Rain fell on the city of Aethelburg not as a gentle shower, but as a relentless, icy deluge. It was a drowning blanket of gray, washing the color from the world and leaving behind the slick, black sheen of wet asphalt and the grim pallor of concrete. To Ark Greystone, shivering in a threadbare jacket that was more hole than fabric, each drop felt like a tiny, cold needle pricking his already raw existence.
He walked with his head down, shoulders hunched against the weather and the world. The walk home from Aethelburg Unified High was always a gauntlet, but today it felt longer, the shadows deeper. He could still hear the echoes of their laughter, see the contempt in their eyes. Zero. The word was a brand, seared into his soul. It wasn't just a lack of power; it was a social verdict, a life sentence of insignificance.
The Great Awakening had happened a decade ago. Mana, a shimmering, ethereal energy, had flooded the globe through mysterious dimensional ruptures now called Gates. It granted fantastic abilities to a select portion of the population. These chosen ones became Heroes, lauded on news networks, adorned with sponsorships, and tasked with defending humanity from the monstrous horrors that occasionally spilled forth from those same Gates.
Ark, now seventeen, had been seven when the testing began. He remembered the sterile white room, the humming machine, the hopeful look on his mother's face before it faded into a pitying grimace. The meter hadn't flickered. Not a single digit. Absolute zero. He was a Null, a mundane, a powerless speck in a world suddenly blooming with superhumans.
His father had left a year after the test results, muttering about "finding a real fighter" to help secure the city's perimeter. His mother worked double shifts at a factory that produced energy cells for Hero support gear, her own dreams eroded by the relentless tide of disappointment. Ark was the living embodiment of that disappointment.
A sleek, black limousine splashed through a deep puddle, drenching him from the waist down with freezing, muddy water. He didn't flinch. He was used to it. Through the tinted window, he saw the smirking face of Caleb Sterling. Caleb, with his perfectly coiffed blond hair and his C-Class Hero certification for enhanced strength. Caleb, who had once, in middle school, been his friend. Before the power. Before the hierarchy.
"Watch your step, Zero," a voice called from the limo's open window, belonging to one of Caleb's perpetual hangers-on, Marcus. "Wouldn't want you to catch a cold. Oh, wait, you're probably too weak for that too."
The laughter was swallowed by the roar of the engine as the car sped away. Ark's fists clenched, his nails digging half-moons into his palms. The anger was a hot, tight ball in his stomach, but it was useless, as always. What could he do? Challenge them? He'd be a bug under their thumb.
He took a shortcut, ducking into the maze of alleys behind the commercial district. It was a place of overflowing dumpsters, scurrying rats, and the pervasive smell of rotting garbage and ozone—the faint, metallic tang left behind by portal energy. It suited him. This was where the dregs of the city, the powerless and the forgotten, belonged.
The rain intensified, drumming a frantic rhythm on the metal lids of the dumpsters. He pulled his jacket tighter, a futile gesture. The cold was seeping into his bones, a familiar companion. He thought of the warm, brightly lit apartment he and his mother could barely afford, the constant worry in her eyes, the silent accusation that he was the reason their life was so hard. He was a drain, a burden she carried out of duty, not love. He knew it. He felt it in every weary sigh she released.
He rounded a corner, his mind a fog of self-loathing and cold misery, and walked straight into a solid, unyielding form.
He stumbled back, slipping on the wet ground and landing hard on his tailbone. Pain shot up his spine. Looking up, his blood ran colder than the rain.
Caleb stood there, flanked by Marcus and another sycophant, a hulking brute named Roy. They weren't in their limo anymore. They were here, in this filthy alley, their designer jackets seeming to repel the rain. Their expressions were not of casual cruelty, but of focused, predatory intent.
"Well, well," Caleb said, his voice a low, pleasant baron that belied the malice in his eyes. "Look what the trash dragged in. Or is it the other way around?"
Ark scrambled backward on his hands and knees, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "I... I'm just going home, Caleb."
"Home?" Marcus sneered, cracking his knuckles. "This is your home, Greystone. The gutter. You should be thanking us for visiting."
Caleb took a slow, deliberate step forward. The puddles around his expensive boots didn't seem to touch him. "I saw the way you looked at me today, Ark. Outside the gym. That little glare." He tilted his head, a mockery of curiosity. "You got a problem with me?"
Ark's mind raced. He hadn't glared. He'd just been looking, lost in his own thoughts. But with people like Caleb, existence was a provocation. "No. No problem."
"See, I think you do," Caleb continued, his voice dropping. "I think you resent me. I think you, a worthless Null, actually believe you have the right to judge me. A Hero."
Roy chuckled, a low, grating sound. "We should teach him some respect, Caleb."
Fear, cold and sharp, joined the ball of anger in Ark's gut. This was different from the usual shoves and verbal taunts. This was isolated. This was dark. "Please," he whispered, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. "I just want to go home."
"Please?" Caleb mimicked in a high-pitched whine. "You hear that? The Zero is begging." He leaned down, his face inches from Ark's. His breath smelled of mint and something else, something artificially clean. "But you see, Ark, your very presence is an insult. You're a reminder of what we're fighting against. Weakness. Uselessness. You're a stain on this city's future."
Before Ark could process the words, Caleb's foot snapped out. It wasn't a kick; it was a piston-driven blow, enhanced by his superhuman strength. It connected with Ark's ribs.
A sickening crack echoed through the alley, louder than the rain. White-hot agony exploded in Ark's side. He couldn't even scream; the air was driven from his lungs in a choked gasp. He curled into a fetal position, wheezing, the world swimming in a nauseating blur of pain.
"Pathetic," Roy grunted, and his own heavy boot connected with Ark's kidney. Fire lanced through his lower back.
Marcus joined in, a flurry of kicks aimed at his legs, his arms, any part of him not protected by the desperate curl of his body. The blows were methodical, brutal. These weren't schoolyard bullies; they were apprentices to violence, testing their power on the only target they could without consequence.
Ark tasted blood. His own. Metallic and warm. It filled his mouth, mixing with the dirty rainwater. He tried to cry out, but only a wet, gurgling sound emerged. His vision began to tunnel, the edges darkening. The world narrowed to the symphony of pain and the cold, hard ground beneath his cheek.
Through the haze, he saw Caleb kneel down again. The Hero's face was serene, almost beautiful in the dim, rain-streaked light. It was the face of someone utterly convinced of their own righteousness.
"You know," Caleb said conversationally, as if they were discussing the weather, "they say evolution is about the survival of the fittest. The Great Awakening was just a cosmic acceleration of that process." He placed a hand on Ark's forehead, not with comfort, but with a proprietor's touch. "People like you... you're evolutionary dead ends. You just haven't realized it yet."
He stood up, looking down at Ark's broken form with a final, dismissive glance. "Some people are just meant to be nothing. Disappear, Zero."
With those words, the last flicker of hope in Ark's heart guttered and died. The three figures turned and walked away, their footsteps fading into the downpour, leaving him alone in the filth and the gathering dark.
The cold was no longer just on his skin; it was inside him, filling the void where his will to live had been. The rain washed over his face, mingling with the blood and what might have been tears, though he could no longer tell the difference. He tried to move, to push himself up, but his body was a shattered puppet, its strings cut. A fresh, searing pain from his ribs made him gasp, and he collapsed back into the overflowing gutter.
The murky water, thick with grime and oil, lapped at his lips. He was drowning on dry land, drowning in his own powerlessness. His thoughts became fragmented, memories flashing like dying embers.
His mother's tired smile. The empty chair at the dinner table where his father used to sit. The sneer on Caleb's face. The word "Zero" being spat at him like a curse.
Is this all? a faint, desperate part of his mind screamed. Is this all my life was for? To be a punching bag for my betters and then to die forgotten in an alley?
The injustice of it all, the sheer, unadulterated hatred for Caleb, for the Heroes, for the world that created them, became a final, burning coal in the freezing emptiness of his soul.
His vision faded completely, the world dissolving into a pinprick of gray light, and then, nothing.
Silence.
An emptiness so profound it had a weight of its own.
Then, a presence. Not a light, but a concentration of absolute darkness. A voice, not heard with ears, but felt in the very fabric of his dissolving consciousness. It was ancient, layered with the chill of dead stars and the whisper of collapsing realities. It was cold, sharp, and utterly compelling.
[Query: Biological and cognitive functions at critical failure. Consciousness fading.]
The words were data, but the voice behind them was alive with a terrible, alien intelligence.
[Observation: Vessel has sustained significant physical trauma. Spirit is saturated with potent negative emotional residue: Rage. Despair. Hatred. Optimal conditions detected.]
Ark had no mouth to speak, no lungs to breathe, but his soul, the last coherent spark of "Ark Greystone," formed a thought. ...Who?... What?...
[Identification: I am a remnant. A shard of a sovereign entity shattered in a war against the Primordial Light. You may designate me as the [Demon God System].]
System?... The concept was alien, yet understood. Like the Heroes and their classified power rankings.
[Proposal: Your physical shell is forfeit. Your current existence is terminated. Yet, the potential for a new genesis remains. Your spirit resonates with the Abyss. Your hatred is a worthy catalyst. Do you wish to persist, Ark Greystone?]
Memories of the beating, of Caleb's smug face, of a lifetime of humiliation, surged through the ghost of his mind. A final, defiant surge of that all-consuming wrath.
[Clarification: This is not a path of light. It is not a Hero's blessing. It is the embrace of the void they fear. The power to break their bodies, shatter their minds, and command the very darkness they pretend to fight. Do you wish for this power? Do you wish to scour this world clean of their false light?]
There were no more thoughts of his mother, of consequences, of morality. There was only the raw, primal need for retribution. The desire to see the fear in Caleb's eyes, to hear him beg for once. To burn the entire corrupt system to the ground.
With the last vestige of his will, the soul that was Ark Greystone screamed into the void.
YES.
[Acknowledged. Pact is sealed. Commencing integration of the Vessel. Reforging initiated.]
The nothingness exploded.
It was not into light, but into a deeper, more absolute black. Agony, far beyond the physical pain of his broken body, erupted through his being. It was the pain of being unmade and remade, his very cells being scoured and infused with a terrible, new energy. He felt his bones knitting together not with the gentle work of biology, but with the violent, forced fusion of demonic power, the cracks filling with solidified shadow. His flesh stitched itself back together, the sensation like molten lead being poured into his wounds.
He was being pulled, violently, back into his body. The sensation of cold rain returned, but now it sizzled where it touched his skin, turning to steam. He drew in a ragged, shuddering breath, his lungs burning not with water, but with raw, potent mana—no, not mana. It was something darker, thicker. It was Demonic Essence.
He opened his eyes.
The world was different. The gray, rainy alley was now painted in hues of deep violet and angry crimson. He could see the heat bleeding from the dumpsters, the cold psychic residue of the fear he had felt moments ago, the lingering arrogance left behind by his attackers like a foul stench. His senses were dialed to eleven, overwhelming and glorious.
He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. No pain. Only a thrumming, terrifying power. He looked at his hands. They were pale, almost alabaster, but crawling with faint, black tracings like living tattoos. His fingernails had lengthened, hardened into points of obsidian that clicked against the wet concrete.
A flickering, blood-red and static-black interface burned itself into the center of his vision, transparent yet undeniable.
```
// SYSTEM INITIALIZING...
// WELCOME, VESSEL.
**STATUS**
Name: Ark Greystone
Title: The Reborn
Rank: Mortal Husk -> Fledgling Fiend
Demonheart Core: Lv. 1 (Stable)
**ATTRIBUTES**
- Malice: 4
- Cunning: 5
- Corruption: 3
- Dominion: 7
**ABILITIES**
- **Shadow Step (Lv. 1):** Melt into and travel through shadows.
- **Essence Drain (Lv. 1):** Touch-based draining of life and mana.
- **Fear Aura (Passive):** Projects an aura of unease and terror.
// DEMONIC PACT INTERFACE: [LOCKED - Requires Rank: Lesser Demon]
```
He stood. His body felt lighter, stronger, a coiled spring of lethal intent. The soaked, ragged clothes hung on a frame that now hummed with potential. He was Ark Greystone, but the boy who had died in this alley was gone. Something new had been born from his rage and the whispers of a dead god.
A scuttling sound came from a rusted sewer grate nearby. The iron cover was shoved aside, and a creature emerged. It was about the size of a large dog, with leathery, greenish skin, glowing red eyes, and a mouth full of needle-like teeth. An Imp. A Class-F nuisance monster that sometimes crawled up from the underground tunnels near weaker Gates. It was the lowest of the low in the monstrous hierarchy, but it was still a lethal threat to an unarmed civilian.
It sniffed the air, its beady eyes locking onto Ark. It hissed, drool dripping from its maw, and prepared to lunge at this lone, seemingly vulnerable human.
Then it froze.
Its head cocked. It wasn't looking at his face, but at the space around him, at the shimmering, invisible field of his Fear Aura. It saw the abyssal energy that now pulsed where a soul should be. It sensed the Dominion stat that marked him not as prey, but as Predator. As Master.
The Imp's aggressive posture melted away. Its hiss turned into a terrified whimper. It dropped to its belly, pressing its face into the filthy ground, its entire body trembling in abject, primal terror. It didn't just fear him; it recognized his authority on a fundamental, cosmic level.
Ark looked down at the prostrate creature, a being that moments ago would have been his executioner. A foreign sensation pulled at the corners of his mouth. It wasn't a smile of joy or happiness. It was a cold, sharp expression of vindication, of absolute, terrifying power. It was the grin of a predator who had just discovered his place at the top of the food chain.
He flexed his clawed fingers, watching the obsidian points gleam in the distant, hazy light of the city. The rain continued to fall, but it no longer felt cold. It felt like a baptism.
His new, enhanced hearing could just make out the distant sound of laughter from a trendy rooftop bar a few blocks away. Caleb's laughter.
Ark's cold smile widened.
"Now," he whispered, the word a rasp of gravel and promise that hung in the sodden air. "Let's go find Caleb."