Rowan kept his eyes closed, listening to the faint creak of the bed beside him and the muted rhythm of movement in the darkness.
Inside, he sighed.
So these were his parents.
Mid-thirties.
Late bloomers.
Explained a lot.
Six months of borrowed infant memories had already given him a working grasp of the local language. He could follow adult conversations, understand social cues, and piece together the shape of this society.
From scattered talks between relatives and neighbors, Rowan had learned several important facts:
This city was called Tingen, a northern industrial town within the Ahowa County of the Kingdom of Loen.
His parents belonged to the lower-middle class. They had been married for over a decade and only recently had their first child.
Both of them were believers in the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery.
Which neatly explained why advanced technology existed alongside superstition.
Five minutes later, the bed beside him fell silent.
An hour passed.
Rowan sensed the shift in breathing.
Sleep.
Deep enough.
He opened his eyes.
Silently, he stood in his crib.
With small, precise movements, he climbed onto the edge of the bed and pressed two fingers lightly against each parent's temple.
A faint physical shock traveled through their nervous systems.
Not magic.
Not energy.
Pure biological interference.
Their sleep deepened instantly.
They would not wake until morning.
Rowan retrieved his tiny blanket, wrapped it around his waist, and slipped through the window.
Not to abandon them.
Not to run away.
This house was the perfect cover.
And he owed this body a debt.
Because the infant who had originally belonged here was already dead.
If Rowan hadn't arrived, Jack and Chris would have discovered a cold corpse.
Through fragmented memories, Rowan knew what had happened.
A man in a tailcoat.
A clown mask.
He entered through the window.
Placed a hand on the infant's chest.
Stopped the heart using an unknown method.
Left without a sound.
Murder disguised as sudden infant death.
Rowan inhaled.
Then turned west.
Even without spells or psychic senses, his physical body could track scent on a molecular level.
An hour-old trail was trivial.
He bounded across rooftops, leaving faint afterimages in the moonlight.
Half the city later, he found his target.
Rowan didn't move in.
He watched.
The masked man was already fighting.
Six opponents surrounded him.
Not ordinary people.
One recited verses that distorted the air itself.
Another moved with monstrous strength.
A gunman fired with surgical precision.
The clown-masked killer answered with flames, paper constructs that intercepted attacks, and compressed air projectiles that struck like bullets.
Interesting.
This world possessed a structured supernatural system.
During the clash, a terrible howl erupted from inside a nearby warehouse.
Something corrupted.
Something wrong.
The masked man broke free of the poetic control at that instant, took a bullet to the abdomen, and fled into the shadows.
He didn't run far.
Hidden in darkness, he pressed a hand to his arm.
The abdominal wound shifted.
Transferred.
Now bleeding from his left forearm instead.
He produced a crystal pendant and murmured a brief incantation.
"Still salvageable."
Inside the warehouse, a creature began rampaging.
The masked man intended to let both sides exhaust each other.
Rowan stepped behind him.
A tiny voice whispered.
"Give me… my life back."
The masked man spun, lashing out with a flaming paper whip.
It passed over Rowan's head.
Too high.
The killer froze.
Staring.
A baby stood there.
Wrapped in a blanket.
The same baby he had killed.
Rowan smiled.
"Surprise."
He vanished.
Appeared behind the man.
Chopped once.
The masked killer collapsed unconscious.
Rowan exhaled slowly.
He wasn't finished.
Dead men couldn't talk.
...
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