Some ghosts wear sheets.Others wear old coats, blood-stained gloves, and broken promises.Tonight, three of them walk together.
Gutter's End reeked of wet rust, decayed datachips, and cheap fried soy paste. The air felt like it clung to your skin — humid with city smog and history too heavy to breathe clean.
Asher adjusted his coat as he followed Rosa and Lucien through the narrow back-alleys, deeper into the heart of the slum. Neon signs above them sputtered in exhausted loops — "Hot Nügs 4.9¥!", "Rapture Cola: Drink the Void!" — before dissolving into static.
For once, the ever-humming buzz of Nocturne City quieted.
The city felt... reverent. Like it knew something was about to change.
"Why here?" Asher muttered, voice low, more to himself than them.
Lucien's voice came like a whisper pulled from memory. "Because this is where it all began. For me. For Rosa. For Velvora's curse."
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Rosa's Ghost — Childhood Under the Iron Fist
They passed the blackened shell of a small building, long since gutted by fire and disuse. The sign above the door hung by one rusted bolt, letters barely readable: "Sunbeam Education Facility — Sector 12."
Rosa stopped cold.
"This was my first school," she said, almost absently. Her eyes weren't on the ruins but something far away. Her voice cracked like frost over glass. "Before the Watchers converted it into a training pit."
Asher slowed. "Training?"
Images flickered in Rosa's mind like broken film reels:
— A ring of children forced to fight, bloodied fists raised.— A masked instructor barking, "Weakness is death in Velvora!"— A child — her — coughing blood into her sleeve, trembling and furious.— Her hands around another girl's throat.— The first gun she stole. The first corpse she ran from.
"I learned early," Rosa muttered, fingers tightening into fists, "that this city doesn't care if you're a kid or a killer. You're just meat to be used. One way or another."
Lucien placed a hand gently on her shoulder. Asher said nothing — what was there to say?
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Lucien's Ghost — Scholar Turned Sinner
They walked in silence until they reached an old staircase barely visible under trash and tech rubble. At the bottom lay a stone archway, partially buried. The words etched above the threshold read: Custodians of the Codex.
Lucien brushed dust from the stones with his sleeve.
"This was my family's temple," he said softly. "We were Keepers of the Velvora Codex — protectors of knowledge that wasn't meant for anyone to have. Especially not cults or city syndicates."
Asher raised a skeptical brow. "You? A temple scholar?"
Lucien laughed, short and bitter. "Before I picked up guns, yeah."
The memories came unbidden:
— Candlelit chambers filled with scrolls, texts glowing faintly in glyph-script.— A child Lucien muttering old incantations, fingers shaking.— His father's final words as blood poured over sacred ink.— Screams. Fire. The Codex torn apart by men in red robes.
"I betrayed them," he whispered. "Sold pieces of the Codex to the Black Archive to buy my way out. I ran from duty. From memory. But the city never let me forget."
Rosa didn't speak. She didn't have to. The look in her eyes said she understood.
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The City Keeps Being Ridiculous
Just one block over, a pair of drunk cultists wandered out of a noodle shack arguing loudly.
"Bro, you drew the glyph backwards! You summoned a cursed Roomba, not a hellhound!"
"You used expired goat blood, dude! What'd you expect?"
A glowing vacuum zipped between their legs, snarling like a rabid dog.
Meanwhile, at Juno's Soup Stand, the cyber-cat General Tofu launched into the air after a glitching hologram shaped like a floating squid.
"All hail Meowth'ulhu!" the cat screeched, claws first into a floating LED menu board.
Juno didn't even look up. "Third time today. I swear this cat's possessed. Or a prophet. Could be both."
Back with the trio, Asher just shook his head. "Why is everything here either cursed or a goddamn parody?"
Rosa smiled faintly. "Welcome to Velvora, sweetheart."
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Discovery Beneath Gutter's End
Their path ended in an abandoned cul-de-sac — a dead-end alley swallowed by graffiti and old tarp-tents. But at the far wall, hidden beneath a rusted sewer grate, glowed something unmistakable.
Occult glyphs. Ancient. Shifting.
Lucien stepped forward, voice hushed. "This… this is one of the Roots. A leyline source. Velvora's original blood vein."
"So what, we blow it up?" Asher asked, one hand already near his weapon.
Lucien didn't answer. He dropped to one knee and touched the etched symbols reverently. "No. We wake it up."
Rosa was already kneeling, her gloved fingers tracing the same patterns.
"If we're ending this city's cycle," she said, voice firm, "we start where it bled first. Beneath Gutter's End. Where everything began."
Asher hesitated — but the ground didn't.
A tremor rippled beneath their feet. The symbols began to glow brighter. Something stirred below — ancient, patient, hungry.
From deep beneath the sewers, a sound emerged.Not mechanical.Not magical.A heartbeat.
Slow. Deep. Rhythmic.
Velvora's heart was still beating.
And now... it was listening.
[End Of Chapter 93]
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Chapter 94 – "Velvora's Heartbeat"The ancient leyline beneath Gutter's End awakens. Lucien leads a ritual that may either cleanse or doom the city. Meanwhile, Nocturne begins to glitch — streets loop, time stutters, and something once-buried stirs to the surface. And yes, General Tofu is involved in at least one apocalyptic omen.