Chapter 1: A World in Ruin
The wind, like a dreadful scavenger, persistently tugged on the torn clothes of a pale young child. His dark hair, streaked with silver, ruffled and danced in the soft violence of the night's chill. His body was bathed in the flickering neon green of a damaged shop sign.
The cloth shop, the roof of which he currently stood, had been looted, just like many other businesses in these parts.
It was foolish to pursue any type of honest trade in a slum like this.
Here, honesty gets you robbed and killed.
'Robbing and killing, now that's profitable work,' he thought.
The boy turned and looked in the distance, where skyscrapers rose towards the foggy sky.
These structures were a consistent black, only interrupted by the stale neon that seemed attached to everything.
It was vastly different from the crumbling buildings and gutters that surrounded him. That was the better part of Namek City. If a business was going to survive, it would be there, in uptown. After all, that place was for the richer, less hungry, and less desperate.
But in truth, even the ones in those buildings in the clouds were only slightly wealthier peasants—peasants regardless. As long as they were citizens of this type-F world, they could never be more than human filth.
And today, this particular human filth had a plan to make some money.
Crouching down on the roof, the pale child began to hear the struggle and screams of a girl.
The sound of footsteps and a constant "shut up, bitch," barked by one of the men, sounded closer and closer. He knew it would soon be time for him to act.
A puddle splash from the alleyway echoed below him. He crept closer to the edge of the roof, from which he watched.
The height offered a sense of safety from the madness below, but what point was being safe if he just dies of hunger? The boy's bright grey eyes fell upon the source of the noise, his target.
Three men were grabbing tightly onto a young girl of similar age as him, they forced her through the streets. It was a clear kidnapping, and he was most definitely not the first to see it. But in the slums of Namek, minding one's business was a very important trait needed for survival, and most had it.
However, today, the dark-haired boy would act differently. After all, this wasn't just a simple kidnapping. That rarely happened as ransoms were never paid for anyone. The only reason they could have for taking the girl was because she was a chosen.
A rare type of human, one's picked by the gods to fight against the constant onslaught of demons.
There was a long list of reasons why the world was as broken as it was, but most would say the nightmare had begun after the rapture a thousand years ago. The words of scripture manifested, and the gates of hell had swung open. From it, demons began to flood the earth.
At first, humans had no choice but to die, horribly. Families watched their loved ones get slaughtered and killed by all types of beasts, and then have their souls dragged back into hell with the demons. It was an inescapable nightmare.
All anyone could do was scramble to shelters only to prolong an inevitable demise. The guns and weaponry of that age proved utterly useless against the satanic beasts. However, just when all of society seemed to have crumbled and died, a single spark of hope was lit, a show of pity from the celestials above.
A small number of humans had been bestowed abilities from the gods, abilities that aided them to not just survive the tide of demons but even push them back. From there, humanity picked up the pieces of what was left of society and has struggled to build from it ever since.
Normally, the thugs who kidnapped the girl would be no match for a chosen like her, but the girl was completely ignorant of her own capabilities.
The pale boy clenched his fist as he watched them turn into another alleyway. He was pissed that these thugs could take advantage of someone so much more than them simply because she was naïve.
"What a pity," the boy muttered as he pulled out a pocket knife.
With steps swift but silent, he ran to the other side of the roof, making sure he stood directly above the group of men. With a leap, he lunged off the top of the one-story building, his knife gripped tightly in his hand as it cut through the air. Then, with a sickening crack, the boy landed as the knife's blade of reinforced steel found purchase through the top of the skull of one of the thugs.
Wiggling his knife out of the man's skull, the boy tumbled away, creating distance from the men. The thugs were still trying to process what happened as the stabbed one fell to his death, his brain leaking onto the floor of the alleyway.
The thugs looked down at the corpse of their companion and then towards the pale boy. His body was frail with hunger, and his clothes torn and tattered. He simply looked like an average kid from the slum, except this particular one fell from the sky and killed their man in a single blow.
"Are you lost, kid?" one of the thugs muttered, fear seeping into his tone.
"Listen, you can both leave the girl and walk away or stay and die... I'm fine with either." The pale boy gave both an option, his words contrasting his form, he spoke like no child.
The men turned to each other before turning back to the frail kid. Looking at how weak he looked seemed to give them a confidence boost.
"Listen boy, you'll get killed playing stupid games here?" the man barked.
The boy sighed in response. He rubbed his forehead a moment and, as he glanced back at the man, he tossed the knife he held at blinding speed. With inhumane accuracy, the blade sunk deep into the throat of the thug.
Crimson slithered down his mouth, and his hands gripped his face in confusion as he choked on his own blood before promptly falling to the ground. The last of the thugs glanced at the dead bodies of his companions before swiftly turning around and dashing away as fast as he could.
'Seems they are not very strong against a chosen with the smallest bit of skill,' he thought.
The boy turned to the girl who was being kidnapped, her hair roughed up and over her face, barely hiding her wide tear-filled eyes as she looked at the frail boy. Then, with an expression of relief, she managed her way to her feet and walked up to the boy. With a bow, she expressed her gratitude.
"Thank you, you're my hero."
She then raised her head and locked gaze with the boy who offered her a warm smile.
"When I crawled out of the filthy hiding place I call a home this morning, do you know what I was feeling?"
The girl thought for a moment at his question, then with a small smile, she answered, "Heroic?"
He let out a dry chuckle at her response.
"No... hungry." He slammed his hand into the side of the girl's neck, knocking her completely unconscious, letting her fall to the ground.
"You should have ran away the moment you had the chance, why do you people keep forgetting where you are?" he muttered bitterly before picking up the girl and tossing her over his shoulder.
---
The sky fog was so dense the young boy could hardly tell if it was night or day. Not that it mattered, but every once in a while it helped for reality to not seem so bleak. The pale boy, still with the unconscious girl over his shoulder, walked into the NPF outpost, he wouldn't usually set foot in such a place, but they insisted it the only way he could deliver their goods.
The Namek Police Force R31 unit was assigned to this outpost, and truly in terms of preventing crime, they were about as useless as conceivably possible. In fact, they were huge contributors to it. The police force was like one of the many gangs around, and for this frail boy, they were the only ones he knew that bought chosens.
Not many people dealt in the trading of naive chosens, because in a world like theirs a decade could go by without ever seeing one. But the boy had learned the NPF had connections who told them to keep their eye out for any and pay good money for them. Good money he was here to collect.
Entering the small building, the boy laid the girl on a nearby chair.
"Here's the chosen like we discussed."
A man clad in dark uniform and vests moved over to the chair. He inspected the girl and looked at the back of her neck, where he saw the star symbol confirming she was indeed a chosen.
"Good job, I didn't think you'd pull it off, kid."
"Great, just pay me. I'm in a rush."
The man chuckled dryly.
"Of course, but Kasugu's men are no joke. I'm quite curious about how you managed to get her off their hands."
The pale boy clenched his fist. He had his whole mind on getting paid; he forgot the kind of people he was dealing with.
"Why does that matter?" he shot back at the officer.
"It doesn't?" The officer raised a brow as he scrutinized the pale boy. "Come to think of it, why is the back of your neck so sharply covered?"
'Shit,' he thought.
The boy turned, his eyes locking in on the exit, but it seemed the doors had already been shut close and manned by officers with advanced weaponry.
"Don't think of escaping. Did you forget where you are?" The officer grinned.
The boy couldn't help but let out a small laugh at the irony of the man's words, one's he spoke mere moments ago. He pulled off his scarf, revealing the chosen mark. Then it lit up, the concrete beneath the child's feet began to break and crumble.
"It's fine, let's all die here then," the frail boy declared as he clenched the pocket knife.
However, before he could even take a step, a beam pierced through his chest. His legs gave in beneath him, and he fell to the ground. Unlike the men he killed, these thugs were armed.
"Are you crazy? Why did you kill him? He would have made us a fortune!" one officer yelled.
"This one is skilled. If we leave him, he might end our lives," another responded.
The voices of the officers became more and more distant as they spoke. The boy's vision began to blur, and a chilling cold started to spread across his body.
"Go dump his corpse on the street somewhere," the officer commanded.
'I was... too reckless,' the boy thought as darkness overtook him.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone