The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The hospital route had never been designed for war.

It snaked through the old medical wing of Grand Meridian, weaving past rows of cots stacked with court evacuees, wounded wardens and relocated children from the east hall. The common ledger kept it lit with living confirmation marks above every door. Volunteers checked IDs, offered water and asked only one question before allowing anyone inside a protected room.

"Are you here by choice?"

Austin Veyron walked into the hospital with Rin, Veyra, Calder and Vharra as the first confirmation mark turned black.

A nurse leaned against the entrance to the hallway with medication piled on a tray at her feet. Her ledger signature glowed true. Her eyes looked tired. But Elena asked the present- choice question into the relay and the nurse answered back with a voice stuttering half a second too late.

"I am here by choice."

The white dot above the doorway refused to brighten.

She smiled.

Inky hunger poured from her outline and sprinted down the hall toward the children’ wards.

"Contain the hall." Austin Veyron ordered.

Medical staff did not wait to be told. Nurses directed patients into safety. A former court guard chained the fire doors shut. The head doctor snatched the route ledger and began verifying every active signature aloud.

Veyra locked the black mass against the wall with white root chain. Rin sprinted past it to seal the children’ ward. Calder used his seed resonance to isolate the feeder from the nurse’ frightened spirit core.

Vharra watched the black shadow thrash against the chain.

"It is mimicking caretakers." She said. "The Emperor knows people will open doors for someone who looks injured."

Austin Veyron said nothing. He watched the infiltration replicate patient faces across the hallway walls. Each one whispered please. Begged to be rescued. Asked for the route to be broken.

Emergency signatures began flooding the hospital ledger.

’URGENT TRANSFER.’

’CHILD IN DANGER.’

’TRADE FOOD FOR MEDICINE.’

’BYPASS CONFIRMATION.’

Elena’ voice crackled through the speaker. "Do not approve override signatures. The feeder is translating fear into access."

The fragment struggled against Veyra’ white chain.

Austin Veyron saw the true person inside it then. The nurse. Aware but trapped beneath ribs of black hunger. The seed offered a simple solution.

[CONSUME FEEDER CORE.]

Instead he reached for her wrist.

"Show me where she is." Austin told Seven.

Seven traced a thin line of white light through the feeder’ bulk. Leading them straight to the small human core curled inside the black vest. A curled up child nurse hidden beneath the adults ribs.

"Rin," Austin whispered. "When I say three."

The blackness opened its mouth against the ceiling tiles above them.

Power in the hospital failed.

For a moment, the only light show came from the white confirmation marks above the safe rooms. The feeder took advantage of their temporary blindness. Splitting itself into fragments of black hunger. Dark tendrils slipped beneath doors to new Hallways. Each carrying a single human voice.

"Let me help."

"Please don’ t leave me."

"My baby is in there."

Medical staff cried out the present- choice question. The head doctor shuttered her eyes and answered each patient with only a single query. "Who are you and are you choosing to speak to me now?"

The shadows could mimic voices. Borrow fear. But no one besides the true living could answer with a present choice.

The white route rejects gnawed through them one by one.

The feeder screamed and surged forward, charging down the hall toward the nursery.

Rin struck first pinning both knives into the wall on either side of the black bulge. Veyra pulled the white chain tight. Calder shielded Austin Veyron from the fragment’ grasping tendrils, containing the black appetite away from his seed. Preventing it from consuming the rescue attempt.

"Three." Austin Veyron said.

His blade cut skin along with the invisible tether wrapping around the nurse’ waist. His sister followed close behind with Seven tracking the white light right to its source: A child sized human core tucked away beneath the nurses rib cage.

"Two." Rin added as she kicked through the dark matter.

Austin Veyron used DEVOUR only on the thread tethering her humanity to the feeder. The fragment shrieked but he saved her anyway. Rin yanked the girl free through the black hole ripping itself apart.

Its final form floated above them then, a massive- mouth made out copied faces from every missing patient.

Vharra stepped underneath it.

Everyone holding their breath. Half expecting her to consume a hostage.

But the blackness said nothing as she walked past.

She spoke to the feeder core directly instead.

"You are not my Emperor." She said. "You are an experiment that failed."

The fragment froze.

Calder used that moment to encase the core into the glass vessel. Seven marked the container with finality. The hospital ledger shredded every confirmation fed by the feeder body they could find.

Power sprang back on.

The nurse coughed back to consciousness in Rin’ s arms, safe.

Another whisper came from inside the glass vessel.

"You are not alone." It said. "There are others like us still trapped in the City Core."

"The first mark entered your Freehold before we escaped the city." It hissed "Before the first court fell."

"One of them." Nahlia corrected.

"The other wears a living name." She continued. "It’ s been glitching through routes for weeks."

Blackness spread beneath Austin Veyron’ boots, another point signature only she could see. A dark coordinate inside Grand Meridian anchored around the hospital infiltration point.

Not in the patient wings.

Not in the forgotten tunnels.

Buried in the common ledger itself.

Austin Veyron returned with the two sealed fragments before the hospital route opened again. The front lobby emptied around them. Silence settled too quickly after the horrors outside. Thick and wrong. White root line tracing flight paths across marble floors still pulsed, but pattern had changed ever so slightly. One heartbeat skipped between breaths, as if a confirmation within the ledger was waiting for someone to answer back.

One of them already had.

Nahlia walked through the Freehold Throne doors before they could move. Her expression grim. The dark point remained centered around her.

"I found it." She said.

"The false signature?"

"It did not sign up as a volunteer." Nahlia explained. "It signed into existence by correcting an old path volunteers helped ID during the court evacuation."

"So we just delete it." Elena asked.

"No." Nahlia shook her head. "That would delete who it is wearing too."

Live route signatures filled the lobby one by one. Names materializing over trails of white light: scouts, cooks, guards, route planners, shelter volunteers. Each flash lit brighter as their alive choices answered back. Everyone except one.

A dark pulse lurking near the ballroom doors.

Austin Veyron knew him too. Everyone did.

Marcus...

Silence stretched one heart beat long.

Then another.

Marcus stood at the end of the lobby wearing a bewildered expression. Hand still clutching the court evacuation clipboard.

"What is going on?" He asked.

"We needed to confirm-"

His voice cut through Elena. Loud and demanding as her wrist blade connected with his shoulder. Enough to startle him into the present. "Marcus. Do you know what’ s happening?"

He shook his head.

"We have company." Austin supplied calmly.

Marcus glanced towards the white trail beneath his boots. Followed its path all the way up to his wrist.

"I’ m.. I’ m choosing to be here." He said.

His confirmation point remained black.

Austin sensed it first, the time kept shifting within the vessel.

A guttural chortle bubbled up from its dark prison.

Marcus stutter- stepped. blackness pooled beneath his sneakers.

Every route shuttered simultaneously.

Not from outside.

The threat had found its way in.

It came to claim the Freehold through the person they trusted most to maintain it.

Veyra unsheathed her sword.

Rin moved to block the ballroom doors.

Calder stayed by Austin’ side as blackness washed through the marble floors. Swallowed the light with silent growing fury.

Marcus looked at them all in turn. Horror washing over his features like ink across parchment.

"I don’ t know what’ s happening."

Austin believed him. He had too.

That’s what made this hunt deadly.

The Hunger Emperor wasn’ t hiding in abandoned train stations or the dark beneath hospitals anymore.

The Emperor was here. Standing among them inside the Freehold as the living, and the common ledger couldn’ t kill it without harming Marcus’ greatest gift: The person he had chosen to become.

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