The other five moved swiftly. As the spectral chains faded into nothing, each of them grabbed a part of the beast's body. Without a word, they hurled it through the broken wall of the train. The creature crashed into the metal railings along the tracks, bones snapping from the impact with a gruesome crack.
"Attendant. Train driver. Sylis No'el. Those are the three the Commander requires," the leader said, his voice calm, authoritative, and refined. He raised his hand, and that was when Zay saw it.
A mark.
It was jagged, blackened, and shaped like a claw. It glowed faintly beneath the moonlight, pulsing softly.
Where had he seen that before? Zay's heart beat faster in the silence of the shadows. His body remained hidden by [Shadow Hide]. He was certain the mark was familiar, though the memory refused to surface. Had he truly seen it, or was it merely a hallucination born from exhaustion and hunger?
'I swear I've seen that before,' he thought, staring at it, trying to pull the memory into focus.
The leader lowered his hand, and a pair of aura gloves formed around it. They shimmered with blue aura, threading together in elegant curves. Without hesitation, the man walked down the corridor, unbothered by the blood that still pooled across the floor.
He passed Zay without noticing him, then opened a door to another compartment. Inside sat an older man. His black trench coat hung open, and his long crimson hair caught the moonlight from the cracked window behind him. He rose to his feet the moment he saw the masked intruder.
"So this is what it was all about?" the older man asked, his voice heavy with resignation.
"It is," the leader replied without emotion.
The older man sighed, reaching into his coat. He searched for something, but then paused. His eyes widened. He patted again, faster this time. The rectangular box he had carried with him was gone.
"There seems to be a—" he began.
The leader raised his aura-cloaked hand. A single motion. The older man's head was severed instantly. It rolled across the floor with a soft, wet thump before the rest of his body collapsed beside it in a louder crash.
Without a word, the leader turned and walked back to the others. They were still standing exactly where he had left them.
"Sylis is dead. He did not possess what was required. He must have hidden it." His voice remained composed, but there was an edge of steel in it now. "Locate his family, his friends, his assistants. Every individual he ever worked with. Interrogate them, and if they do not tell us then torture them. We will find it."
All six figures dissolved into fog and vanished from sight, leaving behind only the silence of the wind howling through the broken train car.
Zay waited a few seconds longer, making sure the presence of the six assassins had truly faded. Then, with a slow exhale, he deactivated [Shadow Hide]. Shadows peeled away from his skin like mist dissipating in sunlight, revealing his form beneath the dim flickering lights of the bloodstained train.
He stood, his boots sticking slightly against the floor as they lifted from the tacky pool of blood. The entire compartment reeked of iron and copper from all the blood. Crimson coated the walls, the floor, even the ceiling faintly, somehow. Heads were missing—ripped away by the brutal wind screaming through the open wall of the speeding train. Bodies lay scattered like discarded puppets, their limbs twisted unnaturally, some still twitching with the last echoes of nerve response.
Zay's amethyst eyes scanned the wreckage before settling the train attendant. The man was lying face-up on the floor near the corner of the compartment, his eyes shut, chest barely rising.
"That person mentioned him… but why?" Zay muttered under his breath, stepping forward. Each footfall splashed lightly in blood, a soft squelch echoing against the hollowed silence.
He crouched beside the man and pressed two fingers gently to the side of his neck. The pulse was there, but faint—thready and weak.
'Barely alive. If they left him like this on purpose…' Zay's thoughts trailed off, unease gnawing at him.
He stood up slowly, his gaze sharpening. Without a word, his hand slid toward the hilt of his katana. The blade whispered as it left the sheath, a cold gleam of violet and midnight-blue aura swirling along its edge like smoke caught in moonlight.
Zay brought it down in one precise arc.
The katana passed cleanly through the attendant's neck. There was no resistance, or hesitation. Blood sprayed in a fine arc, catching on the edge of the wind that still howled through the train. The man's head tumbled from his shoulders, rolled across the blood-slicked floor, and disappeared through the broken wall, flung into the night.
Zay looked down at the lifeless body. Blood poured from the stump where the head once sat, flowing in slow, thick rivulets that mingled with the mess already covering the floor. He stared at it, motionless, as his own breathing slowed.
His eyes widened. His body locked up.
Then, like a rising storm inside his chest, the memory surged forth.
"That damned Judicator's Requiem..." he whispered, his voice sharp and low.
He remembered. The sensation of his own head being frozen in place, neck stiffening with frostbite as the spear struck. The sickening moment of separation. The silence. The awareness lingering a few seconds longer than it should have.
He swallowed hard, his throat tight, heart thudding twice before he forced the memory down, pushing it into the dark recesses of his mind where it belonged.
He turned and sat heavily onto one of the blood-soaked train seats. The cushion squished beneath him, drenched from the carnage. Wind tore through the open compartment, whipping his long black hair wildly, tangling strands into a chaotic storm. Blood pooled around his boots like a dark reflection of the sky, the entire train car now a mobile tomb rushing forward at ninety miles per hour.
He didn't say a word.
He just sat there, silent, alone, surrounded by death and wind, waiting for the train to come to a stop.
The shriek of wind intensified.
From the gaping hole in the train wall, a blur lunged through—black coat flaring, boots slamming down into the pool of blood with a sickening splash. His arrival sent a ripple through the puddle like a bomb had landed.
The figure rose.
His face was half-hidden behind a ragged scarf, and his eyes burned with cold glacial blue purpose. Around both fists, dark blue aura surged, spiraling into chains that wrapped around his knuckles and coiled up his forearms like vipers made of light. Steam hissed from his shoulders.
He didn't speak. He just moved.
The man's fist tore through the air, wrapped in that dark blue chain, and slammed forward with earth-shattering force.
Zay twisted sideways and leapt back, his feet skimming over the blood-slick floor. The man's punch collided with the wall.
BOOM.
The train compartment shook. Steel folded. Metal screeched. A new hole exploded open, rivets snapping and sparks scattering into the night. Wind howled louder, like a beast unchained.
Zay's eyes narrowed. No time to reason. No chance to explain.
He dropped low and drew his blade in one fluid motion. His katana gleamed with interwoven hues of violet and midnight-blue, the aura dancing like fire under moonlight.
The man was already coming again.
Zay barely planted his feet before the man surged forward, closing the gap with frightening speed. His chains snapped outward like whips, one curling toward Zay's left leg, the other darting at his right shoulder like it meant to tear the limb clean off.
Zay spun, just barely ducking one, the other grazing his coat as he slid back again, boots skidding against torn metal and blood.
His eyes were locked on Zay—not with rage, but with the clinical, mechanical sharpness of someone who had hunted targets across burning cities and broken empires. His aura pulsed again, tighter this time.
"False Threads…" he muttered. His voice was gravel and ice. "You're one of them. I WILL KILL YOU!"
The man roared, a guttural, primal sound swallowed only partially by the shrieking wind as his dark blue aura erupted, flooding outward like a storm surge. The floor beneath him cracked, unable to hold back the sheer density of his energy. It shimmered and twisted, forming jagged, heavy chains around his arms, his torso, even his legs—yet they didn't bind him.
They empowered him.
His glacial blue eyes, now streaked with deeper veins of indigo, locked onto Zay. No trace of hesitation. No room for questions. Only judgment.
Then, he moved.
A fist, cocked back—not even connecting—split the air with a thunderclap of pressure. The metal wall around him bent outward just from the force of the shockwave. Loose debris and severed limbs on the floor lifted slightly into the air before dropping with wet slaps.
Zay's eyes flicked sharply. He could already feel the kinetic pressure buffeting his skin.
He reacted immediately and activated [Shadow Walk]
Zay's body melted into the shadows, vanishing in a whisper of violet-black mist. The wind carried the fading echo of his breath.
He reappeared behind the man, his katana already arcing downward in a single, devastating stroke.
The blade carved deep.
A splatter of dark blood sprayed across the nearest seat as Zay's katana sliced through coat, flesh, and the network of aura-wrapped chains. The man stumbled, a sharp gasp escaping him as his spine twisted under the force.
But Zay didn't linger. He pivoted and leapt back, flipping once before landing on his feet several meters away, blade held low and dripping.
The bounty hunter stood tall again. The cut along his back sizzled, leaking blood.
He cracked his neck to the side—once, then twice—before exhaling, steam curling from his lips into the rushing wind.
"You're not one of them. Not with that kind of technique," he said loudly.
Zay didn't lower his blade. "You're hunting the False Threads," he replied, stating the obvious.
"I am," the man said, the chains around his arms tightening with a metallic rattle. "And I thought you were one of their Shades. They've been using some sort of fog manipulation recently... I thought you were one of them." He paused, then gave a short laugh. "But seeing you use shadows instead of fog…"
He trailed off and shook his head before continuing.
"Since you know of them, I assume you also have some hatred toward the False Threads, right?"
Zay looked at the man and gave a slight nod.
"Sinners Night Market. Cindra Library."
With that, the man turned and strode toward the broken wall of the train. Without hesitation, he jumped out, vanishing into the night—swallowed instantly by the darkness and the speed of the moving train.