It is a sensation that defies description—a rot that seeps into the very marrow of the human soul. When this curse takes hold, it doesn't just kill; it erases. It strips away every shred of identity, every warmth of a parent's love, leaving behind nothing but a hollow shell fueled by a single, burning instinct: Vengeance.
Two years ago, the world ended. Not with a bang, but with a silent, suffocating shroud. They called it The Fog Spirit.
For two years, humanity lived in terror of the mist. Scientific minds and world governments failed to grasp even a single percent of its nature. But they noticed a pattern—a cruel, divine irony. The Fog Spirit didn't touch those with "Potential." It bypassed the strong, the talented, and the elite. Instead, it hungrily swallowed the weak, the discarded, and the powerless.
Was it a celestial test? A divine punishment meant to force the lazy to work harder? No one knew.
But in the second year of the mist, the world witnessed a miracle that turned into a massacre. The weak who had been swallowed a year prior began to return. But they were no longer human. Their memories were gone, their hearts were cold, but their hands held power that defied the laws of physics.
They were the Reapers.
Fifty million Reapers descended upon the world. They didn't care for politics or conquest; they cared for blood. They hunted down every person who had ever bullied them, every superior who had ever looked down on them. The world's armies fell like paper. Two million lives were snuffed out in a cold, systematic purge.
Now, three years after the Fog first appeared, a fragile peace exists. The Reapers made a pact with humanity: they live as they please, exempt from all laws, taking whatever they want for free. And the world, paralyzed by fear, simply said... "Yes."
In the eastern outskirts of the city of Corlus, there sat a small, quiet village of farmers.
It was a Saturday evening when Kaelen returned from the fields. His body was slick with sweat, his muscles aching from the grueling labor.
"I'm home, Mother," Kaelen called out, his voice heavy with fatigue.
His mother emerged from the kitchen, a gentle smile lighting up her worn face. "Quickly now, go wash up. Dinner is almost ready."
As the cold water hit his skin, Kaelen stared at the bathroom wall, his expression twisting into a scowl. My useless father... he's probably a Reaper now, isn't he? Living some high-class life, forgetting that his wife and son are rotting in poverty.
He slammed his fist against the tiles. "Damn the Fog Spirit! Why give the weak so much power? Why take their memories but leave their hate?"
He let out a bitter sigh. "Maybe if I were a loser with zero potential, I'd be a Reaper too. Maybe then I wouldn't be starving on dry bread every night."
At the dinner table, Kaelen stared at his plate with visible disgust.
"Kaelen," his mother said softly, placing a hand on his. "Don't look at your food that way. We eat what we earn with our own blood and sweat. That is the only true way to live. Your father was a broken man long before the Fog took him. We are better off without him."
"That's exactly what pisses me off!" Kaelen snapped, standing up. "The Fog Spirit rewards the broken! It chooses the cowards and makes them kings! It's all a joke!"
He stormed off to his room, his eyes burning with a rage he couldn't control.
Two days later, the "peace" of the village shattered.
The Reapers arrived. They demanded a ransom for life—pay the price or face the scythe. Kaelen's family had nothing. His mother, in a final act of desperation, used what little gold she had hidden to buy Kaelen's safety.
But she couldn't buy her own.
It was Monday. Kaelen sat on the cold floor, his eyes vacant, staring at his mother's lifeless body. The trauma had hollowed him out.
"Was it fire? Or ice? Did a blade grow from his arm?" he whispered to the empty room. He looked at the scorched mark on his mother's chest. "No... he turned his hand into a gun. A single shot. That's all it took."
Kaelen stood up. His tattered white jersey hung loosely on his frame. His face was cast in shadow, but then, something impossible happened.
Deep within the darkness of his pupils, a menacing blue light began to flicker. A cold, demonic smile stretched across his lips—a look that didn't belong to a farm boy.
"The Fog Spirit... the Reapers... the whole damn system..." Kaelen's voice dropped to a lethal growl. "I'm going to tear it all down. I'll leave nothing but ashes."