The sun had barely risen, yet the city already swayed with life. Along the twisting cobblestone streets of the Lower Ring, and even in the bronze-crowned balconies of the middle districts, the same name passed from lip to lip.
The demonblade.
Whispers carried his tale like disease.
A man who could not die.
A shadow who fought with twin daggers made from a beast's bones.
He bled black, they said.
Drank the essence of every man he killed, they claimed. Even children spoke his name with awe and fear, mimicking his imagined strikes with sticks and broom handles.
But behind the spectacle, behind the myths spun by commoners and drunkards, there was precision.
And behind the precision was Blackrat.
His men worked like insects — small, unnoticed, but devastating when swarming in unison. From the smoky betting taverns in the pit district to the high-stakes lounges where merchant son's gambled away legacies, Rat's crew was there.
