Pritt, Tivian.
Night had fallen. Inside an abandoned warehouse on the southern outskirts of Tivian, clouds of dust and grit from a recent explosion hung thick in the air. Those caught within could hardly see a thing, only dim silhouettes in the haze.
Atif stood amid that swirling dust, his gaze darting warily over the blurred shapes. He remembered the final warning from the “real Hadi,” now dead, and braced himself for the possibility that another of his subordinates was an imposter. This would be the perfect opportunity for an ambush.
“Come on, you sneaky shapeshifter. Show me who you’ve disguised yourself as this time.”
His eyes fixed on the three shadowy figures in front of him. He fully intended to respond the instant one of them showed any sign of sudden hostility. Calmly, he waited in the dusty gloom. Finally, as the veil of dust began to thin, one of the three shadows suddenly lunged in his direction.
“Here we go!”
Seeing the attack, Atif instantly hurled a bone fragment he had ready. Out poured over a dozen half-transparent ghosts, swarming toward the figure in the dust and clinging to them.
In the grip of these specters, the assailant was momentarily locked in place. Atif seized the chance to dash forward, grabbing the pinned attacker’s hand and channeling power from the extraordinary soul he harbored.
At once, a white frost spread outward from their point of contact, rapidly encasing the attacker’s entire body in ice. Within seconds, the would-be assailant stood frozen solid, utterly immobilized.
Having subdued this attacker, Atif felt relieved, assuming he had finally taken down the second impostor. But just as he leaned in to check the captive’s face, something else unexpected happened.The other two shapes looming in the dusty air both pounced at him from either side. Weary from the last fight, and thinking the threat was neutralized, Atif wasn’t fully prepared. He never expected more of his own subordinates might suddenly strike. Could it be all four of them had been replaced?
Startled, Atif tried to dodge, but unprepared as he was, he couldn’t avoid both attacks. One blow—a curved blade—slashed across his left shoulder. The other—a set of claws—raked his abdomen. If not for Atif’s quick reflexes, both would’ve likely hit his vitals.
Atif was drawing on the soul of an ice elementalist, so he could command “ice power,” but not the fortified “Stone” defenses. Because he could only actively use one aspect of a soul’s ability, he lacked a stone carapace to protect him. Yet thanks to the Chalice aspect of his auxiliary path, he was incredibly durable, so these two severe wounds weren’t immediately fatal.
Coughing up blood, Atif commanded the dozens of ghosts currently affixed to the ice-locked attacker to switch hosts. The specters swarmed onto the two that had ambushed him, slowing them down. In that moment, Atif glimpsed their faces.
He saw two longtime comrades—men who had gone through countless dangers with him over the years—now staring back in a contorted fury he had never seen before. Under ordinary circumstances, such abnormal rage would have alarmed Atif. But right now, after being wounded by them, his own anger boiled to the surface, a desperate urge to protect himself, to kill these traitors.
That savage desire had been brewing within him since the chaos began, and now that he was injured, he had no strength left to keep calm. Fury took over.
“Die, impostors!”
With a roar, Atif seized the clawed arm still piercing his abdomen. A sudden rush of white frost spread over it, freezing it—and helping seal his wound. Snarling, he channeled the might of his second-stage Chalice, ripping the now-frozen arm completely off. Its owner crashed to the floor with a howl, clutching his bloody stump. Atif hefted the frozen limb overhead like a warhammer, smashing it against the skull of the second attacker who held the curved blade. As the improvised weapon shattered, the blade-wielding raider reeled with a mangled head.
Seizing the moment, Atif clamped a hand around the man’s neck, squeezing hard until it cracked with a sickening burst of blood. As that attacker collapsed, he snatched up the curved blade and swung around, decapitating the one-armed raider just as he was struggling back to his feet.
At last, drenched in gore, Atif had butchered three of his own subordinates with his own hands. Though two severe wounds marred his body, his second-stage Chalice vitality meant he could still carry on, however grimly.
“ Huff... huff... huff... What... what did I just...”
Holding the bloodied scimitar, eyes bloodshot and bulging, Atif stood amidst the wreckage of corpses, his expression filled with utter confusion—as if he couldn’t believe what he had just done. At that moment, a barrage of thunderous explosions shattered his daze.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Sharp, deafening gunfire echoed through the warehouse. A rapid burst of bullets rained down on Atif. The first struck him in the back, instantly alerting him to the danger. He gritted his teeth and staggered to evade, managing to dodge the remaining shots after taking a second hit in the side.
Bleeding from two gunshot wounds, Atif clenched his jaw and swiftly activated his ability to freeze the wounds and stop the bleeding. Then, lifting his gaze toward the source of the gunfire, he spotted a familiar figure standing at the warehouse entrance.
There stood the "real Hadi"—the man who should have long been dead—gazing coldly at him. In his hand was a now-empty revolver, the muzzle still trailing faint wisps of smoke.
“You… it’s actually you!!”
Seeing the supposedly “dead” Hadi standing at the door, Atif’s eyes went wide with shock. His heart began to pound violently. In that moment, he finally understood—he had been caught in a massive conspiracy from the very beginning. The so-called “impostors” he had killed before… were likely...
“Die!!”
The moment that terrifying conclusion crossed his mind, Atif erupted with fury. Burning with overwhelming hatred, he launched a full-scale attack at Gregor. He summoned the dozen or so ghosts he’d stationed inside his two subordinates, ordering them all to rush Gregor and possess him.
But just then, Atif felt his focus scatter. His killing intent toward Gregor wavered drastically, and as a result, his control over the ghosts weakened and faltered. Half of them dispersed aimlessly instead of attacking, while the remaining few were too few for Gregor to struggle against.
Calmly, Gregor pulled out a Spirit-Repelling Sigil and two coins, slapping them onto the ground. As the sigil ignited, an invisible wave pulsed out from his body. When the hostile spirits came into contact with the wave, they shrieked and scattered in panic—none dared approach him.
It was a Spirit-Repelling Sigil, one of the most commonly used tools to drive away large numbers of weaker ghosts—standard equipment in mystical response units across various nations. It’s said that this type of sigil alone could resolve 80% of haunting incidents.
Atif’s ghosts, while numerous, were individually weak. His method relied on quantity to overwhelm a target through mass possession. But controlling so many ghosts at once inherently weakened his grip on each, and the sudden drop in his resolve caused his control to falter even further—allowing the ghosts to be driven off with a single sigil, never to be recovered.
Having dispelled the weaklings with a sigil issued by the Bureau, Gregor refocused on Atif. He tossed aside his empty handgun and reached inside his coat for another—fully loaded and ready to fire. But Atif wasn’t about to give him that chance.
Sensing another wave of mental interference creeping in, Atif immediately abandoned his ghost assault strategy. Instead, he withdrew the bone fragment linked to his Ice Elementalist male warrior soul and summoned a new one—this time a nun-like female spirit. He absorbed her spirit, and pale light circles rippled through his eyes.
Atif had switched to a Lantern Beyonder spirit, and with the small, precious reserve of Lantern spirituality he possessed, he activated the spirit’s ability known as Focus. It allowed the Lantern Beyonder to concentrate their attention to an extreme degree. With it, the prior mental disturbances he’d suffered were pushed back significantly.
That wasn’t all. The focus gave him precisely the clarity he needed for what came next.
Lifting his uninjured right arm, Atif aimed at Gregor. From inside his sleeve, several darkened bolts shot forth—each one tipped with deadly poison. These were taken from a small grave-guarding trap he’d dismantled in an ancient tomb and reconfigured into a concealed weapon. With his focused aim, the shots were unnervingly precise—any one hit could kill a normal man in under ten seconds.
“Watch out—hidden darts incoming…”
Just as Atif raised his arm, a familiar voice echoed in Gregor’s mind. He instantly gave up on drawing his gun and shifted sideways. At his second-stage Shadow speed, Gregor dodged the poisoned darts in mid-flight. The projectiles slammed into the metal door behind him with sharp clinks.
“He’s relying on a Lantern soul—don’t go for a shootout. Draw your blade. Close the distance and engage in melee. If he tries to snipe you again—block with your blade.”
“But... those darts are tiny and fast. I can’t even see them properly. Can I really block them?”
“Trust me. You can. I said block, so block.”
The voice of Detective once again rang in Gregor’s mind. Hesitating only a moment, he followed the command. He abandoned his sidearm, drew a short blade from behind his waist, and launched himself toward Atif like a shadow-born arrow.
Watching the approach, Atif showed no fear. There were seventy or eighty meters between them. Fast or not, the “Shadow” still needed a few seconds to close the gap—and that gave Atif time to fire several more darts. In such a sprint, dodging left or right risked exposing fatal weaknesses.
“Foolish move.”
With deadly calm and the aid of his intense focus, Atif raised his hand and unleashed a volley of poisoned darts. Thin, deadly projectiles screamed through the air toward the charging Gregor. Gregor swung his blade to parry—but the difficulty was simply too high. One dart slipped past the edge of his blade, headed straight for his eye.
And just then, a faint electric arc flickered across Gregor’s knife.
The dart, as if drawn by some unseen force, curved mid-air and swerved toward the metal blade. With a sharp clang , the dart clung to the steel, sucked in by the intense magnetism now coursing through the weapon. With Dorothy’s remote support, Gregor had just executed a perfect magnetic deflection.
Blade flashing, Gregor deflected the remaining darts one after another, striking them away with a rhythmic ding, ding, ding! Not a single one landed.
By the time he reached Atif, the older man’s eyes were wide with disbelief.
“How... can this be…”
Slash!
A silver arc traced through the air. Gregor’s blade slashed across Atif’s throat. Gravely wounded already, Atif had no strength left to resist.
He staggered in place, fatally cut.
In his final moments, he still couldn’t comprehend how someone could block all of his poisoned darts through sheer skill alone.
“In this world… such martial prowess exists…?”
That was Atif’s final thought before he collapsed and breathed his last.