The invitation had arrived in the mouth of a severed raven.
Elijah didn't even blink when he cracked the dead bird's jaw and pulled the charred scrap of paper from its gullet.
Midnight. Red Hook. South Dock. Come alone. Bring the dead.
It wasn't the weirdest summons he'd received.
Still, something about the way the bird dissolved into ash seconds later made him frown.
Now, as he stood beneath a broken crane at the Red Hook dockyards, Elijah watched the mist roll across the water, his senses stretched as tight as violin strings.
Behind him, Karu stood at attention, freshly repaired armor gleaming faintly in the moonlight. Vaelith hovered nearby, arms folded, her eyes scanning the shadows.
The Stalker and Banshee crouched behind rusted containers, perfectly still.
He was never truly alone anymore.
"I hate surprises," Elijah muttered. "They always come with body bags or bad contracts."
Selene's voice came through his earpiece. "You sure you want to do this without backup?"
"I've got backup," he said, watching the mist deepen. "Just not the living kind."
She sighed. "This smells like a trap."
"Which is why I wore my favorite undead-resistant underwear."
There was silence on the line, then a muffled laugh. "You're an idiot."
"Yeah," he said, a little softer. "But I'm your idiot."
He cut the connection and stepped forward into the fog.
A metal hatch opened ahead of him, disguised as a cargo crate. The space beneath it reeked of blood, rot, and old coin. A man in a plague doctor mask motioned him inside.
Elijah descended.
The Bone Market wasn't on any map, but every awakened rogue had heard of it. A hidden black market beneath New York's skeleton. Traffickers. Mercenaries. Blood witches. Occult tech dealers. Necromantic bootleggers.
He walked through aisles of whispered deals—souls in glass jars, hexed weapons, even bottled blood with labels like "Berserker Type B+".
The market was carved into an old flooded tunnel system, lit by bioluminescent fungi and hovering wraith-lanterns. The air buzzed with quiet danger.
He was guided to a raised pit at the center, surrounded by stone benches and metal catwalks.
A woman waited there. Late forties. Elegant in a predatory way. Long black trench coat, cane made from femur bone. Her eyes were silver and unblinking.
"Elijah Voss," she said. "Word travels fast."
He gave her a shallow nod. "Wish I could say the same for your invitations. The bird coughed on me."
"Consider it a test. Most die from the curse. You… survived. That earns attention."
"I'm not looking for attention," he replied.
"Then you're in the wrong business."
She turned and waved a hand. "I represent the Obsidian Vein. We deal in things others fear. But fear is profit. Power. And you… you're rising fast. We're offering a contract."
Elijah didn't move. "What kind of contract?"
"A retrieval mission," she said smoothly. "Simple in principle. Deadly in execution."
A panel in the floor opened, revealing a holographic map of an abandoned subway sector deep beneath Manhattan.
"We lost contact with an expedition here three days ago. We want what they were carrying. Bring it back, and we pay you in essence stones and elevation tokens."
That made him blink.
Elevation tokens could force a stat or trait breakthrough without requiring full EXP.
"I'm listening."
"Success means recognition. Failure means your bones end up in aisle three."
Elijah cracked his neck. "Sounds fun."
An hour later, Elijah stood in the crumbling remains of Station C-9, flashlight in one hand, dagger in the other. Karu walked at point, Vaelith shielding the flank. The Banshee hovered beside him, her aura alert. The Stalker flowed along the ceiling, silent as breath.
They found the first corpse thirty meters in.
It was twisted—snapped in half like a toy, organs boiled from the inside.
"Whatever did this didn't just kill," Vaelith said softly. "It unmade."
Elijah looked around. "I'm starting to think they undersold the 'deadly' part."
They moved deeper. Bones littered the rails. Strange scorch marks covered the walls, but not from fire. Something more precise. Surgical.
Then the whispers began.
At first, he thought they were just ghosts.
But no—this was language. Foreign. Eldritch. Something beneath even necromancy.
The Banshee screamed suddenly—piercing, involuntary. Her body spasmed in the air, and she collapsed, twitching.
Elijah rushed to her side, eyes scanning wildly.
Then he saw it.
The creature emerged from the dark like ink spreading underwater. Eight feet tall. Long, spindly limbs. No eyes, but a gaping mouth full of silent teeth.
A name formed in Elijah's mind, unbidden.
Nullborn.
He didn't wait.
"Engage!"
Karu shot forward, blades flashing. Vaelith summoned plague hexes that exploded on contact. The Banshee jolted upright, unleashed a Terror Cry, and struck back.
But the Nullborn absorbed the scream.
It turned its featureless face toward Elijah and moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
He barely dodged its swipe. A graze from the creature burned like acid. The Stalker tried to flank, but it vanished mid-strike—teleported or erased.
[Elijah – Personal Summons: 1/2]
• Undead Stalker – Destroyed
"Dammit!" Elijah swore, and a pulse of necrotic force surged from his body. The Banshee screamed again, this time with raw fury.
The Nullborn hesitated. Just a second.
It was enough.
Karu severed its arm at the joint, Vaelith struck with a soulbrand hex, and Elijah leapt, driving his dagger into the center of its chest. He whispered:
"Decay."
The blade flared green, feeding off Elijah's energy, and pierced deep.
The Nullborn screamed—without sound—and began to melt into the ground, warping the stone around it.
When the echoes faded, Elijah dropped to one knee, panting.
[Elijah Voss – Status Update]
EXP Gained: +520
Rank: F – 950/1000 EXP
Progress to E-Rank: 95%
Karu knelt beside him. "The Stalker…?"
Elijah closed his eyes. "Gone. For now."
Vaelith floated nearby, face pale. "That wasn't a normal entity. It was… summoned. Fed."
"Which means someone wanted that expedition dead," Elijah finished grimly. "This wasn't retrieval. This was a test."
He reached into the crater the Nullborn left behind and found a small obsidian case. It pulsed faintly.
Inside was a single black coin. Engraved with a rune he didn't recognize.
He pocketed it.
Back at the Bone Market, the woman was waiting.
"You survived."
"No thanks to your briefing," he growled, tossing her the box.
She opened it, smiled faintly, and handed him a pouch of essence stones and a single silver token.
"Use it wisely," she said. "You're going to need it. Especially once the other necromancers hear your name."
Elijah stared at her. "There are others?"
She smiled wider. "Oh, Elijah. There's always others."