Caelan said, "I'm not asking you to die. Many of you will never even see the battlefield, because you lack courage. You're not qualified to join us. Only those who truly yearn for justice can become Midnight Phantoms."
Phily proudly puffed out her chest. The other children grew restless. They knew they lacked courage, but hearing Caelan say it out loud stung, and they couldn't accept it.
One child shouted, "Then why do you still give us food? Are you crazy?"
Smack! Curze struck the child across the face.
"Do you know why I hit you?" Curze asked.
The child stared at him in terror, unable to answer.
"Answer me," Curze demanded coldly.
"I… I don't know," the boy whimpered, tears spilling down.
"Because I wanted to," Curze said. "Just like we give you food, because we want to. Because we want to make this world better. I know you don't understand, and I don't expect you to. Because I don't care."
"When you're grown, we won't feed you anymore. You'll go into the factories, spend your lives laboring there, and die at your workstations by the age of forty, just like your parents before you."
"Remember this: never mock those who fight for justice. This isn't advice, it's a warning."
The children fell silent. Violence, as always, was the most effective teacher.
"I heard workers don't even live to thirty," one child muttered under his breath.
Curze's gaze snapped to him, making the boy flinch.
"I'll make it forty," Curze said, "then fifty, then sixty. But it won't happen overnight. Just like justice, it requires countless struggles and sacrifices."
"Will you really succeed?" someone asked.
Curze countered, "Why do you have food to eat?"
"Because… because you want us to have it," a child answered timidly.
"I give you food because I choose to. But the reason you can eat is because of the sacrifices of the Midnight Phantoms, children your age, even younger, who gave their lives so that you could have a meal. Every bite you eat is stained with their blood."
The children grew even more silent.
Many of them were orphans. For food, they had stolen, robbed, even eaten the flesh of scavengers and other dead children.
It didn't taste good, bitter, stringy. Starved corpses had little meat to begin with.
They had never felt guilt before, only the drive to survive.
But this, others dying so that they could eat, was different.
They still didn't understand justice. They didn't even understand shame. But something in their hearts felt heavy and painful.
Curze memorized their faces. Those who could feel guilt still had hope of redemption.
The rest, already numb, were unworthy of the Midnight Phantoms.
But until they fell fully into darkness, Curze would withhold judgment.
"Mom!"
A little girl came running through the doorway, rushing happily into her parents' arms. Grace held her tight, her heart aching with love.
"Yamira, what did you learn at school today?"
Yamira thought for a moment, then answered seriously: "I learned about justice."
Grace glanced at her anxious husband and gestured for him to stay quiet. Smiling softly, she asked, "And what is justice?"
"Justice is overthrowing the nobles' tyranny! The world belongs to the people!"
Yamira raised her little fist and excitedly shouted the new slogan she had learned that day.
"Who taught you that?" Mason blurted out.
"Big Sister Phily," Yamira replied innocently. "She's a Midnight Phantom. Mama, when I grow up, I want to join the Midnight Phantoms too!"
"Yamira is amazing." Grace smiled and hugged her child tightly.
Later, after Yamira had fallen asleep, Mason muttered regretfully:
"I shouldn't have let her go to those lessons."
"Why not?" Grace asked.
"Why not? Because they…" Mason looked nervously toward the window. "They're provoking the nobles' authority. They're looking for death."
"Because they dare to resist?"
"They're nobles!"
"Yamira is very beautiful," Grace said quietly.
"She'll be as beautiful as me when she grows up. That kind of beauty doesn't belong to the Underhive. You know what will happen to her?"
Mason fell silent.
"We're just ordinary people, we can't change the world. But maybe they can. The Midnight Phantoms are different from the other gangs. They've demanded nothing from us, just asked us to keep working as before."
"…I understand," Mason said, lowering his head.
"What do you understand?" Grace sighed. "Yamira is still young. She won't even have the chance to join them for another ten years. If they fail, then yes, we must protect her, keep her from speaking out. But if they succeed… what then?"
Curze could go days without sleep, hunting ceaselessly until the last gang stronghold of the first layer had fallen.
Then he moved on to the next layer, repeating the slaughter.
"The nobles' retaliation is slower than I expected," he muttered, standing amidst fields of corpses, his cloak soaked crimson with blood.
"The nobles aren't united," Caelan replied, crushing corpses with psychic power. "Every layer of the hive belongs to a different family, or even a single noble within a family. The Midnight Phantoms are still too small. They haven't cut into everyone's share of the cake yet. Most are still watching from the sidelines, amused."
"But retaliation will come eventually," Curze said. "I can't keep wasting time."
The Midnight Phantoms couldn't withstand the nobles' reprisal, unless they could seize the entire Lower Hive quickly.
That was impossible.
Even with the Phantoms' help, it had taken Curze a full month to clear just the first layer of gangs.
"You should trust them more," Caelan said.
"I do trust them. But trust doesn't stop overwhelming force."
"You have a plan?"
"I always have a plan." Curze's tone sharpened. "I never forget your teaching: if there's no purpose, don't act."
He had never killed aimlessly. He had cleared the gangs of the Underhive because that was his foundation.
He had seized the first layer because the Midnight Phantoms needed a foothold in the Lower Hive.
They needed their own factories, their own people, a steady supply of food, soldiers, and weapons.
Only with those could the Midnight Phantoms withstand the counterattacks of the other gangs.
And Curze's role was to sow chaos.
He couldn't wipe out every gang, but he could kill their rulers.
The nobles weren't united, and neither were the gangs.
Take out a gang boss, and the factions beneath would tear each other apart for the throne.
If they were all mired in chaos, they wouldn't have time to deal with the Midnight Phantoms.
And that would give the Phantoms the time, and the space, to grow.