The Hollow Market wasn't a market anymore.
It was a graveyard pretending to breathe.
Rotting wooden stalls leaned against crumbling brick archways. Tattered awnings fluttered above piles of broken crates, bones, and old war banners. Everything here felt sick—not dead, not quite—but waiting.
Kael stepped lightly, daggers reversed in his grip. His eyes flicked across every shadow like a predator.
Leonis walked calmly down the main causeway, soul compressed, expression unreadable.
"Too quiet," Kael muttered.
Leonis nodded. "They want us to feel it first."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "Feel what?"
Leonis stopped.
A gust of wind pushed through the ruins. Cloth flapped. Dust swirled.
Then the air shifted.
Too suddenly.
Leonis moved.
A dagger flew from the shadows—silent, precise—and he batted it aside with one hand. A second followed. Then a third.
Kael spun around, already throwing.
The ruins erupted.
Figures in dark cloaks—six of them—emerged from behind stalls, under broken carts, from trapdoors in the ground. Their blades glowed faintly, tipped with something bitter-smelling and green.
Leonis didn't draw a weapon.
He stepped into them.
Kael moved with him, flowing like water around his back.
The first zealot lunged. Leonis sidestepped, grabbed the wrist, and twisted until bone cracked. He drove his elbow into the man's throat and dropped him cold.
Another came from the left—Kael's dagger punched through their ribs before the attacker finished the lunge.
A third tried to circle—Leonis caught her by the face, pressed two fingers to her temple.
"Soul Tap: Minor."
"Essence extracted."
She dropped like a puppet with strings cut.
It was over in under twenty seconds.
Only one remained.
He—or she, they couldn't quite tell—hadn't attacked. The figure knelt behind a broken fruit cart, trembling.
Young. Small. Too small.
Kael approached first, one dagger raised.
The figure flinched, threw down their weapon—a curved knife with blood on the edge—and yanked down their hood.
A girl.
Maybe sixteen. Pale. Eyes wide with panic. Her hands shook, not with readiness, but with regret.
Leonis stepped in front of Kael.
Kael didn't move, but didn't lower the blade either.
"She was aiming for your spine two minutes ago."
Leonis looked down at her.
The girl spoke first, voice cracking.
"I didn't want to," she said. "They said if I didn't fight, they'd feed me to the Chain Pit."
Leonis's voice was calm. "What's the Chain Pit?"
"A lie," she said. "A story to make us desperate."
She looked up. "But you're real."
Kael snorted.
Leonis crouched slightly.
"What's your name?"
The girl hesitated.
Then: "Seren."
He held out a hand.
She stared at it like it was a knife.
"Why aren't you killing me?" she asked.
"System Suggestion: Kill and extract. Soul unstable but viable. +1 Strength, +1 Willpower expected."
"Emotion: Mercy detected. Calculated inefficiency: 4.3%."
Leonis didn't move.
"I don't need every soul," he said quietly.
Kael raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
Leonis didn't look at him.
"You know where the Crimson Order is?"
Seren nodded. Slowly. "You're looking for the Collector."
Leonis waited.
"He's not down here," she said. "He's deeper. Past the blood ducts. Beneath the black chapel."
Kael muttered, "That sounds cozy."
Leonis took her knife.
Then handed it back—hilt first.
"Survive," he said.
She took it like a starving girl offered bread.
He turned and walked.
Kael lingered for a second longer, staring at her.
"You run the moment you get the chance," he said.
She didn't answer.
He followed Leonis.
They descended into the tunnels beneath the market—crumbled catacombs of forgotten cults and rot.
As they walked, the System murmured in Leonis's mind:
"Mercy is inefficient. Deviating from the path will reduce optimal evolution."
Leonis replied aloud.
"Power earned without purpose is rot."
"Your enemies won't agree."
"Let them."
Kael, walking beside him, asked without turning, "You always talk to yourself?"
Leonis smiled faintly.
"Only when I'm disagreeing."