The back entrance of the Grand Hall was guarded by a lone sentinel a man in a soot-stained black hat clutching a double-barreled shotgun with trembling hands. He was a low-level Deviant, a watchman kept on the fringe of the ritual to intercept any uninvited guests. His eyes darted nervously from the foggy street to the dark alleyway, unaware that he was already being watched by eyes that saw the world in a different frequency.
The Nightwalkers were shadows among shadows, pressed against the brickwork of the neighboring building.
"There are a lot of wealthy-looking gals in this place tonight," Phil whispered, a sharp, predatory smile playing on his lips as he peeked around the corner. "Do you really think that bastard Kreshner is actually in there, or is he just sending his puppets to do the dirty work?"
"Either way, we form groups just as the Professor instructed," the black-haired woman Dorothy commanded. Her voice was a low hiss, her hands already hovering over the brass latches of her oversized suitcase. "Precision, not passion. That is the Company way."
Yuri didn't listen. His nostrils flared, catching a scent that made the modern soul of Ethan Burn recoil in horror, even as the body of Yuri Jaeger lean forward in anticipation.
"I see blood," Yuri said. His voice was hollow, vibrating with a resonance that didn't sound human. "A lot of it."
Before Dorothy could issue a counter-order, Yuri moved. He didn't just run; he blurred. To the others, it looked like a glitch in reality a streak of blue and white moving with a speed that defied the laws of physics.
He climbed the external fire escape in the blink of an eye. The watchman heard the faint whistle of air a second too late. Yuri slammed into the man with the force of a locomotive, seizing him by the throat. With a roar of tempered glass and splintering wood, Yuri used the man's body as a battering ram, crashing through the stained-glass window of the upper mezzanine.
Glass shards rained down like diamond hail. They hit the marble floor of the Grand Hall with a musical chime that was immediately drowned out by the wet thud of the watchman's body hitting the ground. The man was dead before he could even scream, his sacrifice serving only to cushion Yuri's landing.
Ethan stood up amidst the carnage. Around him, the hall was a vision of hell. The corpses of the women lay in grotesque piles, their lifeblood siphoned away to fuel the Deviants' "straying."
For a heartbeat, Ethan's modern mind screamed. He wanted to turn back. He wanted to wake up in his apartment with a cup of coffee. But the adrenaline of Yuri Jaeger's body was a rising tide, drowning the name Ethan Burn in a sea of cold, calculated rage.
I am no longer a ghost from another world, he thought, his hand gripping the staff at his waist. If I am to survive this vastness, I must be the monster they fear.
"I am no longer Ethan Burn," he whispered to the shadows. "I am Yuri Jaeger. And I will fulfill the debt."
He pulled the staff from his back. As he did, the air around him began to warp. The Truthlines hummed, turning a violent, jagged purple.
YURI JAEGER TRUTHLINES - MANIFESTATION: LYCANTHROPOS
LYCANTHROPOS grants Yuliy enhanced regeneration, heightened speed, and exceptional physical durability, allowing his body to rapidly recover from wounds while enduring and overpowering lethal force.
His muscles didn't just grow; they condensed, becoming like braided steel cables. His eyes turned a piercing, lupine blue. He wasn't a werewolf of myth; he was a predator of the Truthlines a Lycanthrope of the spirit.
The Deviants below were jolted from their ritualistic trance. The interruption was more than an insult; it was a psychic shock. Several of them, unable to maintain the delicate balance of their corrupted powers, began to go berserk. Their human skin bubbled and burst like boiling tar. Some sprouted red, fungal spores that hissed steam; others grew black, oily protrusions that whipped the air.
Yuri didn't wait for them to finish their transformation. He dropped from the mezzanine like a falling star. His staff swept through the air, trailing a wake of shimmering blue energy. With a clean, surgical hiss, he sliced through the first two monsters, bisecting them before they could even roar.
"Yuri, you dumbass!" Phil's voice screamed from the shattered window above.
"Dolly, he's going off-course again!" the muscular red-haired man Fabian shouted, pulling a pair of massive, brass-reinforced revolvers from his coat.
"Well, here we go again," Dorothy sighed, though her eyes were flashing with battle-light. "So much for keeping it quiet." She kicked her suitcase open, revealing a literal arsenal of Truthline-enhanced weaponry.
The insane Deviants rushed at Yuri, a tide of claws and spores. But before they could overwhelm him, they were intercepted. Rex leaped down, his revolvers barking like cannons, each shot leaving a trail of fire that cauterized the Deviants' wounds so they couldn't regenerate. Dorothy moved with him, throwing knives that whistled with a high-frequency vibration, shearing through bone and mutated hide.
But the most terrifying change came from Phil.
Phil didn't jump into the fray. He stood on the edge of the mezzanine and tucked his violin under his chin. He drew the bow across the strings, and the world changed.
The walls of the Grand Hall didn't just vanish; they folded away into a different dimension. The blood-stained marble was replaced by soft, emerald grass. The smell of rot was replaced by the cloying, sweet scent of lilies.
PHIL LEONARD MANIFESTATION: SLEEPLESS RHYTHM (GARDEN OF DEATH)
The Deviants found themselves trapped in a beautiful, nightmare garden. From the soil, thick, thorny vines erupted like serpents, wrapping around the mutated monsters. The more they struggled, the tighter the vines squeezed.
Phil began to sing as he played, his voice hauntingly calm amidst the slaughter:
"THE MOON IS EVER-FAIR, ITS FACE A SILVER SHROUD, IT SHINES ITS PALE LIGHT THROUGH THE INDUSTRIAL CLOUD. SILENT IT WATCHES THE DOERS OF THE NIGHT, BLESSING THE RIGHTEOUS, AND BLINDING THE SIGHT. BUT FOR THE OFFENDER, THE RHYTHM SHALL CEASE, AND THE GARDEN SHALL GRANT YOU AN ETERNAL PEACE."
The vines tightened with a sickening crunch of breaking chitin and bone. The Deviants were squeezed to death in the middle of a paradise they didn't deserve.
Yuri continued the fight in the center of the garden, a blur of blue fur and steel. He moved with the instinct of a hunter, his staff striking with the precision of a guillotine. Every slice was a prayer for the village that was gone; every kill was a payment on the debt he owed the boy who had given him this life.
The battle raged all night. The screams of the monsters and the rhythmic thunder of Fabian's guns echoed through the Shangri district, a discordant symphony that the citizens of Talandria would whisper about for years to one another.
By the time the red moon began to set, the Grand Hall and the Garden of Death was silent once more. Only Yuri stood in the center, covered in the multicolored ichor of his enemies.