These scars wouldn’t just hold him back in a fight now. Later, when he tried to push for a higher rank—especially that dream of becoming a Master Demon Hunter—they’d be a wall in his path, sshing his chances to pieces. He’d only just made third rank, but he still had that dream. To leave this ruined city behind for a bigger world.

  He wasn’t ready to give that up. He refused to let some “accidental” explosion blow apart the future he’d fought so hard for.

  But… even with a rage burning in his chest hot enough to melt his thoughts, Wilber stumbled away from lunging zombies while fumbling to press down on the worst of his bleeding wounds. In his head, he couldn’t pin down the shadow behind this “accident.”

  Why? Because he’d made too many enemies. The list of people who held a grudge was longer than he could remember. Even he couldn’t say if this was payback from an old rival, a move by one of The Blood Tonic Aldrich’s competitors targeting him, or maybe… just part of a trap The Scalpel’s crew had set up on his escape route to finish him off for good.

  There was no figuring it out. Wilber racked his brain but came up empty on who’d masterminded the bst. He could only suppress the anger and suspicion and pour all his focus into surviving the mess right in front of him.

  He was out of choices. He couldn’t let his injuries drag on, and he couldn’t win a war of attrition against this crowd.

  “No other way…” Wilber gritted his teeth, tearing apart another second-rank Cw Zombie that lunged at him. Foul bck blood spttered his face. He wiped it, a look of pure stubborn determination fshing in his eyes. “…I have to go beg Lord Aldrich.”

  He let out a heavy, ugly sigh full of unwilling shame. But the will to live beat everything else. He picked a direction where the zombie pack looked thinnest and charged, knocking the shambling dead in his path aside. His figure vanished into the deep, dark maze of ruined city streets, filled with endless groans.

  He left behind a mess of bodies and a smell of blood and scorched meat that hung in the air.

  ....................

  Not long after, using his know-how of the nd and a fierce, relentless determination, Wilber finally shook the zombie pack that clung to him like ticks. He didn’t dare stop to breathe. Pushing his energy, he stumbled and ran toward a set spot.

  Through the complicated wreckage of city blocks, across a long-dried-out drainage ditch, he reached a quieter, hillier area where the pnts grew wild. Few people came here. Even the zombies seemed sparse. A narrow, almost invisible path, choked with overgrown weeds and vines, twisted its way into the thick woods.

  Wilber pushed aside the blocking branches, fighting his way down the hidden trail. After about fifteen minutes, the view opened up.

  A ke y ahead under the red moonlight, shimmering, weirdly beautiful and calm. The ke wasn’t big, but the water looked fairly clear. Big patches of reeds grew along the shore, looking dark purple in the night.

  And on the far side of the ke, built right against the water, was a… vil. A two-story brick-and-stone pce in a clear Old-World style, with a wooden deck stretching out over the water. The outer walls were covered in some creeping vine with little white flowers, looking quiet and elegant in the moonlight. You could tell the first owner had money or css, building this getaway far from the noise.

  But the first owner was now either a cleaned-up zombie or long dead in the early chaos. Now, the owner of this keside vil was The Blood Tonic… Aldrich.

  Only a “veteran” third-ranker like Aldrich—anchored at that level for years, with real power and connections tangled deep in all the factions—had the muscle and the nerve to take and hold a pce… like this.

  Inside, the vil was big. It had several studies alone. Some were stacked with books, some held specimens, others were packed with alchemy gear and jars.

  But Aldrich liked the second-floor study, the one facing the ke. The room was wide. Three walls were ceiling-high dark wood shelves, jammed with books of all bindings, scrolls, and leather notebooks. The fourth wall was a huge window from floor to ceiling.

  Outside the window was that moon-shimmering ke and the blurry nighttime shape of the far-off forest and hills.

  Usually, this study was lit up. With Aldrich’s strength, and the resources from Ascension Road and his own channels, getting a good generator and enough fuel to run it—to give the whole vil steady power—wasn’t hard. The cssic crystal chandelier overhead, the brass reading mp in the corner, the desk mp… they could all throw a warm, bright artificial light, showing the expensive rug, the heavy wood desk, and the gold-lettered book spines clear and clean.

  But today, he hadn’t turned on a single light.

  He just stood quiet in front of the big window, reaching out to slowly pull back the heavy, tasseled dark-red curtains. The cold, eerie red moonlight poured in unobstructed through the spotless gss, spreading into the study like spilled blood. A thin, red “veil” with a strange kind of beauty settled over the rug, the desk, the edges of the shelves.

  And from his second-floor spot, he could see the whole ke surface without anything in the way, and the night-covered ruins of the city in the distance.

  Too bad the peaceful, pretty ke view—like some Old-World postcard—did nothing to calm the churning, cold… anger in his heart.

  From behind him came a faint sound. Footsteps. Very light, with a clear stumble and weakness to them. On the thick hall carpet, they were almost silent. But Aldrich’s ears caught them sharp and clear.

  He knew right away who it was. The loser, coming back.

  Was the job he gave Blighted Hand Wilber so hard? Just hold the Botanical Garden. For a while. Six months. Maybe less.

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