Inside the cave, the silence was broken only by the wet thud of dissolving flesh. Geralt stood amidst a pile of fading ash, his chest heaving. It was exactly as Carl had said: the demons that had previously laughed at his silver were now being carved like butter by his infused steel. The blade hummed in his hand, the violet veins on the fuller glowing with a fierce, hungry light.
But there was something else.
With every demon that fell, Geralt felt a strange surge. He couldn't see the Red Orbs—to him, it was just a sudden, invisible rush of energy that slammed into his chest. It felt ominous, like a cold fire spreading through his veins, yet it wasn't malicious. It didn't feel like a curse or a disease; it felt like a heavy, raw potential settling into his bones.
Tired and covered in black ichor, Geralt stepped out into the daylight. He sheathed the sword and looked at Carl, his cat-like eyes burning with a mix of exhaustion and intense curiosity.
"I killed them," Geralt said, his voice gravelly. "The sword worked. But something... something entered me. I felt it every time one of them died. It's sitting in my chest right now, like a weight I can't put down. Why did you send me in there alone?"
Carl straightened up from the tree, his amber eyes scanning Geralt. To him, the Witcher was glowing with a faint, crimson aura—the gathered Orbs were swirling within his soul, undirected and raw.
"I sent you in because the power only responds to the one who takes the life," Carl explained. "Those things you felt? They're called Red Orbs. It's the literal essence of the demons you just slew. In this world, that essence merges with whoever kills them. It's a law of reality now."
Geralt's hand went to his chest, his brow furrowed. "Demonic essence in my blood? You've turned me into a ticking bomb."
"No," Carl countered, stepping closer. "I've given you the fuel. But a bomb only explodes because it has no direction. You're a Witcher; you've spent your life controlling your own mutations through meditation. This is no different. Simply having the essence doesn't make you strong. You have to learn how to utilize it to upgrade your own skills."
Carl gestured for Geralt to sit. "Find the heat. It's not magic. It's raw energy. Focus on your sword-arm. 'Push' that heat from your chest down into your muscles. Imagine it reinforcing your fibers, making them denser than any mutagen ever could."
Geralt followed the instructions, his long years of mental discipline making the process of internal focus second nature. He found the "weight" in his chest and, with a surge of will, nudged it.
Suddenly, his arm snapped forward with a speed that blurred the air. He didn't just move; he exploded. The stone he struck with his fist didn't just crack—it shattered.
"That," Carl said, a small, knowing smirk appearing on his face. "Is why I sent you in. You can't protect this world with silver and steel anymore, Geralt. You have to learn to fight like a demon to kill one."
Geralt looked at his unbruised knuckles, then back at Carl. The suspicion was still there, but it was being overtaken by a grim understanding. The Witcher was evolving.
"Novigrad," Geralt said, standing up. "We need to get to the city. If I can learn this, others can too—and they'll be a hell of a lot less careful with it than I am."
The towering spires of Novigrad usually hummed with the zealous chants of the Eternal Fire. But as Carl and Geralt approached the Hierarch Gate, the air was thick with the stench of desperation. The city didn't sound like a bustling metropolis; it sounded like a funeral.
The first thing they saw was the collapse of order at the square. The priests—who had spent weeks demanding massive "tithes" for secret research to repel the "True Devils"—had vanished. They had fled with the city's gold under the cover of night, leaving behind empty vaults and a terrified populace.
In their place, the Lodge of Sorceresses had stepped out of the shadows to attempt a defense. Carl and Geralt stood in the shadow of an archway, observing as a high-ranking mage attempted to clear a Dark Dungeon cave that had opened beneath the Docks. She unleashed a torrent of Chaos, a blinding storm of arcane fire that should have leveled a building.
The Empusa emerging from the cave entrance didn't even flinch. The fire simply washed over its chitinous hide like water. The sorceress screamed in frustration as the demon lunged, forcing her to teleport away in a panic.
The two men watched in silence. Carl didn't need to say a word; the failure of the world's most powerful magic spoke for itself.
The panic in the streets wasn't a riot; it was a psychological collapse. The common folk, who had participated in pogroms against non-humans and mages in the name of "purity," were now weeping openly in the gutters.
"Is this our penance?" a woman wailed, clutching a holy symbol to her chest as she collapsed to her knees. "The priests said God left us because we embraced Chaos... but look! The fire of the mages does nothing! The gods didn't leave because of the sorcerers. They left because of us!"
"They abandoned us!" a man shouted, his voice cracking with terror. "We hunted the elves, we burned the dwarves... everyone we called alien! And now the real Devils are here, and the gods have left us to rot in the dark!"
The sentiment spread through the crowd like a plague. The people were realizing that their hatred had bought them nothing. If the Eternal Fire was a lie and the Witchers were failing, it wasn't just a defeat—it felt like a divine sentence. They believed the gods had finally looked at their cruelty and chosen to let the Underworld swallow them whole as punishment.
Geralt adjusted the hilt of his infused steel sword, his face grim as he watched a mother shield her child from the sight of the cave. "They're realizing their steel and their prayers are hollow, Carl. They've spent so long hunting 'monsters' that they don't know what to do when a real one arrives."
Carl remained silent, his amber eyes scanning the crowd. He could feel the System humming—the energy from the cave was dense, beckoning. To him, the cries of the people were just background noise to the reality of the hunt. He wasn't there to judge their sins or offer them comfort.
A hooded figure detached itself from a nearby alleyway, her eyes wide as she looked at Geralt's pulsing sword and Carl's strange attire. It was Triss Merigold, and for the first time in Geralt's memory, she looked completely hopeless.
"Geralt..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "The Lodge... we've tried everything. The energy doesn't respond to our spells. It's like magic doesn't exist to these things. What is happening to the world?"