Kariél knew this perfectly well. Therefore, when Ilgana, the Mourning Duchess of House Silverwing Carrion, roared and lunged at him, he was ready for it and dodged.
Every movement she made was predictable. It was nothing more than a display of observation that required no special explanation.
For Kariél, dodging attacks had become instinct.
"Another one who decided to resist," Kariél thought, looking at the blade in the Duchess's hand. "She has no shortage of courage."
But it was useless.
Ghost raised his hand, instantly intercepted her right wrist, squeezed, forcing her to unclench her fingers and drop the blade. Then he easily broke her arm.
Under the terrible, grinding sound of breaking bones, Kariél coldly shook his head.
"Save your strength. Your house has fallen. After tonight, Silverwing Carrion will be history."
He wasn't lying. In the last half hour, he had killed seven hundred and twenty-three people. All of them bore the same grim name, wore velvet cloaks, their faces were pale, and they had a penchant for human flesh.
Now they were all dead. Only she remained.
"Do you know what you've done?!" the Duchess roared, getting to her feet. The pain from her broken arm did not make her retreat.
She grabbed the fallen blade with her left hand and rushed at Kariél again. Her face was contorted with rage, she had almost turned into another creature.
"Of course, I do," Kariél replied calmly. "I sent your house into history. You – into history. Is something wrong?"
He dodged her lunge and knocked her down with a kick.
The blow landed precisely on her ribs. The sharp pain of the fracture tempered her rage and forced her to stay on the ground, screaming loudly.
Ghost gently squatted down, his eyes already glowing blue. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to focus on the task.
He didn't want to hear the voice from beyond the Veil anymore. Time was running out, and it was calling him more insistently, louder, stronger.
Kariél thought he could still endure, but… he had to hurry.
There was one last noble house to destroy, and Silverwing Carrion wasn't originally on his list.
They were already in decline, had lost power. He had come to them only to find an answer to a question that had been tormenting him for a long time.
Besides, the power was accumulating, and he had to finish all his business before it reached a critical point.
Kariél roughly grabbed the Duchess by her hair; his movements no longer held their former patience. He asked coldly:
"Tell the truth."
The Duchess shuddered, her neck arched back, and a cold blue light, the same as Kariél's, flashed in her dark eyes. Her face gradually became calm, a terrifying indifference appearing on it.
"What do you want to know?" she asked in a hoarse voice.
"The secret of your family. I know that Silverwing Carrion was fond of human body modifications, seeking eternal life. You crossed many forbidden lines. I want to know if you created beings with superhuman strength?"
"Yes," the Duchess answered lifelessly. "But they didn't live long. Their own strength destroyed their bodies."
"So it is."
"All power has its price."
Kariél closed his eyes and shook his head.
The origin of Ghost was not a secret to him. He guessed where such a creature might have come from.
Where else but from the aristocrats' laboratories? In their pursuit of life extension, the aristocrats of Nostramo were willing to do anything. Including horrific experiments.
"Is there a way to extend their lives? Or to completely eliminate this genetic defect?"
"There once was."
The Duchess answered in a trembling voice. Her muscles began to contract, hundreds of implants embedded in her body trembled.
Her skin twitched, and horrific bulges appeared all over her body. This sight was so insane that it could drive anyone mad, but the Duchess's voice remained calm. This contrast was chilling.
"There once was?"
"Seventy years ago, one of our ancestors spent half his life searching for a solution to this problem… and he succeeded. He improved the genome of the test subjects, extending their lives."
"But in the end, he went mad. He destroyed all his research with his own hands and died with our laboratory in an explosion."
"…"
Kariél opened his eyes, then closed them again.
He blinked rapidly, took a deep, long breath, trying to calm himself, but still couldn't help clenching his fists.
Hope came so quickly and collapsed so suddenly.
"A year-and-a-half-old child, on whom he placed so much hope, whom he taught to kill, whom he threw into a bloody vortex…"
And this child doesn't even have a name.
He will die soon, and he doesn't even know it. Right now, he's probably still out in the cold night, carrying out the mission assigned to him.
"What have I done?"
"I arrogantly decided to save this world, but couldn't even save one child?"
"No… not like that."
"Something doesn't add up here."
"This is impossible."
Kariél spoke quietly, restraining the raging emotions within him.
"He is only eighteen months old. If your laboratory was destroyed seventy years ago, how could he have survived?"
The Duchess did not answer. She lost the ability to speak, only her lips moved mechanically.
"Tell the truth!"
Ghost roared, unable to contain the anger born of guilt any longer.
He sharply extended his hands, grabbed the Duchess by the head, his eyes blazing with blue fire. Instinct told him that his hands were becoming icy, the power in his body surged.
It roared furiously, responding to its master's anger, and swept through the Duchess's mind and soul. Then, in the dead eyes of the distorted woman's face, Kariél saw his reflection.
He opened his eyes wide and in the next second realized he had made a mistake.
Man is a slave to emotions. He knew this perfectly well. And he always followed this rule.
But at that moment, he forgot self-control, and emotions immediately took revenge.
From where his hands touched the Duchess's head, the power within Kariél materialized as blue light and burst out furiously.
A chilling whisper echoed around, the room, illuminated by the light, began to plunge into darkness, a freezing cold spread, almost freezing his own consciousness. And then…
The Veil that protected him from evil, at that moment, swayed from his own power.
A thunderous war cry came from the other side, and with it – a low laugh.
Kariél saw all this, wanted to stop it, but was powerless. The blue light initially belonged to him, but very soon it stopped.
Under that low laugh, the blue light began to change. Like colored water, it slowly turned into scarlet flame and flared up.
And then something appeared from the darkness.
"Where are you?" it asked in an indescribable voice. "Where are you?"
"Come out… present yourself before me, receive your deserved glory."
"I feel your anger, I know you want the world to burn… "
"So come…"
"Power, blessings, blades, armor…"
"All of it…"
"I can give you."
"Let them repent in their screams! Let the world burn, bring victory through murder!"
"I…" Kariél began, trembling, but couldn't utter the next word.
In this torment, he remembered his own words.
"If you keep knocking on hell's door, sooner or later the devil will come for you."
Now his devil had come.
…
Running, desperate, frantic running.
Night Ghost didn't fully understand what feeling was boiling in his chest, but he had to admit – it was driving him mad.
Following the images from his visions and his innate talent for determining the purpose and even materials of buildings, Ghost silently infiltrated the Upper Hive.
The air here was fresh, but saturated with the smell of blood. Intuition told Ghost that this was Kariél's doing.
"But where are you, Kariél?"
He ran and thought. His lips were pressed together, his black hair fluttered in the wind. He was so fast that he seemed to tear the wind itself. His not-yet-fully-formed body was now being used to its limit.
Ghost didn't care.
He had to find Kariél. He had to find him before it was too late.
He wanted to save Nostramo, but he didn't want to see Nostramo without Kariél.
A jump, over a wall, and another jump.
Ghost's sensitive sense of smell unerringly detected where the smell of blood was coming from. He followed it relentlessly, following the traces left by Kariél.
He rushed past dark towers and impregnable fortresses, stepped over mutilated bodies and puddles of blood, broke through the darkness and thick fog of the Upper Hive…
And then he screamed into the night.
The scream was full of despair.
"Kariél!"
Ghost rushed through the darkness, his voice echoing in the fog, breaking the silence of the Upper Hive.
"Kariél! Reject Him, reject! Don't agree, He doesn't see you!"
"You must reject Him…"
Ghost whispered painfully, feeling his head splitting. But he couldn't stop, he hadn't found him yet.
Gasping, Ghost forced himself to grasp the last thread that his sense of smell gave him. He took a deep breath and rushed towards a dark tower.
Above him, the night watched silently.
***
Read the story months before public release — early chapters are on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Granulan