Birds scattered across the sky as winds tore through the leaves like sea waves. Branches curled, pouring out squirrels of different sizes. Leaves fell with the rhythm of the wind and crashed to the ground like snow.
The ground shook as two figures stood on top of it. One with a fine-structured body loomed over sharp, shimmering grass. His hair fluted as he moved his hands like a legless dragon, pushing the wind under its movement.
The other moved with the same perdition as the older and stronger one did but kept on falling, hitting his knees on the ground.
Tiny droplets of blood seeped out of his skin whenever he fell and straightened up. He couldn't stop, nor was he able to cry, seeing the sharp and relentless stares in the older one's eyes.
"Yung. Push harder and stop taking everything as a joke," the older and fierce one grunted, seeing the small one fall for the fiftieth time.
He paused, moved toward the boy, and smacked him on the back, causing him to fall on his face.
"Men don't cry. Nor do we shout for help. Rise up from the grass and correct your stance," his voice boomed over Yung, making him burgle up in an instant.
The grass screeched under Yung's feet, cutting his skin. Pain surged in him. But Yung couldn't cry or even show any sign of it. He just tightened his jaw and positioned himself again in the circle of weed grass.
They continued, fluttering their palms in the air, pushing huge sums of air and targeting it at the leaves above them.
No matter how much Yung tried, his own could only move past his head. With that, he knew he would receive the deadliest punishment he'd been doing ever since he reached the age of ten.
A loud crashing sound tore through the air as his father—if he still resembled him—threw a heavy sound wave across the stalk of the tree they were targeting with their palms.
Under the scorching sun and breezing wind, Damien - Yung's father - did the unimaginable. He made a tree that wouldn't have fallen even if a mower was practically used on it for five days straight shook and fell.
The sound echoed in the looming trees, sounding like a nuclear blast, but no ears could hear. Since they lived in a deserted land—where the early humans regarded it as the threshold for monsters—no one dared build or even rent a house there. Not even the most powerful one with god-level strength.
Not to mention, the land they were on was once a peaceful and most crowded place on Earth 01. But after the last thousand decades, silence stirred. People moved out. Families. Agencies. And even the warrior-taming centers used to nurture and build resilient humans born with special abilities—the Awakened.
Most of the Awakened were entangled to protect the top-notch humans—the elite—born and raised in a family that could buy an entire universe and use it as farmland. Not for money. Not for harvesting. But for fun.
For the other Awakened, the ones classified as the sensible joined forces with the striking military all over the world. From China. Africa. Europe. America. Asia. And Mexico. These were the names of the countries that had threats beyond them and needed heavenly help but got rejected without any mere reason.
The heavens were the celestials that moved to any planet of their choice, gifting one in every five families with abilities. Not to mention, some of the celestial beings took the prettiest women—no matter married, small, sick, or even dead—in and used them to fulfill their pleasured desire.
Most humans—the Awakened—tried to fight against them in hope of making them know their place. But within the fight against the celestials, the yearly and daily gifting of abilities stopped. In its place, there were the beasts and monsters that loomed in the shadows, causing the fall of some relevant cities and countries.
In respect to that, most of the elite swore alliance with the extraterrestrials for comfort—hiding their newly born babies until they reached the age of fifteen. Some of those children returned, while others remained there, making their own wealth and creating problems against their own families.
But for Damien and his family, they were among the few humans who had scattered across the face of Earth 01, hoping to bring out the best of their sons and daughters.
For him, his only hope and last resort was Yung, his son. Though Damien had a daughter, he was afraid to let her know the essence of fighting—since she was only five years old.
Though he was strong and relentless like a mountain, he was always afraid some monster, beast, or even celestial would come after his family—especially his blind wife.
Without mentioning, his wife—though blind—was one every man would want to have for himself. Her structure alone was one that could wipe a king's brain with just a glance. So Damien had to move his family from the face of people—including the face of those that called themselves gods.
Damien hated them so much—they were the mere reason he had trained throughout his life. Not only did he train to fight against the beasts and monsters, his most and number one enemy was the King of the Celestials—the Supreme One.
To Damien, every bad luck came from the so-called King of the Celestials. So all his hopes and aims were just to wipe him—no matter the gender—out of existence completely.
"Pee pee." Rumbling ties rolled to a halt at the front of the black gate blocking everyone from entering the empire—Black Zone.
Yes, Black Zone. That's the name Damien chose to give to his empire. The name didn't just come off head. Instead, it came into his head when he gave birth to Yung. All his family line had a mixture of white and gold hair. But Yung came in differently. He had a mixture of three different-colored hair.
Blue. Gold. And black.
Damien had no idea as to how and why Yung had that. Also, for his family, color meant a lot to them since all those born with special abilities had colored hair. And Yung's different hair mix made him a target for all—including the celestials.
Not to mention, among Damien's family, only he and his twin brothers were the ones gifted with a mixture of two-colored hair. The rest, including the first head of the family—the one that started the family tree—had only gold-colored hair.
With that, not only were he and his nuclear family fleeing from the face of the celestials, but also, they were fleeing from his extended family—except for one particular grandmother of his. The one who could shapeshift into anyone, object, animal, and even phase through any solid object, including unbreakable steel.