Yushai opened his eyes at the exact moment the sound first appeared.
At first, it was so faint that it dissolved almost completely into the restless noise of the carriage. Voices overlapped—sharp, impatient, strained—as people argued, trying to impose meaning on a message none of them fully understood. Against that backdrop, the metallic scraping barely registered, like something imagined rather than heard.
Then it came again.
This time longer.
Heavier.
As though something was being dragged slowly across the roof.
A few voices faltered. Someone glanced upward, uncertain, but the tension had not yet taken shape; it lingered beneath the surface, subtle and undefined.
The impact, when it came, changed everything.
It was sudden and heavy, reverberating through the carriage. The lights flickered, hesitating for a fraction of a second as the entire structure shuddered. Conversations broke apart mid-sentence, dissolving into confused exclamations.
Another удар followed.
And then another.
There was nothing random in the pattern. The spacing between the impacts carried an unsettling consistency, suggesting not chaos, but intent.
Saigid understood before most. His gaze lifted and fixed on the ceiling, his expression sharpening as he listened—not to the noise, but through it.
It wasn't outside.
It was directly above them.
The metal bent inward, at first subtly, then with a dry, strained groan that drew attention whether one wished it or not. Someone shouted for people to move, but the warning came too late to matter.
The ceiling gave way.
It tore open with disturbing ease, as though it had never been meant to withstand what pressed against it. Something forced its way through—a long, segmented limb, its surface dark and metallic, catching the unstable light in dull reflections. It jerked once, found purchase, and pulled.
More of the body followed.
The creature entered not with haste, but with an unsettling certainty, as if resistance had never been a possibility.
For a brief moment, no one reacted.
People stared, unable to reconcile what they were seeing with anything familiar. The mind resisted, searching for a frame of reference that did not exist.
The moment shattered with a scream.
Panic spread instantly, collapsing whatever fragile order had remained. People surged in every direction at once, colliding, stumbling, dragging each other down in their attempts to escape. Someone fell and disappeared beneath the movement, swallowed by it.
The exits offered no relief. The doors remained sealed, the windows unyielding. The carriage had become a closed system—tight, inescapable.
The creature emitted a sharp, grinding hiss. Its segmented body shifted, each movement producing a mechanical friction that seemed wrong in a way that was difficult to articulate. It lowered its head, as if searching, selecting.
Saigid did not move.
Not yet.
His gaze flicked, briefly, toward Yushai.
Still calm.
Still watching.
As though none of this was unexpected.
The thought did not fully form.
The creature lunged.
The man closest to it failed to react in time. The sound that followed was brief and wet, disturbingly final. Blood spread across the floor in a sudden, vivid contrast to the dim, unstable lighting.
The nature of the screams changed.
There were no more questions.
Only fear.
Saigid stepped back, instinctively measuring distance, speed, direction. The calculation completed itself almost instantly.
There was no viable escape.
The creature slowed.
Turned.
And looked directly at him.
There was no emotion in its gaze, but there was something else—recognition, perhaps, or the completion of a process.
A decision.
Behind him, something shifted.
Too close.
Too sudden.
He didn't have time to turn.
The air split.
A brief flash of gold cut through the пространство, clean and precise, so fast it barely registered as movement. For a moment, it seemed as though nothing had happened at all.
Then silence fell.
The creature froze.
And separated.
Its body divided cleanly into two halves, which struck the floor with a heavy, metallic force. A dark fluid spread outward, thick and slow, pooling between them.
No one moved.
Even the screams had stopped—not because the fear had passed, but because it had reached a point beyond sound.
Saigid exhaled, only then realizing he had been holding his breath.
"…I didn't even see it move."
He turned.
Yushai stood where he had been all along.
The faint glow around his hand was already fading, as though it had never been there. His expression remained unchanged—calm, distant, untouched by effort.
As if what had just happened required none.
As if it had been inevitable.
Around them, the silence shifted. Shock settled into something heavier, more enduring.
Understanding, perhaps.
Saigid studied him.
"…what are you?"
Yushai did not answer.
His attention had already moved elsewhere.
Upward.
The sound had not stopped.
It continued—slow, deliberate, unmistakable now.
More than one.
"Get ready," Yushai said quietly.
It did not sound like a warning.
It sounded like a fact.
Above them, the metal began to crack again.