The streets were once again alive and full of people, none of them concerned about the execution that took place just an hour ago.
For these men and women who had grown up in the underhive of Thorn, this was just a daily event in their everyday lives.
As Cypher would put it ,' Raise a rat in a cage, and suddenly it'll never even consider leaving.Afterall, it gets fed and doesn't face any predators. isn't it just like paradise?'
At least they had jobs, sometimes food, and a faith in the church.
Unfortunately, none of this was important to Cypher at the moment. He had more immediate concerns.
An orange glow cast down on Cyphers face, his sharp mind navigating towards an the empty alleyway he woke up in, finding it the perfect place for what he was about to do.
"Their following me?"
His eyes had already caught sight of a few figures that repeatedly passed by him, greed written on their as they tried to blend into the crowd, staring intently at the dagger that slightly protruded from his tattered black trousers.
"So they think their being sneaky? Fools never truly change in any world...sigh."
Turning into the alley, he vanished out of site.
Barely half a minute later, his stalkers arrived...
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"Boss, I saw him go through here!"
A rather skinny man with pale skin and an overall sickly appearance entered the alley first.
Trailing behind him were three other men, all sporting equaly frail body's with the only exception being the leader, who was relatively large with decent amounts of muscle showing beneath his clothes.
"He couldn't have left. It's a dead end."
The boss wasn't an idiot, and quickly ordered his men to search the narrow space thoroughly.
They ransacked the place, only to find mice and rats, nothing to indicate the boy had been here except bloody footprints.
At the end of the alleyway, near the wall that blocked the exit, one of the goons searched a box, disappointed at once again finding it empty
"I'm sure I saw him, that brat must be he-"
Thud!
SHINK!
His sentence never even got the chance to finish. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as a knife lay jutting out from his skull.
Cypher layed perched on his shoulder as he pulled the knife and jumped off the man, his body slumping to the floor lifeless.
He had used the narrow walls to position himself above the group, only jumping down when his arms could no longer support the weight of his body.
"Y-you, YOU LITTLE SHIT!"
One of the goons, having seen his friend ruthlessly killed, rushed forward to attack Cypher.
"Huff...I'm too tired for this."
Cypher didn't back down despite his exhaustion and prepared to strike.
The man extended his fist, aiming straight towards the boys head. However Cypher wasn't an easy target and used his small stature to deftly duck beneath the blow with his dagger aiming for the man's stomach.
"Ahhh!"
The ornate dagger, now covered in in red and white brain matter, impaled the man derictly in his abdomen.
Cypher removed the dagger, leaving the man to crumple down and writh in pain.
"Enough!"
Before the boy even had a chance to re-adjust, a massive foot slammed down onto his chest, sending him flying onto the floor.
"Sam! Hold him down."
The last man rushed over and pinned Cyphers wrists onto the floor.
He pulled the dagger out of Cypher ls grasp and threw it away, leaving no room him to resist.
"Get off me!"
Struggling against the restraints, Cypher frantically tried to break free to no avail and watched as the boss moved towards him, furious.
"We were just going to take the dagger and leave! But now?" Spit flew out of the man's mouth as he shouted," Now you've pissed me off kid!"
His knelt down and grasped Syphers neck, his grip tightening like a noise, " We just wanted to feed our family! That knife is worth more than our entire life savings!"
As the leader justified his actions, Syphers small legs kicked and flailed around, slowly losing oxygen.
'No!...not yet...I can't....die....,"
The excitement of discovering that transmigration was real, the wonder he felt when he discovered the strange new magic.
All of it flashed through Cyphers mind as he choked and struggled.
"I....was.....so....close...."
His struggling gradually ceased, his mind growing hazy as he soon lost consciousness.
THUMP....Thump...thump....
Cyphers heartbeat weakened, fading until the last beat.
He had died.
Or at least his body.
"I...can't..die..Wait, why can I still breathe?"
"Why is it so cold?"
Cyphers yellow eyes fluttered open, his blurry vision finding himself not in a wet alleyway, but a mix of white and black colours that were slowly becoming clearer.
As he tried to move his body from the ground a sensation of disconnect hit him like a train! It was like being thrown into a woodchipper and hastily put back together with glue.
"Am I not dead?Is this the real afterlife?"
Questions flooded his mind one after the other.
The limbs of his body begun to move mechanicaly like a puppet, unfamiliar and uncoordinated in an effort to stand.
The colours around him gradually became clearer and clearer until....
"What the fuck!"
An endless expanse of white desert stretched as far as the eye could see!
The rays of sickly yellow light from above refracted on the sand in a dazling sea of blinding white sand.
As he looked up towards the sky the display left him stunned in awe, for in the sky lay what could only be described as an impossible spectacle that spat in the face of physics!
An absolutely massive orb of glass like see through sat in abyss of black space, slowly rotating as a small but luminous yellow light shown in it's centre. Around this orb lay nine chains that tightly wrapped around the sphere as if to restrain it's power.
"W-what!?" At a loss for words, Cyphers raised his hand to touch his face.
Only then did he find the reason his body felt wrong. It was entirely composed of white sand! Not only that but his eyes glowed with a yellow ferocity, lighting up whichever direction he face with spotlight like circles.
The last feature of this strange space was an empty sphere similar to the one over head, only this one had no light at it's centre, no chains around it and was lying buryd in the sand.
"This place...it feels like it's connected to me somehow."
The light from the orb above invigorated him, like it's feeding his very being.
The entire landscape drumming with energy that just barely escaped his control.
But as seconds passed by, the air grew colder and the light from above grew dimmer. The abyss in the black sky rapidly thickening darker and darker. The white sand that made up his body slowly loosening like a fading dream. He was dying.
"So that's what this is," watching the sand leaves his body, the idea struck him, "My Soul!"
A wave of desperation struck him. If he wasn't dead yet then he would be soon!
The thought sent an invisible shockwave that the glowing orb in the sky responded to immediately. It's small light vibrating until it smashed on the walls of the orb it was contained it.
No words were needed. Cypher intrinsically felt a force wash over him, beckoning him to form a bond, and so he did.
He used all his willpower to empower the light, it's violent thrashing growing more violent by the second, until finally....
CHINK!
A chain was broken, it's ethereal body crashing towards the ground before evaporating into particles of light.
----------------------------------------------
"He's finally dead. The brat deserved it."
The boss released his grip and looked over to the body's of his two lifelong companions,"How am I going to tell their family...sigh."
Only one other man survived, who was now holding the dagger in his hands.
"What now boss?"
"Let's just leave. The kid caught the eyes of the Saint, if they find out we killed him and took her dagger we're finished."
The thought of being branded as some heritic and dragged onto the execution ground scared him deeply. Not even his wife and children would get away.
"Got it boss."
The two gathered their bearings and started to leave the alley, their steps heavy and tired.
Thump....thump, thump!
"Wait, you here that."
The two paused, a cold sweat trickling down their spines. The ground, walls and floor suddenly shifting like some sort of liquid.
"Boss, the kid.... somethings wrong with him!"
"He's dead, how can something be-"
As he turned his head back into the alley, an indescribable wave a terror washed over him.
In the darkness, a pair of sickly yellow ireses staired back at him. The inhuman glare seemed as though it could kill him at any moment.
A silence stretched for a second that seemed like an eternity, the air shimmered with invisible energy that grew and grew,
Reaching a breaking point as the reality around them distorted.
The very next moment...
BOOM!
Everything in the immediate vicinity was engulfed in a blinding white light.
The sheer strength of its brightness visible to the entire city and it's enhabitants, lighting up the skyline in the otherwise dark city.
Moments passed from one to the next until at last it dimmed, losing it's luster until it ceased entirely.
The aftermath was astonishing.
Entire buildings reduced to fine grains of white sand, their residents still standing, having been transformed into ghostly White statues that slowly collapsed into white missed.
The streets sorrounding the alley were eerily silent, the citizens petrified into the same white sand.
At the very epicentre of the blast site, a young boy stood, gray hair fluttering in the wind giving him the appearence of some kind of ghostly spectre as white grains cascaded around him.
A smile played at his lips, the joy of knowing he was not just some observer but an active force in this unfamiliar world told him his cage had weakened And for better or worse,
There would be no turning back. Nothing will hold the keys from him.
The glow in his eyes lost their power before his body swayed and collapsed into the white sand beneath him.