CHAPTER 1053: DRIFTING.

The rain had returned by nightfall, slanting hard through the crooked streets of City Z, beating against rusted tin roofs and the skeletal frames of half-burnt buildings. Cain didn’t mind the wet. The city always looked cleaner under rain, even if it never truly washed the rot away.

They were camped in the hollow of an abandoned tannery, the walls still reeking faintly of old leather and chemicals. Steve had rigged up a curtain of humming devices across the doorway, red lights pulsing like an arrhythmic heartbeat. Inside, Hunter sharpened his bolts in silence, while Susan stood near the window, her eyes tracking every shadow that moved across the drowned streets.

Cain sat on a broken stool, the dim glow of an oil lamp painting his face in sharp relief. His blade lay across his knees, black metal streaked with rainwater and the remnants of the phantom’s ichor. He hadn’t cleaned it yet. The weapon felt heavier than usual, and Cain didn’t think it was only the wet steel.

"They won’t wait long," Susan murmured finally, not turning from the window.

"No," Cain said. His voice carried like gravel scraped over stone. "Scouts were only the prelude. Something bigger will follow."

Steve looked up from his mess of wires and coils. His hands never stopped moving, fitting pieces together into a shape only he seemed to understand. "Bigger’s relative, Cain. We’re talking about a network, not a single phantom. That thing last night? Just one echo in a much larger signal. Cut it down, and the rest... they’ll adapt."

Cain raised his eyes, steady, unreadable. "Then we adapt faster."

The rain drummed harder, spilling down in thick sheets. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of alarms carried faintly—district patrols scrambling to cover the damage from last night’s hunt. Cain listened to the rhythm of it, every wail of sirens, every sudden silence between. The city was stirring, trying to make sense of scars it couldn’t comprehend.

Roselle entered from the far corner, her boots silent despite the wet floor. She carried a sack dripping with rain, setting it down with a dull thud. When she opened it, the twisted remains of a phantom scout spilled out—broken limbs, shattered mask, fragments of its strange black shell.

Hunter glanced up, unimpressed. Susan stepped closer, studying the pieces with a sharp eye. "It’s not bone," she said quietly.

"No," Cain replied. He touched one fragment with a gloved hand. It was cold, smooth, humming faintly with some energy that wasn’t natural. "It’s closer to metal. Forged, not grown. Someone is making them."

Steve’s head jerked up at that. "Making? As in manufactured?"

"Engineered," Cain said. His gaze never left the fragments. "Something’s using the city as a crucible. Testing designs. Releasing them like disease until they perfect the form."

The tannery felt smaller suddenly, the air pressing in around them. Susan finally turned from the window, her cloak still dripping, her face unreadable. "And when the design is perfected?"

Cain’s jaw tightened. "Then they stop testing. And they unleash it."

The silence after that was thick enough to choke. Even Steve’s hands slowed over his tools.

Hunter broke it first, his voice steady, low. "We can’t fight shadows forever. We need to find the hand behind them."

Cain nodded once. He rose, blade sliding into its sheath with a sound that cut the air sharper than the rain. His eyes lifted toward the broken rafters, where the storm rumbled through the gaps.

"The hand," he said. "And the forge."

Outside, the rain swallowed their words, carrying them into the drowned veins of the city.

---

By midnight, they were moving again. Cain led them along the rooftops, the city below alive with torchlight and confusion. Patrols staggered through flooded streets, boots splashing in knee-deep water, their shouts muffled by the storm.

Cain watched them from above, silent. These men weren’t enemies. They were fodder—sacrifices the city hadn’t realized it was already making. He motioned the others forward, guiding them toward the industrial quarter where the old refineries stood half-collapsed.

Steve’s scanners buzzed quietly, lights flaring faint green. "You’re not going to like this," he muttered. "I’m picking up interference ahead. Strong. Intermittent pulses, like... like a generator chewing through itself."

Cain’s eyes narrowed. "How far?"

"Two blocks."

"Then that’s where we start."

They reached the quarter just before the bells rang midnight. Smoke curled lazily from one of the refineries—a building that should have been abandoned for decades. Cain crouched on a rooftop opposite it, studying the lines of light spilling through its broken windows. Shadows moved within, slow and deliberate.

Susan leaned beside him, her breath fogging faintly in the cold rain. "If they’re building them here..."

Cain’s lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. "Then we burn the forge."

The storm deepened. The city shifted in its sleep. And Cain’s eyes locked on the refinery, as patient and merciless as the blade at his side.

The hunt had found its next target.

Cain signaled them down into the alleys, boots splashing through black rainwater. The closer they came, the heavier the air grew, a vibration gnawing against bone, like standing too near a bell that never stopped ringing. The refinery wasn’t just shelter—it was alive with something wrong.

They stopped behind a collapsed tram car, rusted metal stinking of oil. Steve crouched, adjusting the dials on his scanner, his face pale in the reflected glow. "It’s not just power. This is layered. Multiple frequencies. One pulling, one pushing. Almost... like a heartbeat."

Roselle spat rainwater from her mouth, gaze cutting toward the windows bleeding faint orange. "A heart of what?"

"Not human," Steve said. His voice trembled despite himself.

Cain’s hand brushed the hilt of his blade. The storm soaked his cloak, plastered his hair to his face, but he stood steady, watching the light stutter in strange rhythm.

Inside, something scraped metal against stone. A grinding birth-cry.

Cain spoke, low and certain, though the others leaned in to hear over the storm.

"This is no forge." His eyes narrowed, and the edge of steel glimmered in his hand as he drew.

"It’s a womb."