Victory feels like a hangover — loud, messy, and full of regrets.
Aftermath in Cathedral Ruins
Golden smoke curled into the night sky, dragging whispers of ruin with it. The once-grand cathedral stood like a collapsed lung — wheezing out golden ichor from shattered cracks, its spires toppled and bones of stained glass bleeding into the rubble. Every breath Asher took tasted of ash, metal, and something wrong.
He stood alone in the debris field, shirt torn, his cursed eye bandaged hastily with a strip of cloth that did little to stop the pulsing beneath. His chest rose and fell like he'd sprinted straight through hell itself.
Footsteps crunched on broken marble behind him.
Lady Mirth appeared, brushing dust from her dark velvet coat. Her smile was wide and glinting — fangs just a little longer than usual, eyes too bright in the golden gloom.
"Well, well. Congratulations, detective. You broke reality… again."
She tilted her head, gaze flicking up to the wounded sky.
Asher didn't laugh. Couldn't. His hands trembled at his sides, still remembering the recoil of that final shot — the shatter, the scream, the way the world had writhed.The whispers were gone… but his head felt too quiet now. Like a bombed-out city after the sirens stop.
He finally rasped, "We stopped him. Didn't we?"
Mirth's grin sharpened, just a little."For now."
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City-Wide Fallout (Goofy Slice of Life)
Cut to: Nocturne City — always a circus, even mid-apocalypse.
At a crooked street corner, a noodle cart vendor shouted at a mutated cultist, waving chopsticks wildly."You owe me for the extra egg! Mutation surcharge or no mutation surcharge!"
The cultist, gold creeping along his cracked mask, hissed back, "I paid already!"
Down in the entertainment district, a notorious succubus-run bar lit up with garish neon:"KING IS DEAD PARTY: 2 Drinks for the Price of 5 — No Refunds!"
Inside, drunk demons and humans alike toasted with glowing cocktails while a live band covered ancient pop songs, slightly off-key.
Meanwhile, Noir's hacked repair drones buzzed nervously around shattered traffic lights, trying to be helpful — but instead turning every intersection green at once. Chaos. Horns blared nonstop as cars, scooters, and weird magic-powered carts tangled themselves in epic gridlock.
Rosa's witches, armed with too much optimism and not enough planning, gathered at the river to "cleanse" the cursed water supply.…They succeeded — sort of. The water turned a vivid neon pink.
By mid-afternoon, people were already bottling it."Cursed Energy Drink!" the labels proclaimed."Guaranteed to mess you up in new ways!"
And somehow, despite it all, Nocturne kept spinning — greedy, weird, and stubborn as hell.
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Asher's Recovery — And Quiet Dread
Back in the cramped, cluttered detective office, Asher collapsed onto his couch, boots thudding against the warped floorboards. The room smelled of cheap coffee, gun oil, and exhaustion.
One by one, his allies drifted in.
Rosa tossed him a cold bottle of the neon-pink water."Hydrate or die, Crownbreaker."
Asher caught it without much enthusiasm, cracking it open as Noir sank into a chair, typing furiously on a floating screen that kept glitching — gold static fuzzing along the edges.
Lady Mirth, as casual as ever, perched on the window sill, sharpening her claws with a delicate silver file. She looked like a cat who'd found a pile of dead birds to lounge in.
Asher finally pulled the bandage off his cursed eye. The glow had faded to a dull ember, but it still pulsed under his skin, like something waiting. Watching.
"…We won, right?" he asked.
Silence.
Nobody met his eyes.
And outside, if you listened closely, you could still hear the faint hum of golden cracks — veins of rupture spreading beneath the city's bones.
The King was dead… but the throne's rot had soaked deep.
Nocturne was infected now.
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Elsewhere.
In alleyways and hidden sanctuaries, cultists regrouped. Torn robes and broken masks stitched back together as they whispered about the "next game," eyes burning with new madness.
In the shadows near Asher's office, a masked woman stood silent, flipping the cracked golden chess piece over in her palm. Her eyes glinted under the hood, sharp and waiting.
Succubi factions, sensing the power vacuum, began to shift alliances — new pacts whispered in smoky corners.
And far below, deep in the ancient infrastructure where golden roots tangled with rusted machinery, something pulsed. A slow, steady heartbeat that had not been there before.
The King was dead.But the game?It was just evolving.
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Asher's Half-Sleep Nightmare
Night fell heavy.
Asher finally drifted into a restless, fitful sleep.
And dreamed:
A city made of bones and gold, towers piercing the black sky.A throne room stretched endlessly, paved with the bodies of his friends — Rosa, Noir, Mirth — all fused together, lifeless.
And him. Sitting on a golden throne, the crown melted into his skull.
The same voice as always.The King?Or something older?
"Round two begins soon, detective.Will you break… or rule?"
Asher jerked awake, gasping — hand already gripping the shotgun by his bed.
Lady Mirth, leaning against the window frame, didn't even flinch."Nightmares again?" she drawled, smirking. "Get used to it. You live here now."
Outside, high above, the same glitching billboard flickered one last time before dying:
"Welcome to Nocturne — Where Ashes Taste Like Gold!"
[End Of Chapter 70]
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Preview of Next Chapter (71) — "Hangover Protocol"
The Rupture King is dead, but the city's far from saved. Asher and his team must navigate new alliances, face political fallout, and unravel the next layer of the game. Who's watching them from the shadows — and what's really awakening beneath Nocturne's streets? Also: who the hell keeps stealing Asher's laundry?