Monster Evolution System: I became a Rat-Chapter 104: Lower District Terror.

Cries of babies and children echoed through the alleys as Rosacer moved through the Lower District. He heard many screams, some pleading, some sobbing, some slowly fading into silence.

Several times, he chased those cries. Yet whenever he reached the place from which they seemed to originate, he found nothing.

He tried again and again, until exhaustion dulled even his will to listen.

With a grim expression, he continued walking and muttered, "Why am I feeling so sad?"

Tears welled in his eyes as time passed. He did not understand the reason. There was simply a heaviness within his chest, a sorrow that clung to him like a creeper to a vine. No matter how many tears he shed, it would not be quenched.

"Wish for it to end..." a voice whispered into Rosacer’s ear.

He turned sharply, scanning the alley behind him. There was no one.

A chill crawled down his spine. His breath quickened. With a thought, Gewehr materialized from his inventory into his hand, its familiar weight grounding him.

"Show yourself!" Rosacer shouted, quickening his pace.

No answer came.

He extended his senses, searching for hostile intent, for the faintest fluctuation in aura. Nothing. The air was dead, stagnant. He hesitated to invoke Oblivion. Using it without certainty would be reckless. After several long, suffocating seconds of silence, he exhaled slowly and lowered his guard, though not entirely.

He continued walking.

He intended to move deeper into the Lower District. The further inward he went, the less likely the Rose Republic would consider his presence here.

For now, he would not contact Gringha. If the situation demanded it, Gringha would reach out first. If not, Rosacer could always teleport to him directly.

With quiet resolve, another thought formed in his mind. He needed to learn more about this city. Dark Messiah’s first Blessed, the Sculptor and as another Blessed of the Dark Messiah, knowledge here might serve him well, especially if he truly intended to liberate Mist City from the claws of the Karmic Dungeon.

The deeper he walked, the narrower the passages became.

The Lower District reeked far worse than the upper quarters. Blood had seeped into layers of oil and grime, forming stains that never dried, never faded. The stench clung to the air like a physical weight.

It felt less like a residential district and more like a factory devoted to distilling rotten blood into perfume.

The smell invaded his nostrils. Rosacer gagged and covered his nose, yet the odor still seeped through, making him dizzy.

He moved faster.

The residents watched him as he passed. Their gazes followed him in silence, measuring, weighing. Occasionally, he stopped and returned their stares.

What met him each time was not hostility.

It was emptiness.

Hollow eyes. Sunken expressions. Faces stripped of something essential.

At times, Rosacer wondered whether he had somehow returned to the Southern Sector of Mist City.

With a hastened pace, Rosacer finally reached the deeper interior of the district when, suddenly, a scream tore through the air just a few blocks away.

This time, it was close.

He dashed toward the source of the sound. The cries in the past had always faded before he arrived.

He pushed himself harder. Muscles strained under the force he demanded of them. Tendons burned. It felt as though his flesh might tear from bone, yet he did not slow.

As he turned the final corner, he saw it.

A colossal hand descended from the sky.

Its faces filled with darkness, with veins popping out of it like heartbeats. It looked as though it were being born from the very space it was invading, like a parasite burrowing outwards its living host as it came into existence.

"Stop!" Rosacer shouted, raising Gewehr.

Before he could fire, the hand vanished into thin air.

And with it, the boy too vanished.

"What was that?!" Rosacer demanded of the system.

A faint hum echoed in his mind as the system came online once more, its voice cold and indifferent.

[Carankaar Land: The Land of Wretch. Current location: Karmic Dungeon, Ignorant Level. Current inhabitant: Magus Oker of the Baluco Empire.]

"What?!" Rosacer recoiled, his expression twisting in disbelief.

He steadied himself and asked, more quietly this time, "And the hand?"

A translucent blue pane unfolded before his eyes.

[Oker’s Hand: Capable of seizing objects or beings across the world without physical limitation. Requirement: Ability to harness Ananta.]

Rosacer’s breathing slowed.

"Ananta... is wielded only by the Blessed of the Dark Messiah."

His gaze darkened.

"Does that mean this mage is one as well?"

He asked the system more about Magus Oker and this Carankaar Land, and thankfully, the system complied this time.

[Magus Oker: The court mage of the Sun Emperor, Helios Sequence, was exiled from the kingdom due to a conspiracy in which he aspired to dethrone the king. Helios, being a benevolent friend, did not kill his beloved companion and instead exiled him to the Land of Baluco, the infamous tribal land where battles ravage every day. From there, the Magus formed his own kingdom and army, and later challenged the Sun Emperor himself, where he lost and later disappeared from the pages of history.]

[Carankaar Land: The scorched realm where the Rise Kingdom and its Prime Minister, Kingston Nowill, were sealed. Similar to Magus Oker, the history of this land was also removed from the pages by the flames of the Sun Emperor.]

[Beware: User is too weak to wander into the Land of the Exile Kings.]

Suddenly, from the narrow corners, some figures emerged encircling Rosacer.

He had sensed them before he saw them.

He felt weird as if something was different about them, their presence felt as if that they did not belong to the Lower District.

More appropriately, he felt like he knows them.

Rosacer fingers tightened around Gewehr.

Three men stepped out from a side passage. Their robes were dark, unmarked, yet the fabric seemed to drink in the dim light. Their faces were uncovered. Pale and calm expression adoring their faces.

One of them spoke first. "You have been walking too freely."

"Aren’t you scared of the Dark Messiah’s goons?!" 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Rosacer answered with a gunshot.

The recoil steadied him.

The bullet struck the speaker in the chest.

The man staggered, looked down at the wound, then back up.

The blood that flowed was thin and strangely dark.

The other two moved at once.

The alley bent under narrow spatial movement. The space felt compressed, as if invisible hands were pressing against Rosacer from every side. His shoulders grew heavy.

Breathing became work.

"Nightmare?"

Rosacer dashed forward instead of retreating. He fired twice more, forcing them to scatter. One raised his staff and a wave of pressure struck Rosacer’s ribs. He hit the wall, stone scraping his back.

Pain sharpened his thoughts.

His eyes now wore anger and killing intent against the mages of nightmare.

Suddenly, a whisper crawled along the edges of his mind.

The third mage began chanting, low and steady.

The sound seeped into Rosacer’s skull. Images flickered behind his eyes. Endless corridors. Children crying. A hand descending from the sky again and again.

His grip weakened on Gewehr.

He was about to trigger Oblivion.

When suddenly, the chant snapped.

The nearest mage coughed blood and dropped to one knee.

And with that pressure around Rosacer fractured like glass.

He advanced and drove his elbow into the kneeling mage’s jaw.

Mage’s bone cracked.

Now only two mages remained.

"You demon! Your God will fell once again!" one said.

Rosacer wiped blood from his mouth. "What are you on?"

Instead of answer, another strike came without warning.

A staff slammed into his side.

Rosacer felt as if something broke inside his ribs. He fell hard, vision swimming.

They now stood over him now.

One of them raised his staff for the final blow.

Rosacer felt the edge of defeat.

For he could not rise fast enough. Could not gather Ananta in time.

So he reached inward.

"System....."

The word formed silently.

The response was immediate.

A pulse moved through him.

Cold eyes fell on him once again. Natural yet unnerving.

A presence aligning itself with his own. The familiar interface flickered at the corner of his vision, cold and precise.

The mages felt it too.

Their raised staff stopped midair.

All three stiffened.

And the alley grew still.

Their eyes shifted, not to Rosacer, but slightly above him, as if sensing something standing at his back.

"He is....." one murmured.

"Yes.... Mercy is on him" another corrected.

The pressure in the air changed. The oppressive weight that had favored them now pressed against them instead. Subtle and unmistakable.

The mage with the raised staff lowered it slowly.

"The Nightmare God has chosen him."

They look at each other then back towards Rosacer.

Rosacer forced himself upright, though every movement burned now.

He was little surprised to see that none of the mages were attacking now.

They stepped back in regretful silence. With no hasten pace and with no fear in them. Only acknowledgment and bewilderment on their face. One inclined his head faintly, as not in respect, but in acceptance of a higher will.

Then they withdrew into the side passage and were gone.

The alley returned to its usual decay.

The distant stench.

The damp stone.

The faint murmur of weak and wicked residents.

And with them, the foul smell of innocent blood.