The moonlight over Eclipse Mansion felt heavy. It filtered through the violet haze Kaizer had dragged back with him from the Gala, staining the grounds in a bruised, unnatural light. Inside, the library smelled of burnt ozone and something metallic, like rotting coins. Kaizer was still sifting through the raw data of the stolen Shard of Malice when the silence of the house was broken by a dull thud in the barracks.
It began with Kuro. The scout didn't just fall; he collapsed mid-step, his body hitting the floor with a weight that suggested his muscles had simply stopped working. By the time Kaizer reached the medical wing, the rest of the Abyssal Guard were already on the floor. All five of them were convulsing.
Their skin had gone translucent. Beneath the surface, their veins were glowing with a rhythmic, sickly gold light that pulsed like a second heartbeat.
"Loki," Kaizer said, his voice barely a whisper as his own shadow flared against the wall.
The Pillar of Greed hadn't bothered with an assassination attempt or an army. He had sent a Divine Parasite. It was a microscopic blight hidden within the mana-awards the JAA handed out after the Tokyo Dome. To a normal hunter, it was a blessing. To anyone touched by Abyssal mana, it was a "Holy Fever" designed to burn the soul out from the inside.
Sera looked up, her crimson eyes flickering. She reached for her throat, her nails drawing blood. "Master... the light... it's eating the rot. We're dissolving."
Kaizer pressed a hand to her forehead. He could feel the poison, but his Devourer's Hunger was too blunt an instrument here. If he tried to pull the light out, the vacuum of the extraction would collapse their human vessels instantly. He needed a localized cure, but the human world didn't stock medicine for ghosts.
"The human world is a pharmacy with no medicine for us, Prince." Paimon's voice drifted from the corner of the room as he stepped out from the shadow of the bookshelves. "If you want to save your Guard, you have to stop treating this mansion like a house. Make it a Kingdom."
Kaizer stood up. His face was a blank mask of cold focus. He pulled the Shard of Malice from his pocket. It wasn't a jagged stone anymore. It was a violet heart, pulsing with the leftover spite of a fallen Lord.
"Malphas. Sylas. Sentinel. Guard the perimeter."
Kaizer didn't place the shard; he slammed it into the center of the ballroom floor.
"Sovereign Territory: The Eclipse Anchor."
The mansion groaned as if the very foundations were being reshaped. A shockwave of violet darkness ripped outward, turning the grass for three miles into obsidian blades. The trees warped, their leaves turning into weeping shadow-willows, while the stone walls of the estate reinforced themselves with Abyssal iron.
It was a coronation, but in the void, a coronation is also a flare.
The sky tore open. A massive, skeletal figure draped in tattered war-banners began to descend. This was Vorg the Ravager, a High-Rank Warlord who had been waiting for the scent of a Sovereign's spark.
"Human!" Vorg's voice was loud enough to shatter the windows of the guest house. "That shard belongs to the Conclave. Hand it over, or I will grind your soul into the dirt."
Kaizer didn't even reach for the Eclipse Talon. He looked up at the Warlord with eyes that had dissolved into infinite pits of violet.
"You're a distraction I don't have time for, Vorg. I have a shopping trip to make."
With a flick of his wrist, Kaizer signaled the Sentinel to intercept. As the two giants collided, the force of the blow shaking the entire estate, Kaizer turned and headed for the basement.
In the deepest sub-level of the mansion, Kaizer raised his hand. He didn't strike at the air; he gripped reality itself and tore it open.
"Shadow Exchange: The Obsidian Path."
Space ripped apart to reveal a sky lit by a dying violet sun. Below it sat a city built of black glass and bone. This was the Obsidian Market, the neutral trade-hub of the Underworld where everything had a price.
Kaizer carried the five unconscious members of the Abyssal Guard through the rift. His shadows trailed behind him like a funeral procession. The denizens of the market—hooded wraiths and multi-limbed demons—backed away as he passed. They didn't see a human. They saw a walking catastrophe.
He stopped at a shop belonging to The Merchant of Souls, a creature with a hundred shifting faces hidden behind a silk veil.
"Welcome, Prince of Conquest," the Merchant chirped, his voice a chorus of a thousand different tones. "Your Guard is dying of Heavenly Fever. A nasty trick from the Pillars. I have the Nectar of the Void to cure them, along with gear that would make your current kit look like peasant rags."
The Merchant gestured to armor woven from God-Eater Silk and daggers forged from Frozen Malice.
"The price?" Kaizer asked.
The Merchant leaned in, a dozen eyes focusing on Kaizer at once. "A simple trade. A shadow escaped my collection. A traitor who took a fragment of my soul and fled to the mortal realm. He's currently being tortured in the JAA's Zero Division archives. Bring me his head, and your Guard shall rise as Titans. Fail, and I keep their souls as interest."
Kaizer looked at Sera and Kuro, then at the portal back to Earth where Vorg was currently tearing his backyard apart.
[URGENT QUEST: THE MERCHANT'S BOUNTY]
Objective: Execute the 'Traitor Shadow' within 24 hours.
Location: JAA Secret Research Vault (Division Zero).
Reward: Abyssal Guard Evolution & Divine Fever Cure.
"Deal," Kaizer said. His shadow expanded until it swallowed the Merchant's entire shop. "But if they aren't awake by the time I get back, I won't just bring you a head. I'll bring you the end of this market."