Nomi moved like smoke across the slate shingles.

  Rinerva had already finalized the assault plan, but Nomi couldn’t sit still and wait for the slaughter. She needed to know exactly what kind of monster Agon was walking into.

  She avoided every puddle, every uneven tile, every loose patch of moss. It wasn't just necessity; it was muscle memory. Her body adjusted its weight before her boot even touched the ground, a lifetime of discipline keeping her silent in a world that screamed.

  The Warden’s Keep loomed ahead. It was a massive bastion linked to the outer city wall, a scar of stone on the city’s skyline.

  She lingered on a gargoyle, freezing her silhouette against the stone to examine the defenders. They stood in the shadows of the battlements to escape the weak daylight, wrapped in a dormant haze. Their eyes were glassy and unfocused—Thralls.

  But interspersed among the mindless drones were the true threats.

  One of the Bat mutants shifted in its sleep. Its massive, translucent ears swiveled, radar dishes scanning the wind.

  Nomi stopped breathing. She felt her heart hammer against her ribs, but she forced her body to absolute stillness.

  The ear twitched once. Twice. Then, satisfied that the wind was just wind, it returned to neutral.

  She exhaled slowly through her nose and continued, making less sound than a spider as she crept along the vertical face of the main keep.

  She reached the second floor. A massive stained-glass window dominated the wall. A pane near the bottom had cracked, offering a sliver of a view into the sanctum beyond.

  Nomi peered through.

  It wasn’t a laboratory; it was a butcher’s gallery.

  The room stretched across the entire floor, illuminated by the harsh, flickering glare of mana-lamps. Dozens of stone slabs were arranged in the room, but there was no order to them. They were piled with carnage.

  On the nearest slab lay a Fox.

  Its chest was cracked open, ribs snapped outward like broken twigs. Its red fur was matted with old, drying blood.

  Nomi shuddered, a cold spike of nausea hitting her gut, but she forced herself to keep looking. She had to see the architect of this nightmare.

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  A pale man moved between the corpses. He didn't walk; he paced. He moved with a twitchy, frantic energy, muttering to himself in a low, rapid-fire stream of consciousness.

  He paused at the Fox. He didn't use a scalpel. He plunged his bare hand into the open chest cavity, rooting around in the wet meat until his fingers curled around the heart.

  He ripped it out.

  He held the dripping organ up to the light, squinting at it, turning it over in his blood-slicked hands. He whispered something to it—an argument, or a joke—before jamming it back into the chest cavity upside down.

  He grabbed a stack of parchment. He began to scribble furiously, his quill scratching loud enough to be heard through the glass. He didn't notice—or didn't care—that his hand was smearing thick streaks of red blood across the ink, rendering the notes completely illegible. He just wrote faster, manic and obsessive, documenting a madness only he understood.

  He moved to the next corpse, repeating the cycle. Rip. Inspect. Jam. Scribble.

  It wasn't science. It was butchery performing a pantomime of medicine.

  The rhythm shattered when one of the creatures—a massive, stitched-together horror—twitched on the slab. A low groan escaped its throat.

  Brujah froze. His quill snapped in his hand.

  His head snapped up, eyes wide and vibrating with sudden, feral rage.

  “No movement!” he shrieked. “I did not say move!”

  He didn't stun it. He didn't restrain it.

  He raised both fists and brought them down like pile drivers.

  CRACK.

  He smashed the creature’s skull. But he didn't stop.

  He hit it again. And again. And again.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  He was screaming wordlessly, a high-pitched sound of pure frustration, as he pulverized the head, then the chest, then the slab itself.

  Nomi watched in horror as the solid granite table cracked, then crumbled under the assault. Brujah kept pounding until the creature and the stone were nothing but a slurry of red paste and gray dust on the floor.

  Only then did he stop.

  He stood in the ruin, heaving for breath, chest rising and falling. He looked down at the pile of meat and rock, then calmly picked up a rag and wiped his hands.

  “...Assistant.”

  His voice was suddenly calm. Polite. As if he hadn't just beaten a living thing into liquid.

  A bat-acolyte shifted into the room, pushing open a heavy door across the chamber. It stayed near the exit, trembling visible even from this distance.

  “It seems one was still alive,” Brujah said, tossing the rag onto the pile of gore. “Fetch me another sample. And ensure it’s dead.”

  “...I’m sorry sir, of course.”

  “Not to worry. Mistakes happen in science, but we must stay vigilant to avoid them.”

  Brujah smiled—a terrible, bloody expression that didn't reach his dead eyes.

  The bat bowed and slipped out of the room, terrified.

  Nomi pulled back from the window, her heart racing.

  This wasn't a general. This wasn't a soldier. This was a lunatic with the strength to shatter stone. Agon’s armor was designed for war, not for the tantrums of a god.

  She slipped away into the shadows, racing the setting sun. She had to warn the Giant.