Under the neon sky of Nocturne, masks smile while souls scream.
The Descent Into the Carnival
The air stinks of oil, incense, and something sweet and rotting.
Asher steps through the threshold of what used to be Nocturne's financial district — now warped into a grotesque mockery of a carnival. Spinning neon lights buzz overhead, flickering in unnatural patterns like Morse code from a mad god. The streets are littered not with streamers, but confetti made of shredded newspaper headlines — each one a scandal, a lie, a political betrayal. The sins of the city, broadcast and pulverized, now crunch beneath his boots.
"Read all about it," Lucien mutters as he kicks a bit of paper away. "The city's bleeding receipts."
Overhead, twisted loudspeakers dangle like vines. They blare carousel music that jitters in tempo — off-key, accelerating, glitching. One speaker is broken, and it keeps whispering:"Confess… confess… confess…"
Mock confession booths line the sidewalks, each one manned by a masked individual acting out theatrical guilt.
A butcher kneels before a mirrored podium, sobbing. "I lied about the weight of the meat!" he cries.
His porcelain mask bubbles, veins appearing beneath the surface — and with a sickening crack, it expands. Bones snap. Flesh warps. He transforms into a hunchbacked beast with cleaver arms and a tongue made of receipts.
A child skips forward, confessing with a giggle, "I took the candy I wasn't s'posed to."
His paper mask folds inward, morphing into a jagged crown. Black claws burst from his fingertips as he laughs.
Rosa grimaces. Her coat flutters in the artificial wind.
"This isn't a carnival," she says. "It's a punishment parade."
Lucien half-smiles, cocking his pistol with a smooth, theatrical flair.
"Either way," he says, "I say we crash it."
Asher doesn't smile. His jaw tightens, and his eyes flick toward the skyline, where the faint spider-crack in reality pulses with sick light.
He mutters, "We're already inside it."
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Battle with the Face Beasts
They don't get far before the crowd changes.
From the shadows between booths and derelict skyscrapers, the Face Beasts descend — half-human, half-nightmare. Their limbs stretch too long, twisting mid-movement. Their faces are broken porcelain, mirror shards barely clinging to bone.
They charge, not with brute force — but with psychic guilt.
Asher barely sees them before his world skews.
Suddenly, he's standing in a corridor lit by flickering police lights. The air smells like smoke and failure.
His first botched case… a girl in a red jacket, missing. Never found.
Then the vision changes.
A woman — crying, faceless, reaching for him as fire licks the walls of a burning apartment. He knows her. He doesn't remember her name. That's what makes it worse.
His knees buckle.
"Asher—get up!" Rosa shouts, but her voice is distant, like underwater.
Then Noir speaks — or rather, pulses — a red light emanating from his shoulder-mounted device.
"Cognitive Interference Detected. Neutralizing."
A pulse wave explodes out, scattering the images like dust in a storm.
Asher gasps, drenched in cold sweat. Noir's voice buzzes again:
"Detective: Hallucinations suppressed. Suggest immediate retaliation."
Asher grits his teeth, drawing his sidearm with a snap.
"Yeah. Let's exorcise these freaks."
What follows is chaos — glorious, stylized, hallucinatory combat.
Rosa fights like a street brawler with an exorcist's wrath — she leaps, rips masks off mid-air, and uses torn booth signs like weapons.
Lucien is precise and cruel. He fires silver bullets etched with confessions — they sear through masks like truth cutting through lies. He grins as he whispers sarcastic admissions to confuse the beasts.
"I confess I drank your last whiskey. Also, I'm about to shoot you."
Asher fights more methodically — switching between gunplay and grappling, always aiming for the mask core, where reality buckles and the lies are densest.
They fight not just with fists, but with resilience of mind. Every hallucination rejected is another small victory.
By the end, the alley is littered with shattered porcelain and twitching limbs, steaming with residual guilt.
After the last beast falls, there's a silence — deeper than any calm before.
In the center of the path lies a cracked standing mirror. Asher approaches it, suspicious.
But the reflection doesn't show them. Not exactly.
Asher's reflection is monstrous — his own body mutated, mask embedded in his chest like a parasite.
Rosa appears as a warrior queen, crowned in thorns, her eyes hollow and aflame.
Lucien is the most disturbing — faceless. Not masked, but blank.
They stare in silence.
"What the hell…" Asher mutters.
Rosa steps forward and punches the mirror. It explodes into dust.
"I don't need prophecy crap. I need answers."
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Enter the Cult's Stronghold
Their path leads into the city's beating heart — Nocturne's old cathedral.
But it has changed.
Its facade is now wrapped in red banners that ripple like skin. On each, the words:
"Confess and Ascend."
The stained glass windows are no longer still. They move — broadcasting sins like a 24-hour live feed.
A man cheating on his wife.A police officer planting evidence.A politician selling promises for blood.
The doors creak open as if beckoning.
From the balcony, Mother Reflection appears — wearing a cracked glass mask that glints with a hundred expressions.
Her voice is soft. But it carries, worming into the ears of all who hear.
"Come forward, children. Shed your masks… or let them consume you."
Below her, cultists kneel, their masks melting into their faces like candlewax — fusing into their very skin.
They chant in unison:
"One face. One truth. One salvation."
The air feels thick — like it's about to break.
Asher stares at the cathedral.
"This whole city's turning into a confession engine."
Lucien cocks a brow, holstering his pistol.
"You're saying this isn't just madness? It's fuel?"
Asher nods, jaw tight.
"Someone's feeding on it. The guilt, the shame — it's like... they're harvesting the city's soul."
Rosa clenches her fists. "Then we starve the bastard."
They take their first step forward—
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The sky cracks.
Not metaphorically — literally.
A jagged fracture rips across the sky, and through it peers a colossal mask — vast, ancient, expressionless.
Its voice shakes the city:
"CONFESS."
The ground beneath them turns to reflective black liquid, rippling with whispers. Streetlights shatter into laughter. Faces appear in puddles, mouths moving in silent judgment.
Asher loads a bullet, looks up, and spits.
"Let's confess, alright…"
He chambers the round.
"I confess I'm about to wreck your cult."
[End Of Chapter 78]
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Preview of Next Chapter (79) — "Glass Cathedral Showdown"
Asher and the team storm the cathedral in an all-out battle against Mother Reflection's cultists while reality itself collapses around them. The city's darkest secrets come to light... and Asher faces a mask that knows everything about him.