"Why don't you use a gun?" Tova Tor asked timidly, forcing courage as he looked at the boy walking ahead.
Leon glanced at the one-armed boy. He was deformed, born missing a hand.
But in a way, he was lucky. His hands hadn't turned into writhing tentacles like Ben's, so his father hadn't executed him.
With one hand, he cradled a lasgun, trying to steady it against the stump of his malformed arm, while Philly loaded ammunition for him.
"There's already been enough death in the underhive. What I bring them is hope and rebirth."
It was Curze who answered, though none of them truly understood.
"Why is it that when we kill, it's just death, but when you kill, it's hope?"
Leon mocked him, but instantly regretted speaking. Curze wasn't like Caelan; he wasn't forgiving. Would Curze kill him for that?
"I like the way you approach the question," Curze said evenly, "but with your current level of understanding, it's difficult to make you grasp my meaning."
"Why?" Leon pressed.
"What do you think the underhive lacks?"
"Morality? That's just a luxury for the lords above."
It was Teacher Dorothy who had taught him that word.
"What it lacks is order," Curze explained seriously. "Even the worst kind of order is better than none at all. Order regulates people's behavior."
"Then by that logic, isn't the Bloodclaw gang a kind of order too?"
"Yes. But I can give them a better order."
Leon sneered. "And killing people is what you call better order?"
"The more chaotic the world, the harsher the order it requires. When order can no longer restrain people, only death can."
"Who are we supposed to kill?" Ben asked nervously, clutching two short blades in his twisted tentacle-hands.
Because of his deformity, he couldn't handle guns. He felt like a burden.
"Everyone. Everyone who commits evil."
Curze turned into a dark alley. A scavenger was being cornered there by five Bloodclaw members; they were hunting him.
The gang itself was already destroyed, its core members dead, but Caelan had sealed the camp. These stragglers didn't yet know.
Philly and Ben followed Curze, but Leon pulled Tor back and whispered, "Tor, are you really going to listen to him? He killed everyone!"
Tor looked up at the taller boy and replied seriously, "My father's long been dead. He wasn't a good man, and there are no good men in the Bloodclaws. I don't know what they're trying to do, but I'm sure it can't be worse than the Bloodclaws."
With that, he followed Curze, leaving Leon stunned in place.
Yes… Tor wasn't like him.
They had all received Dorothy's teachings, and they could tell right from wrong.
But Tor didn't bear the grudge of a murdered father. He didn't hate them; he was grateful.
Because ever since they came, Tor, who had always been despised in the gang, had actually lived better than before.
And him?
Leon didn't know. Dazed, he drifted into the alley. Curze cut down one of the gang members, while the others collapsed, bleeding, groaning in pain.
"Kill them," Curze ordered.
Leon knew the words were meant for them. Tor acted first, firing his lasgun into a man's skull.
Ben slit another's throat with his twin blades.
Philly, trembling, stepped up to a wounded man, pressed a scrap-gun against his forehead.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, then fired.
The shot burst his skull, brain matter spattering her clothes and mask.
She could have used the better lasgun, but this crude scrap-gun was the first weapon Curze had ever captured. Carrying it proved she was the earliest to follow Caelan and Curze.
Everyone turned toward Leon. He glared back in irritation.
"What are you staring at? Think I don't dare?"
He slashed open the last man's throat, blood spraying across his clothes.
Leon glanced at Curze, snorted.
The rescued scavenger didn't thank them; he only cowered in the corner, shaking.
"You can go," Curze told him.
"Wh-who are you?" The man stammered, staring at the tall, pale boy whose eyes gleamed with menace.
In him, Curze saw many things: starving children wasting away at home, a people cowed under oppressive rule, but also the glimmer of a hopeful future.
"Midnight Phantoms," Curze said. "We are the Midnight Phantoms. We are the new order of the underhive. You may tell everyone this: from today onward, murder is no longer permitted."
The man realized at last they wouldn't kill him. Trembling, he staggered to leave, yet his eyes lingered hungrily on the corpses.
"I haven't eaten in two days… Can I take some food? Just a little?" His eyes were full of pleading and greed. The hunger to live outweighed his fear of death.
Curze regarded him silently, making the man's heart quail. But in the end, Curze didn't kill him; he simply turned and left the alley.
Soon, the sound of rustling echoed, clothes being stripped, a dull knife sawing flesh.
"You forbid murder, but not cannibalism?" Leon mocked again, never tiring of it.
"Caelan told me, violence and destruction can overthrow the old order. But if I wish to bear responsibility, I must replace it with a new one. The underhive lacks food. If I cannot solve that, I cannot stop people from eating one another."
"Then your new order will never come," Leon shot back, surprised that Curze actually answered him seriously. "Because the underhive will never have enough food."
"Not in the underhive," Curze said. "But if we take it from above, there will be."
"And why would the nobles give their food to you?" Leon challenged.
Curze shook his head. "I don't expect them to hand it over willingly."
Everyone who died in this city had blood tied to those nobles. They were the true root of its evil. There was no salvation that could pardon them.
"Thank you."
The scavenger stumbled out of the alley, clutching a bundle of meat wrapped in rags. Seeing Curze still there, he froze, thaen bowed awkwardly.
Curze asked, "Do you know the Bloodclaws?"
"I won't betray you!" the man blurted in terror, afraid Curze would silence him.
"The Bloodclaws are gone," Curze said flatly. "That territory now belongs to the Midnight Phantoms. You can send your child there. He will grow under the new order. He will be educated. He will not starve."
The man looked at him with suspicion.
"It's true," Leon said coldly. "He killed my father, Bloodclaw leader Yagor."
Curze gave Leon a surprised glance.
The man still wavered, but thinking of his child, he asked timidly, "Can I join you too?"
"You are guilty," Curze replied. "I didn't kill you only because you are already close to death. Your child is also guilty, he shares your sins. But he still has a chance to atone."