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BER'HEREK, Sector 77-Gamma. Souls living in this area : 4M Hour : Midnight.
Neon rain slid down the rusted scaffold of a half-collapsed hover-tram station. Beneath the flickering red light of a broken billboard, a figure sat curled inside a nest of rags, cardboard, and thermal junk. A homeless man. One of thousands. Forgotten. Irrelevant.
He looked no different than the others.A stained coat three sizes too big.A metal can with a single token inside.Hair like wires, skin like it had long since forgotten sun or sleep.
But if anyone had scanned him… if any of the countless drones flying above had seen past the dirt...
They would've died instantly.
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[WARNING] – Cosmic Threat Signature Detected. Classification: GODKILLER CLASS.][Source: Unknown. Error in triangulation.][Rebooting scan system…]
The man scratched his beard and used the notification terminal beside him to heat his hands. "Mm. Toasty."
Meanwhile, high above — 2,000 levels up in the floating executive tower of Gorgon Hunters Industries...
Twelve beings sat around a semi-holographic war table.Humans. Elves. Orcs. Dwarves. Beastkin. One even looked like a Lich in a corporate blazer.
They called themselves the Gorgon Hunter Group.A coalition of trillionaire warlords, royal families, and mercenary kings.Formed for one reason: to find and kill the unkillable and expose their dead carcass in their worldwide satellite museum.
"Reports say he's resurfaced," spoke Ezarion Vel'tharn, the golden-eyed elf with a tongue of lightning. "Power fluctuations in Sector 77. Just for a moment. But it matched his signature."
A dwarf in carbon-plated armor slammed his mug. "Bout time! We've spent 9.1 trillion credits trackin' this ghost!"
A human woman, skin replaced entirely by synthetic chrome, flicked her fingers. The screen shifted.
"Here. Image feed. Street-level cam. We got a possible match."A blurry shot of a man in rags… sitting cross-legged… feeding crumbs to a cyber-pigeon.
"…That's him?""Highly probable."
Silence.
Then the Lich spoke. "Send a scout squad of our lastest SS registered hunters. Two squads. Just in case."
////
Back in Sector 77, the rain had stopped.
The homeless man — the Immortal King — yawned. A new blanket had been donated by a kind halfling lady. He draped it over his shoulders like a robe.
From the shadows, three cloaked figures moved toward him.Light footfalls. Silent weapons. Magical cloaking. Tech-enhanced muscle.
They moved like apex hunters.
Begging for scraps outside a fluid-synth coffee bar, he sat hunched in shadow, a tin cup resting quietly by his side. His eyes, half-lidded, tracked the subtle shifts in the air—they moved fast. Too fast.Three of them, cloaked in phase-stealth suits, surged toward him like wraiths.
One reached out, fingers inches from his shoulder—2-A potential contact imminent.
And then—
A flicker of light.Brief. Violent. Cosmic.Like a dying star collapsing inward in the span of a heartbeat.
His hand rose barely an inch of each of their face at lightspeed.Fingertips brushed the edge of their armor—and reality folded.
In a silence more terrifying than sound, the hunters vanished.No scream. No struggle.No trace.
Not even ash remained. Not even a memory.The rain picked back up.He leaned back against the wall.
"…Too early," he mumbled, closing his eyes again."Let me sleep a little longer Sheesh."
The fluid-synth coffee shop continued to hum.Digital jazz played from overhead vents.A barista drone waved a cheerful "Have a stimu-latte day!" as a customer left.
No one noticed the three missing hunters.
Except the man on the ground.The homeless one.The one who hadn't stood up.
He exhaled slowly, like someone blowing warmth into frozen hands."They are getting quicker… my reflexes" he muttered, staring at his fingers like they betrayed him.
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[LEVEL 01 // GORGON CONTROL NODE // OBSIDIAN SPIRE]
WARNING: No signal return from Unit 2-A.WARNING: No biological fragments detected.WARNING: Subatomic spiritual signature null confirmed.
////
"...They're dead?" Ezarion Vel'tharn whispered.
"No. Worse," corrected the Lich, eyes glowing through his ivory mask."They were touched."
The dwarf smashed violently his glass again. "THREE top-class elites just vanished in a beggar alley!"
The human woman flicked her hand. The screen glitched, reframed, then showed a still frame of the same spot but the homeless man was no where to be seen on the screen.
A man.In rags.
Fingertips glowing faintly, like they'd kissed the edge of a star.
A red light blinked across the map.
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[CODE RED: TOUCH-CLASS ENTITY CONFIRMED][ACTIVATE BLACK GOD HUNT PROTOCOLS? Y/N]
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Ezarion hesitated.
"Do it," said the Lich. "Before he remembers who he is like last time."
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[BACK IN SECTOR 77 – UNDERCITY LEVELS]
He stood now. Finally.The man in rags—The nobody.
Stretching like a sleeper waking from a long nap, he cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, and stared at the sky—if one could call flickering smog-lights a sky.
He didn't look like a warrior.Not a king. Not a killer.Just another face lost in the underworld of Ber'herek.
But he whispered something to the wind, and the smog… moved.
"They're getting closer. Guess I'll walk."
And so he walked.Past security checkpoints that didn't scan him.Past elves that recoiled without knowing why.Past a cybernetic preacher screaming about end-times and data gods.
And as he passed, vending machines shorted.Security cams blinked black.Reality bent… just slightly.
In the deepest vaults of Gorgon HQ, warnings flooded in.
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[Reality Fragmentation Detected – S77.Gamma][Entity shifted planes — Now Mobile][Deploy?]
////
Ezarion slammed his fist against the console, eyes wide with disbelief."He's moving? Why now? Why the hell is he moving?!"
The Lich rose slowly, his voice echoing like a frozen whisper."Beings like him… never sleep forever."
Ezarion stepped forward, his voice sharp and absolute.
"I call for a vote."
Around the obsidian war table, the atmosphere shifted. Holographic seals shimmered into existence before each seat — The twelve of them, representing the most powerful factions in the known world.
One by one, they raised their hands.One by one, their seals ignited with thunderous purple flames as their marked the obsidian table with their votes.
No words. No debates.Only consensus forged in quiet dread.
Twelve seals burned bright.
Unanimous.
Ezarion turned to the console.
"Unfreeze Project: Black Hole Hunters."
Deep within the Gorgon orbital satellites, long-dormant vaults hissed open.Forgotten code rewrote itself.Containment fields shattered like brittle glass, releasing sealed data, bio-weapons, 5 souls far worse than their SS top elites hunters.
From high orbit, five Black God hunter-class shuttles launched in formation, engines igniting with silent fury.
As they pierced the upper atmosphere, one shuttle's cryo-glass cracked violently, unable to contain the sheer force within.
A hiss of vapor escaped—followed by the smell of burning flesh.
Inside, the being within stirred.
His skin blistered and peeled from the heat…And yet—he smiled.
A slow, devilish grin, carved through pain like it was pleasure.
////
Ezarion turned away from the table, voice like thunder behind a calm storm.
"Gorgon Core, Awaken them.""Wipe their minds. Reforge their bodies. I want them clean, loyal, and ready.""Bring them to us."