The old water plant smelled of rot, oil, and acid. The wind blew through the broken windows, carrying a sharp, metallic tang that made Evan flinch. The rain had begun again, slanting like knives through the night. Every puddle on the cracked asphalt held a thin rainbow of supernatural residue. He ignored it. No Null Zone, no five-meter radius needed here—yet.
He walked past rusted pipes and piles of discarded machinery. The entire place looked abandoned, but he knew better. Places like this were never empty. Not when someone had lost control inside. The air pulsed, faint, like the echo of something unseen breathing.
The Rat's warning had been clear: "Nightmare. Ghost-type, booster-junkie. Locked himself in. Two Mental Defense Tier-2s sent in—one jumped off the roof, the other went mad chewing his own fingers."
Evan adjusted the hood over his black eyes. He stepped over a rusted grate. Water sloshed over the soles of his boots. He didn't rush. Step by step. Observation first. The target wasn't a god here. He was prey.
Somewhere in the plant, Nightmare had rigged the old filtration shafts to scream alarms if anyone touched them. Evan smelled the faint electrical burn of a tripped circuit before he even saw the sparks. Instincts, not powers, told him which shadows were safe.
He crouched behind a low wall. Five meters—his radius had been empty outside, but inside the plant, he let it sleep. Let the world keep its rules for now. Even without Null Zone, the bones of the place whispered. Nightmare's presence was erratic. Pulsing. Hungry. Like a rat cornered in a steel cage.
Evan's hand brushed the hilt of his short blade. Manganese steel. Stone-age weight. No energy. No flash. Just cold, hard edge. He liked it that way.
The target moved first. A shadow flitted across a rusted stairwell. Lights flickered from broken fixtures. Nightmare appeared for a second, silhouette jagged. Booster fumes made him twitch, limbs jerky, eyes darting. He smelled like chemicals and burnt ozone.
Evan watched. One, two, three beats. Nightmare's step faltered—too slow, overcompensating. He had been feeding his body with a cocktail of boosters and stimulants. The system was overloaded. Perfect.
A leaky pipe dripped onto a shattered bulb. Each drop hissed. Evan moved five meters closer. The hiss cut off mid-sizzle. The sound died mid-air, as if the world itself refused to obey. He felt it again. The radius. The Null Zone wasn't on, but the way he carried it—presence, gravity, time—still made things bend.
He stepped out. Rainwater sluiced over his hoodie, onto his gloves. Nightmare froze mid-step, nostrils flaring. The faint chemical sheen of booster sweat made him shine in the flickering light.
"Go on," Evan whispered. Not loud. Just enough for his own ears. "Show me what you are."
Nightmare tensed, limbs twitching. He tried to phase his ghostly projection. He tried to hide in the corners. Evan's eyes didn't leave him. Within five meters—his private graveyard, rusted steel and miracles alike waiting for him—Nightmare's tricks were useless.
Evan moved closer. Every step measured. Every inch of shadow mapped.
Nightmare let out a scream, high-pitched, electronic. He leapt, phased, tried to vanish. Evan didn't flinch. He sliced the air with the blade. Five meters. One slash. Not flashy. No plasma arcs. No projections. Just one clean cut.
The blade met neck. Wet pop. Silence.
Nothing glamorous—just the soft pop of a bubble every child believes is floating somewhere in the world. The booster fumes stank. The body sagged. Limbs twitched once. Then nothing.
Evan exhaled. He wiped the blade on his sleeve. Rain sluiced off him, carrying away blood into the puddles, carrying away residue. Nobody would see. Nobody would know. Only him. Only the rules he obeyed.
He crouched near the railing and scanned the shadows. The plant was empty again. No alarms. No ghosts. Nothing except rust and chemicals and the faint shimmer of supernatural residue in the rainwater.
The next step was collection. Government drones were already on the way. They would come for Nightmare's corpse, expecting a full Esper profile. Brain intact. Core intact. But Evan had seen enough. The Null Zone didn't leave traces, but it had left fingerprints. The data would be corrupted. They would find nothing—official first case of "Zero contamination."
He pulled his hood lower. His gloves were slick. He didn't care. The prize was already accounted for: the body, the bounty, and the fact that nobody could ever touch him while he moved.
The rain intensified. Lightning cracked over Greyfog City. Evan didn't look up. Streetlights flickered miles away. The city went on, oblivious, wrapped in neon and chemical haze.
He pocketed the encrypted credit chips the Rat had wired to his account. He checked the balance. Frozen. Interesting. Someone wanted a Null Zone sample alive. Ten times the bounty. Someone knew. Someone was watching.
Evan didn't flinch. He walked into the shadows of the alley leading out of the plant. Five meters ahead, the world obeyed its own rules. Behind him, chaos would come in waves—officials, bounty hunters, scavengers—but inside his radius, nothing moved except him.
And for the first time, the hunter smelled his own blood on the market floor.