Author’s Note: Warning, there is mention of some disturbing elements in this Chapter so please be advised.

....

Wearing a hood that concealed his face perfectly, Ethan moved toward the location provided by the Surveillance Department.

He remained in constant contact with the staff member on the other side, updating them with every bit of information he gathered.

{Do you sense anything unusual?} the voice asked through the communicator.

Ethan shook his head lightly.

"Nothing so far. Wait... let me move a little closer."

The Eastern District was mostly filled with industrial facilities and tightly packed public settlements, so finding a small residential society hidden behind the towering structures of the city felt oddly comforting.

At this hour, however...

It felt dreadful.

An unnatural silence had swallowed the entire place.

Not a single house had its lights on.

Under normal circumstances, that could’ve been dismissed as people simply sleeping near midnight.

But not one awake resident?

Not a single television glow?

Not even the faint sound of movement?

That was wrong.

Ethan didn’t dwell on it for long.

{Keep moving straight. The alley to your left is where the disturbance originated.}

Ethan hummed quietly before advancing with greater caution.

His pace wasn’t slow.

But every single step carried awareness. He was careful of his surroundings.

There was something deeply unsettling about this silence.

As though the entire area was holding its breath.

And somehow, Ethan couldn’t shake the feeling that he was about to witness something massive.

And soon, his dread was proven right.

{Ethan? Do you see anything?}

Came the voice from the other side. However, the golden-haired Nightwalker was too stunned right now to speak.

Ethan froze at the mouth of the alley, his breath catching in his throat. The communicator crackled again, but he could barely register the words.

Before him stretched a wide courtyard between apartment blocks, illuminated only by the sickly glow of a few flickering streetlamps.

Over fifty figures moved in a single, writhing mass under that dim light.

Some couples and groups rutted openly on the cracked pavement, bodies slick with sweat and blood, moans mixing with wet slaps of flesh.

Women arched against men, their nails raking deep gashes into backs while others bit into shoulders hard enough to draw crimson streams.

A cluster of three men pinned a struggling woman down, thrusting into her with savage rhythm as she screamed, half in pain and half in some twisted ecstasy.

Yet the violence escalated beyond that. Knives flashed in the shadows. One burly figure slammed a broken bottle into another’s throat, blood spraying in an arc as the victim convulsed and died mid-thrust, still joined to his partner.

Nearby, a woman clawed at a man’s eyes while he choked her, their hips grinding together in a final, desperate frenzy.

Corpses already littered the edges, some still twitching, their limbs tangled with the living who refused to stop.

The horror deepened in the center. A circle of ten people tore into a fresh kill, a young man’s body splayed across a rusted bench. Teeth sank into his thigh, ripping away chunks of muscle with wet crunches.

Blood smeared every face as they chewed and swallowed, some pausing only to mount one another in a frenzy fueled by the taste.

A motherly figure, her dress torn to shreds, held a severed arm like a lover while another man entered her from behind, both of them laughing through mouths full of human meat.

Ethan’s stomach twisted into knots. The air reeked of copper, semen, and feces. No one spoke coherent words, only guttural cries, slurps, and the occasional shriek of agony that dissolved into more moans.

A young man, barely conscious, was passed among four women who rode him in turns while slicing shallow cuts across his chest to lick the blood.

Further back, an elderly man was being devoured alive, his pleas ignored as younger bodies coupled around and atop him, grinding his bones under their weight.

The Nightwalker took one involuntary step back, his communicator buzzing with frantic questions he could not answer.

This was no gathering or ritual gone wrong. It was a collapse into pure, animal depravity, where every base urge fused into one endless nightmare.

Pleasure and death fed each other without end, the crowd swelling in its own filth as more shadows emerged from the buildings to join the orgy of sex, slaughter, and consumption.

{Ethan? Ethan! Can you hea—}

CRUMBLE

The communicator suddenly disintegrated into dust.

A ghostly hand had settled itself upon Ethan’s shoulder.

The Nightwalker froze instantly.

He hadn’t sensed anything approaching him.

Nothing.

His entire body turned rigid as ice-cold fingers slowly crept closer toward his neck.

Then—

A voice whispered beside his ear.

"You... look hungry."

The words sounded distorted, almost inhuman.

"So many raw emotions... suppressed desires... forgotten cravings... hidden pain..."

A faint chuckle echoed beside him.

"Ah... poor child."

Ethan clenched his fist tightly, somehow forcing himself to speak despite every instinct screaming at him not to move.

"W-What... are you?"

Yet even as he asked the question, his survival instincts desperately warned him against one thing.

Don’t look back.

"Hmm~ I am merely a bridge."

The voice drifted through the empty street like a cold breeze.

"A bridge that connects people to what they truly desire."

The ghostly fingers slowly slid away from Ethan’s shoulder.

"I awaken the emotions they have suppressed for far too long."

A distorted chuckle followed.

"Just like the subjects before your eyes. They finally abandoned their restraints and surrendered themselves to their genuine needs."

Ethan gritted his teeth.

"You call this human desire?" he growled. "This is madness. They’re not even human anymore."

"True."

The entity answered without the slightest offense.

"Their minds lacked the capacity to endure the push I granted them."

A pause followed.

"However... I believe it would be different for you."

Every strand of hair on Ethan’s body stood upright.

Danger.

Absolute danger.

Ethan forced his stiff body to move and immediately spun around to face the creature behind him.

But—

"Huh?"

Nothing.

The street behind him was completely empty.

He quickly looked left.

No one.

Then right.

Still nothing.

A chill crawled down his spine.

Slowly, Ethan turned his gaze back forward and—

"GAH!"

A cry burst from his throat as a ghostly figure wrapped in writhing violet vines suddenly slammed into him.

The impact sent Ethan crashing violently onto the concrete.

His head struck the ground hard enough to rattle his vision.

He held his head and tried to get up.

He needed to contact the base and let them know about the situation first before asking for reinforcement.

Whatever that thing was ...

"Hmm~"

....whatever that thing was ...

"Heh~"

....that thing...

"Are you sure about it?"

Ethan’s shoulders fell at those words. His eyes grow lifeless and several small violet veins protruding on the side of his eyes.

Raising his hand, he conjured a massive flaming ball.

And in the next instance, he sent it hurling toward the humans.

For the first time in his life, Ethan Lockhart killed a human with his hands.

And yet there was nothing but deep satisfaction in his eyes.

Not because of the slaughter but what he was about to do now.

°°°°°°°°

A/N:- Thanks for reading. If you have been reading the story so far, please leave a review.

It’s about to happen.