One hour earlier.
Night Watch member Lin Mo has just finished another round of overtime. He's heading home. He lets out a tired sigh. Thought a desk job would be easy. Good pay, light work, and yet overtime every single day. Should never have taken this position.
Then a cry for help cuts through the air.
Lin Mo looks up. Two children are struggling and screaming. A massive, grotesque, ghostly hand has wrapped itself around them, dragging them away by force.
Lin Mo goes pale. Aberrants are supposed to sneak out of the shadow realm into reality, not drag people back in. He's never heard of anything like this.
In the blink of an eye, the children are almost gone. Only their heads above the swirling vortex, eyes wide with terror, staring at Lin Mo.
No time to think. Lin Mo moves. He dives toward them. "Don't be scared. Hold on."
The moment he grabs both their hands, the vortex surges with tremendous force and pulls all three of them in.
The shock blanks Lin Mo's mind completely. He doesn't even get the chance to alert the Night Watch. In moments, all three are dragged into the cold, eerie shadow realm.
The two children collapse on the ground, sobbing. Lin Mo sways and drops to one knee. He looks terrible. He's just an office worker. No anti-corruption gear, no weapons. This is basically a death sentence.
Suddenly a blood red ghostly hand launches itself at all three of them. The children scream.
Lin Mo grits his teeth. No other choice. He snaps out a hard kick with his right leg and sends the ghostly hand flying. Then, with every ounce of strength he has, he follows up with an aerial strike. The blood red hand shatters apart.
With the hand gone, Lin Mo checks the vortex. It's sealed shut. There's no way back.
His expression darkens. A wave of corrupted energy rolls from the alley ahead. Lin Mo knows aberrants are everywhere here, and they can strike at any moment. Worse, most of his combat techniques from the exam have gone rusty. He glances back at the children, and to top it all off, two completely helpless kids counting on him.
The children can feel the hopelessness too. They cry out between sobs. "Mommy. I want to go home."
Lin Mo does the only thing he can. He activates the emergency signal on his watch and waits for backup. Then he takes it off and presses it into their hands. "Hold on to this. It'll protect you from the corruption for now. I'll get you home soon."
Inside, he lets out a quiet, bitter sigh. That's the best I can do. Whether they survive, that's up to fate now.
The girl takes the watch and stops crying. The boy beside her looks up at Lin Mo with wide, hopeful eyes. "Really? You can really get us out?"
Lin Mo smiles gently. "Really. Now get behind me. I've got a small problem to deal with first."
Just then, the air behind him twists red. A scythe slowly emerges from the distortion. The grotesque specter leaps out, scythe dripping crimson, and launches at Lin Mo at full speed.
Lin Mo springs into action and deploys that legendary technique, the side-to-side shuffle. The specter seems thrown off by his footwork, hesitating to commit to an attack.
Lin Mo uses the moment to size it up. Four eyes. Moves on all four limbs. Semi-beast form. A mid-tier rank one aberrant. Trash, relatively speaking.
The specter is chewing on something. Dark red seeps from the corners of its mouth. Lin Mo's eyes sharpen with killing intent. Expression still as stone, like a boxer stepping into the ring. A chunk of flesh slides off the specter's body.
Both explode forward like thunder. Lin Mo's right fist drives hard into the specter's gut. He pivots, torso rotating, knee driving up. A rising strike like a mountain slams straight into the specter's jaw.
The specter wails in pain, letting out a furious roar.
A slight smile touches Lin Mo's lips. Good. That old feeling is back.
But before he can enjoy it, the smile freezes. A red blur moves behind the specter, and a massive ghostly hand slams into him, sending his entire body crashing into the wall.
He staggers to his feet. The blow was devastating. His arm has gone numb. Lin Mo grits his teeth. Damn it. I saw it coming. My brain reacted. My body didn't.
Before he can think of his next move, the specter's scythe swings in. Lin Mo twists aside just in time. Back and forth they go. Every graze of that scythe tears flesh. More than once it comes within inches of taking his head clean off.
Before long, his body starts to feel like lead. Every inch of him pricked by invisible needles. He knows what this is. The shadow realm is eating into him.
He steels himself. Can't drag this out. End it now.
He tightens the bandages on his fists. He raises them. Dark mist swirls in his eyes. Black energy coils around his knuckles. He thrusts forward and a dense surge of black energy erupts from his fist. It takes the shape of a massive abyssal maw and launches at the specter.
The power of a shadow type awakened, unleashed. The aberrant is driven into the ground.
But the next moment, Lin Mo coughs out a mouthful of foul air. Black veins begin creeping up his neck. The shadow realm plus ability corruption. A double blow. Two uses of his power, and already his body is screaming. The curse of low aptitude fighters.
The specter sways. Then its eyes burn fiercer than before. It steadies itself and charges again.
Lin Mo sets his jaw. Looks like today I'm going all in.
He raises his arm. A clean, straight punch aimed at the specter's chest. The specter roars, and a massive crimson ghostly hand whips out. Lin Mo feels a searing explosion of pain in his chest and gets launched several meters through the air.
He hits the ground, coughing up blood with traces of something darker mixed in. Face pale, he slowly forces himself upright.
The specter charges again. Lin Mo sidesteps. I'm not going to win this. But even so, as a member of the Night Watch, I will not take a single step back.
The fight rages on, brutal and desperate. Lin Mo holds on with everything he has, because he knows the only thing he can do right now is buy time. Hold on until Night Watch backup arrives and get those two kids out alive.
Then a wet tearing sound.
Lin Mo's pupils shrink. The specter's scythe has buried itself in his shoulder and tears out a gaping chunk of flesh. The specter follows up with a punch. Lin Mo slams into the ground hard. Blood runs in thin lines from his fingertips.
His vision begins to blur. He forces his head up. The specter looms larger with every second. Pain eats into his mind.
A bitter smile creeps onto his battered face.
At fifteen, he watched his family die at the hands of an aberrant. At eighteen, his awakening came and he chose the combat path. At twenty, end of his sophomore year, forcibly removed from the combat track. At twenty-one, he joined the Night Watch as a desk clerk. Four years in and counting.
Death is just a normal ending for the awakened, isn't it?
Lin Mo smiles without a sound. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a blue pill and puts it in his mouth.
The black veins in Lin Mo's eyes multiply rapidly until they consume his entire gaze.