The demon's remains smoked in the gutter, its body sliding apart in heavy, wet chunks. The stench of scorched flesh curled into the alleyway, carried on the stagnant Fortuna air.
Michael stood over it, Ashen Mercy gleaming faintly at the edges, its runes already dimming. Another ambush. Another body to leave behind.
He flicked the blood from the blade, movements sharp, efficient, before sheathing it at his back.
He had just turned to leave when a voice broke the silence.
"That was… awesome!"
Michael stilled.
A boy—couldn't have been older than ten—stood at the mouth of the alley, bright-eyed, grinning from ear to ear. His tunic bore the insignia of one of the local youth academies, the fabric still too clean for these streets.
Michael raised an eyebrow.
"Does your school teach you to follow armed men into bloodstained alleys?"
The boy shrugged, unfazed. "No. But you're a knight, right?"
"Something like that," Michael muttered.
The boy stepped closer, shoes scraping against the stones, fearless. "I want to be like you."
Michael tilted his head slightly, studying him. "You want to kill things that scream in languages you don't understand?"
The boy didn't even flinch. "Yes."
There was no hesitation. No childish bravado. Just a strange, sober clarity. The kind you didn't often see in faces that young.
"What's your name?" Michael asked.
"Credo."
Michael nodded once.
"Well, Credo. Go home."
He turned without another word, leaving the boy standing at the edge of blood and ruin.
One Year Later
The eastern forests of Fortuna were older than the city itself—wild places where the sky was a rumor and the air stayed damp and heavy year-round. Trails twisted in and out of sight, swallowed by roots thick as a man's chest, fog curling around every branch like fingers.
Michael moved through it silently, the mist clinging to his coat, Ashen Mercy resting against his back.
He hadn't taken a mission in months.
Agnus had appeared without warning days ago, slinking into the library like a rat with a secret.
"Something regenerative in the Vale of Ash," he had whispered, hands twitching with excitement. "A fascinating specimen. I want you to test your weapon."
Michael had agreed.
Not because he trusted Agnus—but because the cathedral walls were starting to feel like a cage.
Now he was here, deeper into the woods than most would dare tread.
The trees thickened as he descended into a half-sunken clearing. Vines strangled the ruins of ancient monoliths—stones so weathered they barely seemed shaped by human hands anymore. The fog peeled back, just enough to reveal the forgotten place.
That's when the air changed.
The ground hummed. The mist thickened. The wind stopped moving.
Michael reached over his shoulder and drew Ashen Mercy in one clean motion.
Something was coming.
A hiss like splitting silk rolled through the trees.
Then the forest shifted.
Something massive slithered through the fog—elegant, coiled, alive.
She emerged with terrible grace.
Echidna.
Her upper body was that of a beautiful woman—skin pale, hair cascading in green silk. Below the waist, her form shifted into a serpent's coils, thorned and glistening with wet sap. Insect-like wings shimmered faintly behind her, catching slivers of light in their delicate traps.
When she spoke, it was with a voice both sweet and rotting.
"A little knight in the garden," she purred. "Sent to burn the flowers."
Michael didn't answer.
She tilted her head, smiling wider. "You're not like the others."
"I get that a lot," he said dryly.
Echidna's golden eyes narrowed in amusement. "You carry fire inside you. Who lit it, I wonder?"
Michael's grip tightened.
"I'm here to kill you. That's all you need to know."
She laughed, the sound both beautiful and wrong, rippling through the mist.
"Oh, darling. You can try."
The clearing exploded into movement as Echidna struck, and Michael moved to meet her—blade flashing through the poisoned air.