In Nocturne City, even the puppets bleed when the strings get pulled.
The tunnel pulsed with tension — thick with steam, the smell of copper, and the sound of biomechanical monsters grinding forward. The biomechanical guardians had no mouths, no words — just flesh fused with alloy and twitching wires beneath glistening concrete skin. One moved, then another, and then all of them surged like a wave of retribution.
Asher didn't wait. His pact sigils flared like molten brands on his forearms, casting the dim corridor in hellish light. He lunged at the first guardian, driving his fist into the thing's central eye. A sickening crunch echoed. The orb exploded, splattering black ichor across the slick tunnel walls. The creature staggered, limbs spasming as it crumpled to the ground with a shriek that was more psychic than sound.
Lucien scrambled backward, nearly slipping on the slick floor. "I'm starting to miss normal criminals with guns!" he shouted, hands already moving in practiced arcs, conjuring a shield rune in midair just as another creature swung a bladed limb at his head.
"Focus!" Rosa shouted, vaulting over a broken pipe. Her coat flared behind her as she twisted mid-air, baton sparking with blue electricity. She jammed the weapon into the back of a guardian, sending volts tearing through the creature's exposed nerve-circuitry. It thrashed, cables whipping, eyes blinking out of sync.
"These things are the city now," she growled. "This is what happens when you let the infrastructure get ideas."
The lights flickered again. Somewhere deeper in the tunnel system, something groaned — long and low. Like the city itself was breathing.
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Flashback Glimpse — Rosa's Childhood
As she fought, Rosa's mind flickered back — to a childhood too long buried.
She was no older than seven, hand curled tightly around her father's fingers as he guided her through a white-tiled lab humming with machines and biological vats.
"We'll heal the city, baby girl," he said, crouching beside her. "Tech and biology — together, stronger."
The blueprints he held were thick with promise. Veins that could feel pain. Circuits that could predict need. Hope.
But she also remembered the fires. The riots. Protest signs calling the project "Frankenstein Urbanism." Her parents vanishing during a 'containment breach' — their names quietly erased from city records. Rosa, left behind in a rusted orphanage on the east edge of Nocturne, grew up watching their dream curdle into a legend whispered only in paranoia.
She struck the guardian again. "Not stronger. Just… hungrier."
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Battle Escalates — Strings in the Shadows
Unseen above the chaos, a figure stood still on a collapsing catwalk — long velvet robes trailing like bloodied curtains, stitched with symbols that pulsed faintly with each heartbeat of the city below.
He wore no mask, only a stitched smile too wide for his face and a mane of greying black hair pulled into a waxy topknot. From each finger, silver strings hung and shimmered, vanishing into the stone and steel like fishing lines dropped into a sentient sea.
The Velvet Man.
Cultists whispered of him like children spoke of monsters under the bed — too strange to be real, too powerful to deny.
He moved his fingers, gently, like a pianist tuning silence. Below, the guardians began to jerk — not like creatures, but marionettes. Their movements sharpened, synchronized.
"Dance, little rats," he murmured, his grin not so much stretching as unfolding. "Let's see what the city sings when it bleeds."
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Lucien's Goofy but Heroic Moment
Meanwhile, Lucien had just barely finished scribbling another rune on the floor when a guardian lunged at him, jaws unhinging.
"Okay, this is officially above my paygrade!" he cried.
His voice cracked.
But he stood his ground. He pressed his palm flat against the rune, and shouted, "Time for Plan C! C for Chaos!"
A brilliant blue glyph exploded under his hand, sending shockwaves across the tunnel. Concrete fractured. The nearest guardian's leg snapped clean off — the whole beast toppled over like a falling communications tower, sparks and oil geysering into the air.
Lucien stood there panting, hands smoking, cheeks flushed from adrenaline.
"…Eat ancient math, eyeball freaks."
Asher glanced back, an amused smirk breaking his grim focus. "Nice shot, professor."
Lucien, grinning despite himself, adjusted his soaked glasses. "I always pass practicals under pressure."
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Nocturne's Rot (Velvet Man's Monologue)
The Velvet Man, high above them, kept his monologue quiet — but purposeful. Like he was speaking to someone else entirely.
"This city… it was never meant to be saved," he whispered. "It was born sick. Its bones grew from debt and desperation. The cults? The veins? The watchers hiding in the walls? They're symptoms. Not causes. Nocturne was always going to rot."
He extended his arms. The strings went taut.
"But let them fight. Let them scream. The more they tear at the flesh, the sweeter the feast becomes."
Silver threads slid deeper into the tunnel walls, merging with the glowing veins that pulsed along every surface. In the distance, in neighborhoods above them, the eyes in alley walls began to twitch… and open.
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The Guardians' Final Assault
Suddenly, the guardians stopped. Twitching. Jerking. Then their bodies began to pull together — not physically walking, but dragged by the wires now fused into their backs.
Limbs snapped and rewired. Eyes merged. Concrete bodies cracked and reformed.
Rosa stepped back, face paling. "They're combining."
Before them stood a towering, coiling abomination — a serpent-like colossus made of writhing limbs, dozens of unblinking eyes, and bone-like protrusions. Its head scraped the ceiling. Its breath rattled like a subway train crashing through bone.
Lucien raised both hands and screamed, "Why does everything in this city combine into bigger nightmares!?"
Asher rolled his neck, pact sigils blazing brighter than ever. "Because we live in Nocturne," he muttered. "Welcome home."
The beast lunged.
Asher launched himself forward, fists glowing, Rosa flanking beside him in a blur of motion, and Lucien's runes lighting up the walls behind them.
They ran toward the impossible — the only thing they could do.
They ran to fight the city's hunger.
As Asher's punch connected with the beast's central eye, a thunderous pulse surged through the walls — not just in the tunnel, but everywhere.
Aboveground, in bars, apartments, and alleyways, citizens froze.
And then they heard it.
Whispers.
Soft. Slippery. Personal.
The city was waking up.
[End of Chapter 90]
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Preview of Next Chapter: Chapter 91 – "When the City Breathes"
As the echoes of battle ripple across Nocturne, something far worse stirs — the city's consciousness begins to awaken, infecting thoughts, memories, and fears. Rosa confronts her family's legacy, Lucien's past resurfaces, and Asher begins to lose control over his pact.
But worst of all?The Velvet Man has only just begun to pull.