagine what kind of wizard could do that so fast. One thing was certain: none of them could. At least, not that quickly.
After another sweep, they continued. They climbed the stairs and sighed when they found women and children dead. Then they reached the third floor. Two bodies came into view first.
The brown-haired woman again stepped forward to examine them. This time the bodies weren't broken, but her expression of surprise was greater. "Strange," she murmured.
"Death curse?" the blond asked.
"That's the odd part," she replied, turning to the group, puzzled. "Their lives were taken in a way similar to the Killing Curse, but I sense something different… We need to bring these bodies in for study."
"Let's do it," the captain agreed. "But first, let's finish checking this place."
They pressed on and found another body, this one with the head blown open, fallen by a set of armchairs.
"Let me guess the cause of death: lost his head," the blond quipped, trying to lighten the mood.
"No signs of dark magic…" the woman who examined the bodies muttered.
"And this one lost his heart… Was that a woman?" The joke made no one laugh.
"That's a wizard," they noted from clothes and wand. Before they could examine further, someone spoke up.
"This one's still alive," the black-haired woman announced, kneeling beside a man. "But there's something wrong with him."
When the brown-haired woman came over, the captain warned, "Be careful. Something's off with this person."
"All right," she said, touching the man with her wand. A soft light passed over him and the process took only a few seconds. It left her shocked.
"Merlin's beard! What kind of aberration was here?" she exclaimed.
"What is it?" the blond asked, kneeling beside her.
"This man… some sort of magic, if I can even call it that, is sealing him," she explained, horrified. "All his senses are blocked, but… that word doesn't quite explain it."
The captain crouched next to her. "I've never seen you like this… confused, frightened."
The brunette who had been examining the headless corpse walked over and said with an ironic smile, "Exactly. Not even when you examined that body used in a sacrificial ritual did you look this shaken. And remember there were ten souls trapped in that one."
The blond shivered at the memory. "You didn't need to remind us."
The brunette ignored him and addressed the captain. "This doesn't look like our case. I think we should pass it to the Nameless Ones."
At her suggestion, the room went quiet. Even the blond and the pretty brunette seemed surprised.
"Come on, aren't you overreacting? If he's alive, just undo the magic and interrogate him. We might even recover information from his memories," the blond argued, reluctant to hand the case over to those strange, scary people.
The brown-haired woman shook her head, still shaken. "The magic used here, whether on the bodies downstairs or the corpses upstairs, none of them were killed by a known spell." She pointed at the still-living man. "I said his senses are blocked, but that doesn't capture it. I can't find a better word."
At that moment, one of the wizards who had gone to patrol returned. "We found two more bodies in a nearby alley. Also, there's a witness with the non-magical police."
"Did she see who killed them?" the blond asked, hopeful.
The man nodded. "She says it was an angel with red eyes."
The captain, who had stayed quiet for most of the conversation, finally spoke. "Report the situation to the head of the department and give your opinion about passing this to the Nameless Ones."
The brown-haired woman nodded, and with a snap, she vanished.
Today's events, the state of the lone survivor — beyond comprehension — would be discussed for a long time within the French security department. But after this episode, no new cases occurred for a good while.
And when something did happen again, it would be on the day forever known as:
The Fall of Paris.