Pendants. Stainless pendants hung from thin chains above him, swaying gently—his only view after the man's heavy blow had knocked him sideways.
The pendants caught blue light streaming through cracks in the plastered ceiling, creating a symphony of refracted colors as they danced above him.
Hayazaki summoned his Axis terminal into view. Being something of a nerd, he'd already deduced that not only had he been transported to another universe, but the terminal held crucial information for his survival here.
Confident he could control it with thought alone, he mentally commanded the terminal to slow time so he could browse its system windows. The world around him froze—his attacker mid-motion, the pendants suspended in their arc, their scattered light frozen in its dance.
"So I can only pause time while browsing the terminal," Hayazaki mused, his body frozen mid-fall.
"That'll work." He dove into his profile information. His borrowed body belonged to one Filis—no surname, as street-children in this world weren't granted that privilege. But he had earned a title: Filis the Ratcatcher, named for his role in hunting vermin during a plague that ravaged the eastern ramparts.
Filis was a Malara. In Svethlaad, races hadn't evolved through natural selection, but rather emerged from centuries of cancerous mutations within a chronically ill population. These cellular changes had originally developed as defense mechanisms against the constant afflictions plaguing the great city, like the Purple Lung. The defensive mutations triggered biological adaptations that eventually became encoded in their genomes.
This process had given rise to subraces like the Pathos, Zelion, and Malara. The Malara were particularly notorious—their blood and saliva were a virulent purple poison, their bite lethal. Toxins had little effect on them; instead of fighting pathogens and bacteria, their bodies had evolved to harness them as protection.
They were known as the sick race, or purple teeth, and were treated with universal contempt.
The man assaulting Hayazaki went by Slasher—an unsubtle nickname, but typical of Street-Children who'd gained notoriety. They often discarded their birth names for new ones that better suited their cultivated personas.
Slasher's chosen identity was grimly self-explanatory. Though he typically delegated the actual robberies to his team—which had included Filis, the body Hayazaki now inhabited—when Slasher did the work himself, he left his signature: a carved smile on his victims' faces.
His criminality stood apart for its deliberate cruelty. While most thieves worked quickly to avoid detection, Slasher savored the terror. After stripping his victims of their belongings, he'd grasp their face in one hand and, with the other, carve his grotesque signature.
"Leaving them happy," as he called it. He'd made quite a few people "happy" over the years. His criminal enterprise ran deeper than common street robbery, exploiting systemic weaknesses through a sophisticated network of spies, assassins, and forbidden powers to build his wealth.
Filis had been just another tool in Slasher's arsenal. His Malara weakness prevented him from dungeon raiding like other subraces, but his body's natural poison had proved invaluable to Slasher's operations.
Before the great raid, Filis had stolen from Slasher to purchase weapons and armor, gambling that death in the dungeon's depths would be preferable to execution by either Slasher or the Authority.
Though Filis had indeed perished, his body now hosted Hayazaki, who frantically searched the Axis terminal for anything he could use to escape his predecessor's fate. He was certain the Axis wouldn't have deployed them to this diseased world without providing tools for survival.
Though he wished he could directly question the Axis entity about their mission, the terminal already contained extensive information about their capabilities and limitations in this world.
The details about Ash particularly caught his attention. Harvested from cremated corpses, Ash served multiple purposes in this realm: it healed ailments, purified everything from soiled clothes to sewage, and—for those with sufficient lung capacity—granted arcane powers when burned and inhaled.
Arcane Ash was considered sacred because of its unique creation: when body and soul burned together, the physical form broke down while the soul—a pure Spectral—infused its essence into the remains, creating what some called Pure Ash.
Checking his vitals window, Hayazaki discovered residual Ash still circulating in his system. Though not enough to completely overcome his situation, combined with his inherited Malara abilities, it could serve as a formidable threat.
He released the time suspension, and the tilted chair crashed to the floor.
Hayazaki lifted his swollen face toward Slasher, who wore a genuine smile—not just his scarred smirk. The crime boss wrapped his hand in cloth before preparing another strike, cautious even in his cruelty about touching a Malara.
Before the blow could land, Hayazaki called out in his borrowed body's weaselly tone, "That's not a wise move, boss!"
"Oh yeah? And why's that?" Slasher sneered.
Hayazaki's response was to part his lips, revealing blackened teeth and letting purple smoke seep between them.
"Baumer!" Slasher leaped backward with surprising agility, landing silently as he called for his backup. One goon activated a prosthetic defibrillator that crackled with white energy, while another leveled an injector at Hayazaki's head.
"Didn't know you had the balls in you, Ratcatcher," Slasher taunted from behind his men's protection. "Smart move, though—angling for a quick death."
"I wouldn't be so sure, Slasher," Hayazaki countered. "I'm filled with enough gas to pop like a poison bomb. One wrong move and it'll spray everywhere."
For the first time, the crime boss's face soured. Being placed in mortal danger by a mere Malara clearly rankled him.
"Since when could you pull something like that?" Slasher spat. "You're bluffing." His skepticism was justified—the original Filis had been a low-level Malara, a small, sneaky man with unremarkable abilities.
But the Axis system had upgraded Hayazaki, granting him and his friends the ability to level up their Arcane powers—something denied to this world's natives. Filling his body with enough poison to devastate an entire building was well within his new capabilities.
"Care to test that theory?" Hayazaki challenged as his eyes bulged with purple and red light, leaking dark streaks. His skin darkened, veins rising to the surface like twisted ropes
"How about we forget all this, Slasher?" Hayazaki suggested, his gloom-colored face and twisted smile making him resemble one of the wicked spectrals that haunted the dungeons. "Call it an occupational mishap. Let's be coworkers again."
"Who knew the Ratcatcher had tricks hidden up his arse?" Slasher mused. With a wave of his hand, his men lowered their weapons, though they remained tensely alert. "I see death's given you an edge, kid."
Slasher studied Filis/Hayazaki intently, as if discovering a crystal in a pile of refuse—disgusted yet intrigued. His smile never wavered. "Let's say we got off on the wrong foot," he offered, untying Hayazaki's bonds. "Let bygones be bygones and keep the work flowing, yeah?" He extended his hand.
Hayazaki took the offered hand. "Much obliged, boss." Suddenly, he was yanked forward, close enough to feel Slasher's breath on his neck.
"I'm going to work you to the bone, dog," Slasher growled, his voice low and sullen. "Don't think you can play games with me. I'm letting you live because you're useful." He jabbed Hayazaki's skin, drawing purple blood, then casually licked it from his finger. "Poison doesn't bother me much. If it did, they'd call me Dead instead of Slasher. So don't let your head swell too big."
"I'm going to work you hard," he continued, his grip tightening. "Put you down in the dungeons to burn pits. I remember how you begged me not to send you there before, but that's exactly where you're going, you fucking parasite."
The dungeons. Hayazaki allowed himself a small smile. According to the Axis terminal, hunting loose Spectrals in the dungeon was exactly what he needed to level up.
He'd start building his power and find his friends—but contact would be dangerous. Slasher would eagerly use any connection against him. Filis's greatest protection in life had been his complete isolation; everyone he'd loved was dead. That's what had made him so unsettling to Slasher, who relied on exploiting people's attachments. After losing his last loved one, Filis had gone cold, watching Slasher's cruelties without a flicker of emotion—pity, anger, or joy. He'd been dead inside long before the raid claimed him.
That detachment had made it easy for Filis to walk away, but Hayazaki didn't have that luxury. He had people he cared about, and he had to keep their existence hidden from Slasher at all costs.
In that moment, Hayazaki made another decision. Though not essential to their mission in this world, after learning the full extent of Slasher's cruelty—the trail of innocent victims left in his wake—he knew what had to be done. When he'd grown strong enough, he would bring him to justice.