No one saw it. Passing unnoticed even by the most attentive eyes that lie upon the Earth. Something strange, unknown, yet whose potential could shake everything around it.
Something was falling from the sky.
Like a ball of fire illuminating the darkness of the starry night veil, it fell upon the surface of a distorted Earth, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, creating waves around itself and slowly sinking into the waters.
However, contradicting its own weight and arrival, it stopped sinking.
Suddenly, it began to float back up to the surface of the ocean again, being carried by the waves once it reached the surface, heading toward an unknown destination.
Despite the countless dangers that the vast ocean harbored, not a single being dared to get close to that peculiar rock. Instead, many merely kept an eye on it from a distance and stopped paying attention just a few minutes later.
Its journey was long and far from fast, crossing kilometers upon kilometers of the pure blue abyss around it, without seeing a single island or boat during that entire time.
Days and nights passed.
For no apparent reason, cracks began to appear and spread across that rock, each one emitting an increasingly stronger purple glow that illuminated even the darkness of that abyss.
Whether something planned in advance or not, at the exact moment the last crack necessary for the rock's split was about to happen, it finally reached a beach.
...
Another tiring day was about to begin in an ordinary port city. Ordinary, of course, by the standards the world had fallen into in recent times.
Lying on a messy bed, rays of sunlight pierced through the gaps of his broken window and hit him full force early in the morning.
Thus, a young fourteen-year-old boy woke up to begin his unfortunate routine.
Used to waking up at that same hour, he didn't even need an alarm clock, yet he still couldn't wake up as rested as he wished.
He opened his eyes, dark circles prominent beneath them, fully opening the window right behind his bed, his eyes narrowed because of the sunlight, and sat up, preparing to face his day with a tired yawn escaping.
"Yawn... It's morning already... and here we go again."
He finally stood up. Despite the tiredness and laziness, he did everything he needed to do almost like a robot.
He brushed his teeth, took a shower, changed clothes, reheated and ate the pizza left over from the previous day. Many of those actions done while fighting against the remnants of sleep that still haunted him.
"Hm... That's strange." He looked at the clock on his wall. "Is Leo late or did I just finish faster today?" He thought for a few seconds, only to shrug and cut the thought short.
Well... who cares?
He finished eating and, seeing that he still had time, decided to use it to look at himself one last time in the mirror before leaving the house.
It wasn't something he usually did, since he preferred to preserve his self-confidence and avoid looking too much at his poorly cared-for appearance, but, strangely, he felt a bit more confident that day, having a good impression about himself, so he did it.
On the surface of the broken mirror in his bedroom wardrobe, he saw himself.
His slightly awkward and uneven posture from carrying weight so often. A thinness hidden beneath his simple and poorly maintained clothes. Dry, sun-tanned skin from being under the sun so much. Dark circles growing larger by the day. Dark curly hair tied into a ponytail.
If he were seen with such an appearance in the previous era, before all the disaster happened, he would have been looked at with disgust or pity, but things were different nowadays.
Well, it's not as bad as I thought. With his hand under his chin and a faint smile forming at the corner of his mouth.
Breaking the mood, suddenly, a knock on the door was heard.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Caio!! Are you done getting ready!? It's time for the meeting!!"
So the so-called Leo had finally arrived. Without wasting any more time, Caio ran to him without worrying about anything else in his house.
"Why are you knocking so hard? In a hurry? Looks like I finished getting ready faster than you, Mr. Responsible." He said with a mocking smile as he opened the door.
"Hah, keep dreaming. I finished a long time ago, I was just waiting for the right time so I wouldn't rush Your Highness." He replied in the same tone.
Leonardo, or just Leo to those close to him, was, just like Caio, just another random orphan, one of the countless teenagers who had lost their parents since everything began.
A black boy with white braided hair who, just like Caio, didn't have a well-kept appearance at all, except for his hair, always braided despite the little time he had in his routine for that.
"But look at that... it's a miracle seeing you smiling this early in the morning, man. So tell me, what happened for you to be in such a good mood? Had a nice dream?"
They talked while walking through the corridors and going down the stairs of the small and dirty apartment where they lived.
"Nah, I haven't dreamed in a few good months... I don't know, I just feel like today will be less bad than the last ones, heheheh."
"Well, if that's the case, you're not completely wrong. After all, I heard that something good will be announced at today's meeting."
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"No point asking me what it is. I just know that apparently we won't have a normal workday. Or that's what Rafael told me."
"What? Rafael, man? Seriously? You're really going to trust the words of Lucas' little dog? I bet all that 'gift we're going to like' talk is just a way of saying they're going to shove more forced labor down our throats today and screw our opinion."
"Nah. I trust my contacts." He replied, walking faster and leaving Caio slightly behind.
"Hmph, sure, keep trusting those contacts of yours..." He sped up as well because of the time they had left.
This short moment of about only ten minutes of walking was one of the best moments they usually had in their days. It was only behind the moments when they finished work and when they walked back home talking.
Already bathed in sunlight as they reached the street, they observed the same scenery as always.
Abandoned vehicles in the middle of the street, lampposts gathering dust and spiderwebs, cracks even in the concrete, and a sea of abandoned or broken houses in the most different possible ways.
In the streets they walked through, they barely spotted a living soul besides themselves.
At most, what remained were rotting and unrecognizable corpses both in the streets and in the alleys, and stains of dried blood almost everywhere.
They entered an alley, went down more flights of stairs, walked further and met other teenagers and, finally, entered a deeper corridor, arriving at the meeting place, a relatively open area compared to the narrow alleys they had passed through.
"From what I was told, this is today's meeting point..." Leo whispered, his words confirmed as they began seeing dozens of teenagers in that place.
From boys to girls, with a good variety of ages. Different teenagers gathered there, all surrounding a single person, who remained seated in his chair with his eyes closed despite the whispers around him.
Making their way through the teenagers to get closer to the center and hear the announcement better, Caio and Leo were able to see who this time's messenger was.
Tsc! Paulo? Shit, we're already starting the day great, there goes my good mood...
From one second to the next, the young messenger's eyes opened, staring at the faces of everyone within his field of vision, instantly making the whispers stop.
Please not me, please not me, please not me... All the teenagers recited in their minds.
"You." Paulo pointed his finger.
The teenagers parted until the pointed finger aimed directly at one of them, stopping exactly over the head of an unlucky skinny blond boy.
"Huh... me?" He asked, pointing at himself.
No answer came.
Swallowing hard, the skinny boy slowly walked through the crowd until he finally stood in front of the young man sitting there.
At the same time they felt pity for the boy, most of them sighed internally in relief at the thought that at least it wasn't them.
"Tell me, how long have you worked for our King Serpent Gang?" He asked the blond boy with a terrifying calmness.
"Three... three years, sir."
"Three years, huh... I don't understand much about it, but from what Linda told me, that should be enough exposure time to mana, so... have you awakened yet?"
"Uh..." The boy swallowed hard once more, looking around for help while sweat ran down his face, receiving in response people avoiding eye contact. "... not yet, s-sir."
"Sigh... you always waste this precious opportunity. I truly pity how weak the human race is and what awaits it with so many of you carrying those inferior genes of yours..."
Everyone just kept looking at him without saying anything, both out of fear and not knowing how to properly respond.
Inferior genes? On the old Earth many of those teenagers would have been seen as at least special people, whether for intelligence, physique, or simply beauty, but none of that mattered anymore if you didn't go through awakening and transcend.
His words once again generated animosity among the people, especially in the skinny blond boy who could barely contain the trembling of his legs.
Paulo stood up.
He had barely reached eighteen years old and yet was already close to two meters tall, not a mountain of muscles but with them still standing out beneath his clothes.
"All right, I've done my job anyway by trying to recruit another transcendent for the gang. It's just a shame I didn't find one today." He said, rubbing his eyes as if still sleepy.
A silence hung in the air, the tension feeding itself more and more, when suddenly, breaking it violently, the sound of something cracking was heard.
Crack!!!
"Ahhhhhh!!!!"
From one second to the next, the blond boy was found on the ground rolling from side to side, holding his left arm with all his strength while it bent in a completely unnatural direction.
"That's your punishment for wasting my time. People like you are the reason humanity is in decline. Now stop crying and go get treated by Linda. I hope you at least know the way, you pathetic worm."
Despite the great pain, knowing what could come if he remained there in front of him, the boy fell silent and stood up, still holding his arm with tears streaming down his face, and ran toward one of the alleys.
Almost everyone present found themselves paralyzed at that moment. That was the fear they all felt whenever Paulo was responsible for the meeting.
A psychopath. Someone who had no empathy whatsoever for other people and even enjoyed causing pain. Practically a megalomaniac who felt superior to almost everyone around him.
Traits that only worsened after he became a transcendent.
People like that were found everywhere in the world, and their numbers only increased after everything went to shit.
Manipulating, betraying, hurting, killing, or even doing things even more inhuman, all of that became ways people found not only to survive and ascend, but also to entertain themselves in this distorted world.
After all, what other feeling could be more incredible than being grand enough to have the lives of other people in the palm of your hand?
Or at least that was what most people thought.
In a world where the rules of society were forgotten by many, what could you appeal to in the face of superior power?
Anyway, right after his usual entrance show ended, Paulo sat back down in his chair and, finally, the meeting could truly begin.
"Well then, for today's meeting, I was informed of good news for you. Feel happy! For our benevolent gang has prepared something special for you, even if you don't deserve it..."