The coachman pulled hard on the reins, bringing the carriage to an abrupt halt. The horse whinnied in protest, stamping its hooves against the cobblestones.

Master Theo turned to Nero in surprise. "What's wrong? Why—"

But Nero was already moving.

He jumped out of the carriage, completely ignoring Master Theo's attempt to grab his arm and hold him back. His feet hit the ground running, and he dove into the crowd, weaving between bodies with practiced ease.

"Nero! Wait!" Master Theo's voice called after him, but it was already fading into the background noise of the street.

Seeing Nero vanish, a strange feeling of danger washed over him as he glanced over at the coachman who also looked lost for words.

"Crap! Keep driving, damn it!"

The Coachman hesitated as he stammered,

"W-where to?"

Master Theo's eyes widened dangerously,

"Where else, you buffoon?! After them!"

***

Nero's eyes were locked onto the pale-faced man, who had already turned and begun to flee the moment he had made a move.

The man was fast, unnaturally so. He pushed through the crowd with inhuman strength, sending people stumbling aside as he carved a path toward the edge of the market. Nero followed in hot pursuit, his body moving solely on instinct. Despite that, his mind remained oddly sharp and clear.

He quickly noticed that the man was heading in the direction of the slums.

The realization caused him to frown. If the man reached the slums, he would disappear into that maze of darkness, and he would lose him. He couldn't allow that to happen.

With that thought crystallizing in his mind, Nero activated Shadow Shift.

The shadows around him came to life, responding to his will. The surrounding black seemed to embrace him tightly for a moment as his form became elusive and his movement speed spiked. The gazes shifting towards him seemed to find something more interesting in that moment, moving away from him completely as he turned into a speeding arrow.

The burst in speed allowed him to begin closing the distance.

The pale man glanced back once then pushed harder. They moved away from the busy market streets and into the maze of backstreets and narrow alleyways that crisscrossed the city like veins beneath skin.

Here, the chase became something else entirely.

The man's body moved in ways that defied normal human capability. He leaped onto a stack of crates, pushed off a wall with one foot to change direction mid-air, landed in a roll and came up running without losing momentum. His long hair streamed behind him like a banner as he vaulted over obstacles and squeezed through gaps that should have barely fitted a gust of wind.

Nero followed right behind, not slowing down for a moment.

He used Shadow Shift in short bursts, conserving his Ein Sof while maintaining speed. When the man jumped, Nero jumped. When the man twisted through a narrow passage between two buildings, Nero followed, his body seeming to flow like water.

For a moment, the city blurred around them...

The stone walls and wooden doors, hanging laundry and broken barrels, the occasional startled face of someone caught in an alley who pressed themselves against the wall as the two figures flew past...

Nero maintained his breathing as he considered the man running away. With such abnormal reflexes, speed and stamina, he absolutely believed that this was no ordinary person.

For a moment, he doubted if it was a person at all...

He goes in the cold air heavily.

Eventually, they turned into a back alley, and the man stopped abruptly.

Nero skidded to a halt a dozen paces behind him, his hand instinctively moving toward the Mark of Mephistopheles on the back of his hand.

He recognized immediately why the man had stopped.

They had reached a dead end.

A tall brick wall rose before them.

Seeing this, Nero huffed, a grim smile crossing his face.

"Nowhere else to run to, huh..."

As the night continued to descend and the light from the main streets failed to penetrate this deep into the alley, the surroundings became darker and the shadows waxed colder.

Nero began to notice something was wrong.

His surroundings felt unnaturally quiet.

The distant din of the city, all the chaotic sounds, all of it... had faded to nothing.

There was an odd, uncomfortable silence that had settled all around him like the bars of an invincible cage.

He felt a terrible chill rush up his back, instantly filling him with fear and terror.

A fear and terror he was rather familiar with. His mind's most instinctive primal warning when it sensed extreme danger.

Slowly, the man in front of him turned around.

What Nero saw made his blood run cold.

The man's eyes were devoid of everything besides sclera. They were pure white, pale as bones and empty. As Nero watched, frozen, the sides of the man's mouth began to split open, tearing wider and wider with wet, ripping sounds.

The tear extended past the cheeks, until an enormous gaping maw spanned the entire breadth of his face. Rows of black needle-like teeth were revealed, glistening wetly in the dim light, and from within that impossible mouth came a sound that would forever be imprinted into the tablets of Nero's mind.

A wheezing screech he had never heard from anything— Man or Abomination, in his life.

The feeling of danger intensified a hundredfold.

Nero's body screamed at him to run, to flee, to get as far away from this thing as possible.

Instead, he exclaimed through gritted teeth.

"Fuck!"

His hand plunged into the Mark of Mephistopheles, the crimson cross-shaped mark on the back of his left hand flaring briefly with light. His fingers closed around something solid and familiar, and he pulled.

Gungnir materialized in his grip, the silver spear with its crimson and gold accents gleaming even in the darkness of the alley.

The thing that had looked like a man tilted its head at an unnatural angle.

It remained still.

Nero held eye contact with it.

Then his body spun around as the spear in his grip shot out faster than a viper's strike.

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