Chapter 1: Awakening in the Ruins**
The African mega-pole was a monster of concrete and steel, an open-air scar on the face of the world. The buildings, once majestic, were no more than charred skeletons, their windows shattered like empty eyes. The streets were littered with debris and memories of a bygone era, before the Towers arose and plunged humanity into an endless nightmare.
Kaden, a sixteen-year-old boy with black hair in battle and hungry gray eyes, wandered through the ruins. He was an orphan, a survivor among many, but he carried within him a spark of rebellion. He refused to accept this broken world, even though every day was a struggle for survival.
That evening, he was standing on the roof of a collapsed building, scanning the horizon. The Towers, those monstrous structures that rose to the clouds, were invisible from here, but their presence weighed on every breath, every heartbeat. Kaden hated them. He hated the monsters they poured into the world, the portals that spat out nightmare creatures, and the gods that had abandoned humanity.
A dry noise echoed below. Kaden froze, his senses alert. In the ruins, every noise could mean death. He bent carefully, seeing a figure searching the rubble. Another orphan, perhaps, or a looter. Kaden didn't have the luxury of curiosity. He straightened up, ready to go, when a dull rumble shook the ground.
Kaden's heart stopped short.
A monster.
He didn't have to see it to know. The rumble, the smell of putrid flesh, the vibration in the air... He was a monster, and he was close.
Kaden jumped off the roof, landing flexibly on the dusty ground. He ran, his feet pounding the ground, his lungs burning. Behind him, the rumble became a roar, followed by a grim crack. The monster emerged from the ruins, a shapeless mass of flesh and metal, with red eyes shining like embers.
One **rank 2**.
Kaden swore between his teeth. Tier 1 monsters were already a deadly threat, but Tier 2 monsters... They had decimated entire squads of the Liberation Army.
He rushed into a narrow alley, hoping to sow the creature. But the monster was fast, too fast. His claws scraped the wall behind him, throwing shards of concrete. Kaden stumbled, feeling acute pain piercing his leg. He fell, rolling on the ground, and the monster was upon him in an instant.
The red eyes stared at him, filled with an insatiable hunger. Kaden raised his hands, as if that could stop him. He knew he was going to die. He always knew it, deep down. In this world, death was the only certainty.
But then, something in him woke up.
An intense heat invaded his chest, as if his heart had caught fire. His eyes lit up, one with a golden glow, the other with an emerald green, and the third... the third turned purple, a sinister glow that seemed to suck up the light around him.
The monster hesitated, as if he felt the danger.
Kaden didn't understand what was happening to him. He felt an alien power flowing through his veins, as if three different forces were fighting to control him. He raised his hand, and a lightning bolt burst from his fingers, hitting the monster in the heart. The creature screamed, its body writhing under the onslaught of electricity.
But that wasn't all.
Kaden felt another, gentle and soothing energy, healing the wound to his leg. And then... there was this third force, dark and insidious. She whispered in his ear, promising him revenge, domination.
The monster, dying, tried one last time to attack him. Kaden didn't even have to move. A shadow appeared from his body, a ghostly figure that passed through the monster like a blade. The creature collapsed, dead.
Kaden was breathing hard, shaking with his whole body. He looked at his hands, still strewn with golden lightning, green glow, and purple trails.
He didn't know what had just happened to him. But one thing was certain: his life had just changed.
And somewhere in the distance, the Towers seemed to be shuddering.