Infinite Hunt
Episode 2 — Names Carved in Bone
Wind knifed across the broken skyline and scraped dust from the teeth of ruined buildings. Zenith stood on the edge of a roof, pistol smoking in his hand, smoke curling from the cigarette pinched between two knuckles. Sirens from nowhere whined then died, swallowed by the dungeon's false sky.
The HUD bled awake across his vision.
[Raid Objective: Breach the Blackmouth Cathedral.]
[Sub-Objective: Destroy 3 Heart Pylons sealing the nave.]
[Remaining Hunters: 69] [You: Level 2]
Voices rose in the alley below. Crews regrouped. He jumped from the roof.
He landed beside a police detachment led by a tall woman in plate-black composite armor with a white PHD band at her shoulder. Her eyes were pale, assessing; she smelled like gun oil and rain.
"Captain Mara Kovik," she said, voice clipped. "You move like you don't fear gravity, stranger."
"Zenith," he said.
A broad-shouldered hunter with a cleaver for a sword shouldered forward, helmet visor hissing open. Scar across his mouth, grin like a broken bottle. "Jax Rook," he said, tapping his chestplate. "You're the level one with the toy gun. Didn't think you'd make an hour."
"Level two," Zenith said, and exhaled.
A medic knelt over a moaning officer, hands slick with blood. "Hold still," she whispered, then glanced up at Zenith. Freckles under dried soot, eyes a clear storm-gray. "Iris Vell. You keep your distance or you get my patient killed."
"Noted."
Another voice—thin, fast, nervous—tapped at a drone console. "Recon Quen Sato. Cathedral's east transept is vomiting hostiles. Pylon one is there. Pylons two and three—north garden and crypt gate."
A sniper in a torn scarf adjusted a long rifle with stained knuckles. "Larke Fen," she said without looking at him. "If you step into my line, I will put a hole in you and apologize later."
"Save the apology," Zenith said.
Mara's gaze didn't leave his gun. "You never reloaded," she said. "I watched you from the ridge."
Zenith slid the pistol's slide back with a lazy flick. There was nothing to show. "I don't reload."
Jax barked a laugh. "Sure you don't."
The ground trembled. A bell tolled somewhere inside the cathedral, deep and wet, as if rung with a tongue. The dungeon breathed—in, out—and the air stank of bile and rust.
"Move," Mara said. "Kovik Squad with me: Rook, Vell, Sato, Fen, Toru Graves, Nyra Vale. Zenith—you keep up, or you get left for the Choir."
Zenith crushed the cigarette under his boot. "I don't get left."
They pushed down Harrow Street, every doorway a black mouth. A sign twisted in the wind: BLACKMOUTH CATH— the rest torn away. Far ahead, a pylon pulsed above the east transept like a red, beating fruit. Something thick and glistening wrapped it—veins crawling along stone.
The first ambush hit as a chittering tide. Things with centipede bodies and infant skulls, mouths blooming along their spines. Skullmolt—that was the name that blinked across his HUD, the dungeon formalizing horror as inventory.
[Enemy: Skullmolt | Threat: low | Kill Credit: 1 level]
"Line!" Mara snapped.
Larke Fen opened. Her rifle coughed and heads burst. Jax Rook charged with his cleaver, laughing as he split chitin and riblets. Iris dragged the wounded officer, Oren Pike, into a doorway while Quen Sato's drone whirred overhead, shining lattice-blue light to mark weak joints.
Zenith stepped past them and began to shoot.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
Each shot cut a thread: a skull ruptured, a spine flowered into red mist, an infant face opened and rained teeth. His pistol had no recoil he couldn't drink; the barrel pointed and the world obeyed. He walked, and things fell.
[Level Up: 3]
[Skill Unlocked: Chain Echo — first kill ricochets force into nearest hostile.]
A Skullmolt he dropped bucked with invisible shock, the impact leaping to its neighbor. The second popped like a blister.
"Saints," Toru Graves muttered, wiping gore from his cheek. "What are you?"
"Hungry," Zenith said.
Something big shouldered out of a side street. Ten feet tall, a crown of horn like a cathedral spire driven through its skull. Fangs like nailed knives jutting sideways. Crown Fiend Gasker.
Jax Rook grinned. "Mine."
He rushed. The Fiend's tail whipped. Jax flew—slammed into a wall and left a crater. His cleaver clanged in the street. The Fiend turned to finish him.
Zenith fired once. The round went through one eye and churned everything behind it. The beast staggered, roaring, a train screaming on its side. He shot again, and Crown Fiend Gasker folded like wet scaffolding.
[Level Up: 4]
[Skill Unlocked: Pierceall — bullets ignore armor and carapace.]
Iris Vell was already at Jax's side, hands lit with field triage. "Breathe, Rook. Breathe."
Jax coughed blood and laughed through it. "You stole my kill."
"You were about to lose your face," Iris snapped. She looked at Zenith without warmth. "Thanks," she added, like the word was a brick she'd rather throw than hand over.
Zenith rolled his neck. "Don't make me do it again."
The pylon pulsed harder, as if annoyed it hadn't digested them yet. Its veins writhed, trying to root in the stone. Nyra Vale gagged. "That thing is… alive."
"Everything here is," Mara said. "Sato?"
Quen's drone nodded midair. "Pylon has three ligament nodes binding it to the transept wall. Break those, heart cracks."
"Rook, Graves, Vale—cutters. Fen—cover. Zenith—" Mara paused on his name—as if tasting it for edges. "You're a scalpel. Make it fast."
Zenith holstered the cigarette behind his ear, breathed once, and moved.
He walked into a nest of Stitch Choir—tall, sexless things with needle teeth and thread trailing from their mouths, stitching corpses together as they sang. They turned as one, voices rising, thread twitching like nerve-wires.
He shot the first through the throat. Chain Echo leapt, rattling two more. He shot a second in both eyes, then put the third down through the top of its skull.
A fourth sang—thread snared his wrist. It tugged hard, trying to draw him into a mouth filled with hooks. Zenith let the pistol slip from his hand.
"Gun," he said.
The weapon ghosted from the thread and smacked his palm. He shot the singer in the mouth.
[Level Up: 5]
[Skill Unlocked: Ricochet Omen — aim near edges to bounce bullets on predictive paths.]
The new line of light that traced across his vision was simple geometry with teeth. He tilted the barrel and shot at stone; the round zipped into shadow, bent twice, and came out doctrine-clean through another singer's temple. The corpse fell into its own weave and tore it apart.
"Pylon ligaments exposed!" Quen cried. "Cut them!"
Jax, swearing, shoved himself to his feet and slammed the cleaver into a glistening tendon thick as a thigh. Toru's saw screamed as it chewed at the second. Nyra Vale, delicate and shaking, stabbed a heated rebar through the third until it smoked.
The pylon shuddered. It made a sound like a stopped heart, then burst. Red pulp sprayed the transept like paint. Everyone flinched except Zenith.
[Heart Pylon 1/3 Destroyed]
The street answered with a roar. From the cathedral steps, something crawled out on six elbows—skin slick and emerald, veins like eel nests moving under its flesh. A spine-lantern swayed from its jaw, casting sick light. Bile King Karkos.
"Back!" Mara shouted. "Form two!"
The Bile King coughed. A wave of acid rolled across stone. Larke Fen shot glowing nodes in the stream to break it into harmless sputter. It wasn't enough. Oren Pike—the wounded officer Iris patched—couldn't move fast. The acid washed over his boots; he howled, flesh turned to slurry.
"Pike!" Iris lunged, dragging him clear. His feet were gone. She went gray but kept pressure.
Zenith walked straight into the steam and put three bullets down Karkos's throat.
The first bored a hole. Pierceall chewed through armor like paper. The second pinged off a tooth, ricocheted along slick palate, and lanced into a bulb behind the sinuses he hadn't known existed until the Omen line painted it. The third—calm, indifferent—found the spinal lantern's root.
Bile King Karkos folded. Its lantern went dark like an eye closing.
[Level Up: 6]
[Skill Unlocked: Silenceshock — on headshot, adjacent hostiles are stunned briefly.]
The aftermath hit hard. Stunned Skullmolts vibrated on the curb, clicking weakly. Jax put his cleaver through them like chopping wood. Toru gagged and kept cutting until there was nothing left to cut.
"Two more pylons," Mara said, voice flat to keep it from breaking. She knelt by Pike, touched his shoulder. "You're going home. That's an order."
Pike's lips trembled. "Yes, Captain."
Iris's hands didn't stop moving. "Fen, tear your scarf. Sato, I need tape. Rook, shut up and hold him." She glanced at Zenith again. "If you're going to stand there looking like a ghost, make yourself useful."
He walked past them into a storefront whose glass was scabbed with dried gore. He came back with a door ripped from its hinges. He laid it beside Pike. They rolled him onto it, bound him with Larke's scarf and Quen's tape, and made a litter.
Iris nodded once. "Iris Vell owes you one," she said, like she hated the idea but hated debt more.
"Spend it later," Zenith said.
Nyra Vale wiped her mouth. "North garden next. Fast."
They went.
⸻
The north garden had been a cemetery. Crosses and stones jutted from dirt churned to soup. The second pylon stood where an angel statue should have been, a tumor rooted in the earth, faces half-formed in its skin whispering names. The whispers became words as they approached.
"Hale."
"Sorn."
"Larkin."
"Drex."
Zenith's head cocked. The HUD rolled the names simultaneously on the upper right—Bishop Hale, Ava Sorn, Vex Larkin, Sumi Drex—hunters elsewhere in the raid. The pylon was reading the roster and feeding it back to them like a taunt.
From behind gravestones, the Gloom Sirens rose—women-shaped until the mouth unzipped ear to ear, revealing a lamprey spiral. Their song hit the crew like a hammer wrapped in honey. Toru Graves's pupils blew wide; he dropped his saw and walked toward one with his arms open.
Larke swore. "Graves!"
Zenith shot the first Siren through the mouth. Silenceshock detonated soundless; two others staggered, song clipping off mid-coil. He shot the second through an eye. The third recovered and screamed at him, spit boiling where it landed on stone. He put the third down like a rabid dog.
[Level Up: 7]
[Skill Unlocked: Shroud Round — toggle to veil bullet path; impact shrouds you briefly.]
The world wrapped around him on the last shot, cloaking him in a heat-haze smear. A Siren lunged and hit nothing where he'd been. He reappeared behind it and ended the mistake.
"Thank you," Toru said hoarsely, shame crowding his throat.
"Don't make me do it again," Zenith said, and moved to the pylon.
It was whispering names faster now, drawing them like nerves from the dirt: Rhea Noir, Dima Sol, Kaz Calder, Oona Krait. Zenith planted two rounds into each ligament node Quen marked. The tumor recoiled, vomited blood, and collapsed.
[Heart Pylon 2/3 Destroyed]
The cathedral bell tolled again, closer. The nave doors heaved.
"Crypt gate," Mara said. There was blood in her gauntlet seams and a calm old grief in her voice. "Then we knock."
On the way, a hunter in corporate armor staggered into their lane, visor cracked, charity crest smeared with soot. "Bishop Hale," he gasped. "Watch your six—Vex Larkin went feral, stabbed Sumi Drex for kill credit—"
An alley bled movement. A man in a slick jacket with mag-steel claws stepped out, eyes blown wide with dungeon fever. "Credit's all that matters," Vex Larkin hissed, and lunged at Zenith's throat.
Zenith didn't step back. He turned his wrist, let the claws pass where his jugular had been, and shot Vex through the cheek. The back of the hunter's head burst over a wall like a thrown bucket. He slid down leaving a smear.
Bishop Hale froze, then laughed too loudly. "Right. Right—thanks." He vanished into smoke without offering his back.
"Remember his name," Zenith said to no one. "Bishop Hale."
Mara's mouth tightened. "I always do."
The crypt gate loomed with iron teeth. The last pylon pulsed behind bars tangled with spine wires. Guardians knelt in front of it, armor fused to bone, halberds grafted into arms—Gate Paladins Corren and Ilyst. They didn't speak. They simply rose, turned, and charged like guillotines on legs.
Larke Fen's first shot staggered Corren; it didn't stop him. Jax Rook screamed something that might've been joy and met Ilyst head-on, steel ringing. Sparks lit the crypt's mouth like a forge.
Quen Sato's drone painted weak spots in jittering blue: underarm joint, knee gap, base-of-skull port. Zenith switched Shroud Round on, vanished into warble, and walked past Ilyst's halberd as it cut air where his head had been. He reappeared under the arm joint and put a bullet in the marked seam.
Ilyst convulsed. Jax sawed his cleaver down through the neck seam until it hit stone. Ilyst crumpled, twitching.
Corren barreled through Iris, sent her sprawling but not broken. He lifted his halberd to pin her like a butterfly.
Zenith didn't shout. He shot Corren in the knee gap. The joint blew. Corren folded; the halberd kissed stone beside Iris's ear and screamed sparks. Zenith put the second round in the base-of-skull port. Corren died like a machine turning off.
Iris rolled to her feet, jaw set. "I said I owe you one," she panted. "Make it two."
Zenith holstered nothing and said nothing. He turned to the pylon. Quen marked it. Zenith shot the nodes. The tumor-heart died flailing, spraying ropes of steaming clot.
[Heart Pylon 3/3 Destroyed]
[Nave Seal Released]
The cathedral doors breathed outward like lungs and stuck open. Incense smoke rolled out and smelled like grave dirt and sugar.
Across Zenith's vision, the HUD updated again, cold and bureaucratic.
[Raid Update: Boss Revealed — Witch-Mother Gallowmire]
[Warning: Charm / Spawn / Hexfire]
[Remaining Hunters: 54]
[Zenith — Level 7]
Names floated on the corner of his sight—other survivors, other gamblers: Ava Sorn, Rhea Noir, Dima Sol, Kaz Calder, Oona Krait, Bishop Hale. Names he could put bullets beside later.
Jax flipped gore from his cleaver and grinned at Zenith. "You're still level seven with a pistol, and I hate that it's working."
"Keep hating," Zenith said.
Mara Kovik looked at the open nave, at the dark little lights moving inside, like eyes. "We split," she said softly. "We die. We stay, we die slow. We go together, maybe we die interesting." She touched Pike's shoulder on the litter once more, then faced the doors. "Kovik Squad to the line."
Iris Vell tightened the strap on her medpack. Larke Fen racked her rifle. Quen Sato kissed his drone with his eyes. Toru Graves lifted his saw with both hands though they shook. Nyra Vale wiped tears she pretended were sweat. Jax Rook laughed because he didn't know how not to.
Zenith lit the cigarette from behind his ear and took one drag. The ember flared like a tiny sunrise. He dropped it and stepped on it.
"I'm not here to help you," he said without heat. "I'm here to kill what's inside."
Mara's eyes met his dead ones and, for a second, recognized the same absence. "As long as the result's the same."
They entered the Blackmouth Cathedral together.
The nave was a throat. Candles burned with blue fire in dishes of bone. The benches were full—figures turned to face them, heads wrapped in silk, hands folded. Silk twitched. Hands opened. Mouths opened wider. Their faces were stitched shut; they sang anyway, the song coming through seams, a soft lullaby to murder.
At the far end, upon an altar made of mixed ribs, the Witch-Mother Gallowmire rose. Her veil was a spiderweb of hair. Her fingers were too long. Her voice was sweet and wrong.
"Welcome, children," she said, and the choir echoed, children children children.
Mara lifted a hand. The squad spread. Larke's breath steadied. Iris drew a scalpel as if it would matter. Jax leaned forward like a dog about to bite thunder.
Zenith looked at the Witch-Mother as if looking at a sink that needed clearing. The HUD framed her with threat glyphs and probabilities. He didn't care.
He cared about his mother's badge in his pocket. About a kitchen table with one chair. About a closet door that didn't quite close, and a boy who watched a woman die because a thousand dollars wasn't enough.
He raised his pistol.
Gallowmire smiled like an infection. "Name yourself, handsome."
"Zenith."
"Such a pretty word for an ending."
He shot the candle beside her. Ricochet Omen drew a white line. The bullet sang off brass, slid along a rib, cut a silk thread in air, and clipped her veil. The veil fell.
Her eyes were mouths. They smiled back.
The choir inhaled. The nave darkened. The real fight began.