CHAPTER 315: YOU’RE HERE TO SEE IF WE’RE AFRAID

The footage opened with a slow pan across crumbling concrete and half-collapsed walls, the kind of scenery too familiar to carry shock.

Bunker remains sat in the background, crates stacked like forgotten bones. The feed’s static tugged at the frame’s edges, but the center remained clear.

It wasn’t the debris that mattered. It was the sound that followed—a low, steady thrum that didn’t crack or snarl, but rolled through the space with weight.

Not threatening. Not random. It was controlled. A signal with intention behind it.

Then the first figure stepped into view.

It didn’t shamble. It didn’t stomp.

It moved like it had been taught to move. Each step balanced with eerie poise, its limbs shifting smoothly like it had trained to walk that way.

This wasn’t some wild creature born out of panic and bloodlust. It was built—or raised—to be precise. Its armor was not a patchwork.

It was carved. Every piece fit around its limbs and torso like a second skin made of bone and metal, shaped to enhance, not protect.

It had a grim symmetry—almost ceremonial in form.

Its head bore a mask—something between a rhino skull and a reaper’s helm. Sleek, not bulky.

Its eye sockets weren’t just glowing with heat like most beasts Isabella had fought—they shimmered with something more dangerous. Recognition. Intelligence.

A second beast followed behind it, slower, more cautious, arms wrapped around a rectangular container.

It moved carefully, stopping beside the first one before placing the box on the ground and unlatching the lid.

What was inside didn’t surprise her.

But it unsettled her all the same.

A liquid. Dense. Crimson with silvery filaments swirling beneath the surface, like veins trying to reconnect. Not raw blood. Not harvested gore. This had been refined. Filtered. Stabilized.

You didn’t find that in the wild. You didn’t stumble across it in cult rituals.

That took infrastructure.

That took purpose.

Isabella paused the feed with one hand, leaning slightly toward the screen as if it might show her something she hadn’t caught the first time.

The way the first beast knelt near the crates—its posture wasn’t defensive or dominant. It was engaged. Like it was waiting for someone to respond to an offer.

When she let the rest of the video play, there was no violence, no trap, no deception.

Just a quiet moment.

Then they turned and disappeared into the smoke, leaving nothing but their message.

She backed out of the footage and quickly scanned the data layers. Underneath the video’s shell was something more telling—an encryption sequence.

Not cultist in origin. Not something you’d find in scavenger tech. This was military-level. Pre-collapse. Buried deep in the file’s framework.

She leaned back slowly, exhaling through her nose.

Someone had taught them. Or supplied them. Possibly both.

Which meant the beasts weren’t improvising.

They had help.

And whoever was helping them wasn’t some stray survivor or runaway researcher.

This was collaboration.

Not chaos.

—

Hours later, Isabella stepped quietly through the warped stone halls of the Subterranean Market.

The humid air carried the sharp tang of metal and heat-reactive chemicals. It clung to skin like smoke and never seemed to clear.

This was the kind of place that didn’t show up on maps, didn’t carry a fixed name, and would burn itself to the ground if you asked too many questions.

She’d dressed plainly—hood pulled low, coat dark enough to swallow her silhouette. Her boots made no sound as she walked.

She didn’t stop to look at the stalls she passed. She knew better. This wasn’t a place for eye contact or small talk.

There were no guards here, no checkpoints, just a tight corridor that turned once and dropped into a wide chamber lit by broken ceiling panels and steaming vents.

The space buzzed with hushed trades—crates of illegal tech, limbs harvested from beasts, pages pulled from forbidden grimoires.

Most of the people didn’t even glance her way. The few who did immediately looked away again.

She walked past a vendor selling beast fangs embedded into antique rings, past a booth draped in skin-bound tomes, past scentless incense burning in clusters for who-knew-what reason. She didn’t care.

The one she was looking for sat at the back, tucked into a corner where the leaking pipes made shadows dance across the walls.

A woman waited there. Pale gray skin. Eyes lined with soot. Fingers inked with symbols from five different traditions.

Names didn’t last long in places like this. But she was known well enough by presence alone.

Isabella took the seat opposite her.

No greetings. No questions.

The woman slid a small device across the table. It was a reader, manual-locked, from the pre-encryption era, a relic used only when privacy mattered more than convenience.

Isabella didn’t pick it up.

Instead, she drew a vial from her coat and placed it on the table, directly between them.

The liquid inside was unmistakable.

It shimmered even in this dim light—crimson and silver, swirling with faint motion even though the container was still.

Almost like it was alive. Like it remembered what it had once belonged to.

The woman’s gaze dropped to it for only a second.

Then, they returned to Isabella.

"You’re not supposed to have that," she said, her voice low, almost thoughtful.

"Neither are the ones trading it," Isabella replied, her tone level. "But here we are."

"Why bring it to me?"

"Because you’ve heard more things than most. And I’m trying not to waste time asking people who pretend they haven’t."

The woman tapped the side of the reader with one sharp nail. "Something similar came through two nights ago. Different vendor. Same energy signature. And that sample came with a crest."

Isabella’s voice didn’t change. "Spiral-wing?"

The pause was all the confirmation she needed.

The woman nodded slowly. "You’re not here to confirm rumors, are you?"

"No."

"You’re here to see if we’re afraid."

Isabella didn’t answer.

But the silence said plenty.

The woman looked back at the vial. "What do you want?"

"Information," Isabella said. "How long has it been in rotation? Who’s touched it? Who’s pretending they haven’t?"

The woman exhaled softly. "At least three months. Possibly longer. They don’t deliver directly. Always through third parties.

Cults pass samples, but not always knowingly. Some are just couriers. Moving crates, they think are relics. But it’s blood. Refined. Precise. Always the same formula."