"What are you doing?!" Edrick's angry roar scared away the crows on the eaves, and the tattoo of a god on his chest burned with emotion.
Griff's crowbar stopped in midair, and he turned back with a look of surprise in his eyes—he thought Edrick, who had been taken away by the Covenant Patroler, was picking up a discarded steel pipe from the ground.
Behind Edrick, Miryam watched the scene in panic.
"Croft bastard..." Cold sweat seeped from the thug's palms, and the shadow of the crowbar flickered on the wall.
Edrick then noticed Hannah's washboard wedged in the crack of the wooden door. She was using her entire weight to hold the door shut to prevent Griff from breaking in.
Griff's Adam's apple rolled as his gaze swept over the steel pipe in Edrick's hand. He was a low-ranking member of the Soot Street Scamps and knew very well the consequences of breaking and entering: the Covenant Patroler would hang him without mercy, and the murderous intent in Edrick's eyes was more deadly than any police baton.
Griff didn't want to get into a fight with Edrick, who was a skilled fighter and had beaten him up more than once.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm just here for some hot water." Griff's crowbar slipped quietly into his sleeve, and he put on a greasy smile. 'I heard your Steamsprite can sing folk songs. I'd like to borrow it to cheer up the boss...' Before he could finish, Edrick was already standing in front of him.
The transmigrator Edrick had never been in a fight on Earth, but facing a petty thug with ulterior motives, he was now full of confidence.
Edrick had the Third Set of Low-Level Civil Servant Broadcast Exercises from the Celestial? Was he afraid of you?
"Get lost." Edrick's fingers pinched Griff's wrist, and the gear-shaped calluses hurt like hell. This grip was exactly the same as when Edrick bent the steel cable at the dock three days ago.
"You're lucky." Griff broke free and knocked over the coal bucket at the door as he backed away. He deliberately raised his voice so that Hannah inside could hear, "Tomorrow, we, the Soot Street Scamps, will burn this building down and throw your sister's hand into the gear furnace!"
Edrick watched the thugs flee, hearing Hannah's sobs from inside. Her hand reached through the door crack, tugging at his sleeve, her fingertips still tingling from the lye in the laundry room.
"Don't be afraid, he won't come back." Edrick stroked his sister's hair, his gaze fixed on the pry marks on the wooden door.
He knew that Griff's retreat was not out of fear, but because he was weighing his options. Breaking and entering to kidnap someone was different from robbery in broad daylight. Griff had deliberately reported the incident, which meant that he himself was unwilling to confront Edrick head-on.
Edrick patted Hannah's trembling shoulder, his fingertips touching the patch under her apron, which his sister Miryam had sewn on to imitate the pattern of a goddess.
"Take care of your sister." Edrick turned and pulled the still-shaken Miryam closer. "You're a strong child. We need you here now. Can you do it?"
For a ten-year-old girl, everything that had happened today was overwhelming. But children from poor families had seen too much suffering. On this street, Miryam had witnessed too many beatings, injuries, and deaths.
Under her brother's gentle words, Miryam regained her composure, held her trembling sister tightly, and nodded firmly at Edrick.
Edrick forced a smile the size of a coin, pressing his palm against his temple, but as he turned away, the shadows concealed the coldness in his eyes.
Something stirred within him, like a white mist flowing through his veins—the power left behind after the divine statue had fused with him, colder than any weapon.
The midday sun was sliced into fragments by the gears of the tower, casting shadows on Edrick's coal-stained work clothes. He knelt down and gently wiped away the tears from Miryam's face with his fingertips. The little girl's eyelashes were still trembling, like a frightened baby bird.
"Don't be afraid, follow your sister home." His voice was a hundred times gentler than when he was fighting at the dock. He placed his palm on Hannah's cold hand and found that she was still clutching half of her torn apron — it was left behind when Griff tried to drag her away.
Hannah's gaze fell on the bandage on his chest, still damp with water. "But Father—" "I'll go to the dock to see if Father is safe." Edrick interrupted her. "The patrol changes shifts at noon; no one will question us on the way."
He stood up, pushed Miryam into his sister's arms, and ran his fingertips through the lye crystals in the little girl's hair. Suddenly, he remembered the half-burnt Faith Essence candle left in the ruined temple.
He wondered if that thing still had any magical powers.
The cinder road crunched under his feet as Edric's boots crushed half a piece of frozen gear.
The midday dock was shrouded in steam, and the steel frames of the cranes cast huge shadows, like rusty dinosaur skeletons.
He dodged the coal transport fleet and ran along the hot steam pipes, his work pants wet with condensation, but it was nothing compared to the cold in his chest. Griff dared to break into the mansion at noon, which meant that his father had probably been taken care of.
Edrick was on his way to the dock, but before he had gone two kilometers, he smelled the sweet, bloody scent of rust.
This smell was common in the rust district, but Edrick couldn't get used to it. It was the first time he had ever smelled it.
Perhaps it was a special ability of the deities, but Edrick's sense of smell was far beyond that of ordinary people. He followed the bloody scent and found his father in an unattended, dilapidated boiler room.
His work pants were soaked in standing water, and his shoelaces had been stained a deep brown by blood. He lay face up on the cold concrete, his head tilted to one side, his face bearing an expression of confusion and pain that was hard to describe.
Edrick rushed to his father's side. His gaze instinctively fell on his father's head, where there was a horrific wound. Blood was slowly seeping out from the torn flesh, trickling down his temples and neck.
The edges of the wound were jagged, as if it had been violently struck by a blunt object. The skin and hair were matted together, and faintly visible were the pale bones and dark red blood clots beneath.
The left side of his father's temple had caved in, swollen and covered in blood mixed with brain matter and strands of hair, staining half his face. Edrick wasn't a doctor; he couldn't assess the severity of the injury, but his instincts told him that such a wound would never heal with rest alone.
His father's eyes were half-open, his gaze unfocused, as if clinging to the last remnants of consciousness. His chest rose and fell slightly, his breath shallow and wet with the metallic taste of blood.
The air was thick with the sweet, iron-tinged stench of blood, and Edrick's heart pounded wildly in his chest. He tried desperately to stop the bleeding from his father's head, but there was nothing he could do. When his fingertips touched the wound, he felt warm blood flowing steadily, and beneath the skin, he could sense fragments of broken bone shifting slightly.
"Edrick..." His father's calloused hand scraped against the low steel frame, making a sound like nails scraping metal.
Edrick knelt on the scorching iron plate and noticed that the old man's pupils were moving involuntarily.
"Gr-Grif…" His father's groan was mixed with coal dust, 'They… are smuggling… people…' Before he could finish, his cough was drowned out by the roar of the steam locomotive.
Edrick's fingertips brushed his father's eyelids, and the white mist inside him suddenly surged—it was the divine statue responding to his anger. Within this body, the divine statue had never disappeared; it had merely transformed into a colder, more primal instinct for survival.
The midday steam suddenly grew biting cold. Edrick clenched his father's hand tightly. His father's fingers weakly scratched at Edrick's palm before finally dropping limply, his eyes growing dim.
Edrick could only watch helplessly as his father's life ebbed away like receding tide.
Griff's sneer echoed in his mind, mixed with Hannah's sobs and Miryam's gasps, finally into a cold, hard blade.
At that moment, the soul of the dead Edrick seemed to emit a heart-rending cry from below. With each desperate cry, the fragments of the Transmigrator's memories and Edrick's memories further intertwined. These were the memories of a child who had suffered greatly, a brave man who had challenged the rules, a serial killer, and a ripper!
The murderer who killed his father hadn't gone far. He sat on a massive gear, puffing on a cheap blend of nettle leaves, dandelion stems, and willow bark. The mixture was spicy and throat-burning, but it alleviated the craving for nicotine, making it an affordable alternative to cigarettes for dockworkers and chimney sweeps.
That was Edrick's father's cigarette.
Edrick had no memory of this man, but judging from the current situation, he was likely affiliated with the Soot Street Scamps.
"Have you decided how you want to die?" Edrick looked up at the man, as if he were looking at a corpse.
The midday sun was shattered into fragments by the iron roofs of the boiler district. Edrick's cloth shoes stepped on scorching rivets, and the soles of his boots emitted a burnt smell.
A figure on the gears wiped blood from the wrench with his sleeve, and coal dust on his work pants had hardened into crusts in the sweat stains.
The other man struck first—the rusty wrench sliced through the air toward Edrick's temple, and he could even see coal dust embedded between the man's fingers.
As he rolled sideways, his shoulder blade collided with the scorching coal-handling pipe, and the fabric sizzled, releasing a puff of white smoke.
Edrick rolled between two condensation towers, the damp smell of rust mingling with the scorching steam filling his nostrils. The wrench struck the gears, sparks flying, revealing the opponent's weakness—he was right-handed.
Edrick felt the iron wire wrapped around his waist—torn off earlier that morning during the steam boiler inspection—now digging into the calluses on his palm, causing a stinging pain.
As the wrench swung toward him for the second time, he suddenly gripped the other end of the wire tightly. The rusty hook fell from the top of the tower, its sharp edges slicing across the attacker's cheek, sending drops of blood mixed with coal dust flying.
The attacker roared and pulled out a piece of broken glass from his belt — very skilled! But Edrick had already noticed it and ducked, only to hit his knee on the hot valve.
The pain was so intense that he almost fainted. If he were just a transmigrator, the unprecedented pain would have made him curl up in a ball, but he was also Edrick, the Ripper of Rust District!
Edrick grit his teeth, feeling the loose firebricks at the base of the tower, and swung his hand back, smashing the shards of glass into the attacker's wrist. The glass clattered to the ground.
The two wrestled on the slippery grating, coal ash falling steadily into the boiler below. The attacker's knee pressed into Edrick's lower abdomen, and Edrick used the force to lean back, his back colliding with the safety valve that was venting steam.
The searing pain from the steam on his shirt made Edrick's neck tense, and the skin felt like it was being pierced by needles. But in the moment the attacker squinted, Edrick kicked his leg up, aiming for the inner side of the attacker's knee—a vulnerable joint from years of crouching while climbing chimneys.
Edrick crouched low, slid his feet forward, and grabbed the attacker's ankle, pulling him down with a sudden jerk. The attacker stumbled forward, and Edrick seized the opportunity to twist the attacker's wrist, the cracking sound of the dislocated joint piercing the attacker's temple like a needle.
The cracking sound of the dislocated joint mingled with the hissing steam. The attacker's other hand reached for the iron nail in his boot,
but his neck was already being pressed against the still-warm boiler shell by Edrick's knee.
The soft sound of fabric against metal was followed by a muffled groan, and the struggle grew weaker. Edrick reflexively pressed the man against the boiler.
The moment the fabric touched the metal, the smell of burnt flesh mixed with coal dust filled his nostrils—a scent he didn't remember, the sweet and salty smell of a living person being roasted. The groan was shorter than he remembered, with a breathy tone that made his stomach cramp.
Edrick's thumb unconsciously loosened its grip on the wire. The scorching metal shell left a seared mark on the other's back, but the body suddenly convulsed violently, like a fish caught on a barbed hook.
The icy murder scene from his memory collided with the twisted form of the living man before him, causing his pupils to contract sharply. He watched as the other's blood-stained nails scraped across his Adam's apple.
The moment the wire slackened, the attacker seized the opportunity to flip over and ram into the pipe bracket. Rusted rivets flew off, sharp fragments grazing Edrick's cheek, the pain jolting him back to consciousness.
The iron nail the attacker had pulled from his boot was already pressed against Edrick's collarbone. Coal dust mixed with blood sprayed onto his face: "Bastard..."
The hoarse growl carried the putrid stench of burning flesh.
Edrick leaned back to avoid the nail, his skull slamming against the condenser tower. Amid the ringing in his ears, he felt the wire wrapped around his waist and, using the attacker's downward pressure, violently wrapped it around his neck.
The two rolled around on the slippery grating, coal debris falling into the boiling boiler. The attacker's knee rammed into his abdomen, but Edrick clenched the wire tightly, watching the other's eyes bulge as his fingernails dug into the back of his hand, leaving five bloody gashes.
Steam suddenly erupted from a ruptured pipe, blurring his vision with white mist. Edrick felt the wire sink deeply into the calluses on his palms, warm blood seeping through his fingers into the rust.
The killing techniques he had learned in the past awoke instinctively. He arched his back, lifting the attacker off the ground, the wire digging into his Adam's apple, creating a terrifying indentation. When the last gasp faded into the steam, he realized he was biting into the man's shoulder, his teeth filled with the salty, metallic taste of flesh.
As the mist cleared, Edrick collapsed onto the ground, surrounded by coal dust. The body in his arms still trembled slightly. He trembled as he released the barbed wire, staring into the empty eyes that reflected his own twisted face.
The foghorn from the distant dock pierced the hum of the boiler room, but he heard nothing—only the marks left by the wire on his palms reminded him that this time, he had truly dragged a living person from warmth into silence.
The foghorn sounded again, but Edrick felt as though the sound was coming from an extremely distant place.
He knelt down, his fingertips brushing against the coal-stained eyelashes of the lifeless body, his fingertips trembling slightly. In his memories, the act of killing had always been swift and decisive, without the dull pain surging in his chest or the lingering warmth of the corpse.
In the steam-filled haze, the figure bound to the pipe gradually blurred, like the countless lower-class people he had seen in the rust zone—thugs, hoodlums, laborers, prostitutes, men, and women—all destined to be crushed by the roar of boilers and the gears of time.
"In this world where even the sunlight carries the scent of rust, some debts must be settled in the shadows of noon."
"Shut up! You're annoying!"
Two small pixelated figures, one red and one blue, jumped and flashed on the TV screen, along with two dialog boxes.