The dark campus stretched before Julius and Ciaran, winding pathways illuminated only by the faint glow of scattered lamps and the occasional glimmer of moonlight filtering through the trees. A crisp chill hung in the air, clinging to the damp gravel underfoot and pooling in the hollows between buildings. Ciaran walked beside Julius, wrapped tightly in a large overcoat. With each step he took, an unseen chain rattled.

Ciaran broke the silence, his voice dropping to a reverent tone. “So, Homer’s Iliad,” he began. “At first glance it’s a simple tale of gods and heroes, a chronicle of the great battles of the ancient world; similar to normal Greek myth in their minds. I sure viewed it as such when I first read it in high school. But it’s so much more than that? There’s a weight to it—a heaviness that has nothing to do with the fights themselves. It's soaked in mortality. An awareness that even the greatest among us are still bound to dust in the end.”

Julius looked up towards Ciarian. “Exactly. The story’s haunted by a sense of inevitability. You get the feeling that the heroes know they’re just moments in a story that’s bigger than any of them, something that’ll carry on long after they’re gone. It’s not just Achilles or Hector. The entire war is wrapped up in it; they can't escape it, not that they try to.”

Ciaran cast a sidelong look at Julius. “Sharp, you see right to the bones of the thing.” He chuckled. “I shouldn’t be surprised, though. With a father like yours, it makes sense. I imagine you’ve been reading Homer since you were wearing diapers.”

Julius shrugged. “Maybe. But I think… I just like it… Though I did only get into it for a girl. I am really into film. I want to become a scriptwriter… But I don’t know any more…” His voice grew quiet.

Ciaran paused mid-step, the chains rattling with the abrupt stop. “For a girl, huh,” he said, his tone dropping even lower, “Looks like you and I have a lot more in common than I first thought! And if you love the arts, this program will be perfect for you! Kyoto offers amazing courses on literature: plays, poetry, prose; plus your non-secular activities will give your writing quite the inspiration!”

Julius gave a small nod, his gaze fixed on the ground in front of them. After a moment, he glanced around the darkened campus, sweeping over the long shadows stretching across the pathway. He could feel the weight of the quiet pressing down, broken only by the soft slap of their footsteps. He finally cleared his throat, the question that had been nagging at him breaking free. “So… why are we out here? What does a hunt even entail? Are we actually hunting for monsters?” He hesitated, remembering the night he’d encountered the creature, his voice turning quieter, almost resentful. “I feel like if it was this easy to find monsters, I wouldn’t have been blindsided by one. I’d have at least known they existed.”

Ciaran’s hand came down on Julius’s shoulder. “If they were easy to find it wouldn’t be a hunt,” he said. “They’re rare, these creatures—most don’t just lurk around, waiting to be found. Going on a hunt usually involves a lot more intel, knowing the patterns, the traces, the types of places they might hide.” He paused, his gaze sharpening. “And sometimes, it’s more about understanding how they operate than simply finding them. Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t anti-life entities all around us, slipping through in ways most people never notice.”

They walked a few more steps, Ciaran’s voice trailing off into the night. Then he stopped, and Julius felt it—a strange pulse, like a wave of energy shooting through him, unsettling and electric. His skin prickled, the sensation filling him with a feeling he could not quite place. Before he could speak, he saw Ciaran slip his hand into his coat pocket, pull out a small piece of bread, and toss it out in front of them, letting it land just under the nearest lamppost’s light.

Julius raised his eyebrows, his eyes darting between Ciaran and the small piece of bread. “What… what are you doing?” he asked. He was about to say more, but Ciaran raised a finger to his lips.

“Just watch,” Ciaran whispered, his gaze fixed on the bread. The quiet stretched out between them as Julius shifted his weight.

A rat crept cautiously toward the bread, nose twitching as it sniffed the air. It edged closer, its tiny claws scraping softly against the pavement, before it lowered its head and began nibbling at the bread. Julius watched, curious but still unsure what to expect. Suddenly, the rat went stiff, its small body frozen in place mid-bite, its muscles locked in a tight, unnatural pose.

Julius leaned in. “What just happened?”

Ciaran’s lips curled into a small smile as he stepped forward. “The bread’s laced with a minor paralytic,” he said. “Nothing fatal… just enough to keep it still for a bit.” He crouched beside the immobilized rat and gently scooped it up.

“Now,” he began, glancing at Julius, “before anything else, let me teach you the basic philosophy behind exorcisms. It all starts with pneuma.” He paused, letting the word hang in the air. “We believe pneuma is the building block of the universe. It’s the essence, the breath of life that animates all living beings. Pneuma is what gives the human spirit its vitality, what lets us breathe, think, and act. It’s the life force, you could say. But it’s also what sets apart those who are extraordinary among us. Think of it as the source of power, the force that drives people like your mother, and, in a way, those like us. Without pneuma, our talents, our abilities, wouldn’t be what they are.”

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“Why haven’t I ever heard of it?” Julius asked.

“Well, not everyone accepts pneuma as the ultimate source of life or even the source of metaphysical powers,” Ciaran said with a shrug. “People have different theories—some might think their ability to do the extraordinary is just a form of energy, something you can mold for particular techniques. And given the countless pneumatic techniques out there, who can blame them? ‘Sorcery,’ ‘Magica,’ ‘Blessings’—different names, same misunderstanding. Though, I’m sure they would say the same about our beliefs.”

He lifted the rat higher. “Pneuma can exist in its raw form, but it can also be shaped into either life or anti-life.” His voice dropped lower, more intense. “See, this rat here—it’s life, like you and me. It’s a living creature, connected to that same universal pneuma.”

Julius nodded slowly, his eyes on the rat.

“Thing is,” he went on, “rats are often carriers of parasites. They’re life, but they bring along other forms of life with them, and those are different. Parasites, whether they’re fleas, bot flies, ticks, ringworm, heartworms…they’re alive, too, but they’re different. They’ve adapted to survive by drawing on another form of existence.”

“And that's anti-life?” Julius asked.

“Close,” Ciaran replied. “Not pure anti-life, but something close enough. Parasites have evolved to incorporate just enough anti-life to sustain themselves at another creature’s expense. It’s life twisted by necessity.” He held the rat out to Julius, the tiny creature’s eyes still wide and frozen. “Think of it as a shadow of anti-life—a living thing, yes, but one that’s developed to thrive off others. It’s the closest natural thing we have to what anti-life can look like when it mingles with the living.”

Ciaran’s gaze drifted over the rat in his hand, his voice taking on an almost clinical tone. “When life is touched by anti-life, it creates... different effects.” He paused, watching the rat’s unblinking stare. “Sometimes, you end up with life that sustains itself by draining the vitality of another—parasites, leeches. Or,” he added, his tone darkening, “you get something altogether worse. A creature twisted by anti-life into something murderous, something with a hunger that can’t be sated.”

He glanced up at Julius, ensuring he was able to follow the logic before continuing. “Pure anti-life, though? That’s rarer—and deadlier. The simplest form of it we know is a virus.”

“Viruses are… anti-life?”

“Precisely.” Ciaran’s expression was grim. “For some reason, viruses seem to be the most successful carriers of anti-life. They’re small, barely even life by most standards, yet resilient. Anti-life struggles to create larger life forms—it’s too unstable, too volatile. But viruses? They’re simple enough that anti-life can latch on, create, and spread like wildfire.”

He tilted the rat in his hand, the poor creature still locked in paralysis. “Anti-life has a tendency to corrupt anything it touches, like a taint that seeps through living tissue. Take rabies, for example. A virus that takes a harmless animal—a dog, a fox, a bat—and turns it violent. It doesn’t kill immediately. No, it has its own twisted goals, its own cycle. Anti-life likes to get its kicks by taking something harmless and turning it into a monster.”

“So,” he began, glancing nervously at the rat in Ciaran’s hand, “this hunt… is it about tracking down things like that?”

“It’s about understanding them,” he said. “Knowing how to stop them. And, more importantly, knowing what to watch out for when you feel something in your gut, a sense that something’s… off. Anti-life doesn’t always show itself in obvious ways. But if you’re perceptive, if you know what to look for—like I said before, you can prevent yourself from getting caught off guard.”

Ciaran held the rat carefully, his voice low and controlled. “Anti-life doesn’t just infect a creature’s surface. It can dig deeper, corrupt them to the core, until they’re almost unrecognizable.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “That thing you saw, that wasn’t just some infected animal. It was a creature made purely of anti-life—a rare and violent entity. They go by many names. The one you encountered, that was a djin. They appear like warped, dark humanoids, twisted by anti-life.”

“So… pure anti-life. That’s something that just, what, emerges?”

“More often than not,” Ciaran replied, “Most ‘anti-life’ are born from the corruption of normal life. Sometimes it starts as a small seed, a runaway cancerous growth. Sometimes it’s sparked by a violent twist in the natural order.” He stretched out his hand, the air around it shimmering with a strange purple energy—pneuma, but darker, richer. He let it flow from his fingertips, channeling it into the paralyzed rat.

The rat’s eyes widened, and, all at once, thin, wriggling worms began spilling from its mouth, its fur rippling as they pushed out from under its skin. Ciaran’s voice was calm, almost clinical. “These worms,” he said, watching as they tore through the rat’s tiny form, “they’re gorging on its life force. And by feeding it just the right frequency of pneuma, I can trigger the anti-life within.”

Julius’s stomach twisted as he watched the rat convulse, its tiny body erupting in thin, jagged spikes from the parasites that poured out of its mouth, bursting through its flesh to form new, grotesque openings. Moments later, with a final shudder, the rat exploded, torn apart in a spray of red and purple. In its place, a single massive worm writhed, its skin bristling with fierce, barbed spikes, hungrily scanning its new environment.

“But pneuma,” Ciaran continued, unfazed, “is also a weapon against these things—a cure.” He placed his hand over the creature, sending another pulse of pneuma through his fingers, this one brighter, more focused. The worm hissed, its writhing intensifying as the pneuma coursed through it, until it began to dissolve, its flesh disintegrating into a smoldering black ash.

Ciaran straightened, the purple hue fading from his hand. “Now you understand, Julius. Anti-life can be fought. But it takes precision—and a hell of a lot of knowledge… Now let's go party.”