The corpse was gone.

Cain crouched where it had fallen—where he'd driven steel into its gut, where Steve's EMP had fried its core. There should have been residue. Chitin shards. Ichor crust. Instead, the stone was clean except for a faint pattern burned into the slab, like rings left by heat.

"They came back for it," Susan said, voice hushed. She kept her distance, eyes flicking between the rooftops and the fog-drenched alleys beyond. Her blade hung loose in her hand, but Cain knew her grip could tighten in an instant. "Whatever that was, it mattered."

"It wasn't just retrieval," Cain replied. He ran a gloved hand across the scorched imprint, feeling the faint rise of etched lines. "They left a mark."

"For who?" Hunter asked. He knelt near the ruin's edge, his sniper rig folded but ready. "Locals don't speak this language."

Cain didn't answer. His focus stayed on the pattern. It wasn't just a sigil—it was a seal. A warning. Or maybe an invitation. Either way, it wasn't for human eyes.

A low crackle cut through the comms. Steve's voice, wired tight with tension.

"Bad news. Grid shows a spike in Sector Nine—north quadrant, six clicks from your position. Blackout radius expanding. Same signature as the thing you killed, but scaled. By a factor of… hell, just move."

Cain rose. "How big?"

Steve hesitated, and that was enough. Cain didn't need numbers to feel the weight in that silence.

"Hunter, with me. Susan, flank east. We move fast."

The team split without a word. Boots hit wet pavement in unison, pounding toward the north end where the towers pressed close like teeth around a throat. Cain kept the map in his mind, streets folded like arteries feeding into a rotten heart. He'd fought monsters before—the city was a breeding ground for them—but this wasn't the usual drift or rogue Phantom. This was something with direction. Design.

Rain thickened as they ran, turning the skyline into a smear of black angles and glass veins. Steam hissed from vents, mixing with the mist until the ground itself seemed to breathe. Cain ignored the bite in his lungs. The only rhythm that mattered was the pulse of his stride and the static hum in his comm, punctuated by Steve feeding coordinates like lifelines.

"Two blocks out," Steve muttered. "And—wait. Something's piggybacking the signal again."

"Can you trace it?" Cain asked.

"Working on it, but it's… layered. Not just a hack. Feels like the grid itself is bending around the interference."

Hunter's voice cut in, calm but edged. "That's not tech."

Cain agreed, though he didn't say it. The patterns on the slab weren't machine-born. Whatever was bleeding through their systems now carried the same rhythm, the same intent.

Another block fell behind. The towers here loomed higher, balconies rusted, windows blind with grime. Neon flickered on a lone sign overhead—an old vendor board still screaming colors nobody believed in anymore. Beneath its light, a shadow crossed the street.

Cain stopped.

It wasn't human. Too tall. Too deliberate in the way it moved, like a blade drawn halfway from its sheath. Rain ran down its frame in sheets, sliding over plates of mottled gray that drank the light instead of reflecting it. The face—if it had one—was a hollow mask stretched over something that pulsed faintly beneath, red as an ember swallowed in ash.

Hunter's rifle lifted. Cain raised a hand. Not yet.

The thing turned its head slowly, like it already knew their shapes in the dark. Then, without a sound, it stepped back into the fog and vanished.

"Contact—" Hunter began.

"I saw it," Cain said, already moving. "It's drawing us in."

They followed. Through alleys choked with rusted scaffolds, past walls veined with old graffiti now drowned in moss. The streets narrowed, the air tightening as if the city were closing a fist around them. Every turn deepened the quiet, until even the rain felt distant—like sound itself refused to enter this place.

Then the alley ended.

It opened into a courtyard sunken between skeletal towers, a pit choked with mist and girded by cables strung like veins from wall to wall. At its center rose a spire of metal ribs twisted into a spiral, crowned by something that burned with a dull red glow.

Cain slowed. The shape wasn't architecture. It was a carcass—one of theirs. A Phantom, but old, stripped of armor and wired into the spire like a crucifix of bone and steel. Its chest cavity pulsed faintly, feeding the glow that bled through the fog.

"What the hell," Steve whispered through the comm, voice hushed as if distance mattered. "That's a transmitter. They turned it into a signal tower."

Hunter scanned the perimeter, rifle steady. "Then where's the signal going?"

Cain didn't answer. His eyes stayed on the spire, on the way its ribs angled—not random, not chaotic. Aligned. Like fingers pointing toward something higher than the towers, higher than the city.

A low hum rolled through the courtyard, vibrating in the marrow of their bones. The fog thickened, writhing like smoke under pressure, and Cain knew what it meant before the first shadow peeled free of the mist.

Shapes emerged.

Not one. Not two. Seven.

All different. All wrong.

Some crawled, spined and segmented, their limbs clattering on stone. Others walked upright, frames plated in bone-metal, faces blank but burning with inner fire. They ringed the courtyard without a sound, their movements precise as clockwork. Behind them, the spire flared, its glow pulsing faster, syncing with the rhythm of Cain's heart until it felt like the city itself was counting down.

Hunter exhaled once, a soft hiss in the dark. "Orders?"

Cain lifted his blade.

"Break the circle."

They moved as one.

The courtyard detonated into motion. The hum became a roar, the spire pulsing in fever rhythm. A crawler latched onto Cain's arm, claws biting through his coat. He tore free with a twist of his blade, ichor splattering the stones. Another leapt for his throat—he pivoted low, severed its legs, drove his heel into its skull until bone cracked.

Susan fought like a storm, her blade singing arcs of light through the murk. Hunter kept the perimeter in check, every shot precise, each impact freezing a limb or bursting a joint. And still, the circle pressed tighter.

Cain slammed his blade through the tallest creature's chest, metal groaning under the force. Its ember-core flickered, then guttered out. But as it fell, the spire flared brighter—feeding off their violence. Feeding off the bloodless dead.