They reached their destination a little over an hour later.
Stopping in front of what looked like a dead end, Lucien stepped closer and tapped against the stone wall in a particular rhythm.
A moment later, part of the wall shifted inward with a low grind, revealing a hidden passage beyond.
Ava’s brows rose slightly as she followed him through.
“Where are we?”
“An abandoned warehouse in the southern part of the Contested Zone,” Lucien replied quietly, already moving ahead.
He stepped into the dark room beyond and stayed close to the entrance, his hand brushing along the wall until his fingers found a lever and pulled it.
With a faint sputter, a hanging lamp near the center of the room flickered to life, spilling dim yellow light across the space.
The room was larger than it first appeared, packed with rows of old wooden barrels stacked two and three high. Dust drifted lazily through the stale air. Another lever sat mounted nearby. Lucien pulled that one too.
A metallic click echoed overhead, followed by the sharp creak of old mechanisms as a narrow ladder unfolded from the ceiling.
Ava glanced up, intrigued.
Lucien turned toward her, his expression calm.
“Wait here. I’ll scout ahead.”
Privately, another thought crossed his mind.
I also want to test my abilities…
He didn’t want Ava to know about his baseline skills just yet.
Ava didn’t seem bothered by the suggestion. She leaned casually against one of the barrels and gave him an easy smile.
“Shout if you need help. I’ll run as fast as I can.”
Lucien snorted. "Toward me or away from me?"
Her smirk deepened.
“The latter, obviously.”
A quiet laugh escaped him despite himself. He gestured toward the lever mounted near the wall.
“You can pull the ladder back up once I’m outside. I’ll knock three slow times, two fast, then one slow if it’s me.”
Ava nodded once, surprisingly attentive despite the playful attitude from earlier. “Got it.”
As Lucien placed a hand on the ladder, she spoke again, her tone softer this time.
“Be careful.”
He glanced down at her briefly before giving a small nod.
“Will be.”
Then he started climbing upward.
There was no Hollow inside the building.
This place had been cleared months ago, and Hollow in this area rarely entered enclosed structures unless it matched whatever behavioral patterns they followed.
That made it useful.
And, more importantly, safe enough for infiltration.
The building itself had once been a modest restaurant. Before the Eclipse, the owner had an arrangement with the Twilight Covenant, allowing them to connect hidden routes through the basement without drawing attention.
The owner never survived the disaster.
Like countless others, he had turned Hollow and was eventually put down by another Covenant member.
Now the abandoned building—The Gilded Lyre—sat facing Victory Boulevard, a street nearly fifteen meters wide that had once been lined with restaurants, shops, and theaters stretching down both sides of the avenue.
Lucien remembered it clearly.
Back then, it had been one of Vel’Sharim’s grandest streets, where military parades, festivals, and public celebrations were often held.
Standing near the dusty window, Lucien carefully peered outside through the cracked glass.
There are still a lot of Hollows here…
This was the first time he had truly seen them with his own eyes since transmigrating.
At first glance, they moved normally. Their motions were smooth and natural, like ordinary people casually going about their daily routines. But the longer he looked, the more wrong everything became.
Their skin was corpse-pale. Dark veins spread beneath the flesh like rot crawling under the surface. Their nails had lengthened into jagged claws. Some had dull, lifeless eyes. Others no longer had eyes at all.
Outside, a maid slowly wiped the same spotless window again and again with mechanical precision. Nearby, another Hollowed stood holding a wooden sign, tilting it toward the empty street as though trying to attract customers that no longer existed. Inside one of the neighboring buildings, someone repeated cooking motions over a cold, dead stove. He could also see a few Hollows dressed like city guards still patrolling the boulevard in repetitive routes.
Even children were there.
Lucien watched one little girl crouch beside a broken hoop, repeating the same throwing motion over and over despite the toy no longer existing.
His expression hardened slightly.
The unsettling part was that, unless he interfered with their patterns, most of them probably wouldn’t attack him immediately if he walked out there.
Still, there was no reason to risk it.
Lucien stepped away from the window and quietly moved toward the back of the building, stopping near another cracked opening that overlooked Minstrel’s Alley—a narrow six-meter passage once used for deliveries and service entrances.
Compared to Victory Boulevard, the alley was quieter.
There were fewer Hollows here. They were mostly former residents and harmless unless he gets too close to them. A handful of Guardian-types still wandered through the area in slow patrol routes. Since the numbers are few and he already knew their patterns, he calmly waits for one of them to pass before doing anything.
While he had unlocked Void Cloak, he didn’t particularly want to rely on it unless absolutely necessary.
I’ve got less than a hundred CP left, after all, he thought while watching another Hollowed disappear around the corner. Just activating it costs fifteen, and maintaining it drains one CP per minute. At best, I’d only get around an hour.
According to the System, he could convert ambient miasma into CP.
The problem was that it took time.
And right now, he’d rather save what he had for Shadow Tendril in case things turned ugly.
Lucien briefly glanced down at himself.
To blend in, he wore a dark-gray tunic over sturdy trousers, along with soft-soled boots that kept his movements quiet. A leather coat hung over it all, lined with hidden pockets carrying lockpicks, vials, throwing knives, a garrote wire, and other tools. Twin daggers rested concealed along his lower back, positioned for quick cross-draws.
He drew both daggers into a backhand grip.
Let’s just test my baseline skills for now…
Lucien slowed his breathing first, gradually controlling it into a shallow, steady rhythm. His body followed naturally after that. The tension in his muscles eased just enough to stay flexible without going slack.
The knowledge was still there. The experience too. None of it had disappeared with the transmigration.
When he stepped outside into the alley, he placed each foot carefully, touching down from the outer edge before rolling inward to minimize sound against the stone.
His posture shifted subtly as well.
He stayed close to walls, slipping in and out of buildings, all the while moving through shadows and broken lines of sight. Tiny details started standing out naturally—the scrape of loose debris shifting in the wind, distant footsteps echoing somewhere deeper in the ruins, faint irregular movements between buildings.
It all came to him automatically. It was a good start.
Lucien decided to keep moving for a while longer, following the alley while checking nearby buildings for signs of Hollowed activity. If he found one isolated enough, he planned to test how efficiently he could kill it without exposing himself.
Since the district was accessible to multiple factions, many buildings had already been partially cleared.
Let’s just hope I don’t run into people from another district.
As he slipped past a narrow gap between two ruined storefronts, something suddenly brushed across his face.
“Tch—”
Lucien stopped briefly and pulled at it instinctively.
A thin strand clung to his cheek for a second before peeling away between his fingers. It looked almost like spider silk, except slightly thicker and oddly difficult to notice unless the light caught it at the right angle.
He frowned faintly.
Spider web?
That alone wasn’t strange in abandoned ruins, but something about it bothered him. He hadn’t seen any actual webbing nearby, and the strand itself had been stretched alone across the alley rather than attached to anything obvious.
Still, after a brief glance around, he let the thread fall and moved on.
He moved toward another abandoned structure instead, avoiding a passing cluster of Hollowed.
Halfway there, a sudden chill crawled up the back of his neck.
His steps slowed slightly.
That feeling…
His grip on the daggers tightened imperceptibly.
Someone’s watching me?
Instead of stopping, he calmly continued into the building he had already intended to enter.
Panic would only make him easier to track.
Who is it?
The strange web strand he had walked into earlier immediately came to mind. The timing felt far too precise to be a coincidence. Not to mention that even animals could be affected by miasma.
But whether it was human or Hollow, either one could become a serious problem if hostile.
Dust drifted lazily through the dim interior as Lucien slipped into the abandoned building through its cracked front entrance facing the alley. Judging from the faded decorations and the broken display shelves near the walls, the place had probably once been a small storefront of some kind. A collapsed reception counter sat near the middle of the room beneath a half-caved ceiling. Keeping his steps quiet, Lucien moved behind it while his eyes carefully swept across the dark interior, listening for any movement beyond the building.
This looked like a safe place.
Lucien exhaled lightly while lowering himself slightly, thinking through his options.
Turning around carelessly would just put me in even more danger, he thought grimly. That’d basically be inviting them to attack.
After a few seconds, he started piecing together a route in his head.
There should’ve been another hidden path somewhere in the southeastern part of the Contested Zone. If he could reach it safely, he could circle back toward Ava’s position without exposing himself too much in the open streets.
Should I use Shadow Concealment?
The technique was one of the Soul Loom skills he had learned, producing effects somewhat similar to Void Cloak.
A moment later, he dismissed the idea.
Activating it wasn’t particularly difficult—it mostly relied on controlled breathing patterns—but maintaining it was irritatingly restrictive. To preserve the concealment properly, he either had to remain completely still or move at an almost painfully slow pace. Not to mention, the effect only lasted for about twenty minutes.
Shadow Step wasn’t much better.
Its activation took too long, the maximum range was only around two or three meters at his current level, and the destination placement still felt unreliable enough that he didn’t trust using it during an escape.
Lucien exhaled quietly through his nose.
Guess I’ll have to do this the boring way.
Once he settled on that decision, he carefully shifted closer to the shattered side window of the building and leaned to peek outside again.
A Guardian-type Hollow shuffled past the alley entrance alongside two ordinary Hollowed civilians, all moving through the same repetitive routines like broken actors trapped inside an endless play. Lucien waited until they disappeared around the corner before slipping back outside and continuing forward.
The moment he turned his back to the street, the sensation returned.
A cold prickling crawled up the back of his neck again, making the muscles beneath his coat tense instinctively. Lucien kept moving anyway, forcing himself to stay calm while periodically slipping into abandoned buildings whenever more Hollows wandered nearby.
The whole time, it felt like something was watching him from somewhere behind the ruins, silently tracking his movements no matter where he went.
That alone made his nerves tighten.
He knew stopping suddenly or turning around carelessly would only make him more vulnerable.
Still, walking around while feeling completely exposed from behind was an entirely different kind of unpleasant.
Eventually, after slipping out of yet another ruined building and back into the alleyways, the sensation vanished completely.
Lucien slowed slightly, brows pulling together.
…Just like that?
Honestly, the sudden absence unsettled him even more.
For a brief moment, he considered retreating back toward his previous path immediately. But after hesitating, he ultimately decided to keep moving forward for now while staying alert. While walking, a faint sound drifting down from above catches his attention.
“...?”
His steps didn’t stop immediately, but his eyes subtly shifted upward, scanning the upper floors of the surrounding buildings with apparent curiosity.
The structures here were mostly hollowed-out shells—broken windows, collapsed balconies, and dark interiors that looked long abandoned. But that also meant anything could be hiding inside them.
I didn’t like that thought at all…
A second sound followed shortly after, softer this time. A faint dragging noise scraping across stone.
Scrrrk…
Lucien slowed further.
His gaze lingered on the upper floors while his expression tightened slightly.
Is it a Hollow that follows me…?
But something about its pattern felt strange.
That was when something on the ground ahead caught his attention.
Lucien came to an immediate stop, eyes narrowing toward the alley floor.
This is—
Thin strands stretched across the stone path ahead of him, faintly glimmering beneath the dim light filtering through the ruined buildings overhead.
Lucien frowned.
Wasn't it the same web as before?
He stared at it for another second, confusion mixing with growing unease as a massive shadow swallowed him from above.
“—!”
Lucien instantly threw himself backward.
THUD—!
Something crashed down where he’d been standing barely a second earlier, but even then, he wasn’t fast enough.
BAM!
A violent impact slammed into his chest mid-motion.
“Ghk—!”
Pain burst through his ribs as he hit the ground hard and slid several feet across the stone. His expression twisted briefly while one hand immediately grabbed at his chest beneath the coat.
That definitely tore skin.
Suppressing the pain, Lucien quickly forced himself upright and looked ahead sharply.
What the hell is that…?
The thing crouching before him resembled a woman only in the vaguest sense.
Its body was skeletal and unnaturally thin, pale skin stretched tightly over visible bones while long gray-white hair trailed across the alley floor behind it. It moved on all fours like a spider, elongated limbs bending at disturbing angles as bone claws scraped lightly against the stone.
What remained of a once-ordinary dress hung from its frame in muddy, bloodstained tatters.
Its milky white eyes locked onto Lucien, and a wet cracking sound followed as its jaw unhinged far wider than any human’s should, revealing rows of needle-like teeth packed deep inside its mouth. Thick saliva dripped between them as its entire body twitched violently once, elongated limbs jerking against the stone like a spider struggling against invisible strings.
A second later, it released a piercing, animalistic shriek into the alley.
“SKREEEEEE—!!”
The sound echoed violently through the ruined buildings.
Lucien’s eyes immediately flicked toward the surrounding streets and windows, checking for movement nearby.
Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any aggressive Hollow close enough to react immediately.
That alone saved him from outright panicking.
Most Hollow he’d encountered weren’t particularly responsive to sound anyway. Many barely reacted to noise at all unless it interfered with whatever pattern governed their behavior. Still, this much commotion lingering in one place for too long was dangerous.
Sooner or later, something else would wander over.
Lucien slowly straightened despite the throbbing pain still spreading through his chest from the earlier hit. One hand stayed lightly pressed against the injury while the other slipped beneath his coat toward the reverse grip of his dagger.
His heartbeat had already sped up noticeably now.
The Hollow remained crouched several meters away, twitching erratically while strands of saliva dripped from its hanging jaw onto the alley floor.
Watching it up close made his skin crawl.
It didn’t even look like something that should still be alive.
…How the hell am I supposed to fight that?