The city moved beneath them—bright, alive, and breathing, unaware of the growing silence that coiled through its veins like smoke. Somewhere in the distance, laughter echoed from a market square, carried on the scent of spice and fresh bread. Children raced beneath the shadow of the Nexus Spire, their joy unburdened. They had no idea.
High above it all, Knox and Seraph stood at the edge of the western overlook, scanning the skyline. The sun had begun its descent, bathing the city in molten orange and fireglass hues. From this height, everything looked whole. Restored. But their eyes weren't on the rooftops or roads.
They were watching for ghosts.
A low wind stirred Seraph's hair. Below, Nexus City pulsed in radiant order—autonomous drones gliding through skylanes, crowds bustling through market bridges and solar tram stations. It all looked normal. Perfect, even. But Knox felt it in the marrow of his bones: something in the rhythm was wrong.
Max had sent a quiet ping through the uplink hours ago. No alarms. No lockdowns. Just concern. People collapsing wasn't unheard of in reconstruction zones—heat stress, old cybernetics shorting, even spiritual interference from the older leyline sectors. But this felt different.
Now there were dozens.
Then a hundred.
All of them fine.
Max's scans hadn't found a single physiological anomaly. Blood oxygen, temperature, electrical conductivity—normal. Vital signs stable. They simply… stopped. Not asleep. Not dead. Just gone, eyes open, unmoving.
Souls unplugged from the body, like puppets with invisible strings cut mid-motion.
Seraph stepped back from the overlook, eyes narrowing. Her gauntlet pulsed faintly, the argent lines tracing her forearm like veins of light.
["Confirmed,"] Luminara whispered in her mind. ["All cases share identical metaphysical disruption. The soul-thread—what connects cognition to the body—is missing. Not severed. Not broken. Removed."]
"Removed?" Seraph asked aloud, her voice tight.
["As if taken,"] Luminara replied. ["And not by force. There's no resistance signature. No spiritual trauma. Just… extraction."]
Knox glanced at Seraph, then out at the skyline again. "This isn't a plague. It's a harvest."
["Which means the harvester is still out there,"] Kaelina muttered, her tone brittle with restrained fury.
A tremor ran through the uplink. Just faint static—but enough for Max's voice to cut in.
["Knox. Seraph. I've got something. I ran a deeper scan using the Synthesis Core. There's a low-frequency pattern embedded across all known victim zones. It's not natural."]
"What is it?" Knox asked.
["It's a System Record. Or a fragment of one. Embedded into ambient dimensional layers."]
"A what?" Seraph asked, already turning.
["A System Record,"] Luminara answered gently. ["A data imprint from the Archive of Systems. It contains the metadata signature of a Divine System across the multiverse. Created by the One who designed the first architecture—the Creator."]
Knox frowned. "Why would there be a System Record here?"
["Because something is operating outside the design,"] Kaelina answered darkly. ["Something old enough—or new enough—to rewrite soul-pathways. That shouldn't be possible."]
["It's not new,"] Luminara whispered. ["The Record predates the multiversal stabilization protocols. This System wasn't just allowed. It was classified. Hidden. Its name was redacted across all standard divine libraries."]
Seraph's expression shifted. "Then how are you reading it now?"
["Because whatever is using it has reactivated its signature,"] Luminara said. ["It wants to be seen. Now."]
Knox's jaw clenched. "What's its designation?"
There was a pause.
Then Luminara said, slowly:["Animavorax. Divine-Class designation: Soul Collector. Function: Consumption and containment of non-physical essence. Purpose: Unknown. Origin: Unknown."]
Kaelina cut in, her voice sharp. ["Whoever this guy is—he's not a rogue system user. He's wired into Animavorax. Synced on a level deeper than any fusion we've seen."]
"Then he's not just collecting," Seraph murmured. "He's feeding."
Another ping echoed in their systems.
Max again. This time his voice was quieter. Measured.
["I think I know why the victims appear undamaged. And why they collapse instead of dying. It's not death he's causing. It's transition. He's phasing their consciousness into a soulstate without severing the neural structure. That's why they're frozen mid-thought."]
"Like pressing pause," Knox muttered. "On a soul."
["Exactly,"] Max said. ["And here's the thing—we're only now detecting him because he's escalating. That residual Record fragment? It was probably embedded every time he harvested. But now, he's leaving it on purpose."]
"Why?" Seraph asked.
["To see if anyone's paying attention,"] Max said. ["And now he knows we are."]
Knox's gaze lifted toward the southwest quadrant. The light had begun to dim. A low breeze curled between the spires like a warning hiss.
["I'm detecting entropy flux again,"] Luminara said. ["Same pattern as the ruins quarter. 6.4 miles out. It's active. Now."]
Seraph didn't wait. She turned on her heel and leapt from the edge, argent propulsion igniting in streaks behind her. Knox followed, the wind screaming past as the city dropped beneath them.
They landed hard—scattering dust and fractured tiles as their boots struck a broken plaza between fallen archways. This was one of the oldest sectors. Still unreconstructed. Still haunted.
And still… wrong.
Seraph scanned immediately, gauntlet flaring in pulses of pale light. Knox moved beside her, eyes sharp, senses wide.
Then they heard it.
Not a scream. Not a growl.
A hum.
Low, spectral, and sorrowful. Like a choir of ghosts remembering something terrible.
Kaelina's voice hardened. ["Two more bodies. Fifteen meters. Alleyway left. Signatures match."]
They advanced.
The alley narrowed into an arch where ivy strangled half-buried signs. And there they were.
Two men, frozen mid-step. One held a ration pack. The other still gripped a hovering dataslate.
Eyes open.
Souls gone.
["Still warm,"] Luminara whispered. ["This happened minutes ago."]
Knox's hand tightened into a fist. The silence pressed in.
Until a figure moved.
Not ahead.
Above.
Perched on the broken crossbeam of an ancient chapel.
They looked up.
Zareth Xellion stepped forward slowly, boots touching ash-coated stone. His coat fluttered like torn scripture. Eyes gleamed pale and cruel.
"You followed the scent," he said, voice smooth as poisoned wine. "How quaint."
Knox raised a hand, ready to launch—but paused.
There was no threat posture. No attack.
Just presence.
And behind Zareth… the flickering forms of dozens of soul-echoes writhed faintly, like moths in smoke.
Seraph's voice was steel. "You're stealing lives."
Zareth smiled. "No. I'm revealing them."
"By ripping them out?" Knox growled.
Zareth tilted his head. "You still don't see, do you? These bodies—you think they're awake? Alive? They haven't been alive for years. They move, yes. Eat. Breathe. Obey. But the spark… the will… that was lost long ago."
["He's lying,"] Kaelina hissed.
["No,"] Luminara whispered. ["He believes it."]
Zareth raised his hand—and behind him, the soul-lights trembled. Some even looked… willing.
Knox stepped forward.
"You think you're saving them."
Zareth's eyes sharpened. "I know I am."
The wind howled around the chapel's bones.
Then Zareth vanished.
Gone in a flicker—like thought unspoken.
The alley fell silent again.
But not empty.
One of the frozen men dropped to his knees, gasping—soul returned, dazed and broken.
Knox knelt beside him.
The boy's eyes trembled. "He… he showed me what I was. I didn't want to come back."
Seraph stepped closer, stunned.
["We're not facing a killer,"] Luminara said quietly. ["We're facing a savior twisted by entropy."]
Kaelina replied coldly. ["Or a liar who thinks he's a god. Either way, we put him down."]
Knox looked out over the rooftops again.Toward the dark horizon.
The hunt had begun.
And the predator knew their names.