The phantom didn't stumble. It never did. Even as its silhouette slid between the fractured remnants of the old market, there was a poise to its movements—a haunting elegance that mocked the chaos it left in its wake. Cain watched from the high beam of a decayed warehouse, perched like a crow, black coat stirring faintly in the midnight wind.

Through the fractured rooftops, the dying lanterns swayed. The city slept, unaware of the disease crawling through its marrow.

Hunter crouched two levels below, half in shadow, a phantom of his own. His hands rested lightly on his weapon, muscles wound tight, eyes reflecting the pale glimmer of moonlight. One breath—two—he waited for the signal that hadn't come yet. Cain didn't need to look; he knew Hunter was ready.

Susan lingered near a burned-out doorway, one hand grazing the edge of her curved blade. She was still. Too still. Cain had warned her once before: stillness could be as loud as a scream if you didn't own it. Tonight, though, she owned it. Her presence was deliberate, heavy with intent—a lure waiting to draw blood.

Below, the phantom drifted closer to the broken fountain in the plaza. Its shape blurred at the edges, as though refusing to exist entirely in this reality. Black veins of shadow pulsed along its elongated arms. Its face—if that mockery of human symmetry could be called a face—was obscured beneath the hood of its tattered shroud. But Cain had seen enough of these creatures to know: the less you saw, the more dangerous it was.

He signaled with the faintest twitch of his fingers. Hunter shifted an inch. Susan's blade dipped low, catching the moonlight. Roselle—silent, invisible until now—descended from the water tower like a falling blade, her presence folding into the others like the final note in a dirge.

Cain breathed in, counting the steps. One…two…three… The phantom reached the fountain's lip. Its head tilted. A soundless pause, as though listening to something beyond the range of mortal ears. Then its clawed hand dipped into the stagnant water. Ripples shivered outward, carrying whispers too low for the untrained to hear.

Cain heard them. He always heard them. Words laced with hunger.

"They're calling to it," Susan's voice murmured through the comm bead, a ghost of sound.

"They always call," Cain replied. His eyes narrowed. "Doesn't matter who answers. Tonight, it dies."

The phantom straightened. Water streamed from its fingers, shimmering faintly like mercury under the wan light. Then—its head snapped toward the eastern alley, every motion like the crack of a whip. Cain's jaw tightened. It had sensed the lies Steve left for it—the false signatures, the misdirection. That wasn't good.

"Hunter." Cain's voice cut the silence.

Hunter didn't hesitate. The first bolt flew—whisper-quiet, slicing the night. The phantom blurred. The bolt struck the fountain instead, splintering stone. Shards scattered like teeth.

"Second shot," Cain ordered, even as he dropped from the rafters. The wind roared past him, coat flaring as his boots hit the cobblestone with a muted thud. He moved before the echo faded, a streak of black steel drawing an arc across the dark.

The phantom recoiled, hood tearing back just enough for Cain to see the glimmer beneath—an eye that wasn't an eye, a swirling pit of colorless void.

Cain didn't flinch. He struck again. Sparks leapt as his blade met something harder than bone.

Susan broke cover from the right, steel flashing like liquid moonlight. Her strike sang as it carved the phantom's shoulder, severing strands of black flesh that dissolved into vapor before hitting the ground.

The creature shrieked—soundless, yet deafening. The air quivered. Cain felt it in his teeth, his bones, a vibration that clawed at thought.

"Roselle!" Cain barked.

She answered without words. A blur of motion—then her twin blades bit deep into the phantom's flank. The creature twisted unnaturally, joints bending where none should exist, black ichor spraying in ribbons that never touched the ground.

For a moment, victory seemed close. For a moment.

The phantom's body convulsed. Then it split.

Like tearing cloth, its form unraveled, peeling into two, then three silhouettes, each rippling with distortion. Cain's blade slashed through the nearest one, but his instincts screamed—wrong, wrong, wrong—as it vanished like smoke, only for claws to rake at his back from an impossible angle.

He rolled hard, sparks bursting as steel met claw. Hunter's third bolt found purchase, pinning one fragment to a wall. It writhed, shrieking without sound, limbs contorting.

"They adapt," Susan hissed, parrying a strike that came too fast for human eyes. The force drove her to one knee.

"They always do," Cain growled, shoving his blade into another phantom's chest. The steel hummed against something alien, something that hated to die.

A flash of red cut the edge of his vision—Steve's drones, darting like fireflies as they discharged searing arcs of light. One phantom convulsed under the assault, its form glitching between existence and void before collapsing into a pool of black fluid that steamed against the stones.

"One down," Steve's voice crackled. "Two to—oh hell, they're learning the frequencies."

Cain's mind raced, slicing through options. Killing them wasn't enough. They were fragments—extensions. Which meant the core was still near. Watching. Waiting.

"Hunter," Cain snapped, locking blades with the second phantom. "Eyes up. Find the anchor."

Hunter vaulted to the rooftops without a word, vanishing into shadow.

Roselle drove both blades through the chest of the phantom she faced, twisting until the thing erupted in a burst of smoke. The stench of burnt iron filled the air.

Silence fell—or what passed for silence in the City of Monsters. Just the whisper of wind and the distant hum of Steve's dying drones.

Cain wiped black residue from his blade, eyes scanning every fracture of the street. His pulse remained steady, though his jaw ached from the tension.

"It's here," he said quietly. "The core doesn't flee. It learns."

As if summoned by the words, the ground beneath the fountain split with a wet crack. From the depths rose a figure—not blurred, not shifting, but solid. Monolithic. Its body was carved from shadow and bone, its presence crushing the air like a fist.

Cain felt the weight of it press against his mind, probing, prying, searching for cracks in his will. He smiled—a thin, cold curve of lips.

"Finally," he whispered.

Susan cursed under her breath. Roselle said nothing, only tightened her grip.

The phantom spoke then—not in words, but in a chorus of stolen voices. Men. Women. Children. All echoing in layered dissonance:

"You cannot unmake what was never born."