Chapter 2

I did not rush back to the base.

Over the next seven days, I took Shade Child into the ruins and hunted zombies like a man possessed, hoarding every Resentment Point I could get.

Shade Child's abilities far exceeded anything I had imagined. It could slip into any shadow and hit a zombie with a psychic strike that locked the creature stiff just long enough to give me a clean kill shot.

My Resentment Points climbed quickly and blew past the 1,000 mark before the week was out.

[Sufficient Resentment Points detected. System can be upgraded to LV2. New functions unlocked upon upgrade: Wraith Fusion, Wraith Armament. Proceed with upgrade?]

"Yes. Do it now."

[System upgrade successful. Wraith Fusion: Merge wraiths of the same type to raise their rank. Wraith Armament: Convert a wraith into a weapon or piece of equipment.]

I immediately fused the nine ordinary wraiths I had bound during the hunt into Shade Child.

Pale light flashed through the darkness, and when it faded, the little girl's silhouette inside my shadow had grown far more solid. The aura she exuded was several times stronger than before.

[Wraith "Shade Child" promoted to D-class. Skills enhanced: Deep Shadow (brief concealment, even in lit environments), Enhanced Psychic Strike (inflicts one second of paralysis on targets C-class and below).]

It was time.

I stripped the clothes off a corpse, covered my face, and slipped in among a scavenging party heading back through the gates. Just like that, I walked right back into Base Seven.

The base at night was still bathed in light, as though the end of the world had never happened. However, I knew exactly how much filth and rot that brightness was hiding.

My first target was Rafe.

He had been promoted to garrison squad leader, and tonight he was on patrol duty at the east district warehouse.

I sent Shade Child into his shadow and stayed hidden in the dark, watching his every move through her eyes.

Rafe was strutting through the warehouse with two subordinates, checking inventory like he owned the place.

"Damn, Mr. Kain's generous. He handed me the squad leader position just because he wanted some guy's girl." He was grinning from ear to ear, showing off to the men beside him.

"That dumbass Nico's probably been chewed down to the bone by now."

"No kidding, Captain Donovan. You're the golden boy in Mr. Kain's circle these days." One of the lackeys laughed, grinning like the suck-up he was.

My killing intent was on the verge of exploding.

"Shade Child. Go."

An invisible wave of psychic force slammed into both subordinates at once. They let out choked grunts and crumpled to the floor.

Rafe went white. "What the hell? We're under attack!"

He had barely drawn his gun before he realized the warehouse had gone completely silent. Nothing moved except the massive shadows thrown by the stacked crates, swaying gently under the overhead lights. A chill crawled up the back of his neck.

"Who's there? Show yourself!" he bellowed, but his voice cracked halfway through.

A thin, lilting nursery rhyme drifted up from somewhere far beneath the earth.

"One, two, three, playing hide and seek... who will be the next... little lamb..."

Every drop of color drained from Rafe's face. He had heard that voice before. It was the same kind of whispering my channeling ability sometimes pulled in, the one everyone at the base treated like a joke.

"Ni... Nico? You're alive? Are you... are you even human?" He stumbled backward, swinging the muzzle wildly in every direction.

"What do you think?" My voice came from directly behind him. He spun around and saw nothing.

"Quit playing tricks! Come out and face me if you've got the guts!"

"I'm right behind you."

The nursery rhyme started again, and this time it was rising out of his own shadow.

Rafe looked down. His shadow was stretching and twisting across the concrete, and from the center of it, the blurred outline of a small girl was slowly rising to her feet. Her hollow eyes locked onto his face and did not blink.

"No... there's... something here!"

He broke completely. He emptied his magazine into his own shadow, but every round passed straight through Shade Child's form and ricocheted off the floor without leaving a scratch.

"Stay... stay back! I was wrong! Nico, I was wrong!" Tears and snot streamed down his face as his knees hit the ground.

"It was all Axel! He's the one who wanted Sasha! He's the one who wanted you dead!"

"It is a little late for that." I stepped out of the darkness and walked toward him.

"Wraith Armament."

Shade Child dissolved in an instant and reformed as a pitch-black short sword in my hand. Cold resentment rippled along the blade like liquid.

Rafe stared at me as though he were looking at something that had crawled out of a grave.

I did not give him the chance to say another word.

I swung once and the blade came down.

His head hit the floor and rolled to a stop with an expression of pure, frozen terror still stamped across it.

[D-class ability user killed. Resentment Points earned: 500. Deceased's resentment absorbed. Resentment Points earned: 200.]

I wiped the blood from the blade and looked toward the most extravagant villa at the center of the base.

Axel was next. However, before that, there was someone I needed to see first.