Curze hid himself within the shadows.
"It smells so sweet here," Caelan said with genuine emotion.
After years in the lower hive and underhive, even though he could use his psychic power to purify the air, he could never fully block out the stench.
But here, in the spire, the air was truly sweet.
The streets of the lower hive and the underhive were piled with refuse. The air reeked of indescribable rot. They ate corpse starch and drank gray water laced with pollutants and radiation.
But in the spire? The air was fragrant, the food was fresh meat and vegetables from agri-domes, and the water was clear as crystal.
The air they breathed and the water they used were cycled downward, from spire to midhive, to lower hive. Their wasted food was dumped directly into the underhive.
Scavengers risked radiation and burial under avalanches of refuse, searching for half-rotten meat slabs, rare delicacies for them.
Those cuts of meat were often poisoned with industrial waste, lethal to eat. But if they didn't eat them, they would starve first.
Everywhere in the spire dripped with wealth. Luxurious, decadent, words weren't enough to capture the excess.
The pinnacle tower pierced into swirling black storm clouds. Hundreds of thousands of lamps flickered across its surface, swaying in acid rain, the city's only source of light.
"Is Terra like this, too?" Curze asked.
"Not exactly," Caelan replied. "At least on Terra, sunlight isn't a luxury. Workers only labor sixteen hours a day. Everyone has corpse starch to eat. The air in the underhive is filthy, but not so vile it makes you gag."
As he spoke, he fell silent. M30 Terra was nothing compared to M3 Terra, but compared to Nostramo, life on Terra's lowest rungs was paradise.
Everything, he realized, is known only through comparison.
"I will make her like Terra," Curze said.
"No." He shook his head. "Better than Terra."
"I believe you can. I look forward to that day."
Caelan smiled in encouragement. Curze allowed himself a smile too, but quickly suppressed it. He had killing to do.
When killing, one couldn't smile like a fool. He wasn't insane.
The spire's nobles sang and danced in the glow of their lights, but that rotten brilliance could not pierce Nostramo's darkness. The sun hid deep behind the cloud cover.
He had never seen it, but his innate gift told him it was there, weak and wan.
Billions of stars lay beyond the boiling purple-black clouds, each star shining on its children.
Many worlds were wrapped in darkness. Each one a sick, dying mother, needing the sun's salvation.
Curze did not think himself that sun. He was the hunter in the dark, the one who hunted and judged, the guilty.
He leapt down from the ceiling, his pale form stretching shadows long under the spire's lampstrips, drowning the noble in darkness.
"Guards! Where are the guards!?"
The noble stumbled back in panic, his cries echoing down the corridor. No one came.
They were all dead. Curze never allowed interruptions during judgment.
He didn't kill immediately. First, he watched this man's future.
"Good evening, Mister Melvin," Curze's cold voice froze the noble's blood.
"You… how do you know my name? Traitor! We have a traitor!"
Realization dawned. His knees buckled. With a thud, he knelt, pleading.
"Monster, no, my lord! I never took part in the plot against you. It was all Count Scarlawke's doing! Spare me, please, I'll serve you, just like the others!"
Curze saw the noble's future shift.
In one vision, he did not kill him. Nor the other nobles. Out of fear, they submitted. They abandoned their corruption, embraced his order. Nostramo, under his hand, stepped into the light.
But that vision was false. The light never truly came to Nostramo. Because the old order had never been broken. It simply hid beneath the skin of the new. Sin would fester again in the shadows.
Fear-bound loyalty was fragile. What if they stopped fearing?
What if one day he left?
Then the nobles he spared would slaughter everyone he knew, Dorothy, Philly, Ben. Every Phantom would die under cruelty, tortured to pieces in the nobles' games.
The new order would collapse. The old order would rise again. Nostramo would remain in darkness.
This was not a future Curze had truly seen; his powers were unstable. He could not see so far.
But he knew it would happen. Inevitably.
Curze believed in humanity. But never in nobles.
"This is revolution, Mister Melvin."
Melvin's eyes bulged. He clutched his throat as blood soaked his jeweled finery, garments woven with the blood of the oppressed. Now, noble blood mingled with that of the poor. Perhaps this was the revolution's meaning.
He gurgled desperately, but his pleading eyes spoke clearly than words.
"Please… save her. Save my daughter."
He had a child. A beautiful daughter. If he died, who would protect her?
No one understood nobles better than nobles themselves. In the spire, if one family showed weakness, the others pounced like starving wolves, tearing them apart until nothing remained.
Curze's gaze was cold.
A man who delighted in tormenting the poor loved his daughter without restraint.
He had conspired with others to strangle the Phantoms. Yet now, at death's edge, he begged the Phantoms to save his child.
Because he knew, they rarely killed children. If his daughter fell into Curze's hands, she would live.
If she fell into other nobles' hands, she would suffer unspeakable torture before dying.
Humanity was complicated. Curze had learned that long ago.
"Papa? What's happening?"
The girl pushed open the door, rubbing sleep from her eyes, a pink stuffed doll in her arms.
She was twelve. Skin pale as porcelain. Golden hair smooth as silk.
Perfect, doll-like. Innocent.
In her frightened gaze, Curze seized her throat and dragged her into the room.
No effort was made to hide the truth, the chamber displayed its bloody tools openly.
A young maid hung from them. Her pale skin flayed away with scalpels. Her beautiful eyes gouged out. Her golden hair and scalp torn free. Her red corpse dripping.
She had only been a maid, but too beautiful.
So beautiful the noble's lust overwhelmed him. So beautiful his daughter grew jealous.
So the girl herself had skinned her.
The girl was merciful, she couldn't bear the maid's pleading eyes. So she gouged them out.
The girl was merciful, she couldn't endure the screams. So she cut out her tongue.
In the hive, beauty was a sin.
"Apologize to her. If she forgives you, you'll live."
Curze's icy words were a death curse. The girl burst into sobs.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please forgive me! I don't want to die!"
The maid gave no answer. She had long been dead, her body cold.
"It seems she doesn't forgive you."
Curze's hand closed. The girl's neck cracked.
Her head lolled. Dead.
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If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu
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Mass release has ended chapters will return to 2 chapters every weekday, and 3 chapters every weekend