Beneath the Skin

The streets of Iron Haven felt tighter now. The buildings leaned inward, like twisted ribs protecting a sick, beating heart. The air thickened with something I couldn't see but could feel.

It wasn't fear.

It was hunger.

This city wanted to be fed.

And I was about to starve it.

Eyes in the Dark

The deeper we went, the less people we saw.

Not because they had gone inside.

Because they had been taken.

The filth-covered roads gave way to drag marks. Footprints that ended abruptly. Signs of people being pulled into the dark.

No screams. No signs of struggle.

Just… disappearances.

Chen Rui moved closer to me. "They know we're here."

I nodded. "Let them watch."

Zhao Yue's fingers tapped against the hilt of her blade, eyes sharp. "If they try something, we kill them first."

No one disagreed.

We weren't hiding.

We were hunting.

The Crawling Ones

By the time we reached the outskirts of the fort's lower tunnels, the city was gone.

Not literally.

But the feeling of it. The stench of unwashed bodies, the clamor of desperate voices—all vanished.

We were stepping into the part of Iron Haven that didn't exist on maps.

The part no one spoke about.

The underground.

Yusheng stopped. "Something's wrong."

Then I saw it.

The walls were breathing.

No, not the walls.

The flesh growing along them.

Mei gasped. "What the—"

A vein pulsed beneath the surface. Not a normal vein. This one was thick, black, and moving.

Then the eyes opened.

Not one. Dozens. Embedded in the walls, their pupils wide, twitching, watching us.

Lin Hua inhaled sharply. "This city is alive."

Not alive. Infected.

Before anyone could react, the walls split open.

Something spilled out.

A crawling thing made of stitched flesh. Not human, not beast—something in between. Mouths covered its torso, some stitched shut, some gnawing at the air.

It twitched violently before lunging straight at me.

I moved faster.

Steel met flesh. My blade sank deep, carving through bone and tendon, but the thing didn't die.

It screamed.

The sound wasn't right. Not from its mouth, but from its entire body.

Then the other walls split open.

And more came crawling out.

No Rest for the Wicked

The battle was instant.

Yusheng's fists shattered ribs, sending a creature flying into the wall. Zhao Yue's blade danced, carving a red path through the crawling ones.

Chen Rui moved like a shadow, twin knives flashing, gutting one before it could react.

But they didn't stop.

They didn't die.

Even when cut apart, they kept moving.

Lin Hua yelled, "Go for the heads!"

No.

I had a better idea.

I gripped my blade tighter.

And set them on fire.

Flames erupted, licking across the flesh walls. The creatures twisted, shrieking as the fire consumed them.

The underground tunnels filled with the scent of burning meat.

And for the first time—

I heard something deeper scream.

Not a creature.

Not a person.

Something bigger.

Something that was watching.

I bared my teeth.

Now I know where you are.

The Path to the Shrine

The tunnels stretched deeper.

The bloodstains were older. The bones were thicker. The smell was stronger.

We weren't going into a hiding place.

We were stepping into a feeding ground.

And at the center of it, waiting beneath the fort, was the shrine.

The place where the city made its offerings.

Zhao Yue exhaled. "We burn it down."

"No."

She frowned. "Then what?"

I smiled.

"We make it choke on its own sickness."

Iron Haven thought it could keep feeding.

I was about to make it starve.