The days following his first sublimation passed in a haze of heightened awareness. Silas’s perception had sharpened significantly, thanks to Insight Tap. Patterns that once seemed like random distortions in the fog now revealed subtle currents of astral energy. The city of Evergarde, once a maze of stone and steam, unfolded itself as a living, breathing construct of phenomena patterns and cause-and-effect threads.

But the creatures in the sky haunted him. He avoided looking upward now, even without activating his ability. The whisper that had pierced his mind that night echoed like a distant, dissonant note:

"See you…"

Shaking off the memory, Silas refocused. He had more immediate concerns. His status had shifted after the sublimation, and the system's revelations had set a new course for his training.

He summoned the interface again.

[Status Report]

* Name: Silas Crowell

* Age: 16

* Chronicle: Occultist (1st Order) – 4/10 (Sublimation 1 Complete)

* Abilities:

* Insight Tap: Extends analytical reach, revealing hidden mystical structures. (Cognitive strain risk with prolonged use)

* Attributes:

* Body: 7.3/ 20

* Spirit: 13.1/ 20

* Phenomenal Points: 90 p

The limit increase still struck him as strange. A human's normal threshold was ten, yet now his body and spirit could each reach twenty. The spirit attribute had already surged ahead, powered by the Occultist's knowledge-centric nature. His body lagged behind, a weakness he intended to fix.

Power without a foundation crumbles at the first shock.

He shifted his gaze to the abilities the system had extracted from the Astral World's first layer. The permanent connection established during sublimation allowed it to access imprints of existing Chronicles in the astral world. What intrigued him most was the system's revelation: by spending Phenomenal Points, he could extend its reach into the first layer then decipher and study these abilities until they became comprehensible.

The options materialized in his thoughts:

[Extracted Abilities – First Order Layer Analysis]

1. Gravemark Resilience (Stonekeeper Chronicle)

* Effect: Strengthens muscle density and skeletal durability through gradual mystical reinforcement.

* Requirement: Grounded contact with stone or earthen materials during focused training.

* Cost for Full Comprehension: 300 p

2. Silent Steps (Stalker Chronicle – Partially Extracted)

* Effect: Dampens sound of movement and reduces perceptual presence.

* Requirement: Focused observation of stealth-based phenomena patterns.

* Cost for Full Comprehension: 250 p (Partial data sourced from recovered ritual page)

3. Ironthread Vitality (Brassguard Chronicle)

* Effect: Enhances cardiovascular efficiency and muscular endurance, boosting stamina.

* Requirement: Repetitive physical strain to reinforce the body's adaptive response.

* Cost for Full Comprehension: 300 p

Silas tapped his finger against the edge of the desk. Each ability offered something crucial.

* Gravemark Resilience would fortify his body, hardening bone and muscle.

* Silent Steps would grant stealth—essential for investigations and survival in Evergarde's dangerous streets.

* Ironthread Vitality promised stamina, enabling him to endure prolonged exertion and potentially survive an encounter with a stronger opponent.

It wasn’t just one or two of these abilities that intrigued him—it was all of them.

Why specialize when I can have versatility?

His system had no inherent restrictions on the number of abilities he could learn. The only barrier was the cost.

"System, can I study all three abilities simultaneously?"

[Confirmed. Multiple ability studies can proceed concurrently. Each requires separate Phenomenal Point expenditure for full comprehension.]

The cost would be steep—850 points in total. He barely had a fraction of that right now. But points accumulated naturally through interactions, and Silas still had access to The Cogwheel Gazette, a position that granted constant exposure to information-rich environments.

Time isn't my enemy. Stagnation is.

The decision settled into place with a satisfying click. He would study all three abilities, balancing his physical development alongside his growing arcane insight. The Occultist was a path of knowledge, but survival required more than wisdom.

"System, commence simultaneous study of Gravemark Resilience, Silent Steps, and Ironthread Vitality. Allocate all available points and activate passive observation and comprehension. Deliver and integrate progress updates each night during sleep."

[Acknowledged. Allocating 90 p to study initiation. Passive data collection ongoing.]

The interface dimmed. The hum of the system's activity settled into the back of his consciousness. Silas leaned back in his chair, exhaustion pulling at his muscles.

His gaze drifted toward the window, where the fog coiled against the glass like pale serpents. The sky beyond remained a dark, unknowable void. His connection to the Astral World was permanent now, a thread tethering his mind to that hidden dimension.

"System, explain the nature of this connection."

[The Chronicle's initial sublimation established a persistent link with the first Astral layer. This layer contains echoes of mystical activities and Chronicle imprints of first order. The system can extend its reach through this connection to analyze patterns, identify the imprints, and extract usable data with consumption of phenomenal points.]

Silas’s eyes narrowed. The Astral World wasn't just some abstract metaphysical plane; it was a living record of mystical forces.

The fog thickened, pressing against the windowpane. Silas stood and approached it, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground rather than the sky. His reflection stared back at him—pale skin, dark hair, and the faint flicker of determination in his eyes.

The wooden mask lay on the windowsill beside him. He picked it up, ran his fingers along its smooth surface, and lifted it to his face. The eye slits framed the street below: empty, quiet, and deceptively ordinary.

The veil is thinning.

He set the mask down and turned away. The Occultist Chronicle promised understanding, but that knowledge came with risk. The creatures above had reminded him of that.

The whisper resurfaced: "See you…"

He shuddered and made a silent vow: No more looking at the sky.

For now, his focus would remain grounded—in the streets, the city, and the knowledge etched into the Astral World's first layer. The sky, with its watching things, could wait.

His path was set.

Knowledge. Body. Survival.

The work of an unseen scholar had just begun.

The morning broke with a sickly, pale light filtering through Evergarde’s ever-present fog. The air carried a metallic tang, sharp and unsettling, as if the mist itself were steeped in blood. Silas was halfway through scribbling a fabricated eyewitness account of a “shadowy figure seen near the Steamspire Bridge” when Grint’s voice shattered the relative calm.

“Crowell!” The office door slammed open, banging against the wall. Edric Grint's bulk filled the doorway, his jowls trembling with agitation beneath his patchy beard. His stained waistcoat strained against his gut as he waved a crumpled slip of paper in one meaty hand. “Get your scrawny ass moving. Bloodbath on Mournshade Street. Whole damned place locked down. Enforcers everywhere. Go. Now.”

Silas’s heartbeat quickened. He dropped his pen and stood. “Bloodbath? You mean a murder scene?”

Grint’s eyes bulged. “Did I stutter, boy? Street's painted red! Cult activity, probably. Or some feral fogborn gone wrong.” He threw the paper onto Silas’s desk. The ink smudged from sweat stains. “I need that report before noon. No half-assed guesses this time. If the Gazette doesn’t get the scoop, that damned Industrial Herald will.”

Silas swallowed the questions bubbling up in his throat and grabbed his satchel. Mournshade Street. The name sounded familiar. A residential sector near the old canal, mostly workers from the brass foundries and machinist guilds. Quiet. Unremarkable.

Until now.

Silas stepped into the street, pulling his coat tight against the damp chill. The fog clung low, swirling around his ankles like grasping hands. He pushed through the early-morning bustle of the Outer City: factory workers heading to shifts, street vendors setting up carts, children with soot-streaked faces darting through alleys. The faint hum of steam engines and the sharp clang of distant machinery created Evergarde’s familiar mechanical symphony.

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But something was off today.

People moved faster than usual, heads down, eyes wary. Conversations died as he passed. He caught snippets of hushed voices:

“…a whole street, they said…blood everywhere…”

“…Nightwatch is out in force. Even brought those weird ones with the silver pins…”

“…heard they didn’t find the thing that did it…”

The tension thickened as he neared Mournshade Street. The fog grew denser, laced with an acrid, coppery scent that made his stomach clench. Blood, the system whispered in the back of his mind. Fresh. Uncontained.

A barricade came into view ahead. Two enforcers in heavy leather coats stood beside it, rifles held tight. Their eyes scanned the crowd like cornered dogs expecting a fight. Beyond them, silhouettes moved through the mist—figures clad in dark, angular coats with glinting insignias on their shoulders. Nightwatch Wielders.

Silas slowed his pace, breathing deeply to calm the adrenaline spike. He needed to get closer without drawing attention.

He approached the barricade casually, adopting the slouched posture of a bored errand boy. The closest enforcer—a wiry man with sunken eyes—lifted a hand. “Street’s closed. Turn around.”

Silas raised his notebook and gave his most harmless smile. “Cogwheel Gazette. Boss sent me to cover the scene.” He thumbed toward his press badge, a battered copper token stamped with the paper’s cogwheel insignia. “Just here to observe from a distance, sir.”

The enforcer squinted. “Press already? Damn vultures. Go stand with the others.” He jerked a thumb toward the left, where a cluster of reporters gathered behind another barricade.

Silas forced a grateful nod. “Thank you, sir.”

He shuffled toward the indicated spot but slowed as he passed the barrier. His pulse quickened when Insight Tap stirred at the edge of his awareness. The fog wasn’t natural here. Thin, silvery threads coiled through the air—residual phenomena patterns from mystical activity. He made a mental note: Phenomena strands lingering after mass violence.

The reporters crowded the secondary barricade, whispering among themselves. A thin woman with raven-black hair and sharp eyes caught his glance. He recognized her immediately—Eliza Vale from the Industrial Herald, notorious for her relentless questions and sharper tongue.

She stood apart from the other reporters, her sharp eyes dissecting the scene with the detached precision of a surgeon. She was tall and slender, with raven-black hair pulled into a tight braid that coiled over one shoulder. Stray strands framed her angular face, giving her a perpetually wind-swept look despite the stillness of the air.

Her eyes—an icy, calculating gray—missed nothing. They flitted across the blood-soaked cobblestones, the twisted remains being carried past the barricades, and the Nightwatch officers stalking through the mist with rifles drawn. When she looked at you, it felt less like a conversation and more like an interrogation.

She wore a charcoal-gray coat tailored to fit her lean frame, its brass buttons polished to a subtle sheen. The fabric, though simple, bore faint ink stains at the cuffs—silent evidence of countless hours spent scribbling notes under dim gaslight. A leather satchel rested against her hip, bulging with notebooks and folded copies of the Industrial Herald.

Her lips rarely smiled, but when they did, the expression carried a hint of sardonic amusement—as if she were perpetually in on a secret others had yet to grasp. Her voice was smooth, measured, with a trace of dry humor that sharpened when discussing anything related to the Nightwatch or Evergarde’s nobility.

Eliza wasn't just a reporter; she was a predator. She asked the questions others feared to voice and followed leads into places even enforcers hesitated to tread. The rumor around the Gazette was that she’d once confronted a known cultist in a crowded market, cornering him with questions until the Nightwatch arrived to drag him away.

As Silas stood beside her now, he couldn't shake the feeling that she was studying him, cataloging every twitch and glance. And from the faint, knowing smile on her lips, she had already decided he was hiding something.

“Crowell, huh?” she said with a crooked smile. “Grint send you to write more stories about sewer ghosts?”

Silas shrugged. “Just here to watch the professionals work.”

Her eyes flicked toward the mist-shrouded street behind the barricade. “Yeah. Professional butchers. Ever seen a whole street turned into an abattoir?”

His stomach knotted. “What happened here, exactly?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t you hear? They haven’t figured it out yet. No monster tracks. No ritual circles. Just… blood. Pools of it. And bodies chopped like meat. Enforcers found pieces of people hanging from lamp posts.”

Silas swallowed hard. “Cult activity?”

“That’s the official guess. But…” Eliza’s gaze drifted toward the fog. “Nightwatch brought their specialists. The ones with the silver-vine pins. Means it’s bigger than some back-alley cult.”

Silas filed the detail away. The Nightwatch had specialists—Wielders trained to identify and neutralize anomalous phenomena. The silver-vine insignia marked officers from the Phenomena Division, a unit tasked with investigating incidents tied to Astral resonance. Their presence here meant something far worse than a mundane massacre.

A commotion at the barricade drew their attention. Two enforcers hauled a blood-soaked stretcher from the mist. The canvas covering sagged unnaturally. A severed arm flopped free, the skin pale and slick, fingers twisted into a clawed grasp.

Eliza paled. “Third one they’ve brought out like that.”

Silas’s breath quickened. His Chronicle stirred, urging him to see beneath the surface. He activated Insight Tap.

The world shifted. The fog thinned, revealing faint impressions of what had happened. Blood-patterns painted the cobblestones in unnatural spirals. The strands of phenomena energy twisted toward a central point—a void where the air itself seemed scarred. The distortion crackled faintly with residual traces of intent.

The sensation turned his stomach. The killer didn’t just strike bodies. It fractured the Astral resonance here.

He followed the threads upward with his gaze and froze.

Strips of flesh dangled from the overhead wires. Blood dripped onto the cobblestones below, pooling unnaturally without soaking into the cracks. More disturbing, however, was the aura clinging to the remains: jagged and incomplete, like a fractured signature.

The chronicle hummed softly and the insight tap shared the results.

[Pattern recognized: Forced Sublimation Failure. Origin: Unknown Chronicle signature.]

Forced sublimation failure? His mind raced. Sublimation required strict adherence to an oath. Forcing it on someone without their knowledge or consent should have been impossible. Yet the bodies here suggested otherwise.

He heard footsteps. A figure emerged from the fog, accompanied by two Nightwatch officers. The man wore a long coat adorned with a silver-vine pin on the lapel. His hair was white, his eyes sharp and cold.

Silas recognized him immediately: Lieutenant Quinn. The officer who had nearly spotted him weeks ago.

Quinn paused, scanning the crowd. His gaze lingered on Silas for an uncomfortably long moment.

Silas’s pulse spiked. He deactivated Insight Tap and dropped his gaze to his notebook, scribbling nonsense to appear occupied. The system’s warning echoed in his mind.

Forced sublimation.

Someone—or something—was breaking the natural order of Chronicle progression. And whatever had caused this bloodbath had left no footprints.

Suddenly he felt an intense gaze upon him, turned to look, and saw Elize staring at him. Silas shifted uncomfortably under Eliza’s gaze. Her eyes, sharp and unyielding, flicked to his notebook, then back to his face. The faint smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth wasn’t one of amusement—it was the look of a cat toying with a mouse, waiting for it to move.

“You’ve got that look, Crowell,” she said, voice smooth and low. “Seen it before. Someone trying to pretend they don’t see what’s right in front of them.”

Silas forced a chuckle. “Just trying to figure out how to turn this mess into a headline. ‘Bloodbath on Mournshade Street—City Gripped by Fear.’ Grint loves the dramatic stuff.”

Eliza tilted her head, braid swaying across her shoulder. “Sure. Let me guess—you’ve already got a theory?”

He gave a half-shrug, careful not to meet her eyes too long. “Cult work, probably. Blood magic. Classic story.”

Her smile widened, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Maybe. If you ignore the lack of ritual circles. Or the way the blood pooled unnaturally.” She tapped the corner of her notebook with a gloved finger. “You noticed it too.”

His stomach clenched. She saw me noticing.

“I… guess it’s weird,” he said, feigning nonchalance. “Fog playing tricks on us, maybe.”

“No. The fog’s been heavier lately, but that blood’s not natural.” Her voice dropped a notch. “It’s still warm. After hours.”

Silas frowned. Blood didn’t behave like that. Not without external influence. He cast a quick glance toward the slick cobblestones beyond the barricade. The crimson puddles glimmered faintly through the mist, untouched by time or temperature.

Residual phenomena activity. The strands I saw with Insight Tap.

Eliza leaned closer, her breath faint against the cold air. “See? You know what I mean.”

He stepped back instinctively. “I just run errands for Grint. He doesn’t pay me enough to solve mysteries.”

“Then why are your hands shaking?”

Silas froze. He looked down. His fingers trembled faintly where they gripped the notebook. He clenched them into a fist and stuffed his hand into his coat pocket. “Long night,” he muttered.

Eliza didn’t respond. Her gaze lingered on him for an uncomfortably long time before she turned away. “Watch yourself, Crowell. Places like this… they don’t just stain the streets.”

She moved off toward another group of reporters, braid swinging with each step.

Silas exhaled slowly, pulse still racing. He hated how easily she’d read him. The system thrummed faintly in the back of his mind, its passive scan feeding him stray impressions from the scene. The blood shimmered faintly with phenomena residue, but the pattern eluded him.

Focus.

He activated Insight Tap again, this time keeping his gaze low to avoid any potential skyward horrors. The world shifted into its enhanced clarity: the blood on the street wasn’t just pooled haphazardly. It flowed along faint, branching lines etched into the cobblestones. Not carved—imprinted. The stone itself had warped beneath the pressure of some invisible force.

The pattern resembled veins spreading from a central point near the mouth of an alley. He tracked the lines, heart pounding.

"System, analyze phenomena patterns."

The response came almost immediately.

[Analysis Complete – Pattern Type: Forced Sublimation Residue.]

He swallowed.

The same term that his ability had identified earlier. Sublimation was supposed to be a personal, internal process—a bond between Chronicle, Wielder, and the Astral World. It couldn't be imposed from outside… could it?

He inched closer to the alley’s edge. The enforcers were distracted by another stretcher being hauled from a nearby building. Silas crouched beside the cobblestones, pretending to scribble notes while extending his awareness.

The system’s analysis sharpened. New lines of energy shimmered into view, connecting the blood to the stone and then rising like invisible tendrils into the fog.

Something tried to sublimate these people.

The realization struck like a slap. He scanned the remains being carried past. Limbs torn from sockets. Torsos sheared open. And yet, the blood had been drawn toward the center of the street, as though the process had tried to extract something beyond mere life.

The air grew colder. The system hummed with faint static.

A voice, low and rasping, broke the silence behind him.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Silas's breath caught. He turned slowly.

A man stood at the alley entrance. Tall, lean, and wrapped in a dark coat with the silver-vine pin glinting on his collar. His face was pale, skin stretched tight over high cheekbones. His eyes—dark, sunken pools—locked onto Silas’s with unblinking intensity.

Nightwatch Division.

Silas forced a nervous smile. “Press,” he said, tapping his badge. “Cogwheel Gazette. Just doing my job.”

The man's eyes didn’t waver. “Step away from the alley. Now.”

Silas hesitated, then stood. His knees wobbled slightly, but he forced himself to move at a casual pace.

Silas didn’t remember leaving Mournshade Street. He only realized he’d walked halfway across the Outer City when the fog thinned enough to reveal the crooked silhouette of his building. He climbed the steps to his room, locked the door, and collapsed into the chair.

The system interface pulsed into view without prompting.

[Warning: Extended Insight Tap usage may have left traceable resonance signature. Recommend caution.]

He shivered. The system’s abilities left faint imprints—patterns that others, with the right skills, could track.

He ran a hand over his face. Forced sublimation. Someone had tried to forcibly awaken Wielders by flooding an entire street with raw, astral energy. And it had gone horribly wrong.

He thought of Eliza’s sharp eyes. Of the officer’s warning. Of the blood that refused to dry.