The city's broken. The heroes are broke. Time for damage control… Nocturne-style.
Emergency Meeting — Crownbreaker HQ
It smelled like burnt incense, blood, and cheap coffee inside the office of Asher Blackwood — Nocturne's reluctant savior and professional trainwreck. The war was over, technically. The King was dead, mostly. And the city? Still standing. Sort of.
Asher sat hunched at his desk, surrounded by reminders of both triumph and trauma.
A trio of mismatched coffee mugs formed a precarious tower by his elbow, all stained with some mixture of ash, blood, or eldritch foam. Crumpled papers filled with notes and sketches — half maps, half fever dreams — covered the desk surface.
A cracked golden chess piece, its surface pulsing faintly, sat in the center like a cursed trophy.
Above him, Noir's floating monitors blinked in an alarming red loop:
"CITY-WIDE THREAT LEVEL: YES.""DISASTER POTENTIAL: UNHELPFUL.""RECOMMENDED RESPONSE: PANIC."
Across the room, Rosa was lounging upside down on the couch, idly flipping through a leather-bound grimoire now repurposed as a gossip magazine. Every other page burst into minor flames or screamed a little.
Asher didn't comment.
Lady Mirth, meanwhile, sat cross-legged atop his filing cabinet, humming a low lullaby that made the room colder by degrees. Her claws gleamed silver as she sharpened them on a bone file that might've been human once.
Asher finally groaned, rubbing his temples.
"We need a plan. The city's being held together with duct tape, dark pacts, and dumb luck."
Mirth flashed fangs.
"Sounds like Nocturne's doing better than usual."
Noir didn't look up from his projected screen.
"I have successfully erased 93 parking infractions and one curse of municipal inconvenience."
Rosa blinked. "Wait. You can erase curses now?"
Noir: "I said one."
The entire team sat in a moment of shared silence — the kind that said, we're alive… but for how long?
---------------------------------------------
City Government Tries Damage Control
Elsewhere, deep in the neon bowels of the Nocturne Emergency Council, chaos wore a necktie and spoke in tongues.
A roundtable of the city's "finest" tried to manage the post-catastrophe recovery. They included:
Demon Lords in business suits, complete with fireproof briefcases
Human bureaucrats who hadn't blinked since the last fiscal collapse
Succubus guild leaders, sipping blood martinis with judgmental flair
And one sentient vending machine, known as Snax-O-Matic 3000, recently elected after a scandal involving candy bribes
The room descended into shouting as an argument broke out over a critical issue:
"Do we raise taxes on cursed items, or legalize public dueling again to curb street violence?"
The mayor — a half-shadow, half-politician hybrid who once ran unopposed because no one remembered his name — banged his gavel.
"ENOUGH! We survived the Rupture King. It's time to move forward… with the Nocturne Rebranding Campaign!"
Cheers. Screams. One explosion.
Billboards across the city updated in real time:
"VISIT NOCTURNE — NOW ONLY 30% INFESTED!""CURSED WATER? MORE LIKE BLESSED PINK ELIXIR!""NOCTURNE: WHERE THE NIGHTMARES HAVE WI-FI!"
Public transit, however, remained a disaster. Half the subways still growled at commuters. One of them sprouted legs and walked off last week. Nobody dared file a report.
----------------------------------------
Asher's Personal Problems Stack Up
Back at HQ, Asher faced a crisis even he didn't expect.
"Someone stole my laundry," he said, deadpan.
Rosa cackled so hard she fell off the couch. "Again?"
Noir tapped a screen, pulling up a disturbing result: a cursed auction listing titled:
"Worn Crownbreaker Relics — Touch the Edge of Despair™"
The item: Asher's old trench coat.
Description: "Infused with authentic existential dread and vague gunpowder smell."Current bid: 666,000 ShadowCoin.Bonus: Comes with a vial of "alleged tears."
Noir looked up, expression unreadable.
"Shall I trace the bidders and neutralize them?"
Asher sighed. "No… Just find my damn coat before someone turns it into a fashion trend."
Mirth purred. "Too late. The cult of your broken aesthetic has begun, darling."
He groaned louder. The city was healing… but his dignity was not.
---------------------------------------
Rising Threat Foreshadowing
Far below the noise and satire, Nocturne's wounds pulsed in golden silence.
The cracks from the fallen throne hadn't closed — they shifted.Moved.
A strange chant echoed in subterranean echoes.
A dozen survivors of the old cult now donned mismatched masks, each piece etched with forgotten glyphs. They whispered not of kings, but of queens.
"She returns… The Masked Queen… She sees beyond the gold…"
A serpent-like shadow slithered through rusted tunnels, eyes glowing where no light should reach.
And above ground, the masked woman from before watched Asher's office from a nearby rooftop, flipping the same golden chess piece in her hand — now cracked clean in two.
She smiled, slow and sharp.
"The Crownbreaker thinks it's over.Round two…is already in play."
---------------------------------------
Asher's Reluctant Acceptance
That night, long after the laughter and mockery had faded, Asher stood on the balcony outside his crumbling apartment.
A cigarette burned between his fingers. Rosa had made him promise to quit. He hadn't — not really.
The sky was dark, as always, but where the stars should have been… faint cracks glowed gold.
A wound, wide and watching.
Lady Mirth joined him without a word, her coat flaring with silver embroidery that shimmered like midnight static.
She didn't tease him this time. No smile. No sharp joke.
Just silence.
Asher exhaled, smoke curling upward into the wounded heavens.
"Every time we win, this city sinks a little deeper."
Mirth's voice was soft, almost kind.
"Maybe. But you keep pulling it back up. That's why Nocturne loves you."
He snorted.
"Love? No. It blackmails me."
They stood in quiet understanding. The throne had fallen. But the game? It was far from over.
---------------------------------
Inside, Noir's floating screen blared a sudden red alert:
"NEW RUPTURE DETECTED.""LOCATION: ASHER BLACKWOOD'S APARTMENT."
Asher blinked once. Slowly.
"…I just cleaned that place."
[End Of Chapter 71]
----------------------------------
Next Chapter Preview: Chapter 72 — "Nightmares and Rent Overdue"
Nocturne has no time to rest — especially when the newest rupture tears straight through Asher's home. But what emerges isn't another monster… it's a ghost from the detective's past. Meanwhile, demon landlords begin enforcing brutal new rent collection protocols. Can the team fight horror and housing law at once?