Leon walked the neon-lit streets with his hood low, the cheers of the arena still echoing faintly in his ears. He moved through the city's underbelly, where glowing signs masked decay, and hopeful hunters drank away their failures.
He didn't belong up there, in their spotlight. Not yet.
He needed to remember what he was.
A scream pierced the alley ahead.
Leon froze.
Shadows danced on brick walls, flaring with firelight. Someone was fighting.
He approached without hesitation, melting into the dark. A young woman in hunter gear barely more than a recruit was cornered by a monstrous hound-like creature. It snarled, its fangs dripping venom, eyes glowing crimson. A failed summoning? A rogue beast? It didn't matter.
The hunter raised her dagger with shaking hands. She wouldn't last another ten seconds.
The hound lunged.
Leon moved.
In the blink of an eye, he stepped from the shadows behind it, hand raised. A thread of black shot from his fingertips thin as silk, sharp as blades. It coiled around the beast's throat mid-air, yanked it sideways, and slammed it into the concrete with bone-cracking force.
The girl gasped. The beast twitched once. Then it was still.
Leon didn't look at her. His eyes were locked on the shadows writhing around his hand.
They didn't feel the same.
In the Shadow Realm, they had obeyed him like extensions of his will. Here, they pulsed differently slower, heavier, like power wrapped in chains.
But they were still his.
He took a breath and let them slip away.
"W-Who are you?" the girl stammered, eyes wide.
He turned. "No one important."
She reached out. "Wait, that thing… it was a C-class threat. You're a hunter, right? What's your rank?"
Leon paused.
"…Doesn't matter."
Then he vanished into the dark, leaving her in silence and confusion.
From a rooftop above, a surveillance drone buzzed faintly. Its red light blinked.
Far across the city, in the control room of a private monitoring guild, a technician frowned. "Sir… we just caught something strange on Alley Sector 12. Shadow manipulation. Unregistered."
A voice behind him replied coldly, "Trace it."
The technician nodded.
Back in the alley, Leon looked down at his hand, watching a single thread of shadow curl around his wrist.
"Still here," he murmured.
But so was the world.
And it had eyes.