The moment the black ticket crumbled between Kaiser’s fingers, he knew something was wrong. There was no gradual shift, no flickering light, just an instant, crushing darkness. One second, he was standing in the open night air, and the next…

  Splash.

  His boots sank slightly as he landed on wet, uneven stone. A thick, rancid smell hit him, a mix of mold, blood, and something far worse. The air was damp and heavy, the kind that clung to his skin like oil. His breath came out in a slow exhale, mist forming in front of him from the cold.

  He wasn’t alone. A single lantern flickered above, casting shaky, stretched-out shadows along the walls. The room wasn’t large, maybe ten paces across, but it felt smaller, as if the darkness itself was pressing in.

  And then, he saw them.

  Five men. Standing in a loose circle, their faces illuminated just enough to reveal their twisted grins and hungry eyes. Each one was different in build, in weapon, but they all shared the same thing, the confidence of killers.

  One of them, a wiry, sharp-faced man stepped forward, and recognition clicked in Kaiser’s mind.

  Devlin.

  The skinny rat from the inn, the one who had sized him up with that too-wide grin, the one who had vanished the moment things got tense. But here? In this damp, rotting pit? He looked completely at home.

  "Well, well..." Devlin's voice dripped with amusement. He spread his arms wide as if welcoming an old friend. "You actually came. I mean, not by choice, of course, but still, it makes things easier for us."

  Kaiser’s eyes flicked around, analyzing. One door. No windows. Just damp, cracked stone walls and the men standing between him and his only way out.

  Devlin chuckled, stepping closer. His yellowed teeth flashed in the dim light. "Y'know, when I first saw you, I thought you were just some rich idiot passing through. Quiet, stiff, the kind of guy who probably folds at the first sign of trouble. But then..." Devlin tilted his head. "You made a mistake."

  The man to his right, a broad-shouldered brute with a scar splitting his lips in half leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. His knuckles were bruised from old fights and his shirt was stained with something dark.

  "You pissed off Ollo," Devlin continued, voice filled with mock sympathy. "The third most important man in the city. And trust me, he doesn’t like being disrespected." Kaiser’s fingers twitched slightly, but otherwise, he didn’t move.

  "Oh, and Crost?" Devlin let out a short laugh. "Yeah, the big guy you met before? The one who almost killed you two at the inn? He was ordered to finish the job. But y’know what?" He smirked, shaking his head.

  "He quit." The word hung in the air, almost comical in how absurd it sounded.

  "Can you believe that?" Devlin chuckled, turning to the others. "Guy was told to kill some no-name traveler and a whore, and suddenly he grows a damn conscience?"

  The scarred man against the wall sneered. "Crost was always soft." His voice was low and grating, like rust scraping against metal. He pushed himself off the wall, stepping forward. "Doesn't matter. We’ll get this done."

  Another man, tall and bald, with black tattoos covering his arms rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck. His knife spun lazily in his fingers. "Five of us, one of him," he muttered, as if confirming the odds out loud made them more real.

  A fourth man, shorter but stocky, his face hidden beneath a cloth mask flexed his fingers, adjusting brass knuckles wrapped around his fists.

  The last one, the quietest, smallest of the group simply smiled. And it was in a very wrong way. Not cocky, not bloodthirsty, just... expectant. Like someone looking at a puzzle they already knew how to solve.

  Kaiser stood in the center of it all, his expression as unreadable as always, his dark hair untouched by the filth around him. The soft light from the single, flickering lantern in the corner made his features seem almost ethereal, the way his unnatural beauty cut through the grime of the room.

  Davlin was the first to speak again, tilting his head with a slow, deliberate motion, his eyes dragging lazily over Kaiser’s form as if appraising him like one would livestock at a market. A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, and he nudged the scarred man beside him with an elbow, his voice dripping with mockery.

  “Damn shame,” he mused, the words leaving his mouth like the opening act of a cruel joke.

  The masked man beside him snorted, barely sparing Kaiser a glance. “Shame about what?”

  Davlin gestured toward him with an exaggerated wave of his hand, motioning at the long, inky-black strands of hair that cascaded past Kaiser’s shoulders, at the smooth, near-spotless skin that made him stand out in a place like this. “That,” he said with a theatrical sigh. “The hair. The face. The shape. Just look at him—if he weren’t a man, he’d put that pink-haired brat of his to shame.”

  A low whistle came from one of the other men, a grin spreading across his face as he rubbed his chin, eyes gleaming with sick amusement. “You got a point,” he admitted, tilting his head as he examined Kaiser as if seeing him in a new light. “With beauty like that, he’d fetch a damn good price in the right places.”

  A ripple of laughter spread through the group, their chuckles laced with a shared amusement that twisted the air into something thick and suffocating.

  The bald-headed man leaned forward, his grin widening. “You hear that, pretty boy?” he taunted, his voice a slow, drawn-out drawl meant to crawl under the skin. “Might’ve been worth more alive if you were born a girl.”

  Kaiser didn’t react to the taunt, and they weren’t surprised.

  They were used to men like this, men who knew their time was up, men who had been worn down to nothing, their spirits ground to dust long before the final cut was made. They expected the silence, the lifeless stillness of a body waiting for its inevitable fate.

  But Davlin wasn’t done.

  “You rich types are all the same,” he sighed, shaking his head with a theatrical disappointment, as if he were lecturing a spoiled child rather than taunting a man about to die. “All soft hands and easy living. You think being born with a pile of gold makes you better than the rest of us.” A grin stretched across his face, sharp and mocking, his tone turning into something sickly sweet. “Bet you can’t even count to five.”

  The masked man barked out a laugh, his shoulders shaking. “Don’t be too generous,” he mocked, nudging Davlin with an elbow. “Maybe he can count, even if just barely. He’s got the looks, sure, but I wouldn’t bet on much going on upstairs.”

  Davlin let out a sharp, amused snort. “Doubt it. These noble types are useless. Born with everything, don’t know how to fight for nothing.”

  The bald man leaned back against the damp stone wall, exhaling a slow, exaggerated sigh. “At least he won’t need that gold where he’s going.”

  Another round of laughter erupted, echoing off the cold, wet walls, the sound bouncing in the cramped space, stretching the moment into something unbearable.

  Davlin wiped an imaginary tear from his eye, still grinning like he was in the middle of the best joke of his life. “Speaking of,” he added, his voice practically giddy with amusement, “after we carve you up, I think we’ll help ourselves to everything in your room.” His grin widened, revealing teeth, sharp and yellowed. “Your coin, your fancy little clothes, even your bed.”

  Still, Kaiser hadn’t moved, hadn’t blinked, hadn’t reacted, and to them it was almost disappointing. Almost.

  “And of course,” the masked man added, his voice dripping with sick delight, “after we’re done here, we’ll go visit your little pleasure slave.”

  That was when it happened. For the first time since he had arrived, Kaiser moved, not much. Just his eyes. They snapped toward the masked man, locking onto him with such sudden, razor-sharp intensity that the smirk on his face froze in place. The air shifted, heavy and suffocating, as if the room itself had recognized the change, no longer feeling quite the same.

  The damp walls seemed closer, the flickering torchlight casting elongated shadows that stretched unnaturally, twisting like silent watchers in the dark. The low chuckles of amusement died out one by one, leaving only the distant sound of dripping water, the hushed rustling of cloth as bodies tensed without meaning to.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Davlin swallowed, his grin faltering just slightly, something inside him stirring with unease. “What?” he muttered, his voice lacking the earlier bravado, as though some unseen instinct was whispering for him to take a step back. “What the hell are you—”

  Kaiser took a single step forward, the sound of his boot striking wet stone echoing through the silence. And then, in one fluid motion, before anyone could even register what was happening, he closed the distance. The masked man barely had time to breathe before Kaiser’s hand clamped down over his face, fingers digging into his skull. He didn’t punch. Didn’t strike. Just held him in an iron grip and then…

  CRACK.

  The room jolted as Kaiser drove the man’s head into the stone floor with inhuman, impossible force. His body didn’t just hit the ground, it caved into it, the stone fracturing, his skull buried up to his ears. Limbs twitched violently, spasming from the sheer shock to his brain. Then soon after, nothing. He was dead.

  Kaiser straightened, rolling his shoulders in a slow, deliberate motion, the only acknowledgment of his kill.

  “One.”

  The word was soft, yet it cut through the air like a blade.

  Two men lunged forward, moving before their fear could catch up. Kaiser’s hand shot down, snatching a sword from the fresh corpse at his feet. The moment it touched his fingers, his grip tightened, and for one of the first times since waking up in this cursed world, he smiled.

  The attackers were mid-air when the sword flashed. Kaiser didn’t waste time with sweeping cuts across their chests or limbs. Instead, his blade arced upward into a single clean, vertical strike. They split apart before realizing they were dead, their bodies halving in perfect symmetry, collapsing wetly onto the stone. Their severed hands still clutched their useless swords as the hilts clattered against the floor.

  “Two and three.”

  The rest just stood there, frozen their breaths shallow, like men who had just realized their lungs were full of smoke, but it was already too late to escape the fire.

  The bald man, the one who had laughed the loudest, took a single step back. His boot scuffed against the damp stone floor, the sound deafening in the silence. His lips parted, but no words came, only the ragged, desperate wheeze of someone whose body had already decided to run, but whose mind was too frozen to follow.

  He forced the words out anyway. “Th-The fuck are you?”

  Kaiser’s voice was a frayed thread, unraveling in real time, each word barely holding together as it left his lips. He exhaled slowly, rolling the blade in his palm, feeling its weight and balance with a familiarity that had grown rusty over time. It had been a while since he’d held a sword like this, but the weight of it still felt right, like an old habit he couldn’t quite shake.

  His head tilted slightly, long hair spilling over his shoulder as his eyes flicked up. They were cold, distant, and utterly merciless. “Rich and useless, was it?” he murmured.

  The bald man flinched, his body tensing as every instinct screamed at him to move, to run, to do something. But he didn’t. Even as he tried to move, his body didn't listen to him, frozen in place even as Kaiser began to raise the sword above his head, preparing to deliver a strike that would end the man’s life.

  He swung his blade with everything he had, wild and aiming to kill—

  Crack.

  And then Kaiser’s sword shattered in his grip. The sound of metal fracturing spread through the room, sharp and sudden. Kaiser barely reacted as the hilt crumbled in his fingers, weakened from the raw, unnatural force he’d been wielding it with. The blade itself remained intact as it was now severed from its handle, but it was still sharp, still lethal, and Kaiser was planning to use it one final time.

  His bare fingers clamped down on the broken steel, ignoring the way the jagged edges bit into his palm. Blood spilled instantly, dripping down his wrist and pooling between his fingers, but he didn’t let go. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even acknowledge the pain.

  Instead, he lifted the shattered blade and let out a slow breath, rolling his shoulders as if preparing for something far more deliberate. The bald man stumbled, confusion flickering across his face, only for his horror to double as he watched Kaiser throw the broken weapon.

  It wasn’t just a toss. It was a gunshot. A flash of silver. A blur of death.

  The last thing the bald man saw was the glint of steel rushing toward him, before a hole punched through his gut.

  His entire body jerked as the jagged blade pierced straight through him, the sheer force launching him backward. His feet left the ground, his hands twitching and grasping at nothing but air. There was nothing to hold on to, nothing but the pain.

  The wall met him next.

  The impact was brutal, a deep, meaty crack echoing through the chamber as he slammed against the stone. The velocity drove the broken blade so deep into the rock that he hung there, pinned like an insect on display.

  His fingers trembled, then twitched, then clawed desperately at the blade. He tried to pull it out, tried to move his body, but he couldn’t. The steel had sunk into the stone as if it had always belonged there, locking his body in place and leaving him dangling like a butchered animal.

  His chest heaved, each breath a wet, gurgling struggle as his throat fought to draw air. His arms, once flailing and desperate, slowed to a stop, his twitching fingers finally going limp before dropping to his sides. His head slumped forward, the full weight of his body now hanging from the blade impaled through his gut, pinning him to the wall like a grotesque trophy.

  In the silence that followed, Kaiser exhaled, a slow breath that seemed to echo in the stillness. Then his voice cut through the quiet, low and unshaken, absolute in its finality.

  “Four.”

  Only Devlin remained, and his legs had given out entirely. He sat sprawled on the floor, scrambling backward until his back hit the wall, his wide eyes locked on Kaiser as though he were staring at something monstrous, something not of this world.

  “You—” His voice cracked, trembling with a mix of fear and disbelief. “You—”

  Kaiser moved.

  Devlin barely had time to let out a strangled cry before Kaiser’s hand shot forward, his fingers closing around his throat and lifting him clean off the ground. Devlin choked, his hands clawing at Kaiser’s wrist, but it was like trying to bend iron.

  Kaiser tilted his wrist slightly, twisting Devlin in his grip as if examining him, then reached down with his free hand. Strapped to Devlin’s wrist was a sword, one that was ornate and polished, the kind of weapon that didn’t belong in the hands of a street thug. Kaiser took it, his fingers wrapping around the hilt as he tested its weight and balance.

  “Expensive,” Kaiser mused, his tone almost casual, as if they were discussing something as mundane as the weather.

  Then he dropped Devlin.

  The man’s feet had barely touched the ground when Kaiser’s leg shot forward, the heel of his boot slamming into Devlin’s knee with a sickening crack. Devlin screamed, his body buckling as his leg bent in a way it was never meant to. Kaiser didn’t let him fall completely as he held him there, letting the pain sink in, letting him feel every excruciating second of it.

  Then he did the same to the other leg.

  Devlin crumpled to the ground, his breath coming in ragged, uneven gasps, his body trembling as his mind struggled to process the sheer agony coursing through him.

  “Now,” Kaiser murmured, his voice as cold and sharp as the blade in his hand, “tell me about Ollo.”

  Devlin let out a wet, shaky laugh, his grin wide despite the pain and fear etched into his face. “Ollo?” he rasped, his voice hoarse and broken. “Big guy. Very important.” His grin widened, blood staining his teeth. “And he really doesn’t like you.”

  Kaiser twirled the dagger lazily, his eyes never leaving Devlin’s. “I figured as much. What I don’t know,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, “is why he cares enough to kidnap me.”

  Devlin coughed, his breath hitching as he tried to shift his weight, only to be met with a fresh wave of agony from his shattered legs. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, then tilted his head up at Kaiser, his lips curling into something ugly and cruel.

  “Oh, you really don’t get it, do you?” His tongue flicked out, dragging across his bloodied lips, his eyes glinting with malice.

  Kaiser stilled, his body tensing in a way that wasn’t immediately visible. It wasn’t the kind of tension that came before a punch or a shout, it was deeper, darker, like the calm before a storm.

  Devlin, oblivious to the change, cackled, leaning his head back against the ground. “You were just the appetizer,” he sneered, his voice mocking and giddy. “They already sent someone for your little pink-haired pleasure slave.”

  Devlin’s grin widened, his bloodied teeth on full display. “What was her name again? Aria, right?” His tongue flicked out again, slow and deliberate, dragging across his bottom lip. “Pretty little thing, isn’t she? I almost feel bad for her.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “But hey, at least someone in this shitty city is gonna put her to good use.”

  And in an instant, Devlin’s breath was gone as Kaiser’s boot was pressing against his throat. He watched Devlin writhe beneath his boot, the man’s bloodied fingers still clawing weakly at the leather pressing down on his throat.

  Even now… Even now the bastard was still grinning.

  “W-What’s the matter, pretty boy?” Devlin rasped, his lips curling, his tongue flicking disgustingly past his teeth again, slurring slightly as his body fought through the agony. “You g-gonna beg? Gonna tell me how much she means to you?”

  Kaiser didn’t respond. He simply stood there, watching as Devlin’s face twitched with anticipation, waiting, searching for a reaction that never came. The silence between them was heavy, and yet Devlin laughed.

  “C’mon, what’s wrong?” Devlin sneered, tilting his head as much as he could with Kaiser’s boot pressing against his windpipe. “Did I hit a nerve?”

  Kaiser exhaled, slow and controlled, his expression unreadable. Then, almost imperceptibly, his foot lifted off Devlin’s throat just enough for the man to suck in his last breath and just enough for him to choke out one last taunt.

  “I hope—” Devlin coughed, grinning through the pain, “They send her back to you in little—”

  His foot swung up in a brutal arc, and before Devlin could finish his sentence, it drove into his jaw with a sickening CRACK. Devlin’s head snapped back violently, his mouth slamming shut as his own teeth bit clean through his tongue like it was paper. For a brief moment, his eyes widened in shock, and then a deep, gurgling choke tore from his followed.

  He spasmed, his body writhing on the floor as his mouth filled with blood, his severed tongue falling limply from his lips. He clawed at his neck, desperate and panicked, but every breath only brought more blood, more choking and more agony.

  “Five.”

  Devlin shuddered violently, his body convulsing one last time before it finally stilled. The only sound left in the room was the soft, rhythmic drip of blood against the wet stone floor. Kaiser let out a slow breath, his chest rising and falling with deliberate calm. And then, he moved.

  His head snapped toward the iron doors at the end of the room, and without hesitation, without thought, he strode toward them. He didn’t check if they were locked. He didn’t care. His rage had already decided for him.

  His fist slammed into the metal, the impact shaking the room. His skin split instantly, blood spraying from his knuckles, but he didn’t stop. He hit it again. And again. And again.

  The fourth strike bent the metal inward, warping it unnaturally, but the doors held. A fifth punch. A sixth. Blood dripped from his fingers, his wounds healing almost as fast as they tore open. Flesh ripped. Bone cracked. Muscle screamed.

  And yet, he did not stop. His shoulders rose and fell heavily, his body trembling with pure, undiluted fury.

  ‘Aria.’

  She was out there. Somewhere. And the bastards who took her… They were already dead. They just didn’t know it yet.