In a forgotten alleyway of Southern California, where broken dreams bled into broken bottles and the scent of desperation hung heavier than smog, a young man walked the line between monster and martyr. His name was Jaden Cruz—Latino, a once-loyal foot soldier in a Bronx gang that had become his family, his school, his church, and ultimately, his curse.
Here, the scent of desperation wasn't a metaphor. It hung in the air, thick and sour—stale beer, burnt rubber, and the sharp edge of fear. Jaden had once called a place like this home. Bronx-born, blood-bound, and broken in all the wrong places, he'd once sworn loyalty to the gang that raised him. He had taken beatings in their name. Spilled blood for their power. Spent nights in holding cells whispering their name like a prayer.
But that was before he killed the Boss.
Before he turned into... whatever he was now.
After the fateful night he eliminated his gang leader and absorbed the life force of various creatures, Jaden's transformation into a formidable warrior was complete. His physique, once lean, now rippled with unnatural strength, and his senses were heightened to an almost predatory level.
It hadn't been poetic. There was no slow-motion betrayal, no dramatic goodbye. Just one moment, one decision, and then a spray of blood and silence. And the strange thing? It didn't stop with the Boss.
The other gang members didn't believe he'd taken down the boss. They mocked him, laughed at him—until he stopped laughing back. Twelve died that night. The warehouse was a slaughterhouse by morning.
Now, Jaden was a fugitive—but a very powerful one. With no desire for redemption and even less patience for poverty, he found a new purpose: accumulate money.
The bank on Sunset Boulevard stood as his next target. As he approached, the midday sun cast long shadows, and unsuspecting patrons bustled about, unaware of the impending chaos.
He entered the bank at 11:07 a.m., dressed like a man who belonged—leather jacket, no mask, chewing gum like he owned the world. The guard nodded politely. Jaden nodded back.
Five steps in, he stopped and turned to face the room full of civilians.
"Good morning, everyone," he said, his voice loud and deep, like it could carry through cement. "This is a robbery. If you move, you die. If you breathe too loud, you die. If you scream—guess what?"
Panic fluttered. Screams began.
Jaden moved faster than the eye. His body blurred, his fist collided with the first security guard's chest—the man flew backward like a sack of potatoes, unconscious or worse. The second guard reached for his gun. Jaden leapt six feet, a blur of muscle and instinct. He landed on the man's shoulders and slammed him headfirst into the marble floor.
Guns were useless. Jaden was faster. Stronger. Meaner. And now he was pissed.
"Everyone on the floor!" he growled.
The tellers obeyed. Civilians sobbed, huddled together, shaking like leaves in a storm.
When the local police arrived seven minutes later, Jaden was halfway through emptying the vault. A negotiator picked up the megaphone.
"Sir! Put down your weapons and surrender! You're surrounded!"
"No weapons," Jaden muttered, slamming a duffel shut. "Just me."
Then he strolled out the front door like it was just another Tuesday.
The cops opened fire.
He zig-zagged with inhuman precision, bullets flying past him, some grazing his jacket but never his skin. He grabbed the nearest patrol car—literally—flipped it like it weighed nothing, and used it as cover to escape.
Ten officers down.
With uncanny agility, he dashed out, weaving through the hail of bullets. Officers watched in disbelief as he leaped onto a patrol car, then onto a nearby rooftop, disappearing into the city's labyrinthine alleys.
*********
Thousands of miles from the chaos in Manila, beyond the warm pulse of California's heat, a city of ice and silence bore witness to something far older than legend.
Moscow.
A place where winter never really left, and affection wore a coat as thick as the snow. In one of its many abandoned metro tunnels—once meant to shelter the living but now home to shadows—sat a young man, still and thoughtful.
His name was Ivan Nikolaev.
Age: twenty-one.
Status: orphan, runaway, survivor.
Former intern in a lab so secret, even its ghosts couldn't remember its name.
Now, a necromancer.
He sat cross-legged on cracked concrete, his breath misting in the air like fading spirits. The silence of the tunnel was complete, broken only by the distant echo of dripping water—and the faint murmur inside his skull.
Sentients. Always watching.
The memories of the lab came in flashes: white coats. Screaming alarms. Metal doors sealed with numbers that didn't exist on any blueprints. And deep inside… the creature.
It had no name.
Black-veined. Silver-eyed.
Alien, ancient, and hungry.
They had captured it to study. To extract its power. Ivan had been a junior intern, just another nameless cog. But he had watched it. Heard it. Felt the psychic hum it gave off like a tuning fork struck against the universe.
Then came the global broadcast—the awakening. A light that scorched the sky, invisible yet undeniable, like someone had whispered directly into his soul: "Awaken."
The creature heard it too. That was when everything unraveled.
Ivan, frantic and desperate, ran to the weapons chamber, grabbed a prototype laser cannon, and did the unthinkable—he fired.
The pain that followed was unspeakable. But the power it gave him…
Abilities Acquired:
Telepathy. Telekinesis.
Then came the voice in his mind again. Calm. Mechanical. Unforgiving.
"Choose a Class."
He didn't hesitate. He was a gamer. He understood builds.
He didn't need morality. He needed results.
Class Confirmed: Necromancer.
Skills Unlocked: Corpse Reanimation. Spectral Manipulation.
The lab never stood a chance. He walked out with eyes glowing violet, and no one lived to tell the tale.
And now, vengeance.
The Bratva—Russia's infamous underworld empire—had stolen everything from him.
His mother, Elena Nikolaevna. His father, Yuri.
Murdered in a shakedown gone wrong when he was just eleven.
He remembered the laughter of drunk men. The flash of pistols. The smell of vodka and blood in the frozen air.
Tonight, it was their turn to remember him.
It was dusk when Ivan arrived at the nightclub in Rostov, a seedy den of illegal betting, brothels, and cold men with colder hearts. The neon lights flickered like a dying pulse. The bouncer barely looked at him as he entered.
He was just a kid. Skinny. Quiet. Harmless.
The door closed behind him.
Ten men were inside. Cigars. Booze. Girls. Guns.
"Who the hell is this kid?" one of them barked.
"Wrong place, mal'chik," another muttered, reaching for his weapon.
Ivan raised his hand. Calmly. Silently.
The guns ripped out of their owners' hands and slammed into the ceiling like metal birds drawn to a magnet. One man screamed. Another ducked too late.
Then came the darkness.
Not absence of light, but the presence of something else. Something old and cold and unnatural. Shadows leaked from the floor. From the walls. They twisted, shaped, and writhed into humanoid forms—skeletal, faceless, and draped in smoke.
The dead had come.
"Wh-what are you?!" one stammered.
Ivan stepped forward. His eyes glowed faintly violet, soft but terrifying.
"I'm justice."
And then, all hell broke loose.
One man flew across the room like a rag doll, his spine snapping on impact.
Another tried to run, but spectral arms reached from the floor, dragging him down, down, until only screams remained.
One Bratva soldier fired his backup pistol—three shots in a panic—but the bullets curved away mid-air, redirected by an invisible force.
Ivan didn't walk. He floated two feet above the ground, his coat fluttering like a shroud, his hair rising with the static of power. The dead obeyed his every thought. The living didn't matter.
By the time it ended, eight bodies lay motionless. One man whimpered in the corner, crawling toward a fallen weapon.
Ivan stepped over broken glass and blood.
The man looked up. Eyes full of terror. A name slipped from his cracked lips.
"E-Elena Nikolaevna…?"
Ivan froze. "You remember her?"
"I… I didn't mean—"
"You meant to kill her," Ivan replied, his voice low and smooth like ice on metal. "You laughed while she screamed, and my father, and my life."
"I—I was just following orders—"
Ivan lifted a finger. The man froze mid-breath. His heart stopped a second later.
No sound followed but the flickering hum of the broken ceiling light.
Ivan walked out into the snow, the cold brushing against his face like a friend.
He didn't shiver.
"They deserved it," he whispered before vanishing into the night, leaving only whispers and fear in his wake.