The city smelled different after the ritual.
Not worse. Not better. Just different.
Elara breathed in through her nose—coal smoke, baking bread, the metallic tang of the river—and marveled at how ordinary it all was. How human. Three days had passed since Jack had carved her open and remade her in the dark. Three days since the Hollow Maw's mark had been torn from her soul.
And yet, the world kept turning.
Carriages rattled past. Shopkeepers haggled. A street performer juggled knives to the delight of a gathered crowd.
No one looked twice at the pale woman with star-flecked eyes.
No one noticed the shadows that clung too long to her heels.
Jack walked beside her, hands in his pockets, his presence muted. The Celestial Deception held strong—to the world, they were just two more faces in the crowd.
But Elara felt the lie in every step.
She was no longer human.
And Twin City?
It was already dying.
---
Sunlight streamed through the cafe windows, painting the checkered floor in gold. Elara stirred her tea absently, watching the leaves swirl. They formed patterns—a crow's wing, a serrated blade, an eye weeping black tears.
She didn't need augury to know the omen was real.
Across the table, Jack tore into a steak, the meat rare enough to bleed. He chewed slowly, savoring each bite, his dark eyes scanning the street outside.
Elara set down her spoon. "So. What's the goal now?"
Jack didn't look at her. "You asked that yesterday."
"And you dodged."
A smile. Sharp. "I was savoring the anticipation."
Elara leaned forward. "Try honesty."
Jack wiped his mouth with a napkin, then pointed through the window. His finger traced the skyline—the clocktower, the mayor's gaudy mansion, the brothel with its peeling red paint.
Atop each, a crow perched.
Unseen. Unnoticed.
Watching.
"They're hunting," Jack said.
Elara's pulse quickened. "For what?"
"Test subjects." Jack's voice dropped, the words slithering across the table like smoke. "This city is special, Elara. A rare place where the Veil and the spirit realm once touched. The Starved Saint anchored the spirit's influence here. Now that it's gone?"
He tapped his temple. "The Veil hasn't noticed yet. But it will."
Elara's tea had gone cold. "And when it does?"
Jack's grin was a blade. "I want to steal the city first."
---
The street outside bustled with midday life. A flower girl hawked roses. A drunkard snored against a lamppost. Two children chased each other, their laughter bright as bells.
None of them knew they were already damned.
Jack spoke softly, his words weaving a nightmare:
"The Veil will claim this place eventually. When it realizes the spirit realm's anchor is gone, it'll drag Twin City into the dark. But before that happens..." His fingers curled, as if clutching an invisible thread. "I want to make the city alive."
Elara's breath hitched. "Alive?"
"A living entity. Like the Hollow Maw. Like the things that rule the Astral Abyss." Jack's eyes gleamed. "Imagine it—a mobile fortress, untethered from the Veil, free to walk between worlds. A kingdom of our own."
The weight of his ambition crushed the air from Elara's lungs.
"You're insane," she whispered.
Jack laughed. "I'm hungry."
He leaned closer, his next words a secret carved from the dark:
"The ritual will require sacrifices. Thousands. Maybe more. When the city wakes, nothing human will survive—just you, me, and the things we choose to spare."
Elara's fingers trembled around her cup. "And the Academy? The Hollow Maw?"
"Oh, they'll notice." Jack's smile widened. "By then, it'll be too late."
---
The clocktower loomed ahead, its face frozen at midnight. Beneath it, the Church of Baal rose like a tombstone, its stained-glass windows depicting a horned god receiving offerings of blood and gold.
Jack strode past the faithful without a glance. Their hymns were empty noise. Their god?
Long dead.
"The deities abandoned this world centuries ago," Jack murmured as they climbed a hidden stairwell. "The Astral realm(Astral realm is the entity behind spirt realm , just like the Abyss is behind the Veil.) and Abyss devoured their altars. Now their churches are just pretty cages for desperate souls."
The steps groaned underfoot, the wood rotten with age. Elara's new eyes pierced the gloom—every shadow writhed with half-formed faces, mouths pleading in silent agony.
The Veil was thinner here.
Waiting.
At the top, a door.
Locked.
Jack pressed his palm to the wood. The crow-mark on his wrist pulsed, and the lock clicked open with a sound like a breaking bone.
Inside, Martin waited.
---
The room stank of rust and rotting meat.
Martin knelt beside an iron cage, his head bowed. The man Jack had claimed in the alley was gone—his skin now gray as ash, his eyes twin pools of ink. Starlight flickered in their depths, the crow inside him nearly fully grown.
"My lord," Martin rasped. "I found it."
Elara's stomach twisted.
Inside the cage, a thing that had once been human whimpered. Four arms. Three legs. Its mouth split vertically, teeth jagged as broken glass. Its skin pulsed, bulging in places as if something beneath was trying to claw free.
A Hollowed One.
Jack crouched, his reflection warping in the creature's weeping eyes. "Where?"
"Beneath the slaughterhouse," Martin said. "The workers think it's rabid. They plan to burn it at dawn."
Jack's fingers curled around the cage bars. "No, they won't."
The Hollowed One shuddered, its many limbs scrabbling against the iron. When it spoke, its voice was a chorus of screams:
"She comes. She comes. The Maw's daughter comes."
Jack went very still.
Elara's blood turned to ice. "What does that mean?"
The Hollowed One's head snapped toward her. Its grin split its face ear to ear.
"You'll see, little liar. You'll all see."
Then it laughed.
And laughed.
And didn't stop.
---
Night fell.
From the clocktower, Twin City glittered—a tapestry of lanterns and life, fragile as a candle in the wind.
Jack watched it all, his silhouette a cutout against the moon.
Elara stood beside him, her new eyes tracing the patterns only she could see: the way the streets curved like arteries, the way the rooftops formed a vast, slumbering sigil.
A city.
A ritual circle.
A living weapon in the making.
"You still haven't told me everything," she said.
Jack's smile was a promise and a threat. "Do you really want to know?"
The Hollowed One's warning echoed between them.
*She comes.*
Somewhere, deep in the Veil, the Hollow Maw stirred.
And in the darkness beneath the slaughterhouse, something else woke.
Hungry.
Waiting.
Elara met Jack's gaze.
"Tell me."
Jack went back inside the clock tower.Elara followed chasing for an answer.