DŽÁO ŠO NÍ REŘ, DŽÁO ŠO LÁHIRU; DŽÁO ŠO PIMIVIK BO, DŽÁO ŠO KÁHIRU

Tokyo—the once great, modern, and futuristic city—was now in ruins, unrecognizable from its past glory. The once lively streets full of people and traffic were now empty, devoid of almost all human life. The skies turned gray from all the smoke, blocking out the sun and most of the daylight. The land of the rising Sun had a sun no more.

Despite the absence of the humans who had built this capital through blood and tears, the city’s streets were not entirely empty.

A tall, humanoid-shaped, utterly disgusting and vile being of a dull gray color was trotting through the streets, seemingly running around without any purpose.

Then, however, it suddenly stopped, inhaling the suffocating air around it deeply. It slowly opened its grotesque mouth, revealing two rows of uneven sharp teeth.

Unlike most monsters, this one didn’t salivate at all—in fact, its whole body was as dry as a bone, with not a single trace of fat. It was unnatural for this abhorrent thing to be standing at all, let alone move as quickly as it did.

After sniffing its surroundings for a few seconds, its head turned almost a hundred and eighty degrees, making gross cracking sounds in the process. It dashed in the direction its gaze was facing; the rest of its bony body turned mid-air, making its structure once again oriented in the direction it was facing.

Upon landing, it knocked back a small yellow car, revealing a mother tightly hugging her son—around eight to ten years old—both shivering in horror, tears running down their soot and dust-covered faces. The two of them were frozen in fear, robbed of their rational thinking.

Then, the mother’s instincts kicked in when she suddenly threw herself over her child, shielding him with her body.

The terrifying abomination, meanwhile, leaned closer, yet again sniffing the air, only a few centimeters away from the woman’s face.

For what felt like eternity, the monster seemed to just observe the two weak humans. Hoping that the strange fiend was going to let them live, the mother grew deadly still, afraid to even breathe.

In the end, though, they weren’t so lucky.

After staying motionless for so long, the monster suddenly swiped its long-clawed hand at the woman, slicing her skin and flesh, leaving a gaping wound on her lower back. The impact threw the woman back, leaving the young boy alone, facing something akin to a demon of hell by himself.

That very demon opened its maw to an unnatural proportion, seemingly ready to swallow the child whole.

However, before it could do so, the boy’s mother threw herself at the monster, making it stagger slightly, although it hadn’t lost its balance.

The woman, despite bleeding profusely from the horrible wound on her back, punched, scratched, kicked, and even bit the towering gray fiend. Unfortunately, she was doing little to no damage, being nothing but an annoying pest in the eyes of the monstrous fiend.

It simply grabbed the woman by her arm, penetrating it with its claws and lifting her whole body into the air.

Then, without any further hesitation, it bit off the woman’s entire head, along with a huge chunk of her chest and upper body, swallowing it whole right before her son’s mortified eyes, showing no mercy whatsoever.

It then tossed the mother’s body aside, or rather what was left of it, as if losing all interest in its meal.

It seemed its hunger, however, still hadn’t been satiated, as it immediately turned to the now orphaned young boy, who wasn’t even crying anymore, his expression a mix of confusion, grief, and madness.

Whissshhh!

The fiend was standing hunched over the young boy, unmoving. A second ago, it was about to devour the child, just like it had his mother. But now...

The top half of the monster’s body started slowly sliding down, then hit the ground with a loud thud.

A strange-looking blade was embedded in the ground beside it, shining with a faint aqua light.

The boy looked over to the bizarre weapon, then back at the monster.

Right then, a man practically flew by, landing right by the short sword, picking it up and pulling it from the cracked asphalt. While he did so, the weapon’s handle extended, becoming much longer, almost matching the man’s height.

The polished wooden shaft had meticulous and exquisite silver patterns, while the blade had a gorgeous precious gem the color of the sea glimmering under the noon sun at its base, radiating a bright light blue, mesmerizing anyone who had the fortune of gazing upon the jewel’s beauty. The steel of the polearm also had strange blue runes on both sides, seemingly carved messily or in a hurry, yet enchanting nonetheless.

The young man of average height locked eyes with the young boy, his cold azure eyes betraying impatience and anger. His rugged dark clothes flowed lightly with the wind, revealing his unsightly and repellent right hand, a rotten brown color, similar to a zombie’s.

Breaking eye contact with the boy, the man looked over to the remains of the child’s mother, the anger in his gaze growing stronger and deeper.

Suddenly, the man’s right arm bulged, and he grimaced in pain as he formed a fist with the corrupted arm. A few moments later, his face was once again emotionless.

Without sparing the young boy another look, he turned around and ran off, leaving the boy even more bewildered than he had been before.

What broke him out of his trance was another adult man—much bigger than the first and appearing a bit older. He was handing the boy what looked like a lunchbox, his expression a mix of so many emotions that he looked like he would have a meltdown at any second.

Noticing the boy remained still, the man simply put the box on the ground before him. He then stared at the young boy for a couple of seconds before gritting his teeth and also turning away, catching up with his partner.

An unknown amount of time later, the young child finally stood up. He ignored the lunch box he had received, walking toward his dead mother’s body—what still remained of her.

He stood there, both his body and face frozen, not a single new tear forming in his lifeless amber eyes.

Completely unmoving, the lonely child stared at the bleeding half-corpse for minutes, which slowly turned into hours, completely alone.

Soot and filth were raining from the clouds of smoke blocking the real sky, landing on the boy’s shoulders and brightly blond-dyed hair, which was now almost entirely covered in dirt.

Eventually, the boy finally moved, slowly observing his surroundings. Looking up at the sky, he could see nothing but ash. Dust and all the other filth in the air were landing in his dry amber eyes, but he strangely didn’t even blink, as if it hadn’t bothered him at all.

Lowering his head, the boy’s bloodied lips trembled slightly as he quietly uttered:

“System menu... open.”