I was still lying on the rotten wooden floor of my room, breathing hard and watching the puddle of vomit I'd just emptied from my stomach.
The stench of death and flayed flesh from that cursed future-vision still hung in my nostrils, clinging to the hairs of my olfactory cells like an eternal curse.
My heart hammered violently, beating against my ribs like a prisoner trying to break down the walls of its cell.
"Alright…" I muttered in a hoarse, rough voice as I tried to push my back off the cold floor. "I saw the end of the world. I saw the greatest man in Elysium vomit his entrails and die simply because something looked at him. I told myself I'd break every rule to get strong… I said I'd steal the end-of-the-world loot."
I rubbed my face with my trembling hands and sighed lazily.
"But for heaven's sake, I'm way too lazy! Damn it! Do you know how much effort it takes to get stronger than a G rank? I'd have to train, run, kill disgusting monsters in damp dungeons that smell like ghoul droppings! Why can't I just lie here and wait for death quietly?"
While indulging in my favorite pastime — whining and self-pity — the air in the room stopped again.
That familiar, nauseating pressure from the cosmos hit the back of my head.
I froze. The golden screen that had announced my SSS skill had vanished, but now… a new screen had appeared.
This time it wasn't golden. It was a deep, bloody red, dripping fake blood that fell and vanished before it touched the floor.
The system's mechanical voice — cold and devoid of empathy — echoed in my skull like the sound of blades rubbing together.
[System Alert: Host Behavior Evaluation]
[Given the host possesses the Skill (Future Sight SSS) and is aware of the impending catastrophic inevitability, an exceptional evolution path has been opened to ensure survival.]
[The host has been granted a passive, evolvable Skill. Current rank: A]
[New Skill Window]
Skill Name: [Blood Doubling — Harvest of the Kin]
Rank: A (upgradable).
Type: Passive / Absorption.
Detailed Description: The System acknowledges that hunting monsters is the traditional path to increase Eitra capacity and ascend physical ranks. For instance: killing a G-rank monster grants you 10% progress toward rank F.
Special Ability: Because your human body is biologically and spiritually compatible with your ethnic kin, killing a human (a Hunter or an Awakened) will trigger the Doubling skill. Killing a human of your same rank will not grant 10% — it will multiply that progress to 40% immediate advancement, in addition to permanently absorbing a portion of the victim's Eitra capacity.
Summary: To survive the catastrophe, the System recommends you stop hunting monsters… and start hunting humans.
I read the words on the red screen. Once, twice, three times.
"Huh?" The word escaped my mouth dumb and hollow.
I blinked several times, staring at the red screen that throbbed slowly like a flayed human heart.
The System — that unknown entity that's run our world for five hundred years — was bluntly telling me to become a serial killer. Not only that, it dangled a fantasy reward. Quadruple progress?
Permanent Eitra absorption? Any low-rank Hunter would literally sell their mother for that skill.
"You're joking, right?" I spoke to the screen as if it were a rational person. "You want me to kill humans? Stab my fellow Hunters in back alleys to suck their energy like some parasitic bloodsucker?"
The System didn't answer. It only pulsed a faint wink from the red screen, as if winking at me with a diabolical eye.
"Listen, you damn System," I said, leaning against the wall and wiping cold sweat from my brow. "I said I'd break rules to survive, yes. I said I'd get strong, yes. But killing? Killing humans? Do you know how exhausting that is? The planning, hiding bodies, evading guild police, wiping surveillance cameras, using bleach to remove blood stains from carpets? I'm too lazy to wash my dishes for a week until fungal colonies grow in them and you want me to plan full-blown murders?! Screw you and your skill! Give it to some mentally unstable guy with more free time than me!"
Of course the skill didn't vanish. It had been carved into my soul like a brand of fire.
I now had the ability to evolve at a terrifying speed if I chose to abandon my humanity.
It was a horrifying option, but… disturbingly tempting.
I shook my head violently to throw out those poisoned thoughts.
"No. Not now. I'm just a G rank. If I try to kill another Hunter, even one of my rank, I'll probably trip on my own shoes and stab myself in the eye."
I stood slowly; my bones cracked like an old man's. I glanced at my battered clock. It read four in the afternoon.
"I need coffee. And somewhere that doesn't smell like my vomit."
I pulled on my cheap black coat, frayed at the edges, and left the disgusting apartment complex I called home. As soon as I stepped out the main door, Elysium's cold, polluted air hit me.
The sky was weeping. Heavy, gray rain, slightly acidic from the magic factories in the northern sector, lashed the sidewalks.
The city was steeped in a viscous gloom. The distant downtown skyscrapers gleamed with flashing neon and giant holograms advertising energy drinks mixed with ghoul blood, but down here in the lower slums there was only muck, trash, and raindrops reflecting broken lamp light.
I turned my collar up against the stinging rain and hurried, stepping around pools of black water.
I entered the cafe called "The Broken Cup" — a name that suited it.
It smelled of burnt coffee, cheap cigarettes, and wet clothes. The leather seats were torn; the windows fogged from the inside.
"Black coffee, Carl. Add all the despair you've got today," I told the old man behind the counter.
Carl grunted and slid a paper cup toward me. I paid a few coins and sat in the darkest corner of the cafe.
I sipped the coffee. It was worse than I'd expected — tasting like rainwater mixed with ash. Perfect.
I took out my cracked smartphone; a fissure ran across its screen like a glacier split. I didn't have the mental energy to think about the end of the world anymore — I just wanted distraction. I opened the app "X" (Twitter's successor — despite five centuries, this damned app remains humanity's public garbage heap).
But what I saw in the trending feed wasn't trivial.
[Trend #1: #tragic_human_transformation]
[Trend #2: #subway_monster]
[Trend #3: #intelligence_agency_coverup]
I raised an eyebrow and tapped the first hashtag.
A feed of tweets and shaky phone videos loaded.
One clip was filmed inside a subway car in Sector C.
A middle-aged man in a gray suit stood holding the metal pole. Suddenly he started coughing. Not an ordinary cough — he spat out thick black globs. Then… his jaw split.
I brought the phone closer, ignoring my cooling coffee.
In the video the man's lower jaw ripped apart lengthwise, extending down his neck like twin halves, revealing rows of needlelike teeth that grew within seconds.
Passengers screamed and scrambled to flee while his ribcage tore through his shirt and suit, extending outward into spider-like legs covered in yellow pus.
His eyes bulged and burst, replaced by clusters of small glowing red eyes.
He had become a biological nightmare in less than ten seconds.
The video ended with the cameraman's scream and the phone hitting the floor. The last shot was of the monster lunging at an old woman, ripping her throat with its spider-ribs.
I read the attached news. The incident happened that morning.
Hundreds of mysterious "human transformations" had started appearing across Elysium.
Ordinary people — low-rank citizens and Hunters alike — were suddenly, without warning, turning into bloody, terrifying monsters.
No gates had opened, no visible parasites — just random, instantaneous transformation, like their DNA decided to commit suicide and revenge itself simultaneously.
The images in the following tweets were worse.
Torn corpses, half-human malformed beasts, blood covering the pavements.
And in several photos I saw them: men and women in long, immaculate black coats wearing sunglasses despite the rain.
They cordoned off crime scenes and kept even the guild police from approaching.
"Intelligence agents… the new CIA and FBI," I muttered with bitterness, feeling a phantom twinge in my ribs even though they were fully healed.
"I always thought these transformations were the work of a sneaky parasitic monster… or maybe a curse from one of the undiscovered gates."
I had once dreamed of being one of them.
Joining the federal Eitra Crime Investigation Office. Wearing a sharp suit, analyzing blood, hunting criminals with my wits instead of sludging through dungeon mud to fight ghouls.
I'd studied hard, read thousands of books on monster anatomy, memorized the laws.
But in our world, intelligence means nothing if you don't have power.
I remembered that day clearly — the final entrance exam.
I stood in the great hall, trembling slightly, when that blond jerk approached.
The A-rank special agent, Arthur Sterling. He wore a flawless white suit and a smug smile carved like a Greek statue.
"Kyle Valtier, right?" he said smoothly, looking at my file like reading a cheap menu.
"Your mental and analytical scores are excellent. A little genius. But your overall rank… G?"
I smiled tensely and said, "Sir, investigation doesn't always require great physical strength. I can use my brain to—"
I didn't finish. In the blink of an eye, faster than my eyes could track, he raised his leg and kicked me in the chest.
It wasn't an Eitra-charged kick — just a raw physical strike from an A-rank. I slammed into the wall behind me so hard I thought my spine would break.
I fell to the floor coughing blood as two of my ribs cracked.
Arthur stood over me, looked down with utter contempt, and coldly said, "In our world, weak geniuses don't live long enough to solve cases, kid. They're eaten before they can open their mouths. Go back to the trash you came from, and don't pollute this building with your presence again."
One kick wiped away all my dreams and ground them into dust.
I snapped back to the present, crushing the paper cup in my hand until it nearly burst.
"Arrogant bastards… if only they knew what would befall them when that rift opens in the sky and that dark eye stares out. Their fine suits will melt on their skin."
I sighed bitterly. Old dreams were dead. I had to face reality.
Reality: my rent was two months overdue.
The landlord — a fat man with a pig's face, literally (and perhaps genetically) — had threatened to break my knees and throw me out if I didn't pay by tomorrow.
Instant noodles had jumped 20% in price thanks to magical inflation. Life had gotten expensive.
Options were nil.
Go back to dungeon raids? Hell no. I nearly died yesterday with a 99% fatality rate and a ghoul's claws in my lungs.
I wouldn't be bait for anyone again.
Get a regular job? No one hires a G-rank Hunter even as a janitor, afraid we'll attract weak monsters with our modest auras.
There was only one option left — the one I'd been practicing since I was kicked out of the intelligence office.
Theft.
Stealing — I mean, redistributing unjust wealth.
What would anyone expect of me? I'm a desperate man in a slowly dying world.
I had no choice. I had to live, and I had to prepare for the end of the world.
That required money. A lot of money for gear and concentrated Eitra potions.
I had a long record of previous thefts.
Precise, daring heists against mid-tier guild warehouses, magical jewelry shops, even monster-core transport vans.
I'd never been caught; thanks to the very intelligence they scorned, I planned like a ghost and moved like a phantom, gone before anyone realized the vault was empty.
Because of my string of successful robberies that left the police baffled, the press and the internet had given me a nickname that made me nauseatingly famous…
"The Black Joker."
I bit my lip with anger at the memory.
"Damn the stupid journalist who gave me that name! And damn whoever spread it!" I hissed with hate.
"I'm nothing like a joker! I don't wear a purple suit, I don't laugh like a lunatic, I don't smear makeup! I wear a full black mask that hides my identity, with a smiling face traced by dim blue luminous lines. A smiling face — that's it! Not a joker! Am I supposed to be flattered by this silly name that makes me look like a rebellious teenager? Absolutely not!"
As I cursed my luck and the media, an idea occurred. I opened Twitter again and typed hesitantly into the search bar: #Black_Joker.
The hashtag page loaded, and I nearly spat my coffee at the phone.
The tweets numbered in the hundreds — no, thousands. Every refresh brought dozens more. Did I have "fans"? What the hell? How and why?
I began reading the tweets in stunned confusion:
[@CrazyForJoker_99]: "OMG! Did you see how he bypassed the security at the Night Dawn Guild bank last week? He's a genius! Hope he robs my heart next! [heart-eyes emoji] [black heart] [blue heart] #Black_Joker"
I slapped my forehead. "God, is this girl insane? I'm a damn thief! If I saw you on the street I'd steal your bag and buy a meat sandwich!"
[@Hunter_Sigma_Male]: "I bet the Black Joker is an unsung hero returning wealth to the poor like Robin Hood. He fights the corrupt guild system! All support to our mysterious hero!"
"I don't give a single cent to any poor person, you idiot. I use money to pay rent and buy video games and gear! I'm the pauper I help!" I muttered sarcastically. How did people worship a thief? Has society fallen so far into boredom that it glorifies criminals?
I scrolled and found the rational tweets — the haters (thankfully the majority):
[@LawAndOrder_Elysium]: "This parasite called the Black Joker should be executed publicly. He's a filthy criminal exploiting security flaws. The guilds should commission A-rank Hunters to bring him in, dead or alive. No mercy for scum."
I nodded slowly. "Yes… that's sensible. I agree completely. Good luck catching me."
Then came the conspiracy theorists:
[@TinFoil_Hat_Awakened]: "Open your eyes, sheeple! The Black Joker isn't an ordinary thief! Look at his targets. He steals cores from specific categories. I believe he's a disguised SS-rank Hunter working for a secret government to build an Eitra nuclear bomb — it's all a cover for inventory shortages!"
"SS rank? Working for the government?" I laughed bitterly, glancing at my shoe with a hole in the sole. "I can't even afford a combo at the burger joint."
"Laughing at what, sad friend?" a sharp voice interrupted my thoughts. I looked up to see Zack, my only friend in this filthy city.
Zack was… a special case. Skinny to the point of fragility, deep dark circles under his eyes like he'd never known normal sleep, hair messy and curly, and a mild nervous tic that made his left eye blink and his neck itch as if bugs crawled under his skin.
He was mentally complex, obsessed with conspiracy theories, and drank enough coffee to give an elephant a heart attack.
Zack sat across from me, slammed the table with both hands, his eyes wide with a pleasant kind of madness.
"Did you see the news? Did you see what's happening in the streets?"
I closed my phone. "Yeah, Zack. Humans turning into flayed monsters and spiders crawling out of their chests. Tuesday as usual in Elysium."
"Don't be sarcastic, Kyle!" He leaned in and lowered his voice like he was sharing a nuclear secret. "This isn't ordinary monsters. I analyzed the pictures. The cell division pattern, the twisted Eitra flow in their bodies… it's not a disease. It's a 'trigger'!"
"Trigger?" I asked bored, sipping my awful coffee.
"Yes! Someone injected these poor souls with corrupted artificial Eitra, and now it's being remotely activated. The government is involved, I'm sure! The big guilds want to reduce the population because resources are running out. They're manufacturing a monster army!" Zack scratched his neck nervously.
"Zack, you need therapy, or a heavy sedative. The government and the guilds are weaker and dumber than to orchestrate something this complex." I thought of the vision. If Zack knew about that dark half of a head… his brain might explode.
Zack suddenly stopped scratching his neck and his face lit with a strange excitement.
"Okay, okay, forget the end of the world. More important — did you see the Black Joker's latest move?"
A lump rose in my throat; I nearly choked on my coffee. I coughed twice and put on a bored, indifferent expression.
"The Black Joker? What did that clown do now?"
"Clown?! Watch your words! He's a legend!" Zack slammed the table again, eyes gleaming with sick admiration. "He hacked the security at the Silver Shield warehouse and stole five million credits worth of monster cores without leaving a trace or triggering a single alarm! He left a small black smiling mask as a mocking message! This man embodies pure chaos! I'd love to meet him — I'd shake his hand and say: keep destroying this rotten system!"
I looked at Zack expressionless, while inside I was cursing up a storm.
"Rotten system? I'm just a broke thief looking for rent, Zack, not a revolutionary hero!" I shouted in my head.
Outwardly I forced a mocking smile and sighed audibly.
"Legend? You're exaggerating as usual, Zack. This so-called Black Joker is just scum, a coward hiding in the shadows. I'm sure he's actually some ugly, failing, depressed guy living in a rotten apartment and eating expired canned food. A joke. Just a matter of time before someone strong crushes him."
I cursed myself wholeheartedly and played the part to perfection so he wouldn't suspect.
Inside, I was whispering: "Sorry, Kyle. You're not ugly. You're very handsome. The apartment's rotten, not you. Forgive me — I do this to protect us."
Zack frowned and shook his head. "You don't understand art, Kyle. You're too depressed and desperate. You need to find a hero to believe in. Anyway, I have to go. The dark web forums are on fire with new theories about the human monsters; I need to post my analysis before some idiot beats me to it."
He stood and waved, rushing back into the rain and his paranoid world.
I watched him go and leaned back in my chair. The fake smile faded from my face and the hard chill returned to my eyes.
I'd wasted enough time. Pretending to be weak and dumb was exhausting.
"Five million credits… that was a good haul. But I blew most of it on old debts and black-market Eitra healing potions after the disastrous dungeon raid." I muttered.
"I'm broke again. The future vision won't leave my head. I need money… today."
I made up my mind. I wouldn't wait for morning. I'd steal tonight.
My target was clear: a high-end magical jewelry shop in the upscale sector.
A place called "Tears of Diamond." Not an ordinary shop — it sold jewelry embedded with miniature monster cores as power sources.
Hunters of high rank bought gifts there for wives or mistresses (or both).
The vault, according to my previous recon, contained concentrated jewelry enough to pay my rent for years and buy everything I needed for training and surviving that dark entity.
I left the cafe and returned to my apartment in the pouring rain.
As soon as I shut and locked the door, something in me changed.
Laziness, whining, and the weak man's gloom vanished.
I moved with steady, quick steps to the dark corner of my room.
I knelt, pried up a loose wooden board from the floor.
Inside the hidden hollow my bag waited.
I pulled it onto the bed and opened it.
Work clothes. A full tactical black suit made of magical fibers bullet- and stab-resistant, yet incredibly light.
When I put it on it felt like a second skin.
Along the long coat's hems and sleeves were dark lines — when I channeled a whisper of my weak Eitra through the suit, those lines glowed a cold, menacing dark blue, absorbing light instead of emitting it.
I put on the tactical black cap that covered my hair and forehead. Then… the mask.
I stared at it for a moment. A smooth black mask that covered the whole face. No nostril or mouth openings — just magical glass inside that let me see fully while looking opaque from the outside.
When Eitra flowed into it, dark blue lines glowed across its surface, sketching two smiling faces with cold, mocking smiles and half-closed eyes of silent derision.
"The Black Joker"… damn that name, but the mask did the job.
I fitted it to my face and heard the mechanical clasp lock against the skin of my neck, altering my voice into a deep, menacing, mechanical tone.
Finally, I reached to the bottom of the bag and pulled out my weapons.
A tactical Glock 19, black and modified.
In a world of monsters and super-Hunters, ordinary firearms had become a joke.
A regular bullet would bounce off an F-rank ghoul's skin like a pea hitting a steel wall. In the hands of a civilian it's a dangerous toy.
But… the Awakened are different. The System gave us the ability to manipulate Eitra.
When a Hunter holds a firearm, they don't rely on gunpowder alone.
I gripped the Glock with my right hand.
I closed my eyes under the mask and focused.
Although my Eitra capacity was a pitiful G, the precision control I possessed was terrifying (perhaps why the System had awarded me an SSS Skill in the first place).
I began pulling black threads of Eitra from my heart, channeling them through my arms into my palms and into the cold metal of the gun.
The Glock faintly glowed with a dark light, as if the room's shadows gathered around it.
Eitra seeped into the magazine, coating each bullet with a layer of destructive energy.
These were no longer ordinary 9mm rounds. They had become Eitra-infused projectiles capable of piercing magical armor, blowing a ghoul's head apart, or penetrating a human skull with terrifying ease.
I loaded the rounds and listened to the sharp metallic click of the first bullet chambering.
A classic sound: beautiful and terrible.
I slipped the Glock into a hidden holster beneath my coat.
I looked at myself in the cracked mirror on the wall.
I was no longer Kyle Valtier, the gloomy, poor G-rank Hunter. I was someone else — the specter who toyed with Elysium's security systems like a child with a toy.
[System Alert]
[Host displays violent intent. Reminder: Skill (Blood Doubling — Harvest of the Kin) Rank A ready. Human blood will make you stronger faster than ever. Will you harvest today?]
I ignored the red screen pulsing in the dark.
"I'm a thief, not a serial killer, you sick System," I murmured with the deep mechanized voice from behind the mask.
"But… if some arrogant guild bastard stands between me and my cash tonight and tries to stop me…"
I patted the Glock's Eitra-charged grip.
"Everyone dies from a bullet to the head, regardless of rank."
I turned, opened the window, and leaped into the dark, rainy night toward Tears of Diamond.
Tonight, the Black Joker would return to steal the spotlight… and perhaps, if necessary, some souls too.