The city of Blackfall did not burn.
That was what unsettled Kairen the most.
From the fractured rooftop where he stood, overlooking the ruins below, there were no flames licking at broken towers, no screams tearing through the night, no frantic alarms echoing in endless loops. Blackfall lay intact in structure—yet dead in spirit. Streets stretched like veins drained of blood. Buildings stood upright but hollow, their windows dark and unwatching, as though the city itself had gone blind.
Silence pressed down on everything.
Not the peaceful kind.
The hunting kind.
Kairen felt it crawling along his skin, threading itself into his bones. His Ruin Mark pulsed faintly beneath the torn sleeve of his coat, responding to something unseen. The system interface flickered in the corner of his vision, struggling to stabilize—as if the world itself was interfering with its authority.
> Warning: Territory Contamination Detected
Ruin Influence Level: Unknown
Classification: Abyssal Zone (Unregistered)
Kairen exhaled slowly.
"Unregistered," he murmured. "Of course."
Below him, the others moved cautiously through the street—Rowan at the front, Daniel close behind, Eli limping slightly but refusing assistance. They hadn't spoken in minutes. Even their footsteps felt too loud in the unnatural quiet.
This wasn't like other Ruin outbreaks.
There were no beasts roaming openly. No warped monsters clawing at reality. No obvious threat to focus on.
And that made it worse.
Kairen stepped off the rooftop and landed soundlessly behind them. None of them flinched—by now, they had learned that his presence rarely announced itself.
Rowan glanced back anyway, his expression tight. "You feel it too."
Kairen nodded. "This place isn't being hunted."
Daniel swallowed. "Then what is it?"
Kairen's eyes lifted toward the darkened skyline, where the clouds hung low and unmoving, frozen like a painted ceiling.
"It's waiting."
They reached the central plaza—a wide, circular space once filled with statues and fountains. Now, the stone was cracked in spirals, as if something massive had pressed up from beneath and failed to break through. At the center stood a single structure still intact: a black obelisk, smooth and featureless, rising far higher than the surrounding buildings.
It hadn't been there before.
Eli stopped walking. His breath hitched. "That thing… I can't hear my system."
The words sent a ripple of unease through the group.
Daniel tried to summon his interface. Nothing appeared. His face paled. "Mine too."
Rowan clenched his fist. "Kairen?"
Kairen's system was still there—but altered. The text bled slightly at the edges, as if written on cracked glass. His connection to the Ruin felt… distorted. Not weakened. Twisted.
"This isn't suppression," Kairen said. "It's override."
The obelisk pulsed.
Once.
The sound wasn't audible, yet all of them staggered as if struck by a pressure wave. Memories surged uninvited—fragmented images, чужes screams, sensations that didn't belong to them.
Kairen saw a city collapsing inward like a dying star.
Rowan saw his hands soaked in blood that wasn't his.
Daniel heard a voice whisper his name with unbearable familiarity.
Eli dropped to one knee, gasping.
Kairen clenched his jaw and forced the visions down. His Ruin Mark burned, spreading cold fire through his veins. He stepped forward, each movement heavy, as if gravity itself resisted him.
> Ruin Adaptation Engaged
Passive Skill: Hunter's Anomaly — Active
Effect: Mental Intrusion Resistance Increased
The pressure eased—but did not vanish.
As Kairen approached the obelisk, cracks began to form across its surface, branching outward like veins of darkness. From within, something stirred.
A voice emerged.
Not loud.
Not quiet.
It spoke directly into the mind.
> "So the Disorder walks again."
Kairen froze.
Rowan looked at him sharply. "Did it just—"
"Yes," Kairen said. "It knows me."
The obelisk split open with a sound like stone tearing flesh. From within stepped a figure cloaked in layered shadow, its form vaguely humanoid but wrong in every detail. Its limbs bent at subtle, impossible angles. Its face was a smooth void, except for a single vertical slit of pale light where eyes should be.
Ruin energy rolled off it in waves.
Not bestial.
Intelligent.
Calculated.
> "I have observed you across iterations," the entity said. "You are not a hunter."
It tilted its head.
> "You are a flaw."
The system reacted violently.
> Critical Entity Detected
Designation: Ruin Herald — Class Unknown
Threat Level: Indeterminable
Recommendation: Impossible
Daniel stepped forward despite the terror etched into his face. "Kairen—what do we do?"
Kairen didn't answer immediately.
He was studying the Herald.
Unlike other Ruin Beasts, this one wasn't leaking instability. Its presence was controlled, precise—like a blade instead of a storm. And more troubling still…
It felt familiar.
"You're not here to destroy the city," Kairen said finally. "You already did whatever you came to do."
The Herald's slit-eye narrowed slightly.
> "Correct."
Rowan's voice was tight. "Then why are we still alive?"
The Herald turned its gaze toward Rowan, and for a fraction of a second, Rowan felt his existence weighed—measured, catalogued.
> "Because the Disorder requires witnesses."
The ground trembled.
From the surrounding streets, shapes began to emerge—not full Ruin Beasts, but silhouettes stitched together from shadow and memory. They moved like reflections broken free from mirrors, their forms shifting between past and present.
Eli whispered, horrified, "Those look like… hunters."
They were.
Or what hunters became when consumed not by Ruin—but by purpose.
Kairen felt something cold settle in his chest.
"Echoes," he muttered. "Failed anomalies."
The Herald raised one hand, and the echoes stopped moving.
> "Your existence destabilizes the cycle," it said to Kairen. "Ruin was meant to be consumed. Hunters were meant to burn out."
The slit-eye brightened.
> "You adapted."
Kairen flexed his fingers. Dark threads of Ruin energy coiled around his hand, tighter and denser than before. His system reacted—not with fear, but recognition.
> Hidden Condition Met
Title Resonance Detected: The Hunting Disorder
Synchronization Rate: 41%
Rowan stared at him. "Your title… it's reacting."
Kairen stepped forward, placing himself between the Herald and the others. "You're afraid of what I become."
The Herald laughed.
The sound fractured the air.
> "Fear is a human defect," it replied. "I am concerned with inevitability."
The echoes surged forward.
The plaza exploded into motion.
Rowan charged, blade flashing as he cut through a shadowed figure—only for it to reform behind him. Daniel unleashed a burst of energy, tearing two echoes apart, his face strained as his suppressed system flickered weakly.
Eli fought defensively, every movement deliberate, teeth clenched against pain and fear.
Kairen moved last.
And when he did, the world seemed to slow.
His Ruin Mark expanded, lines crawling up his neck like living sigils. The ground beneath his feet cracked—not from force, but from authority.
> Active Skill Unlocked
Ruin Manifestation — Partial Domain
Status: Unstable
Effect: Localized Reality Override (Limited)
Darkness folded inward around Kairen, bending space just enough to give him dominance within a short radius. The echoes that entered it shuddered, their forms unraveling under pressure they couldn't comprehend.
Kairen didn't attack wildly.
He hunted.
Each strike was precise, each movement calculated. He severed echoes at their conceptual core, dispersing them permanently rather than temporarily. The Ruin obeyed him—not as a master, but as a collaborator.
The Herald watched in silence.
When the last echo dissolved into nothing, the plaza fell quiet again.
Kairen stood breathing hard, the domain collapsing around him. His synchronization rate ticked upward.
> Synchronization: 44%
The Herald stepped closer.
> "You accelerate," it observed. "Too quickly."
Kairen met its gaze. "That's what happens when the hunt turns inward."
The Herald paused.
For the first time, uncertainty rippled through its presence.
> "If you continue," it said slowly, "you will reach a threshold."
Daniel shouted, "Kairen, what threshold?!"
The Herald's slit-eye locked onto Kairen.
> "Where the hunter is no longer distinguishable from the Ruin."
Silence.
Kairen didn't look away.
"Then I'll decide what Ruin means."
The air shattered.
The Herald vanished—not destroyed, but withdrawn, its presence collapsing into the obelisk as cracks sealed themselves shut. The structure sank into the ground, leaving behind nothing but fractured stone and an absence that felt deeper than emptiness.
The city remained silent.
But it was no longer waiting.
Rowan lowered his weapon slowly. "Is it over?"
Kairen looked at his trembling hand, at the dark energy fading reluctantly from his skin.
"No," he said quietly. "It's begun noticing."
High above Blackfall, far beyond the clouds, something vast shifted its attention.
And for the first time in a very long time—
The hunt looked back.