The echoes of Selene's laughter still clung to the decaying walls of Black Hollow, a ghostly melody that lingered in the minds of Kruger and his remaining soldiers. The air was thick with the remnants of her alchemical mist, curling like unseen fingers through the cracks in the stone.
Kruger wiped sweat from his brow, but the coldness in his chest wasn't from exertion—it was from something far worse. He had faced death before, but never something like her.
"She's toying with us," Vale muttered, reloading his rifle with shaking hands. "She could've killed us back there. She wanted us to see that."
Kruger didn't respond. His gaze was locked onto the husk that had once been Corporal Reyes, its body frozen in a posture of agony. The man's face was stretched in an unnatural scream, his skin dried and cracked like old parchment. His shadow was gone, stolen by whatever black alchemy Selene had unleashed.
"We need to move," Kruger said at last. "Before she decides to—"
A sharp, metallic creak echoed through the ruined chapel.
The soldiers spun toward the sound, weapons raised. In the dim torchlight, something shifted high above them in the rafters, a mass of tattered black cloth and pale, glinting eyes.
Then, the voice came again—a whisper from everywhere at once.
"You walked into my web, General."
Before Kruger could react, the ceiling collapsed.
Massive, blackened chains shot down from above, rattling like cursed windchimes, wrapping around two soldiers and yanking them into the darkness before they could even scream. The others scattered, but the chains moved as if alive, slithering across the ground, seeking more prey.
From the shadows, Selene Nocturna descended.
She dropped gracefully from the rafters, her cloak billowing like torn silk. The same wicked grin was stretched across her bloodstained lips, but now her eyes glowed with something far more sinister. Around her neck, the crimson gem embedded in her choker pulsed, feeding off the terror in the air.
The bullet never reached her.
Selene raised a single finger, and the projectile froze mid-air, twisting and melting into a writhing, black tendril. It slithered back toward Kruger, forcing him to dodge as it splattered against the wall, hissing like acid.
"You can't kill me," Selene purred, stepping forward, her bare feet silent against the stone. "Not with guns. Not with blades. I am decay, General. I am the disease that lingers."
The shadows themselves shifted behind her, forming twisted figures—warped, hollow-eyed beings with skeletal grins.
Kruger knew then—this wasn't just a skirmish. This was a hunt.
And they were already caught in the web.