Gael took the stairs three at a time, lungs burning, boots hammering against old wood. Below, the mansion shook with the force of an average battle between two Bharncair ladies. Maeve and the Myrmur were going at it hard—crashes, screams, something wet and insectile clicking against the floor. The whole damn building felt like it was seconds from caving in.

  He should be worried. But he wasn’t. Maeve was more professional than him as a warrior, anyways. No use worrying about an opponent he wasn’t fighting right now.

  There was someone else he had to ‘fight’.

  The third floor was a stretch of dark, sagging doors, warped wood, and candle sconces covered in dust-thick cobwebs. The air stank of rot, mold, and something sickly sweet beneath it. Like old flowers left to die in a vase. Gael didn’t have time to be delicate. He kicked in the first door. Empty. The second? A collapsed library, books rotted down to sludge. He tried another—nothing but a ruined nursery with a cradle swaying on rusted chains.

  “Exorcist!” he bellowed, voice cracking against the walls. “Where’s the old bastard again?”

  A sound shattered below, followed by her muffled voice, sharp and furious. “The old baron we came here to rob! He’s the Host! Top hat! Tattered coat! Glass mask with brass tubes!”

  It wasn’t much help, but he kicked in door after door until there were none left. None but the last door—the biggest door—down the end of the hall. This one had peeling gold trim and a dead rat wedged in the frame. He didn’t hesitate. He braced his boot against the wood and sent it flying inward.

  The room was dim and cavernous, swallowed in long, stretching shadows. Dust swirled in moonlight spilling through the fogged-up windows. A massive four-poster bed loomed in the corner, untouched, sheets still stiff with age. The walls were lined with paintings, the oils cracked and bleeding, the faces of long-dead nobles smearing into empty, black pits.

  A bedroom. A nobleman’s bedroom. And by the window, standing in absolute stillness, was the man himself.

  Old Banks.

  Gael had seen plenty of washed-up nobles in Bharncair—bloated corpses dressed in silk, old skeletons clinging to the memory of power—but the old man? There was something a bit different about him. His frame was thin, sharp-edged, stretched by starvation and spite. His coat, once a nobleman’s finery, now hung from his body in tattered rags. The top hat on his head was half-eaten by time, its brim chewed away by rats. Gael could barely see his face under the shadows, but his milky white eyes seemed to burn through the dark, glassy and wet with something too fevered to be called ‘hatred’ as he turned around to stare at Gael.

  “... Plagueplain Doctor.”

  Old Banks’ words slithered through the dark like a rusted blade drawn slow from its sheath.

  “I’d recognize that mask anywhere,” the old man rasped, his voice a dry rasp of old paper and iron nails, “that mask worn only by the seventy-two dogs of the Church."

  Gael had seen plenty of men angry before. This was something else. Something festering. So, naturally, he shrugged, grinning beneath the beak of his raven mask. “Maybe it’s a fake.”

  The silence that followed felt like a blade poised at his throat.

  Old Banks exhaled—long, slow, deliberate. His thin fingers twitched at his sides. “Nonsense,” he whispered, the quiet anger in his voice sharpening to an edge. “Men do not forge the mask of a Demonic Plagueplain Doctor on a whim. You don’t pretend to be one of the Seventy-Two. Do you not know why?”

  “I don’t,” Gael said sarcastically.

  Old Banks leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing. “Because if you did, the real ones would come crawling out of their holes, track you down, flay you from head to toe, and make you wish you were simply murdered in your sleep.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  "There are only seventy-two of those raven masks in the entire world. No more. No less. Every single one of them is stained with more sin than the streets of this wretched lower city, and I can smell the real thing from half a ward away.” Then Old Banks took a slow breath, shaking his head. "You may be wearing only the top half of the mask right now, but you must have the bottom half stashed away somewhere as well, so tell me, boy: did you inherit it? Or did you butcher the last Plagueplain Doctor for it? Which one died so you can hide your eyes behind those accursed lenses?”

  Gael didn’t answer.

  The baron exhaled sharply through his nose. "I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

  With that, he reached up, fingers curling around the low-hanging chandelier above him. But Gael saw now that it wasn’t a chandelier at all.

  With one violent yank, Old Banks ripped it down.

  Rust screamed against rust. Chains rattled. Metal groaned like a dying beast. The chandelier came free with a fall of dust, and what Gael saw in its place was… a cross-shaped greatsword. Its blade was long and wicked. Its edges were lined with jagged teeth, rust devouring its length in bloody streaks. It should’ve been too heavy for the baron’s frail frame—should’ve bent him in half under its weight—but Old Banks lifted it as though it weighed nothing at all.

  “The Church of Severin took everything from me," he murmured, almost reverently. “My old estate. My old name. My old peace. And… for what?"

  His voice rose, each syllable carved from iron.

  “Because my daughter was sick?” His teeth bared. “Because the great and holy Ecclesiarchate refused to treat her? Because I dared to fund my own medicinal research? Because I sought a cure when the priests and bishops only offered their prayers?”

  He was shaking now, the umbilical cord twitching wildly against the back of his hand.

  "They called my work profane." His voice cracked, raw with old hatred. “They branded me a heretic. The moment I tried to save my daughter with my own hands, they made it impossible for me to stay. Impossible for my family to survive. We were cast out like vermin. Hunted like animals. And you—” His eyes snapped back to Gael, blazing. “—you dare to step into my house, wearing even half of that mask?”

  Old Banks’ shoulders heaved—then stilled.

  A sick, eerie moment of calm.

  Gael scowled. The umbilical cord on the back of Old Banks’ right hand twitched and pulsed. The Myrmur was feeding him something—most likely some sort of ‘curse’ through his veins to keep his blood pressure low, and most likely some sort of chemical signal to keep him from realizing the truth—because there was no way it’d let him realize his daughter was already dead.

  Gael had seen ‘her’.

  That was no human.

  “... I’ve made my peace with Bharncair,” he said softly, steadier now, calmer now. “I’ve made peace with this city of rats. With this… place of filth and ruin.”

  His fingers curled tighter around the leather-wrapped grip of the greatsword.

  “But I will never make peace with you.”

  Gael tensed his jaw.

  “I don’t care which doctor you are,” Old Banks murmured, stepping forward. “I don’t care which number you are.”

  The air shifted.

  The weight of the room changed.

  The old baron’s stance lowered, greatsword tilting forward.

  “Tonight,” he whispered, “Bancroft Veydris fights again.”

  Gael rolled his shoulders, tightening his grip on his bladed cane. The old man was coiled tight, every muscle in his decrepit body honed and ready, his cross-shaped greatsword gleaming in the moonlight like an executioner’s verdict.

  “Listen, old man,” Gael muttered. “I wear only half of the mask, so I don’t kill. Not exactly my style.” Then he twirled his cane idly, angling the blade straight at the old man. “That said, I’m getting the impression you’re past the point of reason, so am I just blathering to a husk of a man or not?”

  A growl rattled out of the old baron’s throat, raw with years of resentment. Then he lunged.

  His greatsword tore through the air, cleaving straight for Gael’s skull with the weight of a full-grown corpse behind it. Gael pivoted fast, twisting just out of reach as steel howled past his ear. The impact cracked the wooden floorboards where he’d been standing.

  Oh, this was going to be a pain in the ass.

  Old Banks didn’t fight like a frail nobleman. He fought like a man who had trained once upon a time, who’d learned the weight of a blade before disease or age could take their toll. And right now, Gael wasn’t fighting a sick man at all. He dodged again as another heavy swing came roaring toward his ribs, forcing him into a vault over the coffee table behind him. He landed in a crouch, breath short.

  The old bastard’s fast, huh?

  Vharnveil nobility had better bodies than the slum-born wretches down here in Bharncair. Better food. Cleaner air. A lifetime of subtle modifications and alchemical enhancements that let them walk through life stronger than most. Gael may have twice the physicality of an average man right now, but the problem was, people from Vharnveil weren’t average humans to begin with. They were all naturally twice or thrice as strong as the average man down in Bharncair.

  And then there was the Myrmur.

  His eyes flicked to the pulsing umbilical cord on the back of Old Banks’ hand, writhing like something half-alive. The damn thing had to be pumping something into him. Something that let a sick, withered old man swing a hundred-pound blade like a fencing foil.

  He exhaled through his teeth.

  This wasn’t going to be easy.

  Old Banks roared, swinging again. The greatsword carved through the air with crushing force, destroying the coffee table he was taking cover behind. He danced sideways, ducking under the second horizontal slash, then leapt onto the room’s writing desk to gain height. The nobleman followed fast, driving the blade up at him, and he had to vault off again, flipping over the old man’s head and landing in a roll out of the bedroom

  The moment his boots touched ground, Old Banks was already turning, greatsword poised.

  “Liar,” the old baron spat. “You all lie.”

  Gael barely had time to deflect the next blow, twisting his cane sheathe against the oncoming strike. Sparks flared where metal met metal, but he couldn’t block outright. He had to keep moving down the hallway, using the momentum of each parry to slip past the swings.

  “Men in veils come to my house and pretend to talk,” Old Banks went on, voice guttural. He swung over and over again, and Gael dodged all of them by the breadth of a hair. “Men in veils come with honeyed words, with promises, with open palms. They say they want to help me—to help her—and then they…”

  The old man’s voice caught, something in him stumbling. A fragment of thought, something unprocessed. His grip on the sword trembled. The Myrmur’s curse must be working overtime, keeping him as calm as possible when he started thinking too hard, feeding him the illusion he needed to survive. The moment he got too close to the truth—the moment he began to question what was real—his body would shut down for good.

  Gael curled his lips in displeasure.

  What a nasty little shit this Myrmur is.

  Even still, Old Banks’ body moved on instinct. The nobleman’s next swing came fast and brutal, carving through the space Gael had just vacated. His cane blade whistled as he parried the next strike, but the sheer force of the attack sent him skidding backward. His boots slid across the old carpet. His ribs ached from the impact reverberation alone.

  Then the old bastard lunged.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Gael didn’t have time to move. The greatsword came down like a hammer, and he only had one option. He raised his blade to block—and the moment the greatsword connected with him, the shock of the hit sent both of them crashing through the floor.

  Maeve parried the claw with the edge of her umbrella, the impact shuddering through her wrist. She twisted, knocking the Myrmur’s oversized arm aside, then lunged with a thrust—but the Myrmur had already leapt backward, clinging to a cracked pillar in the dark banquet hall like some feral nightmare.

  Too fast. Too erratic.

  It scuttled sideways, its grotesque claws scraping over the wooden walls, and then pounced again. She braced, ducked, then slammed the iron tip of her umbrella against its ribs, sending it skidding across the floor. Inhaling sharply, she drove out the dull ache in her arm. True to its grade level, this Myrmur wasn’t just stronger than the F-Rank Wretch-Class Myrmur she fought last night. It was better. Stronger in every way.

  It darted from shadow to shadow, its claws digging into the walls as it sprang between the grand columns of the banquet hall. She scowled as she grabbed Mistrender with both hands, firing pillar after pillar of blood only to miss every single shot. The Myrmur was elusive, and more than capable of leaping away from her relatively slow-moving shots.

  And its oversized arm is still growing stronger and tougher by the minute because of its Art.

  Her grip tightened around her umbrella. If she hesitated, even for a moment, the Myrmur would reach a point where she couldn't put it down alone.

  Fine.

  Deposit three points in toughness, dexterity, and perception, then put the rest in speed and strength!

  [Strength: 2 → 3]

  [Speed: 2 → 3]

  [Toughness: 1 → 2]

  [Dexterity: 1 → 2]

  [Perception: 1 → 2]

  [Points: 19 vBe → 0 vBe]

  The moment the numbers rose, she felt power flood through her veins. Her muscles coiled, her bones steadied, and her breath came easier. The Myrmur might still be stronger overall, but all Exorcists were trained to fight against more powerful opponents.

  As the Myrmur vanished into the shadows of the banquet hall, she stood still.

  Her eyes flicked side to side, ears straining against the silence. Her sight wasn't enough. Neither was sound.

  Then, just as the Myrmur lunged from behind, training and instinct told her to turn.

  Behind!

  Maeve pivoted with her whole body, swung her umbrella up, and struck. Steel met flesh, and she spun with the swing, sending the Myrmur flying into a pillar with bone-snapping force. The whole structure shook from the impact, sending cracks spiraling through the marble. The Myrmur let out a distorted, choking sound as it slumped, twitching.

  … Got you.

  She stepped forward, her grip still firm around Mistrender. Her toxic blood squeezed out every pore of her skin, licking at the edges of her dress, curling between her fingers. The Myrmur was still twitching against the pillar, its wounds sluggishly sealing. If she struck now, she could finish this. One decisive move—

  And the ceiling cracked over her head.

  She dodged backwards on instinct as a spray of stone and wood slammed into the floor, sending a shockwave through the banquet hall. Dust filled the air. She snapped her umbrella open to brace herself from most of it, but once the dust settled and the creaking and groaning stopped…

  Her eyes widened as Gael climbed out of the wreckage clumsily, then fell flat on his back, face twisted in pain.

  Maeve exhaled sharply, raising a single brow. “Doctor.”

  Gael spat out dust, coughed, and wheezed. “Didn’t stick the landing.”

  She nearly rolled her eyes, but before she could take another step towards the Myrmur to finish it off, a sound cut through the settling silence.

  Footsteps.

  Measured. Heavy. Dragging.

  She turned.

  At the far end of the banquet hall, descending the grand staircase, came Old Banks. He trudged down slowly. Carefully. His cross-shaped greatsword hung loosely in his grasp, the rusted metal scraping against the banisters with small sparks as he moved.

  Gael pushed himself upright beside her, back pressing against hers. Maeve’s gaze stayed locked on the wounded Myrmur; Gael’s was fixed on the old man on the other end of the hall.

  “... When my daughter became parasitized by a Myrmur,” Old Banks began, his voice quiet, rough as shattered glass, “I went to the Church of Severance. The priests and bishops wouldn’t help. Not unless I let them cut her open.” His lips curled back, his teeth gritted. “They said they needed to study her. To understand the nature of the parasitization. What a load of shit. They had no intention of letting her leave the Church the moment I brought her in.”

  Maeve frowned, glancing back to send a pointed look at Gael. Gael didn’t respond.

  “I went to the Symbiote Exorcists next,” Old Banks continued. “Thought they’d be different. Thought they'd care. But I was wrong. They didn’t care. Didn’t even hesitate. They told me that ‘mercy is a lie the weak tell themselves. The curses do not spare, and neither do we’. They told me to just kill her and be done with it.”

  His breath hitched. His knuckles whitened.

  “So I took what wealth I had left,” he murmured, “and I came down here to the filth. To the rot. So I could do what no one else would.”

  His steps slowed. Dim moonlight swallowed him whole as he stepped off the last stair, and he came to a halt.

  And his whole body wavered. Just slightly. His grip on his sword loosened. His expression, carved from fury just moments before, trembled. His lips parted for a pained breath.

  Then, in a whisper,

  “… She’s still alive.”

  His voice cracked.

  A tear slipped down his cheek. His face twisted into something unnatural, caught between a smile and a sob.

  “She’s… still playing hide and seek. She’s still here. Alive and well.” His lips stretched wider. Too strained, too brittle. “She’s still here playing with you both.”

  Maeve’s throat tightened.

  She understood the situation now, and though she could still easily blast a hole through the old man’s chest from this distance…

  She couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  She couldn’t bring herself to say anything.

  But Gael did not hesitate.

  The Plagueplain Doctor straightened. Rolled his shoulders. Tilted his head.

  “… No,” he said quietly. “She’s dead.”

  Maeve stiffened. Gael’s back was still turned to her, but there was a sharpness in his voice—the same sort of certainty she’d heard from him last night, when he promised he’d be her Host.

  “She’s been dead for at least a year, I imagine,” he continued. “The Myrmur drained her dry, then moved on to another Host.” He lifted his bladed cane, jabbing it at Old Banks. “That’s you. You’re the poor sucker. You’re feeding the thing that killed your daughter, and you know it.”

  A muscle twitched in the old man’s cheek. Gael’s tone remained cold, cutting.

  “There’s this proverb about reality and illusions,” he said. “But sick men can’t tell the difference, so there’s no point telling you what it is. Is this how you wanna go out? Did you not leave behind everything you cared about in Vharnveil so you could protect your daughter down here, far away from the Church and the Exorcists? So rich in wealth, but so poor in heart—are you so weak-willed that the moment your daughter kicked the can, you thought you might as well follow her into the grave by raising her murderer instead?”

  And the air seemed to chill as Gael growled at the old man.

  “A thousand Bharnish will die to live the life of the poorest Vharnish. Is this how a fucking baron of Vharnveil dies?”

  Old Banks bared his teeth, his face twisted in anger. He took another step forward, his greatsword dragging against the floor.

  “Silence yourself, demon.” His voice was hoarse, shaking with fury. “What does a Plagueplain Doctor know about the value of life?”

  Then he charged at the two of them.

  The weight of his greatsword should’ve slowed him, but it didn’t. He moved like a man possessed, grief-fueled strength twisting his body into something monstrous.

  His blade came down like a guillotine aimed for Gael’s neck.

  Gael didn’t flinch.

  The Plagueplain Doctor stepped forward instead, twisting his bladed cane to the side and swiftly redirecting the strike. Metal screeched against metal. Then he twisted his wrist, rolling the force aside, and stepped through the old man’s open stance. His cane sheathe hooked around Old Banks’ ankle, and with a sharp yank, he sent the nobleman sprawling.

  The old man hit the floor hard, his greatsword clattering from his grip. He wheezed, dazed, but clawed at the floor, trying to push himself up. Gael didn’t give him the chance.

  In one swift motion, Gael stabbed his bladed cane straight through Old Banks’ shoulder, impaling him into the floor. A sickening crunch of bone. The old man howled, his body convulsing as the pain hit him, but Gael just pressed a foot on his chest, pinning him down.

  Maeve barely had a moment to react before movement flickered at the edge of her vision.

  The Myrmur lunged at her as well. Its bloody body twisted mid-air, arms outstretched, its oversized claw aiming to rip Gael’s throat out and defend its Host. Maeve moved first. Her boot hit the floor hard as she stepped forward, raising her umbrella in a tight grip. She twisted her body and rammed the sharpened tip straight into the Myrmur’s stomach, impaling it through the gut.

  The creature gagged, black bile splattering from its mandibles, but Maeve didn’t stop there. With a sharp downward thrust, she drove it into the ground. The Myrmur writhed, screeching, clawing at the umbrella’s shaft, but she pinned it down with her weight.

  Click.

  She fired her blood point-blank into its body. The toxin seeped into its flesh, burning, unraveling it from the inside. The Myrmur’s screams turned shrill, its limbs twitching violently against the stone. She exhaled sharply and fired again.

  And again.

  And again.

  The creature shuddered under her, its body growing weaker with each shot. But even as she held it there, her gaze flickered sideways—towards Gael.

  His knees pressed against Old Banks’ right arm, locking it in place. His free hand pulled a scalpel from his jacket, then another set of surgical knives wrapped in leather. He didn’t hesitate.

  He sank his scalpel into the back of Old Banks’ right hand.

  The old man roared in agony, thrashing, but Gael pressed down harder, keeping him still as he cut deeper. Blood spilled freely. The exposed flesh shuddered, pulsed.

  It took no longer than five seconds before Maeve saw it: that dark, twisted mass nestled inside the old man’s hand. Veins of black ichor webbed through his flesh, feeding off his arm.

  The Myrmur heart.

  But Maeve’s gaze lingered on Gael’s hands. His fingers were trembling. His scalpel wobbled slightly as he positioned it along the edges of the heart.

  He’s… shaking?

  Why?

  The thought clung to her mind like a parasite of its own, burrowing deep. She almost asked, but Gael finally dug into his pocket and pulled out a vial. The liquid inside shimmered, viscous and luminescent green.

  The symbiote elixir.

  Old Banks snarled, his voice raw. “Fuck off! I will not be ‘saved’ by a Plagueplain Doctor!”

  Gael didn’t react. He just uncorked the vial and tipped the glowing liquid inside the open wound.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t like Plagueplain Doctors or Symbiote Exorcists either,” he murmured. “I only like people who don’t like me.”

  Maeve clenched her jaw.

  And the moment the symbiote elixir dripped onto the Myrmur heart, the fleshy growth burned.

  Old Banks arched his back, a strangled sound escaping his throat, but Gael didn’t stop. The Myrmur under Maeve’s umbrella shrieked as well. Its flesh wobbled. Its skin bubbled. It spasmed wildly, limbs flailing as if the agony coursing through Old Banks was also coursing through it.

  Then, with a desperate kick, it lashed out, striking Maeve straight in the stomach.

  The force knocked the wind out of her.

  She stumbled backward with her umbrella, pain lancing through her ribs, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself up. At the same time, black ichor burst between Gael’s fingers where he crushed the Myrmur heart in his palm—and though the Myrmur girl was free now, she could do nothing but stagger and convulse backwards on two shaky feet.

  Maeve watched in silence as the creature stumbled, its form shuddering and shifting. It was reverting. Gone was the human-like disguise. What stood before them now was a gaunt, insectoid horror—a half-human, half-fly abomination warped into a frail, stretched husk of flesh.

  She still didn’t move. She was alert, yes, and completely prepared to deal with any last-ditch attempt to hurt them, but this Myrmur wasn’t like the one from last night. It staggered around blindly, swiping at empty air as though it’d completely lost its sight.

  So she simply watched as Gael closed the open wound in Old Banks’ hand with a stitching kit, needle and thread moving with impossible precision.

  The old nobleman’s breathing was ragged, but already, there was something different about his eyes.

  The milky whiteness had faded.

  There was color in them now. Faint gold, a terribly faded mark of a highborn, but it was there.

  “What… what did you do?” he whispered.

  Gael grinned tired.

  “I did what the dogs of the Church cannot do,” he said. “I removed the Myrmur without killing the Host. But should I have let you die and your murderer run free so it can kill more Bharnish, after all?”

  Old Banks stared at him.

  Then at Maeve.

  Then at the Myrmur girl.

  His hands trembled as he pushed himself up, clawing against the floor. Maeve followed his gaze as the Myrmur also staggered toward the exit, dragging itself away, its body weak and frail.

  Then, without warning—

  Old Banks grabbed his greatsword and threw it.

  The heavy blade whistled through the air and struck the Myrmur in the back with a sickening crunch.

  A strangled cry left the Myrmur’s lips as the greatsword impaled it into the floor, black ichor pooling beneath it.

  Old Banks staggered forward, his steps dragging, the weight of his own battered body barely keeping him upright. His breath came in shallow gasps, but he didn’t stop. His boots sloshed through the Myrmur’s pooling ichor, black and thick like tar, until he loomed over the dying wretch.

  His knees nearly buckled as he placed a shaking hand against the creature’s chest. A touch that should’ve been gentle. But his fingers curled—tight, trembling—and then moved to the Myrmur’s throat.

  Maeve saw the tears trailing down his sunken cheeks as he tightened his grip.

  His fingers dug into its fragile skin, past the papery remnants of something once human, and though his arms trembled, his resolve did not.

  With a raw, anguished roar, he tore the Myrmur’s head from its shoulders.

  The creature gave a final, pitiful twitch. Then it stilled.

  The banquet hall plunged into silence.

  All was quiet as Old Banks knelt there, the Myrmur’s lifeless body sprawled before him. He looked small. Hollow. But he didn’t sob, and he didn’t scream. He simply knelt there—and for Maeve and Gael’s part, they didn’t say anything, either.

  They stood behind him, silent witnesses, until Gael raised his hand next to her without even looking at her.

  … Oh, alright.

  She hesitated—just for a second—before lifting her own hand and slapping it against his.

  Gael’s tired grin widened.

  Maeve turned away slightly, not wanting to show him the small, weary smile that briefly crossed her lips as well.

  And then, in the distance, the banquet hall doors were kicked in with a thunderous bang.

  Cara stormed in, a dead bunny tied to her belt as her sharp eyes swept the room.

  “What the fuck happened here?”