Chapter 209 - Crescent Bay

The boulevard stretched endlessly into the distance, its edges dissolving into a thick crimson fog that writhed like a living entity. Tall spires pierced through the miasma, their tips barely visible as dark sentinels against the blood-red sky.

A symphony of discordant sounds—muffled whispers, distant screams, and the hollow echo of footsteps—created a nauseating chorus that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

The buildings that flanked them stood like specters, their facades seeming…stale? Hmm, not sure how else to interpret that. They felt untouched, but a bit too much for a place where tens of thousands lived just a couple of weeks ago.

Shapes slithered through the shadows far in the distance beyond the moonlight's reach, neither approaching nor retreating, maintaining an unspoken boundary between their realm and the group's path.

What caught Vern's attention were the peculiar flowers that dotted the cobblestones—white blooms unlike any he'd seen in Elmhurst. They appeared in scattered clusters throughout the street, their petals catching the moonlight in an unusual way. More of these strange flowers could be spotted near buildings and windowsills, adding an unexpected touch of beauty to this otherwise unsettling district.

Through the gaps in the crimson haze, glimpses of gothic architecture revealed itself—elegant spires, ornate facades, low iron fences, and detailed stonework that seemed untouched by time despite the district's current plight.

Cautiously, Vern unveiled his perception, slowly expanding it outwards. He met some resistance—a clear sign that this place was not in its objective state. Fortunately, the deviation isn't too much. Whatever's manipulating the surroundings is either not powerful enough or spread too thin.

The latter seemed more probable. If that thing was observing all of the bay, it might be passively altering the state of the whole borough. The thought instantly chilled his heart.

I shouldn't use Axiom's singularity no matter what, he reiterated to himself. If that thing took notice of high-shade observers, then it was only logical that flaring his alter singularity would turn him into a beacon at night—a prey for that thing.

He suppressed the pessimistic thoughts and focused on the grayscale representation of his immediate surroundings that appeared in his mind. He checked it under the lens of stability and instantly noticed how it was brighter than a typical structure outside the bay.

Interesting… he murmured, filing that information away as he slowed down.

He'd been leading the group, and the rest followed silently until now, but this change seemed to remind them of their mission as Haytham ordered the Kingsman on their team of eight, who was also an observer, "Rubel, bring out the insect, and begin the search. We can't rely on outsiders to actually do their job."

Vern was already over this man's petty condescension. Actions spoke louder than words, and he'd already spoken more to them than he deemed necessary.

So, with a nod towards Lucian, he retrieved a case and a vial from his inner pocket. He held the tiny glass vial in front of him and superimposed a mental vision of the vial's cap breaking off with structural instability.

Crunch! The glass burst, and a ferrous smell assailed his nostrils. At once, he snapped the casing open in his other hand and poured the liquid on top of the dormant vermin, its hundreds of tendrils shining brightly against the moonlight.

This was how one fed a vermin. They didn't exactly have a mouth to ingest foreign substances. It was their whole body that absorbed things. He wasn't sure how one was supposed to feed them solids, but that was a question for later.

The blood in the vial quickly bottomed out as tiny vermin somehow absorbed it all, turning bright red as the liquid seeped through all its tendrils, making it look like a bloody organism.

Lucian stole glances at him, copying the procedure step by step, except he broke the vial with just his fingers.

The vermin let out high-pitched screams one after the other, grating on everyone's ears—no, it was deeper than that. It was grating on their very being, but it wasn't strong enough to actually harm them.

Soon, their screeches died out as they began pulsing, and this was the cue Vern had been waiting for. The seven others who'd been watching silently took formation around their members, with Vern and Lucian vaguely in their circle.

Vern didn't need it. At least not right now. He kept a strong vigil around him with his perception. While they hadn't encountered anything dangerous as of yet, he wasn't about to drop his guard in this nightmarish place.

Making contact with the vermin, he began observing its patterns the way Professor Carter taught him. The suggestions were unique for each vermin for each item, and he had to study it for a bit to comprehend it.

Hmm, I see.

.

.

.

So this one is the component suggesting we head north, while that one is to move a bit higher. Then—

"I got it, boss!" shouted Rubel from the group's center. He pointed in some direction and yelled, "It's over there."

Haytham looked at Vern and Lucian as he scoffed, "So much for being specialists."

Lucian's eye twitched. Slowly turning around, he cracked his neck, "You really want a fight, huh?"

Haytham waved his hand and walked away, "Heh, don't act tough, kid. You're still only a first infusion bloodling. Your little parlor tricks as an Observer won't save you against us."

Lucian's grip on his greatsword tightened as a dark purple gleam shone in his eyes.

Vern clutched the man's shoulder before shaking his head. "Don't do it. We are better than this."

His poorly dressed friend gnashed his teeth as Haytham sneered at them, "Cowards."

Vern didn't let go until the Kingsmen all moved on, and Lucian calmed down a little. He returned to focusing on the Vermin in his hands as he followed the troupe with a little distance between them. I need multiple data points for triangulation anyway.

He didn't have any issues with following them to this lead. Who knew? Maybe this Rubel guy had a better synergy with the vermin than either of them. Lucian spat and did the same, stomping as he followed the crowd.

Unlit lamp posts guided them through winding alleys, past pristine storefronts frozen in time—their windows gleaming as if freshly polished. Those strange white flowers dotted the cobblestone, their petals catching moonlight in ways that seemed almost deliberate, clustering near doorways and windowsills like pale sentinels.

Abel's Supplies and Sundries, Caleb's Fish House, Backwater Apothecary, The Salted Crown—each establishment preserved in an unsettling state of perfection, as though the plague had simply... edited out the people, leaving everything else untouched.

What unsettled Vern most wasn't what he saw but what he didn't. No signs of panic, no overturned carts, and no desperate messages scrawled on walls. For a district supposedly ravaged by plague, the absolute absence of decay felt wrong—like a painting where the artist had meticulously erased all traces of life and death alike.

What kind of plague leaves no bodies behind? The question echoed in his mind as they pressed forward, each pristine cobblestone mocking their expectations of horror.

At that moment, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and held an arm to stop Lucian, who obliged and turned alert.

Flanked by a shallow ravine and a storehouse, the entourage halted, their breath caught in apprehension. Withered trees and undelivered shipments littered their surroundings, and from behind one such box, a shape jumped out.

"Formation Thirteen!" shouted Haytham as three Kingsmen stepped forward with zero hesitation. The man himself, alongside Rubel, retreated to the center of the configuration as the remaining three covered their backs.

Vern also gripped his cane tightly, ready to switch it to Duality at the drop of a hat. I might not need to do anything, though. His perception only picked up this one entity and nothing else.

Assuming these Kingsmen weren't just all talk and at least half-competent, this shouldn't require him to intervene.

Skreee! The humanoid screeched as it rushed at the vanguard. It was a short being with deathly pale skin and even paler eyes. With its mouth perpetually open, it skittered along with its misshapen feet, lunging towards the frontline without any thought for its life.

What a terrible fate, Vern hissed.

Strings launched from the ropecaster with a whirr as it impaled into the body of the entity. Yet, outside everyone's expectations, the hook didn't pierce through to the other side.

Resilient, Vern thought. Being able to stop that much force with its flesh alone spoke of its tenacity.

Frowning, the attacker snapped the wire with his own blade, using the launcher in his other hand to barely escape the swipe of claws at himself.

Swish! The right Kingsmen took the opportunity to launch a vertical slash at the foe's arm. This time, the attack bore fruit. The pale arm cleanly severed off the shoulder, leaving a…dry stump? No blood leaked…instead, the flesh tightened within a moment and wriggled with vigor.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Strong, Vern remarked. This plagued entity might be sturdy, but Kingsmen weren't to be shortchanged either. That slash was mightier than what a steam-powered machine managed.

"Heh—" the attacker chuckled, only to double back in the very next moment as a new arm shot out of the stump almost instantly.

Vern's eyes flared as he observed this phenomenon with all his attention. Hmm, its whole body destabilized during the regrowth but steadied soon after—as if it didn't lose a limb at all.

That seemed to break the fundamentals of energy conservation…except it didn't. There was some kind of viewpoint at play here that consumed flux—formless mental energy from Everflux to transform some other matter into flesh tissue.

But it's not structure fundamental. He was sure of that. While the flesh being constructed could happen through structural manipulation of subatomic particles of air, this was clearly facilitated through a different ideology.

Maybe creation?

His musings continued unabated while the three Kingsmen in the vanguard frowned, "It's a regenerating one, boss. What are your orders?"

Haytham squinted before shouting, "Ignite…"

Instantly, all three sheathed their blades as the steam core on their backs went into overdrive. Embers dispersed out of their back as the sheath ground the blades with their hallmark technique.

An orange hue tainted the white vista as the pale humanoid randomly chose one of the three and lunged toward that one. Skree!!

All three reapers took the chance to reposition and ran at very specific speeds. Vern quickly realized what they were doing. In but a moment, the foe was in the middle of the three kingsmen, who instantly began closing in the moment they formed a triangle around it.

The pale thing used this chance to charge a heavy swipe of his own.

That's when Haytham raised his arms and…Bang! echoed the gunshot as the pellets hit their mark with perfection, eviscerating half of the enemy's head and interrupting its charge.

Making use of the opportunity, the three Kingsmen surrounded him between themselves as their six seething blades stabbed his body from all angles.

The flames began to cook its innards from all sides, yet even that wasn't enough. The entity's healing went on full overdrive, closing the wounds around the blades.

"Now!" Haytham shouted and…

Boom! thundered an explosion at point-blank range. No, it wasn't a single explosion—there were many. Each of the six blades burst with their dark spheres of unstable energy as a mist exploded out of them.

Vern stared, double-checking the information of his perception through his eyes. I don't think Ignition Blades can explode. On top of that, the outbursts were a different color from the flames themselves. They held a red hue, not orange.

He squinted. Some kind of blood explosion?

Interesting…

When the fog cleared up, all three front liners were panting. With a clang, they discarded the molted blades, and they attached new ones from the spares hanging on their sides.

"Good work," remarked Haytham with a nod as the whole group's tight formation relaxed. As for the pale humanoid, it was…gone. Not even ash was left where it once stood.

Turning back towards Vern and Lucian, Haytham chuckled, "Unlike our pacifist friends, we at least accomplished something."

Vern just sighed and ignored them as he cut through their ranks to get to what was left of the being. He didn't come here to waste time. Surely, that was a plagued human.

While the thought of cutting down humans who'd contracted a plague felt like a cruel thing to do, he was unable to help it.

He wasn't versed in alchemy or medicine enough to create a cure on the spot, and if things were that simple, the situation wouldn't have come to this.

"What do you want?" questioned Haytham warily as Vern closed in.

"Our end goal isn't to fight these things for the sake of it. We need to find the source of the plague, don't we?" Vern questioned.

This time, Rubel responded sharply, "You want to take credit for our work, don't you?"

Huh? What? That was a baffling conclusion.

Glares converged on him from all around as one of the women chimed in with a scathing tone, "Rubel brought us here, but you want to claim the next sample for yourself? What happened to shame? Rubel can figure out the next destination by himself, thank you very much."

Lady above, are all the low-infusion Kingsmen this petty? Vern exhaled and replied with a straight face, "I was going to check the new sample for the sake of being thorough, but it's not going to be helpful. You do realize that this sample isn't any purer than the one we were given, right?"

That was the truth. Professor Carter had told them about the source of the sample. Its abilities were very close to the being that was just erased by these Kingsmen.

"Huh, you’re not just shameless but a sore loser to a fault, too. Just admit that you're in the wrong here. There's no need to lie like that and derail the whole mission. Truly, I didn't expect Lady Amelia to train such a fraud. This is—"

"Wait!" Vern abruptly yelled, raising his arm.

"What now? You got another excuse to justify your falshoods?"

"You see? This Vigil of Duskfall is full of frauds. Clearly, they aren't up to par—"

"Shut up!" Vern repeated, hurrying to where the severed arm had fallen.

Frowns etched everyone's faces, but they followed him with their eyes regardless, with none moving to make it easier for him.

"It's gone…" he murmured.

All eyes slowly caught up before a silent hush fell throughout the group.

"Do you…do you think he whisked it away with his observer magic?"

"Could be. You never know what these freaks are up to."

However, Rubel spoke up, "No. It…it wasn't him. I think it just…dissolved?"

"What are you talking about?" interjected Haytham, "How could that be? It's got to be them. If not this one, then the other one. I heard he could phase through solid walls. If he can do that, who's to say he didn't phase the severed arm through the ground or something?"

By the lady, he didn't want to deal with these people right now. A clue disappeared in front of everyone's eyes but they were more focused on playing the blame game.

"Yeah, I'm sure it's these fuckers. They want to make a fool out of us in front of the whole wide world."

Thump!

"Alright. Enough…" thundered Lucian as he thrust his sword into the ground in front of him.

"Enough of your passive-aggressive bullshit," he shouted, his chin high and expression deadly. "If all of you want a fight, bring it the fuck on! I'll take on all of you—all at once." A purple aura flared around him as he stood tall, his demeanor suddenly turning oppressive.

Vern, on the other hand, frowned. This felt…wrong. He'd interacted with many kingsmen during his time in Elmhurst. None of them had been this hostile, no matter the political differences, especially when so much was at stake.

Do they not understand the situation?

He almost wondered if these people were under the influence of a Shepherd or something. That would explain their animosity. Except there was no way such manipulations would miss the eyes of high-infusion Kingsmen like Lady Ernes and Lord Osric.

There's something off here. I just can't put my finger on it.

"Hehh, the pup really wants to go against the whole pack, huh?" Haytham's sneer carried across the crimson-tinted air as he retreated to the safety of his colleagues. "Formation Three!"

Vern felt a headache coming on. This is absurd. Unfortunately, he had to intervene or this would end badly.

"Listen carefully because I won't repeat myself," he thundered, his voice cutting through the tension with cold precision.

Both sides paused for but an instant, fully of mind to dismiss his weak arguments.

"Either we end this pointless posturing now, or I'll make sure Lady Ernes and Lord Osric learn exactly why her plague investigation stalled—because her subordinates were too busy picking fights instead of actually focusing on the task at hand."

"Oh, really? Seems like we need to knock both of them down a peg, not just the one with the big sword." chuckled Haytham, trying to hold back his laughter, "You think we'll let you run back to the bridge?"

Vern's hand brushed against the pages in his pocket as he looked the not-so-tall Haytham straight in his red eyes, "I don't even need to move an inch to send the message."

Haytham quieted down, suspicious, but a hint of caution also appeared in his demeanor. Turning to Rubel, he whispered something, to which the observer nodded nervously, "…boss, there are indeed methods of communication that work everywhere. He's not lying."

After a heated exchange of hateful glances on both sides, Haytham eked out, "Stand down. We don't have proof of their lies, so we should let it slide this time. The mission takes precedence."

"Yes, leader!"

"As you say."

Vern sighed inwardly but kept the stoic expression plastered for others to see. It seemed he'd overthought the complexity of this situation. These were indeed just…petty humans. They bullied the weak and feared the strong. Even though he and Lucian weren't exactly weak, two against eight wasn't really fair.

Well, at least they'll stop being a total nuisance now that there's a dangling threat of corrective actions from their superiors over their heads.

Lucian harrumphed, "So much for being warriors."

Haytham's eye twitched, and after another disgusted look, he barked, "Alright. If you're such great warriors, I'm sure you can handle the oncoming battles yourself. Please show us your prowess and enlighten us."

The rest of the troupe nodded religiously, covering their sneers and laughs. "Surely, you can do that much, right? Or will you complain about this to Lord and Ladies, too?"

Before Lucian could stir the pot anymore, Vern interjected, "Yeah, that's fine." He wanted the one to fight the next one himself anyway. Kingsmen's methods didn't leave even a single drop of blood for him to feed the vermin, and it sounded like a hassle to ask this group to cooperate with him.

Might as well do it myself. It wasn't his first time fighting enemies with regenerative abilities, anyway.

I hope they come around once it's clear that we aren't trying to steal their thunder. It would only get riskier if all of them remained divided and continued in-fighting like this.

"Heh, let's see how much time he'll waste without our Rubel leading the way…"

"We have to leave before the sun rises. I think we should ditch them if they fail to find something of import in an hour. Then even Lord Osric can't blame us."

Others nodded and launched another bout of backhanded insults.

Vern ignored the chatter and walked up to Lucian, who was still seething. "Hold that anger for an actual fight," he murmured as he shouted, "Let's go. I'll lead the way."

He'd already calculated the direction of a purer source from the hints of the vermin and triangulation. His third data point wasn't good enough, but he could always adjust it as they moved.

So, not minding the jeers and conspiracies brewing behind him, he focused on his contact with the vermin.

.

.

.

They wove through the district's twisted arteries, Vern's perception guiding them away from lesser threats. Through his mental map, he spotted multiple pale figures lurking in adjacent streets and alleyways, but none worth engaging—their essence too diluted to warrant investigation.

The Kingsmen bristled each time he led them around potential conflicts, but he ignored their muttered accusations of cowardice. No point wasting time on impure samples.

The white flowers grew denser as they approached the waterfront, their petals now seeming to pulse in rhythm with something unseen. Warehouses loomed ahead, their weathered stone facades reflecting the moonlight. Vern's vermin grew increasingly agitated, their suggestions becoming more urgent, more focused.

He held up his hand, stopping the group at the corner of Merchant's Way. Through the gaps of a mineral warehouse's boarded windows, he caught glimpses of movement—three figures. Two prowled near the entrance with mindless fervor. These were the same ones as before, but the third...

Something's different about that one.

Its movements were too precise, too measured. Where the others shambled, this one flowed like liquid mercury. Crystalline protrusions jutted from its humanoid form, catching moonlight in ways that seemed almost deliberate. As Vern studied it, he noticed how the creature's presence seemed to affect its surroundings—minerals in the nearby walls slowly warping, reaching out like fingers.

Most concerning was how the other two oriented themselves around it, moving in perfect synchronization despite their apparent mindlessness. Not random. Not individual. A coordinated unit.

"Time to get this show on the road," Vern whispered, his cane already shifting forms as Lucian's outline began to blur. For once, even the Kingsmen fell silent, their earlier bravado evaporating as they witnessed the warehouse's entrance ripple with unnatural activity. Whatever awaited them inside was leagues beyond the threats they'd avoided—and exactly what Vern had been searching for.