The alleyways were slathered in that freaky pearlescent ooze—glowstick puke meets alien snail trail—while the crates hosted a gallery of deflated specters. Seventeen? Eighteen. Nineteen. Correction: twenty. I rematerialized mid-swipe, introducing number twenty to the masonry with prejudice. Wall got a fresh coat of phantom slurry.

It's funny—how their 'blood' turns squid-clear once they die. Like the darkness itself bails out of their bodies the moment they drop. Even their forms go see-through, like someone turned down the opacity slider. Never noticed that before. Probably because my old hunting methods were, well... less finesse, more flambé. Lightning and fire didn't leave much behind to analyze. Just scorched silhouettes and smoky memories.

Offensive Light magic though? That was a different story—clean, clinical, and sharp as a scalpel. Wild how easily it shredded them. Come to think of it, even without that mana concentration-boosting potion, they would've gone down just as easy. Guess I didn't need the extra oomph after all. Wraiths were just that allergic to light.

Used to be a real brawl to take one down with lightning or fire. Now? Just point and purify. A real eye-opener.

Speaking of eyes, I glanced at my charred arm—souvenir from that overgrown mistake of a wraith. Thing was a fusion mess, like seven of them had decided to cosplay as a single monster. I panicked, overcharged a Light Bolt, and fried my mana veins for the trouble.

Worth it, though. Definitely worth it. Because now I knew—there was a puppet master behind this whole haunted circus. And I had a thread to follow. But first... triage.

Healing my mana veins came first. Bonus points for the mana I'd siphon off during recovery. No need to waste a potion now—those were luxury items. Saved for moments when I was really on the ropes.

I tuned into the background noise. Air sense flared—faint clashes at the edge of my awareness. Fighting. Nearby. Convenient.

Perfect timing for a snack break.

I turned to the abomination's corpse and started with that. Teeth parted, biting through its squid-slick, translucent hide. Ah, that spicy zing again—like ghost pepper jelly, but with soul residue. Say what you will, monsters always had flavor. Shame I couldn't savor it properly. No time for chewing with finesse—I tore into the thing like a starving beast at a buffet.

Big bites. Really big bites. Actually… had my bite size grown? Felt like it. I was definitely filling out more than just my skills and stats. Like humans growing with age, maybe I was, too—just, y'know, dragon-style. Mortals get taller; I get hangrier. Natural growth layered over evolution. Something worth tracking. I should measure myself daily or something. Science!

Right now, though? I was big enough to gulp down an entire wraith corpse in one swallow. They were human-sized, after all—humanoid too, with clawed hands and no feet. Floaty freaks. Tasted divine.

Once my mana pool was topped off, I shifted back into my half-dragon form. It drained a chunk of my reserves, but I'd slurp that mana right back soon enough.

I preferred this form in chaos. The full-dragon look was... dramatic. Too dramatic. With things this messy, who knew what kind of folks might come sniffing around? Even with my stealth and distortion cranked up, if someone did see through the veil, they'd just clock some red-core beastkin mid-transformation to their beast form. Totally plausible. Enough to keep my real nature wrapped in another illusion.

The tentacles might raise some eyebrows, sure, but hey—no two beast forms were alike, right? Let 'em rationalize it away. The goal was simple: keep the dragon secret, keep the dragon safe.

Back in my half-dragon form, I picked up where I'd left off—smaller maw, slower pace, but still business as usual.

A red dot pulsed at the edge of my vision but I wasn't in the mood to open it yet. Life was always a bit brighter when your notifications kept their opinions to themselves. I'd check how much morphogen I raked in later. For now? Priorities. Which meant cramming as much spectral sashimi into my belly before the world called again.

Sadly, it didn't even last a minute. No time to savor. Duty—or curiosity—called.

I slipped into the shadow realm with a breath, letting the world ripple and bend as I darted toward the main square.

It was pure, unfiltered mayhem. Wraiths shrieked like broken violins and flung themselves at anything that moved. They weren't even bothering with possession anymore—just blasting everything in sight with psychic shrieks and claws coated in dark mana. Tactical, brutal, and organized. Which was… wrong. Wraiths were never this methodical. Once again it screamed of puppeteering hands behind the curtain.

Guards and enforcers were barely holding the line. Their formation buckled like wet parchment under pressure.

"Save the civilians!"

Ah. They needed a hand.

Or maybe a claw.

***

The main square was a living mural of chaos. Storefronts lay in smoking heaps, cobblestones shimmered with wraith-slick ichor, and the shattered clocktower loomed like a crooked sentinel—its hands, of course, stuck at always-midnight. Because of course they were.

Civilians cowered behind overturned carts and splintered fruit stalls, while the guards formed a shaky defensive line, iron and will bending under the relentless push.

At the center of it all stood Captain Zharitsa—lion-mawed and lion-hearted. Commander of the guards under the Alchemy Tower's banner. She used to live by mercenary law, all coin and chaos, but even the wild crave peace eventually. These days, she fought for something that couldn't be bought.

The Alchemy Tower—home of potions, progress, and people who'd never held a blade in their lives. Scholars. Alchemists. Soft? Sure. Vital? Absolutely. She owed her nine lives to their potions. Let a single shadow-jerk slip past her? Over her very dead, very dragged-through-hell body.

With a bestial roar, she surged forward. Wind mana danced along her sword, wrapped around her limbs, lightening her body and lifting her steps—like she was walking on gusts. Her blade met a charging wraith mid-air, cleaving through it before it could hiss its defiance.

[Tempest Fang]

The thing screamed, but it was already too late—her blade sang again.

[Windcutter Spiral]

A miniature storm of slashes burst from her blade's core, shredding the wraith from the inside out. It popped like a haunted water balloon, spraying that ghostly goo.

Zharitsa wasn't even a high red core. Freshly ascended, sure—but still only low red. Didn't matter. These wraiths were nothing to her—scary enough to trouble a high yellow, maybe, but they crumpled before someone who could carve the wind.

Problem was, there were just too many. And wind magic had one major flaw: it couldn't catch what wasn't fully there. The moment the wraiths turned incorporeal, her slashes passed through like she was cutting mist.

Pesky little horrors.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They moved like spilled ink in water, and worse—they'd started adapting. Dodging her. Skirting around her reach to go after easier prey. Their claws sliced through lesser shields like they were parchment, and their mouths—those eerie, shapeless voids—unleashed psychic shrieks that made the air vibrate like a plucked nerve string.

Zharitsa could hold her ground, no doubt. But she wasn't immune.

She'd love to say the screeching didn't affect her. But it did.

Her skull throbbed like a war drum.

Zharitsa was mid-lunge, blade drawn back, when the next wraith turned incorporeal—slipping out of reach just before her strike could land. Her foot hovered mid-step on a platform of hardened wind when something shifted in the air around her.

There.

Clinging to the shadows of a bakery's awning.

Not a wraith.

Not even close.

A… serpent? No. A tentacle—long and sinuous, warping like a thread pulled through shattered glass. The air around it twisted as if reality itself was trying to reject its presence. Before she could even process what she was seeing, runes flickered into a matrix midair—faint, golden, precise.

Then it struck.

ZAP.

Light mana crackled along the appendage as it lashed forward, cleanly decapitating a wraith that had cornered one of her men. A blink later, it vanished. Not just from sight—but from everything. No mana trails. No wind disturbance. As if it had never existed.

"What in the name of the holy Ancestors—?!"

Zharitsa spun to another scream, jaw clenched, pushing the image out of her mind. She could question her sanity later. For now—her men were dying.

A cluster of Iron Pact enforcers had been pushed back to the fountain, struggling under the weight of a new wave. Reinforcements from the Pact still hadn't shown, and while she understood the delay—they'd need time to muster and arm—it still grated.

No time to stew. She moved.

"Shields high! Archers—bullseye the glowing red bullseyes! Enchant those arrows or eat them!"

One of the wraiths spotted her and slipped incorporeal again, but the rest weren't so lucky. Zharitsa sprang—up, over, landing atop the fountain's base like a wrathful storm given flesh. Air solidified beneath each footstep as she soared forward, carving the first wraith's head clean off mid-flight. A tempest burst outward, shredding its form from the inside, while the others were hurled back by the backlash.

She didn't let them recover.

Her next strike was a single, brutal arc—both wraiths caught in its sweep. They detonated in tandem, translucent guts splattering across broken stone and shivering wards.

Zharitsa allowed herself half a breath.

Then the air rippled again.

Too late.

The fourth wraith reappeared at her flank—fully corporeal, screaming its psychic rage. The blast hit her like a spike through the skull. She roared, knees quaking, vision stuttering to static.

"Gnats!" she spat, fangs grinding.

Then came the others.

Three more, converging in perfect sync—too fast, too many.

But before they reached her, the world tore.

A massive blade of light lanced through all three mid-motion. They barely had time to register the strike before they exploded into shredded shadow.

Zharitsa gasped and twisted toward the source—and there it was again.

The air shimmered faintly near a shadowed alleyway, and from the rippling void stepped something wrong.

Two crimson eyes glowed like coals through smoke. A maw, bristling with jagged teeth, parted in a feral grin. Eight feet tall at least, wrapped in a haze of reality-warping distortion. She couldn't see its full form—just fragments caught between layers. And then—gone. No trace. Not a whisper.

"Shield the Captain!" a soldier yelled, voice cracking like a rookie's resolve.

Zharitsa snarled, lion-maw twitching. "I don't need meat shields, you overripe turnips! Go prop up someone who can't breathe and swing steel at the same time!"

"But Captain—what was that thing? That light attack—it tore through all three of them."

"I saw something similar earlier," another added. "Was surrounded, couldn't escape—and boom, light mana blade from nowhere. Saved my ass."

"You think reinforcements are already here?"

"Then where are they?" someone muttered.

"DOESN'T MATTER!" Zharitsa barked, pushing herself to her feet despite the pounding in her skull. "Whoever's playing guardian ancestor won't keep bailing us out every time we faceplant into a wraith nest!"

She let out a wild grin, fangs bared.

"FALL BACK TO THE MAIN GATE! GET THE WOUNDED TO THE BARRIERS!"

Her voice boomed over the carnage.

"WE DIG IN! WE PATCH UP! THEN WE UNLEASH!"

The wind carried Zharitsa's roar far and wide—it cracked like a whip through the square, shaking the blood-slick stones. That was all it took. The others began their retreat, hauling the wounded back toward the inner sanctum. Zharitsa held the line, lashing out with her blade while a few well-placed bolts and blades of light mana and lucky strikes for archers kept the pressure off her flanks.

Ex-merc or not, pressure just made her sharper.

And yeah, Varkaigrad thrived on secrets thicker than dungeon stew—but when a distortion-cloaked cryptid starts shadow-snacking your enemies? You don't ask for its résumé. You say thanks with steel.

Another wraith became confetti. Zharitsa's smirk said it all: allies came in all flavors, even the "probably eldritch" variety. Questions? Save 'em for the debrief. Survive first, theology later.

***

I finished swallowing the last scraps of another wraith corpse and licked the blood off my claws, watching from the alleyway shadows.

Zharitsa. Rakari. I'd seen her around before, during my comings and goings from the Tower. We'd never spoken. But watching her now—holding the gate like it was sacred ground—earned her some of my respect.

Maybe I'd gift her a potion later. Something potent. Healing or explosive, maybe both. A little thank-you for not prying too deep.

She definitely noticed me. That much I was sure of. But she wasn't asking questions. She wasn't prying.

Smart woman.

And together? We'd just cleaned up an entire horde in under two minutes. Plenty of corpses for me to drag into quiet corners and snack on—just enough to recharge. Strictly for practical reasons, of course. Potent light mana tore through the veins like acid when used too freely, and I did need to stay in top shape if I wanted to keep playing executioner.

Air Sense hummed. Something shifted.

A ripple.

Above.

I tilted my head skyward. My eyes narrowed. Finally.

Blades cut through the sky—no, people on blades. Flying swords zipped overhead at breakneck speeds, shimmering with high-grade mana.

Iron Pact's fashionably late entourage. Took their sweet time.

Good. The Tower wouldn't topple today.

I flicked a nod toward Zharitsa—ghost of a salute. Later, partner.

Priorities shifted. Bigger, juicier fish sizzling on the horizon.

My attention shifted, focus narrowing. There were others—multiple—who reeked of whatever was stirring this whole mess. I'd tagged them during the fighting, and now it was time to track them.

Wings unfurled.

I launched skyward, slipping between winding alleyways, barely brushing the air with each beat. Eventually, I landed silently atop a spire overlooking the square. My lenses clicked into place—zooming, enhancing. One last look before I moved on.

The square below burned with light and blood.

But now, with the Iron Pact storming in, the tide was turning.

Good.

A sudden flash of light snagged my attention. Then another. And another.

Ooh. Three blue-robed figures emerged from the carnage—one with a staff, another with a sword, and the last with a dagger.

Light Pathwalkers. Heavy hitters.

I recognized the staff-bearer immediately.

Vorak. That old man who grilled me about Alice.

He was dragging wraiths back into the material plane with those nasty anchor spells, making it easy work for his two companions to tear them apart. Efficient. Professional.

I wondered, just for a second, what would happen if he cast that spell on me.

But nah—I wasn't in the mood to find out.

The Iron Pact had arrived in force now. Warriors swept in from every direction, pulling the wounded back behind the lines, shielding civilians. The tide had finally turned.

I exhaled—just a breath—and tuned in to Air Sense again.

There.

Silversmith's building, top floor. Someone breathing slower than the rest.

Elven slow. A rhythm I'd committed to memory.

I grinned, already shifting into the shadow dimension.

Two wraiths caught in that liminal space tried to challenge me—bad call. I ripped through them without slowing, eyes fixed on my mark.

Back in the material plane, I emerged in a quiet office.

Silver gleamed from racks and shelves. A giant table dominated the room. And slumped against it, already cooling, was the corpse of a beastkin. Likely the shop's owner.

The murderer stood near the window, murmuring into his bracer. Anxious. Sweating.

"It's here! Doltharion?! Pick up, you moss-brained coward!"

He ripped a gemstone relay from his wrist and hurled it across the room.

"Guards are wraith-paste! Doltharion's gone radio silent! This is a dumpster fire!"

Some people monologue to calm down.

Me? I let their dread marinate.

I crept closer, claws kissing the silver-dusted floor. His back was a masterpiece of obliviousness—hunched, trembling, delicious.

They never sense the shadow. Never feel the breath. Not till the fangs graze their neck.

I leaned in, exhaling a whisper that could curdle milk.

He petrified.

My muzzle—silver-scaled, serrated—hovered by his cheek. That stench hit me. Ammonia. Ah, the classic aroma of bladder bankruptcy.

But I'm a charitable sort.

Generous dragon.

"Could always help you track Doltharion," I purred, "if you spill his coordinates."

Tears cascaded down his face. Salty. Zesty.

I licked one. Tasted like ghost pepper salsa.

"Or," I added, grin stretching unnervingly wide, "I could perform an impromptu autopsy. Your guts might sing a dirge I understand."

He shattered. Like a snowball in hell.

Sang like a canary.

Sometimes… prey just yearns to cooperate.

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