CHAPTER 1051: THE CRAFTING PROCESS (3).

The envoy’s shards hadn’t cooled when the first scream reached them.

It came from deeper in the quarter—a human voice this time, ragged, breaking, then silenced too soon. Cain’s head snapped toward the sound, instincts sharpening into iron.

Susan wiped blood from her temple with the back of her hand, steadying herself against the wall. "That wasn’t random."

Hunter was already reloading, lips pressed thin. "They’re using the collapse to mask infiltration."

Steve cursed under his breath, his rig flickering from the envoy’s overload. "Give me a second, I need a signal sweep. If they’re triangulating—"

Cain’s boots carried him through the fractured street as though he owned the silence. The air still trembled from the Harvesters’ retreat, but beneath the vibration he felt something else—a hum, faint and insistent, pulsing like a warning through the bones of the city.

Susan noticed it too. Her gaze tracked the shadows, sharp and searching. "They’re regrouping. Nothing that fast scatters without a signal."

Cain crouched, running a hand along the cracked stones. His fingertips brushed against a residue—slick, faintly warm, reeking of iron and ash. The ichor shimmered unnaturally in the faint light. He pocketed a sample without comment.

"Steve," he said, voice clipped.

"Already listening," Steve’s reply crackled through the comm-link, fatigue buried under his usual dry tone. "Grid chatter’s spiking again. Someone’s trying to cover the blackout with fabricated reports. Doesn’t feel local. Feels...placed."

Cain’s jaw tightened. Outside interference meant only one thing: City Z’s fracture lines were deeper than anyone admitted.

Hunter emerged from the far end of the street, crossbow angled low but ready. He said nothing, only gestured to the rooftops. Movement. Three shadows slipping away faster than any civilian should.

Cain rose, adjusting the blade at his hip. "They weren’t scouts," he murmured. "They were messengers."

The realization dropped like a stone between them.

Susan swore under her breath, hand tightening on her weapon. "Then we didn’t stop them. We just announced ourselves."

Cain’s expression didn’t change, but his silence was its own verdict. The hunt hadn’t slowed—it had quickened.

Somewhere beyond the broken quarter, the Harvesters would be calling reinforcements. The city would shift again, tilting toward war, and Cain knew the next strike wouldn’t wait for dawn.

He looked to the horizon, cold light bleeding across the towers.

"Move."

Cain cut him off with a gesture. "Later. We move."

The scream was followed by a crash, stone buckling under unseen weight. Dust drifted down the narrow alley. The quarter was shifting, bending around intrusion. Cain didn’t wait for consensus—he sprinted toward the sound, boots pounding against cobbles slick with dew.

The others followed, shadows in his wake.

They turned a corner and found the street broken open. A section of wall had collapsed inward, spilling dust and shattered masonry into the road. A single figure knelt amidst the ruin—a guard from the inland post, his breastplate cracked, eyes wide with terror.

He looked up as Cain approached, lips trembling. "It—it’s in the walls." His voice dropped to a whisper. "The stones move."

Then his body jerked once, and a blade of black glass burst through his chest from behind.

Susan swore, dragging Cain back as the guard’s corpse toppled forward. From the hole in the wall, something uncoiled—slender, insectile, its body shifting between solid and smoke. No envoy this time. This was a harvester.

Cain’s jaw clenched. The phantom wasn’t testing anymore. It was feeding.

The harvester crawled free of the rubble, limbs clicking against stone, its head splitting open to reveal rows of spines. The guard’s blood clung to it, yet the creature drank nothing. It wasn’t after flesh—it was after the city’s memory, the echo each death left behind.

Hunter fired immediately. The bolt seared through one limb, tearing it off in a spray of glass dust. But the harvester didn’t slow. It hissed, a sound that seemed to vibrate in their bones, and leapt for the nearest body—Susan.

Cain intercepted, sword flashing in a downward sweep. The blade struck its carapace and screeched, sparks blooming. The impact shoved him back, boots sliding. He grit his teeth and twisted, driving the sword deeper until the harvester recoiled.

"Circle it!" Cain barked.

Susan darted left, Hunter right. Steve scrambled backward, fingers racing across his rig to stabilize the disrupted grid. The harvester skittered, impossibly fast, body blurring at the edges. For every angle they cut off, it split into afterimages, testing their vision.

Cain closed his eyes for a heartbeat, shutting out the distraction. He listened instead—the scrape of claws, the rattle of shifting stone, the pulse of vibration beneath the ground. When he opened his eyes again, he moved not at the blur, but at the sound.

His blade found purchase. The harvester shrieked, limbs flailing, and Susan drove her knife into the joint of its back, pinning it long enough for Hunter to fire point-blank. The bolt exploded, tearing its upper body apart in a flash of searing white.

The creature collapsed into fragments, dissolving into dust before the shards could scatter.

Silence again, broken only by the rasp of their breaths.

Steve’s rig clicked, screens flickering. His face drained of color. "Cain. That wasn’t alone. Grid shows at least four more breaches across the quarter. All harvesters. Moving fast."

Susan swore again, wiping blood from her cheek. "They’ll sweep the entire block."

Hunter’s jaw was set hard. "They want saturation. Not a duel. They’re dragging the whole district into their net."

Cain looked at the shattered wall, the blood seeping into dust, the silence that hung over the street like a shroud. He understood now. The phantom wasn’t just testing—it was claiming. Every death, every collapse, was a thread woven into its unseen web.

"We split," Cain said. His voice carried no hesitation. "Susan, north choke. Hunter, east. Steve, stay mobile. Disrupt them where you can. I’ll take the center."

Susan’s eyes flashed. "You’ll be surrounded."

"That’s the point."

Steve swallowed hard but didn’t argue. Hunter only nodded once.

They broke apart, shadows scattering down different streets, leaving Cain in the fractured center. He inhaled slowly, the weight of the city pressing around him, and raised his blade.

From every wall, from every shadowed crack, the sound began—a clicking chorus, layered and hungry.

The harvesters were coming.

Cain stood alone in the street, and welcomed them.