The next night, Nihil walked through the ruins with ash in his mouth and silence in his eyes.
The Surface, what remained of it, was no paradise.
The sky was cracked.
The towers leaned.
And the people who ruled it… had long stopped pretending they were anything but monsters.
He followed the trail the scouts had come from. Footprints in the soot. Carts dragged by machines. Signs scratched into the stone in a dialect the Chains never taught. A symbol marked with red wax: a coin, pierced through the center.
He knew what it meant.
Even in the deepest tunnels, they'd whispered of it.
The Market of Flesh.
It was no myth.
He found it buried in the bowels of the city's eastern ruins, nestled in the skeleton of an old cathedral.
The spires had fallen. The windows were shattered. And inside, where people once prayed for salvation,
They now came to buy it.
Or rather, to buy others.
He entered silently, cloak drawn low.
There were no guards. Just buyers.
Dozens of them.
Draped in fine coats, bejeweled masks, perfume thick enough to cover the rot in their hearts.
They walked between rows of cages.
Each one held a soul.
Children.
Women.
The wounded.
The strange.
The broken.
No names. Just numbers and prices. Flesh dressed in rags and hope.
One man stopped beside a cage and clicked his tongue. "This one looks strong. Might last a year in the pits."
A woman beside him sipped from a silver cup. "I like the eyes on that one. Burn them out, leave the rest."
They chuckled.
Nihil listened.
And with every word, the stillness inside him turned colder.
He passed by a mirror.
His reflection caught his eye.
He didn't look like a savior.
He didn't look like a god.
He looked like someone you wouldn't remember in a crowd.
Perfect.
He waited until the bell rang.
It signaled a new lot arriving.
They rolled them in on carts.
Three children, two older slaves, and a girl who couldn't walk.
All chained.
All silent.
The auctioneer stepped onto a cracked stone altar, voice oily and bright.
"Fresh stock, direct from the Low Dens! Untouched. Untamed. Breathing, for now."
Laughter.
The crowd gathered.
Coins clinked.
Prices rose.
And Nihil stepped onto the altar.
No one noticed, until the auctioneer's voice stopped mid-sentence.
His throat was bleeding. His eyes wide. A rusted pipe driven straight through his chest.
Silence bloomed.
Not just shock.
Real silence.
The kind that bent sound. His Echo.
For three perfect seconds, the Market fell quiet.
No one could speak.
No one could call for help.
And in those three seconds, Nihil moved.
A blade to the neck.
A bolt to the chest.
A broken chain used as a whip.
Buyers died before they even knew it was war.
When sound returned, so did screams.
Nihil stood above the altar, covered in blood, eyes cold as the grave.
He didn't shout.
He didn't boast.
He simply looked at the cages, then raised a keyring.
And opened every one.
The slaves fled.
Some wept.
Some stared.
One boy whispered, "Is he… one of the gods?"
Nihil turned. "No."
He looked at the nobles scrambling toward the exits.
At the fire he'd started with a lantern kicked from the wall.
At the tower above, beginning to burn.
"Gods built this world."
"I'm here to bury it."
As the Market burned, and the screams of nobles mixed with the rising ash, he walked away.
Not to save more.
Not yet.
But to prepare.
Because the world had finally heard his name.
And soon, it would learn to fear it.