Every city has a heart.Velvora's just happens to beat... and grin.
The floor yawned open with a sound like bones breaking underwater — stone, steel, and sewerwork peeling apart like wet parchment. The scent hit first. Not just rot, not just blood. History. Raw and ancient and wrong.
And then they saw it.
A massive, grotesque heart — flesh, bone, vine, and sinew fused together — suspended in a cocoon of roots and ritual glyphs. Its surface writhed with movement beneath pulsing black veins that glowed faintly red, like coals under old ash. Some of those veins stretched upward, threading through cracked tunnel ceilings, as if feeding into the city's foundations.
Scars marred the heart's surface — scars shaped like twisted, grinning faces.
Asher staggered back, bile rising in his throat."This city's alive. And it's mocking us."
His voice cracked in disbelief, horror laced behind every syllable.
Rosa didn't flinch. Pale, jaw tight, her eyes locked on the monstrous thing."No. This isn't Nocturne. This is what's left of Velvora. The city before it got buried and rebuilt. The city that never died."
Lucien adjusted his glasses with trembling fingers. His usual cocky veneer was stripped away, and something colder — reverent and terrified — took its place."I always suspected the city fed on trauma. The way energy gathers, how shadows cling longer in certain corners. But I didn't expect... this. A literal, beating organ. A root node of Velvora's soul."
The Heart responded.
The rhythm deepened.THUMP… THUMP.
And then the smile widened.
"Children of my streets…"
The voice slithered into the air like wet silk and copper blood. Gurgling, melodic, hypnotic. It came from everywhere and nowhere. It echoed from inside their heads as much as from the giant heart.
"You feed me every day. Every broken soul. Every whispered threat. Every dream drowned in gutter water. Why, then, would you sever your lifeline?"
Asher wiped the blood from his still-bleeding palm and stepped forward with purpose."Because you've been leeching off us for too long."
The Heart laughed.It sounded like slabs of meat slapping tile in a butcher's sink."Leeching? No, little predator. I gave you purpose. You thrive in pain. In chaos. In secrets. I simply... arranged the stage."
Rosa's fists clenched at her sides. Her voice trembled with the fury of someone who'd lost too much."We didn't ask for this. We just wanted to survive. To live. Not be part of some hell-organ built to drink our misery."
Far above the tunnels, Nocturne City twitched.
— At Juno's Soup Stand, the broth turned tar-black, bubbling despite the flames being off.— A malfunctioning ad drone paused mid-pitch for "50% off demon repellents!" and instead screamed:"ALL HAIL THE HEART. ALL HAIL THE—" before exploding in a shower of purple confetti.— A drunken cultist walking near the Underrail tracks stopped, blinked up at the stars that had turned blood-red, and muttered, "...uh-oh."
The city knew.
Some primal, psychic circuit had been tripped. Velvora's hidden infrastructure — the Root — was screaming.
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The Heart Strikes Back
Back underground, the Heart pulsed faster. Faster. It didn't lash out physically — not yet.
Instead, it attacked where it hurt more.
Tendrils unfurled from the core like veins being pulled from muscle. They didn't strike — they showed.
Visions burned into their skulls:
Asher stood frozen in a dreamscape of fire and rain, watching helplessly as the faces of people he loved vanished into the darkness. He screamed, but no sound came out. His dagger was broken in his hands. He was too late again. Always too late.
Rosa wandered a city with no doors, no exits — just alleyways filled with echoes of her younger self. Cold. Starving. Unwanted. Her reflection in puddles showed someone hollowed out.
Lucien stood in a library with walls made of teeth and tongues. Books whispered his secrets aloud as he screamed, and black shadows — the same ones he'd once summoned — coiled tighter around his throat, accusing, feeding.
"You are nothing without me," the Heart hissed."Your pain made you strong. Your trauma — your fuel. I shaped your power. You need me."
Asher hit the floor, panting, vision swimming with static and guilt.
"No… that's not true…"
But even his voice lacked conviction.
"Oh, but it is. You came to Nocturne because you wanted to suffer. You wanted to fight something bigger than yourself. You love the temptation. The danger. The chase. Admit it. You're not here to save anything — you're here to burn."
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Lucien Fights Back
Lucien gasped — once — and slammed his ritual dagger into the glyph-etched stone.
Gold fire erupted from the blade, cutting through the psychic smog.
"SCREW. YOU," he shouted, eyes alight. "You parasitic tumor. You think we need you? You think I don't know what I've done? What I've lost?"
The light expanded, slashing through the tendrils of illusion.
"I know exactly who I am — and I'm choosing to be better than you!"
The tendrils recoiled like burned nerves. The illusions cracked and faded.
Rosa rushed to Asher's side, pulling him upright, gripping his arm tight."We're not doing this for power. Not for revenge. We're doing this because we're done being fed into this thing like fuel. We're done letting the city win."
"Then come. Cut me, if you dare."
The Heart's voice trembled with something now — not just rage, but something bordering on glee.
"But know this — if I die, the city dies with me. Nocturne will fall. Its secrets, its streets, your friends… all of it. Are you ready to bury the whole thing, little predators?"
The roots above pulsed. Cracks spread through the tunnel ceiling.
Asher's hand tightened around his dagger. His eyes locked with Rosa's, then with Lucien's.Silent agreement passed between them — one final, painful truth:
There might be no saving the city without tearing it down.
"We'll find a way," Asher whispered. "We always do."
And the Heart — grinned.
"Let's see if you're ready…"
The ground shook.
The walls screamed.
And then the Heart split wide open.
Not just in flesh — but in reality. A deeper chasm yawed beneath it, unveiling something older, darker, and infinitely more sentient. It rose slowly from beneath the Root, bathed in shadow and bloodlight.
A thing not of this world.
And it was smiling too.
[End of Chapter 95]
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Preview of Next Chapter:
Chapter 96 – "Echoes from Beneath the Root"The battle beneath the city isn't just against a monster — it's against the city's own will to survive. Asher, Rosa, and Lucien descend into Velvora's true underbelly, where dreams fester, monsters remember, and the cost of ending the curse may require more than blood. Expect unsettling lore, psychic corruption, and wild consequences for the surface world.