"I'm Sylvia," she said, studying him more carefully now. "What about you?"
"Daniel," he replied.
She gave a small nod, then returned to the question that hadn't left her mind since the street.
"So how were you not harmed?" she asked. "A truck hit you directly. That should've killed anyone."
"Because I'm not human,"
Sylvia held his eyes for a moment, weighing the answer. After what she had seen, it didn't sound like a joke or an exaggeration. It sounded like the simplest explanation available.
"…Yeah," she said quietly. "That wasn't something a normal person could survive."
Her curiosity didn't fade.
If anything, it deepened.
"So if you're not human," she continued, "what are you doing here? Did you come to gamble away your time? You've got more than enough of it."
There was a faint edge beneath her words, something shaped by boredom rather than accusation. Living here meant never worrying about survival, but it also meant nothing ever changed. Days repeated themselves, predictable and controlled, stretching endlessly without meaning.
Daniel noticed it.
"I'm not here for that," he said.
He glanced around the casino briefly before looking back at her.
"I'm looking for someone," he continued. "An enemy."
He paused, then added with a slight shrug,
"Technically, he's more my uncle's problem, but things like that tend to become personal. So I figured I'd deal with it myself."
Sylvia studied him, unsure whether to take that lightly or seriously.
"So… you came here to catch a criminal?" she asked, her tone measured, as if she was still deciding what kind of person she was talking to.
Daniel picked up another glass from a passing tray and took a slow sip before answering, his posture relaxed, as if the setting didn't matter to him at all.
"Why catch him?" he said, glancing at her. "If you want something gone, you don't hold it—you end it."
The words settled between them.
Sylvia's brows drew slightly.
"You mean… kill him?" she asked, the casual way he spoke making it harder to process.
Daniel set the glass aside, his expression unchanged.
"Yeah," he said. "If you really want to stop a problem, you bury it deep enough that it never comes back. No second chances, no waiting for it to rise again."
There was no aggression in his voice.
Just certainty.
"And even if it does manage to crawl back out," he added, almost as an afterthought, "you take a shovel and bury it again."
Sylvia looked at him for a moment, her reaction not what most would expect.
Instead of discomfort, a faint smile appeared.
It wasn't because she agreed with him, but because it was different.
People here didn't speak like that. Every conversation in this place was controlled, refined, shaped to maintain appearances. No one said things so directly, especially not something like that.
Daniel didn't care about any of it.
For the first time in a while, she wasn't listening to something rehearsed.
"So do you always do things like… chasing people?" Sylvia asked, still trying to place him somewhere between believable and absurd.
Daniel shrugged lightly, his attention drifting for a moment before returning to her.
"Not really," he said. "Most of the time, it's the other way around. People chase me. And it's not always fighting or killing either—sometimes it's just… different things. Exploring oceans, digging through ruins, that kind of stuff."
Sylvia frowned slightly, trying to process it.
It didn't sound real.
It sounded like something out of stories, not something someone would say so casually while standing in a place like this.
Before she could respond,
A scream cut through the room.
Sharp.
Panicked.
Heads turned instantly.
Sylvia flinched and looked toward the source.
A man stood in the middle of the floor, his body convulsing as something dark wrapped around him. The shadows twisted unnaturally, draining him in seconds, his skin tightening, his body collapsing into a dry, lifeless form that hit the ground with a hollow sound.
The room erupted.
People shouted, chairs scraped, glasses shattered as panic spread.
Sylvia took a step back, her breath catching as she stared at the corpse.
Daniel's gaze shifted.
"That's the one," he said, his tone changing completely.
The lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the entire ceiling darkened as something moved above them.
"You came," the Shadow King said, his voice echoing unnaturally as he looked down at Daniel.
His body distorted, shadows bursting outward into thick, writhing tendrils that lashed across the room. One of them slammed into a support pillar—
CRACK—!
The structure fractured instantly.
Another strike followed—
BOOM—!
Concrete broke apart as part of the ceiling collapsed, debris crashing down as people screamed and rushed for exits.
Sylvia froze.
The ground shook beneath her feet.
More pillars snapped under the pressure, the entire building beginning to give way as cracks spread across the walls and ceiling.
She shut her eyes instinctively, bracing for impact.
But it never came; instead, she felt movement, slow and unmistakable. She opened one eye, then both, and realized she wasn't on the ground at all—she was in the air.
Daniel held her securely, one arm supporting her as he moved forward through the collapsing structure, stepping across open space as if it were solid ground. Debris fell around them, chunks of concrete crashing down, glass shattering as the building gave in behind them.
Sylvia's hands grabbed onto his coat instinctively, her grip tightening as the height and speed finally registered.
Below them, the casino was breaking apart.
Ahead of them,
The Shadow King was already moving, leaping from the collapsing structure toward another building.
Daniel followed.
"What is happening?" Sylvia said, her voice unsteady, her grip tightening further.
Daniel didn't slow down.
"Nothing unusual," he replied, his tone controlled despite the chaos around them. "Just a chase."
The ground disappeared beneath them as he stepped off the edge, dropping through open air before adjusting mid-fall.
Sylvia clung to him, her breath catching as the drop hit her senses.
"Relax," Daniel added. "I've done this before. You're not going anywhere."
That didn't stop her from holding on tighter as he descended, already tracking the Shadow King's movement ahead.
*****
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