I descended once more into the depths of Zirathion—the city that never sleeps, never shows mercy, and never grants a second chance to those who err.

In less than an hour, I had moved from the technological luxury of the penthouse to dampness and rot.

I now stood in the same muddy market where I had first encountered that little girl.

The gray mud was still cold, clinging to shoes as if trying to drag passersby downward.

The foul stench of burnt engine oil and human waste filled every breath, mingling with the scent of the lightly falling acidic rain.

I had no tracking device, nor did I possess any intelligence threads in this sector yet. But I had something that could open even the most difficult doors in Zirathion: money—and a killing intent that froze veins.

I walked forward with confident steps and sharp eyes toward that worn-out wooden stall.

The thin man with rotten teeth was still there, wiping water stains off his cheap goods while greedily counting the cash he had taken from me earlier.

"You," I said in a low voice, sharp as a razor blade, cutting through the market’s noise.

The man jolted as if struck by electricity. The bills slipped from his hands into the mud when he saw my black coat and the aura around me—one that reeked of death and money.

"S–Sir! Welcome back! D-did you like the toy? Would you like to buy more? I have special offers!"

He stammered in fear, trying to gather the soaked bills from the mud with trembling hands.

I approached him slowly and placed my hand on his rickety wooden table.

The aged wood groaned under the pressure—not merely from physical strength, but from the carefully released killing intent that paralyzed his ability to lie.

"The girl. That little rat with messy hair who took the mechanical monkey. Where does she live?"

The man’s face changed instantly. His yellowed smile vanished, and his complexion turned so pale I thought he might faint.

It wasn’t just fear of me driving him—there was an older, deeper terror that leapt into his eyes the moment she was mentioned.

His lips trembled as he glanced around in panic, as if the walls themselves might come alive and devour him if he spoke her name.

"S–Sir... please, I’m just a poor man trying to survive! I have nothing to do with her, I swear!"

He spoke in a shaking voice, retreating until his back hit the wall.

"She... she’s not a normal child. She’s an omen of misfortune! The daughter of demons who does not die!"

"I didn’t ask about your ridiculous myths or her suspicious lineage," I said sharply, pulling out a heavy bundle of blue credits—the kind of currency that could buy a man’s life in this alley—and slamming it onto the table before his greedy eyes.

"Talk. Give me a precise location, or I’ll make your filthy tongue the next item you display on your stall."

The man swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the gleam of the credits. The battle between greed and fear was clearly etched across his wrinkled face.

At last, greed won—but in a whisper barely audible.

"She... she doesn’t live with anyone, sir. No family shelters her, no gang dares protect her. Everyone runs from her like she’s a walking plague. She lives in... in the ’House of Shadows.’"

"House of Shadows?" I frowned, trying to recall anything from future memory or technical maps, but the name wasn’t recorded anywhere official.

"Yes..." the man whispered, leaning closer as if revealing a secret that might cost him his blood.

"At the end of the Seventh Dead Alley, near the major chemical waste drains. There’s an old, crumbling house from a past era—before the Great War. It’s cursed. Even government demolition teams refuse to go near it after the mysterious incidents that happened there.

The legend says that anyone who enters... loses their voice first, then begins to see shadows that don’t match their body, and in the end forgets their name and is swallowed by the walls, becoming part of the house."

The man paused to catch his breath, then continued:

"No living being has come out of that house for decades except that girl... She comes out sometimes like a ghost to search for food or steal toys, then returns to disappear into the embrace of darkness. I swear, sir, no one in Zirathion dares look at that house’s windows after sunset!"

"A cheap urban legend to scare drunkards and vagrants," I scoffed coldly, though the words "cosmic entity" from the dream made me unwilling to dismiss any "legend" related to that girl.

"The Seventh Dead Alley. Fine. You’ve bought your life today."

I turned my back on him and moved into the crowd, leaving the merchant behind as he gathered the money in a mix of fear and joy.

I didn’t look back. Instead, I pulled up my coat collar to shield myself from the acidic rain that had begun to fall, heading toward the forgotten edges of Zirathion.

The journey toward the "Seventh Dead Alley" felt like a gradual descent into the city’s true hell.

With every step that took me farther from the crowded market, the cheap neon lights dimmed, and the voices of vendors and vagrants faded—replaced by the hissing of rusted pipes and the roar of chemical waste drains vomiting the toxins of the upper sectors into this forsaken depth.

The air here wasn’t just polluted—it was heavy, saturated with toxic particles that burned the throat with every breath.

The homeless and street gangs gradually disappeared as I approached my destination... until they were gone entirely.

No one dared come near this sector.

It was a "dead zone" in every sense of the word.

No rats scurried in the corners, no insects buzzed around broken lamps, not even moss grew on the damp walls.

An absolute, unsettling silence—broken only by the sound of rain.

I knew I wasn’t heading toward just an old house... but toward a black hole in the fabric of this city.

"House of Shadows... If fate has chosen that place to hide its key, then who am I to refuse the challenge?"

I clenched my fist, feeling the new Void Mark pulse in my palm—as if the system itself was eager to see how I would use the "Rat Skill" within the heart of the "House of Demons."