Gray Aero spread the map across his apartment floor—a detailed layout of Qara City with colored pins marking infection observations. Red for confirmed personality changes. Yellow for suspected. Green for areas showing resistance.
The pattern made his stomach turn.
"It didn't start in the slums," Gray muttered, tracing the infection's origin points.
The slums showed *green*. Survival-focused populations—people who operated on pragmatic necessity, who couldn't *afford* righteousness—remained largely unaffected. Their dark humor persisted. Their cynical interactions continued. Their moral flexibility stayed intact.
Red pins clustered in three locations:
**Hunter Association Headquarters.** The epicenter. Where the most powerful hunters congregated. Where willpower concentrations peaked. Where heroic ideals ran strongest.
