Berlin slept under a blanket of cold rain and flickering neon, its old bones breathing steam and indifference. Fang walked with Marcus slumped over his back, the boy unconscious and his hoodie torn, limbs limp like a broken marionette. Drops fell from Fang's slick coat, each splash tapping into the silence like a slow metronome.
The streets around him glitched. Not visibly, no human would notice but Fang wasn't human. He saw the static in the air, the thin, invisible threads snapping around lamp posts, window panes, and passing cars. Anomaly had widened the veil.
"Not bad for a first run," Fang muttered, glancing at the battered Marcus. "You didn't die. Progress."
He reached the apartment door, unlocked it with a wave. Anomaly had bypassed the landlord's security hours ago and carried Marcus inside. The lights flickered for a second, adjusting to Fang's presence. Or perhaps they were adjusting to what lived inside Marcus now.
With a grunt, Fang laid the boy on the couch. He crouched down, looked at him. The dark circles under Marcus' eyes were deeper now, veins faintly glowing with residue mana from the dungeon fight.
"He's not ready," Fang said aloud.
"Not yet," came the static hum of Anomaly's voice. "But he will be."
The air in the room bent, just slightly, as if the atmosphere itself tilted. Fang didn't react. He stared at Marcus, then at the television that turned on by itself, static filling the screen.
"You're going to break him."
"I'm going to complete him," Anomaly replied. "The shell is growing stronger. Phase One is almost complete. I need to prepare the final touch soon."
Fang smirked and sat back on his heels. "Let's just hope he doesn't wake up and cry again. Have you ever seen a Godkiller sob into his hoodie after puking? Because I have."
"That's natural. Ever done fighting someone who was much more high-leveled than you?" the voice slithered into Fang's mind, silky and mechanical.
"You know I have fought a hundred, not, maybe, a thousand during that war," Fang snorted without looking up. "You wanna give me a compliment? Make it bleed."
"Charming. But no. I have somewhere else to go. Marcus is your responsibility for now. I need him... intact."
Fang gave the mask a sideways glance, one brow raised. "You want me to babysit the sleeping messiah?"
Anomaly tilted mid-air like it was nodding.
"Exactly. Feed him if he whines. Break a bone if he disobeys. Just… keep him alive long enough for me to prepare his next course."
The grin on the mask glitched, just slightly wider. Fang stopped twirling the dagger.
"Bethany."
Fang blinked. "The hot girl with too sharp tongue?"
"The same. Buried deep within her pleasant chaos is a sliver of what we need. A seed left by the DF (Divine Father) a food for the weapon. A lie they thought they erased."
Anomaly floated closer to Marcus's sleeping face. A subtle red glow radiated from the mask.
"She will be the next harvest. But unlike the others, she's aware but doesn't know when she will harvest."
Fang leaned forward. Confused by carried on.
"Is she a threat?"
"She's... nostalgic. She'll feel the itch before she understands the infection. And when that moment comes, she'll realized, she was not to meet her golden age."
Fang rolled his neck. "And if she resists?"
"Then teach her the difference between surviving and existing. Baby sit the baby for now.
"Pfft. I'm not a nursemaid," Fang rolled his missing eyes. "I'm the devourer."
"You are the mouth. The system is the stomach. And he—" the mask tilts toward Marcus "—he is the vessel." Anomaly reminded him.
"Yeah, yeah, vessel, weapon, whatever. So what about this seed?"
Anomaly looked at him in disbelief. He has been talking about it but Fang seemed to not quite understand what he had said.
"A fragment left by the Divine Father himself. Not for power. For consumption. I thought you understood, imbecile. The four fragments? Thay don't ring a bell or should I install a bell inside your head?"
"Ohh that!" Fang reacted. Miraculously, he remembered those 4 fragments.
"You're telling me those four decoy Devourers the gods were bragging about purging… never died?"
Anomaly floated above Marcus.
"Correct. I forged their deaths in the vision of the gods. Buried them in the code. Hid them in plain sight."
Fang laughed awkwardly
"Ha! Damn. That's savage. I didn't even know. Wait, hold on, you didn't tell me?!"
"You didn't need to know. Until now."
Fang looked at him in disappointment.
"So what, you're just going to harvest her?
"Yes. The Seed will bloom. And Marcus will be hungry."
Anomaly's eyes glow in the mask.
Fang chuckled nervously.
"You really are terrifying, you know that?"
"I am the God of Architect. Terror is my signature."
"Whooo! Even I am freaking scared of you," Fang gulped.
"Oh, you should be. I designed you, created you," Anomaly replied. "You babysit him. I'll leave him in your care.
The mask began to fade, fragmenting into thin strings of red code that danced away like dust.
"Keep your teeth sharp, Fang. And don't let Marcus get attached. He's still human enough to hesitate. But we're almost past that."
Marcus is knocked out cold on the couch, twitching in his sleep. The lights flicker. Fang paces nearby, tossing his dagger up and down, clearly bored.
Anomaly was gone—at least, from Fang's senses. He had shifted.
Elsewhere in Berlin, Bethany snapped her pen.
The motion was small, accidental, but enough. She stared at her hand like it didn't belong to her. The snapped plastic leaked ink on her fingers, thick and blue.
She looked around the quiet office, just another late night in her extra job freelance workspace. The other developers were long gone, the city humming outside the window. The neon signs flickered on the wet glass.
Bethany stood up and walked to the window.
Nothing.
She tried to shake the unease in her chest, that strange twist in her gut. She hadn't eaten anything weird. She wasn't sick. And yet…
Something watched her.
It wasn't just paranoia. This wasn't the feeling of being followed. This was the sensation of being… surveyed. Studied.
Judged.
She turned around. Everything was the same. The monitor still glowed on standby, her desk scattered with notes, cold coffee untouched. But the shadows in the room felt longer, darker, like they were stretched by an unseen force.
Bethany swallowed and rubbed her arms.
"Okay, get it together," she whispered. "Just tired."
She tried to laugh but it died in her throat. She caught sight of her reflection on the window. Except, it wasn't just her.
Behind her, in the glass, there was a shape.
No features. Just the vaguest outline of a mask, floating behind her shoulder.
When she turned, it was gone.
But the cold it left wasn't.
She left her office room moments later, grabbing her coat, keys, and bag without even logging out. Her phone buzzed once in her pocket—a news alert. Something about a building collapsing in a restricted zone. She ignored it.
As she reached the stairwell, the lights overhead dimmed again. Then flickered. Then stabilized.
Too late.
Anomaly was already inside her.
Not in possession, not like a ghost. No, this was deeper. She had been tagged, flagged, registered by something older than memory and more precise than god.
She just didn't know it yet.
Back in the apartment, Fang slouched on the armrest, watching Marcus twitch in his sleep. A soft moan escaped the boy's lips. He was dreaming. No, not dreaming. Processing.
Fang leaned down.
"You're gonna have to wake up soon," he whispered. "Your food will be served soon."
On the table, the screen of Marcus' tablet turned on.
It showed Bethany's face.
Fang blinked.
"Oh. You're starting already," he said to no one.
The shadows on the walls moved.