The streets of Nexus shimmered beneath twin moons — one pale, one crimson. Hover-cars glided over magnetic lanes, their light trails weaving through the smog like ribbons of fireflies. Neon signs hummed above cracked glass towers, and in the alleys between, darkness breathed. It was there, in the folds of that darkness, that a boy moved.
Or rather, did not move at all.
Jade's form merged seamlessly into shadow, his presence erased, his mana folded inwards until even the scanners embedded in streetlamps passed over him as if he were dust. The slums had long taught him patience, and patience tonight was his blade.
Ahead, the sleek black vehicle carrying the pretend guardians slid through the road's curvature with mechanical precision. The woman's laughter, sharp and false, echoed briefly before the car's soundproof field reactivated.
Jade followed without a sound, his small hands pressed against the cold air's current. Every few meters, he blinked, and the world seemed to ripple faintly . Void sense brushing against unseen threads of space. He felt nothing unusual… which in itself was unusual.
"Nothing," he thought grimly, narrowing his awareness. "Not even a distortion in mana flow? That's impossible."
He had learned to trust the silence between breaths and the silence that told him when something was wrong. And the silence now was deafening.
The car turned off the main street into an older district the Derelict Ring, where the lower-class estates of Nexus City sat in eerie calm. Most houses here were abandoned; the occasional flicker of electric light came from security drones or scavenger lamps. Nothing about this area suggested danger.
Yet the deeper they went, the heavier the air became.
Jade's steps melted into shadow again. When the vehicle finally stopped before a modest, ivy-covered mansion, he slowed.
It looked ordinary — too ordinary. White gates with rusted hinges, a small fountain that hadn't worked in years, windows dusted and intact. It was the kind of house inspectors would dismiss with a single glance.
Inside the car, the couple's voices filtered faintly through their half-open doors.
"Ungrateful brat," the man snarled, dragging the girl by her wrist. "You think running away would save you? Do you know what we went through to cover your mess?!"
The girl whimpered — a sound too small, too fragile. Her cheeks were swollen, her lips cracked. The woman struck her again when she stumbled, hissing, "Cry louder, and I'll rip that pretty tongue out before Master sees you."
Jade's body trembled once, but he restrained himself. His mana stirred violently, begging release. Shadows around him writhed like living serpents. But he forced himself still.
"Not yet. Not until I know why they came here."
...
He crouched low behind a half-collapsed wall, letting the darkness swallow him once more. The couple dragged the girl toward the mansion gates, whispering something. Then, the impossible happened.
The air shimmered.
For a brief instant, the entire estate blurred — its image flickering like a bad transmission. The garden walls, the fountain, the neat cobblestone path — all fractured into something else.
Jade's pulse quickened. He narrowed his focus and let mana bleed into his eyes.
"...So that's why." He had been wondering why his void sense had been rebuffed earlier when he tried to sense the mansion deeper.
The surface illusion peeled away under his eyes. Beneath the polite exterior was a rot. The gates weren't gates at all , they were woven barriers of condensed light, warped to mimic metal. The house's upper floors weren't real either; they were projected screens hiding darker structures belowground.
A concealment barrier, layered with spatial distortion — something that could fool even advanced scanners. It explained why his void sense couldn't penetrate it earlier.
He inhaled slowly, every instinct sharpening to a knife's edge. The couple's figures vanished into the false mansion, and for a second, the place looked mundane again. The city beyond continued as though nothing had happened.
But Jade knew better.
His hand flexed. From his palm, the darkness rippled and spread outward, forming silent threads that connected to every shadow within sight. Each one became an anchor — a path he could travel through in a blink.
Jade stepped forward.
And vanished.
.....
...
The moment Jade slipped through the gates, the world changed.
The sound outside — the wind, the engines, the pulse of the city — vanished as though swallowed whole. The air turned heavy, damp, tinged with copper and incense. The cracked walls of the mansion melted away, revealing black marble veined with pulsing red runes.
It wasn't a house.
It was a feeding ground.
Jade pressed close to the nearest wall, shadows wrapping over him like a cloak. The faint scent of mana smoke stung his nostrils — traces of illegal runic powder, the kind used to bind people, to make them docile. His hand flexed unconsciously, and he let his mana sink into the darkness, bending it to his will.
He followed the couple's voices down the hall.
"…—useless brat," the man snarled. "After all we've done for her."
"She was supposed to be delivered last week," the woman replied, her tone clipped. "You heard the buyer's message. They don't tolerate delays. If we hadn't found her, we'd be the ones paying in blood."
Their words turned Jade's stomach cold.
He crept closer, slipping from pillar to shadow, his boots barely touching the ground. His heart beat in silence.
The couple dragged the girl toward a descending stairway concealed behind what looked like a cracked mirror. The glass shimmered once, then dissolved, revealing a spiral of metal stairs leading underground.
A barrier like that wasn't cheap.
Whoever owned this place had deep pockets and filthier hands.
Jade followed them down, keeping to the edges where light warped faintly. He could feel the pressure of the barrier pushing at his mind — a suffocating force that dulled his Void Sense again, as though trying to keep the horrors below hidden.
When they reached the bottom, he stopped.
Rows of cages stretched out before him — long, narrow, lined with old steel and glowing faintly with suppression sigils. Inside were children.
Some sat unmoving. Others whimpered softly, clutching at the rags they wore or each other. A few didn't move at all. Their eyes were glazed, hollow. The air was thick with despair and faint traces of dried blood.
Jade's chest tightened painfully.
For a moment, his mind flashed to Niamh's voice the first night she found him, wrapped in a torn blanket, whispering "You're safe now, little one."
If she hadn't…
He drew a sharp breath through his teeth and let it out slowly.
The couple shoved the girl into a cage near the front, locking it with a click. She didn't scream, didn't beg. She just sat there, her shoulders trembling, silent tears slipping down her cheeks.
"Pathetic," the man muttered. "Let her rot till the buyer gets here."
That was enough.
The shadows around Jade stirred — no longer a cloak, but a living thing. They coiled, gathering at his feet, whispering faintly against the floor.
When the woman turned, she barely had time to gasp.
Something black erupted from behind the pillar — silent, swift, merciless. Her body slammed against the wall, and the darkness consumed her scream.
The man stumbled back, eyes wide. "Who... what—"
Jade stepped from the gloom, small and blood-spattered, his voice quiet. "Monsters."
The man drew a concealed blade, the kind alchemic traffickers used ,a jagged knife pulsing with venomous light. "You brat—"
He didn't finish. The shadows beneath his feet snapped upward, impaling him through the chest. His body jerked once, then went limp.
Jade exhaled, forcing the fury from his voice. His heart thudded hard against his ribs, but his expression never shifted. He moved to the girl's cage, dispelled the lock with a flick of mana, but she sat there , unmoving like she had given up on everything.
"You—" He tried to say but was interrupted by the loud sound of a metal gate hitting the wall violently.
As the cage door swung open, faint laughter echoed from deeper in the hall ;rough, drunken, laced with the kind of amusement that made Jade's stomach twist.
Voices. At least six. Maybe more.
"New batch already? Didn't think we'd get delivery this soon."
"Check the tags. The nobles wanted the prettier ones untouched."
"Untouched, my ass—"
Jade stood.
His eyes hardened.
Every shadow in the hall began to move.
"Wait here."...