How does a boy with no coach, no serum, no AI beat the best?
It was a question whispered by peers, sponsors, even trainers who'd spent fortunes building champions out of average blood.
Damien had no mentor. No elite academy contract. His mother worked double shifts. They barely had money for school meals, let alone a combat coach.
So how?
Where did he learn to fight like that?
[Three Years Ago – Neo-Britannia's Underbelly]
A boy of eleven, taller than most, hungered for something more than survival. He needed strength. Real strength. Not theory. Not drills. Pain. Rhythm. Contact.
And in the black veins of the city—beneath the steel and neon—he found it.
The Underground.
Hidden beneath rusted elevators, sewer tunnels, and false storefronts, a brutal circuit of illegal fusion fights thrived. Fighters enhanced by black-market formulas, failed lab subjects, undocumented prototypes—all discarded by society yet kept alive by bloodsport.
Damien dawned a mask, crude, stitched cloth covering the lower half of his face. Only his golden eyes glared through the dark. Cold. Focused. Unforgiving.
They called him many names.
Ghost Jaw. Golden Gaze. The Kid.
He fought grown men twice his size, mutated fighters with serpentine spines, junkie gladiators with serum-streaked veins. Every fight was a lesson. Every scar a textbook.
No one knew who he was. Not his mother. Not his sister. Not even his classmates.
By day: brash, loud, reckless teen.By night: a silent storm beneath the city.
He studied movement not in classrooms, but in chaos.He didn't drill combinations—he survived them.There was no theory. Only instinct. Only teeth.
One night, after dropping an opponent with synthetic gorilla DNA, the crowd didn't cheer. They stared.
"How old is this guy?""He's just a kid…"
That night, Damien left early. He didn't take his prize money. He didn't speak.
He'd gotten what he came for.
[Present Day – Locker Room, Xyprus Academy]
The wrapping around his knuckles told a thousand stories. His movements weren't polished—they were primal. Not taught, but earned.
So when people asked:
"What's the secret?"
He smiled quietly to himself.
The secret bled. And it bled beneath the city.