President Gustavio stood tall at the podium, his voice amplified across the press conference hall. “Democracy is the lifeblood of our nation,” he decred with fire in his eyes. “We will not be shaken by those who spread chaos and poison. We stand united, and we stand proud!”

  The crowd erupted in appuse. Cameras fshed. Media anchors nodded with rehearsed enthusiasm.

  Meanwhile, walking down a cracked sidewalk with earbuds in and one hand tucked in his coat pocket, Draven gnced at his phone screen. The live broadcast of the president’s speech pyed for a few seconds. Then—

  “Bullshit,” he muttered, and tapped the screen to close the feed.

  He kept walking, head low, mind somewhere else.

  Draven arrived at the front of the Journalist Union office, his footsteps quiet but deliberate. Inside, he approached the reception desk, pulling the small fsh drive from his coat pocket.

  "I’m here to deliver this," he said ftly. "Fred asked me to hand it over to your chairman."

  The receptionist raised an eyebrow. "Fred? As in Fred Holm?"

  Draven gave a small nod.

  "One moment." She took the drive, eyeing him carefully, then ran a quick scan and cross-checked something on her screen.

  "Sir, are you bring a bde?" She asking.

  "Yes... I'm a bodyguard." He answer coldly.

  After a tense few seconds, she finally said, "Alright. You’re cleared. The chairman will be informed. Please wait at the lounge, or… leave your contact info if you’d rather not stay."

  Draven didn’t respond immediately. He just turned his head toward the hallway and muttered, "I’ll wait."

  Then he found the nearest seat and dropped into it, arms crossed, eyes distant.

  As Draven stepped into the office, he froze mid-step. "Sorry sir, can you put your bde outside of the office?" Said the receptionist.

  Then someone standing behind the desk was someone he hadn’t seen in years she's Cathie, his old friend.

  Just as shocked, she blinked and blurted out at the same time as him: "Eh."

  The awkward silence hung for a second.

  Cathie quickly composed herself and turned to the receptionist.

  "You can leave us now."

  The receptionist, clearly sensing the tension, gave a small nod and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  With Cathie fidgeting slightly and Draven standing stiff like a statue, the silence grew heavier before she finally broke it.

  "So… you said you had something from Fred?"

  Draven reached into his coat pocket and pced the fsh drive on her desk.

  “He asked me to give this to you. Said it was important.”

  Cathie picked it up carefully, her expression shifting from curiosity to concern.

  “And where is he now?”

  Draven looked away for a moment.

  “He’s dead. Took his own life… after losing his daughter yesterday.”

  The words hung in the air like smoke, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.

  Cathie’s eyes widened in shock, her fingers tightening around the fsh drive.

  “Wait… you knew Fred?” she asked, suspicion creeping into her voice. “How did that even happen?”

  Draven’s gaze drifted for a second, a distant look fshing across his face. But then, almost too quickly, he blinked it away and shrugged.

  “Met him while fishing,” he said ftly. “He offered me a cigarette. We talked.”

  Cathie squinted, clearly not convinced. “You? Fishing?”

  Draven looked her in the eye. “I needed quiet. He needed to talk.”

  She leaned back slowly, watching him with a mix of doubt and curiosity. “Right… sounds like something Fred would do.”

  Cathie inserted the fsh drive and tapped impatiently at the old keyboard. “God, this piece of junk…” she muttered, watching the loading bar crawl across the screen.

  Trying to fill the silence, she gnced at Draven. “Hey… do you still remember our secret? From back then?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You’ve kept it buried deep, right?”

  Draven’s expression froze. His fingers twitched slightly. “I… I…”

  The voices crept in again—Deadman Whisper—low, relentless, gnawing at his focus.

  Just then, a loud ding snapped them both out of the tension. The files finally loaded.

  Onscreen, a collection of scanned documents, call recordings, and financial statements spilled across the monitor—clear evidence linking one of the top ministers to the illegal distribution of Vicious serum.

  Cathie’s jaw dropped. “Holy hell… this is enough to burn the whole ministry down.”

  Meanwhile, down in the lobby, the receptionist was casually chatting with a delivery man cd in bck—hat pulled low, mask concealing his face.

  “This package is from an anonymous sender,” the man said, his voice ft.

  The receptionist frowned, cautiously opening the box. Inside… a severed pig's head.

  “What the—” she barely managed to say before noticing something lodged in the mouth.

  A blinking light.

  BOOM!

  The explosion tore through the reception desk, sending fire, metal, and blood everywhere.

  The delivery man was thrown back—but he didn’t stay down. With a wild grin under his mask, he pulled a syringe from his coat and jammed it into his neck.

  His veins darkened, eyes turning feral. His muscles twisted unnaturally as he roared,

  “Heil Johan!”

  Within seconds, his body mutated grotesquely—his transformation into a Vicious complete—before he lunged at the nearest survivor, and chaos erupted through the building.

  Draven and Cathie rushed toward the explosion site. Smoke and screams filled the air as the corrupted figure rampaged through the lobby—its monstrous form barely recognizable as human.

  Seeing the Vicious charging at survivors, Draven stepped forward without hesitation.

  “Stay back,” he said to Cathie. “I’ll handle this.”

  But as he reached for his back—he froze.

  “No katana…” he muttered under his breath, annoyed. Then to Cathie, “My bde. It's in the room. Get it.”

  Without waiting for her reply, he grabbed a long metal pipe lying on the ground—rusted but sturdy enough for the moment.

  He unched at the Vicious with speed and precision, nding a few strong blows. The creature staggered, but not for long.

  As Draven’s body temperature surged—his natural ability heating up with each strike—the makeshift weapon began to glow red, warping in his hands.

  With one final csh, the pipe bent and melted apart, too thin and weak to withstand his heat.

  “Tch… damn thing can’t keep up,” he muttered, staring down the snarling monster with nothing but his fists left.

  Draven called out, “Throw it!”

  Cathie hesitated as she lifted the katana. “Damn—how heavy is this thing?!”

  Draven caught the bde midair and replied ftly, “It’s made of tungsten. Weighs about one point five kilos. High melting point.”

  Cathie stared at him in disbelief. “Are you insane?!”

  “Maybe,” Draven muttered, tightening his grip.

  Then, without missing a beat, he charged forward once more—his katana now glowing faintly from the heat pulsing through his body as the real fight began again.

  The Vicious snarled, blood and bckened saliva dripping from its warped jaw. Its cws clicked against the marble floor, scraping like metal on gss. Draven’s eyes narrowed. He could feel the heat building in his chest, surging through his arm and into the katana.

  The creature lunged first, a blur of corrupted muscle and rage. Draven ducked low, sliding across the floor beneath the ssh, then spun and sshed upward, the tungsten bde carving a searing line across the Vicious’s side. Steam hissed from the wound, but the creature barely flinched—it was high on serum, pain meant nothing now.

  It whipped around with a roar, nding a blow on Draven’s side. He staggered back, ribs rattling from the impact. His breath caught, but he gritted his teeth and twisted the katana, forcing more heat into the bde. The metal pulsed orange-red.

  “You’re fast,” Draven muttered, “but not smart.”

  The Vicious charged again, reckless. Draven stepped into the attack, parrying the cw with the ft of his bde, then driving his elbow into the creature’s jaw. It stumbled—just for a second, but enough.

  Draven shifted his stance, dropped low, and sshed both knees with a single horizontal swing. The Vicious colpsed with a guttural howl, its legs no longer obeying. Draven moved without mercy. He flipped the katana into a reverse grip, the heat now making it glow like molten steel.

  With a final leap, he brought the bde down from above. It pierced the Vicious’s chest, slicing clean through its mutated sternum, and sank into the floor beneath it.

  The creature twitched once. Then silence.

  Draven stood over it, chest heaving, the scorched smell of blood and metal thick in the air. His katana sizzled as he pulled it free, droplets of boiling blood hissing off the bde.

  Behind him, Cathie emerged from the smoke, wide-eyed.

  “You good?” she asked.

  Draven exhaled through his nose. “Yeah. Just another Tuesday.”

  Cathie brushed some ash off her sleeves and eyed the katana in Draven’s hand with mock suspicion.

  “So… you walk around with that thing. Let me guess—part-time samurai, full-time ramen chef?”

  Draven gave her a dry look. “I take slicing very seriously.”

  She snorted. “Right. One wrong move and the chashu’s in pieces.”

  He shrugged. “People die for worse reasons.”

  “Spoken like a true lunatic.”

  Then she added more sincerely, “Thanks again, really. What is your actual job though?”

  “Bodyguard,” he said without hesitation.

  Cathie perked up. “Great. I’ve got a speech tomorrow—big deal, lots of people, could use a guy like you—”

  “No,” Draven interrupted, blunt as ever. “I Can’t. Already got something scheduled.”

  Cathie narrowed her eyes. “Wow. You ghosted my request faster than you ghosted me in middle school.”

  Draven cracked the faintest smirk. “Ghosting’s part of the job description.”

  Sirens began echoing from nearby. Draven looked out toward the street. “Is that the police?”

  Cathie shook her head. “Nah. That's the fire department.”