The city never slept. It was alive with neon signs, digital billboards, and the distant hum of anti-grav vehicles soaring above. But beneath the bright lights, the slums of Lower Dharavi told a different story. A place where the weak fought to survive and the strong dictated the rules.
Among them was Aarav Mahata, a skinny, underfed F-rank Balancer, one of the weakest individuals in a world where power meant everything. His hands were wrapped in torn bandages, covering old wounds from fights he barely walked away from.
"Oi, Mahata!" A voice called out behind him.
Aarav sighed. Rahul and his gang—three mid-tier Balancers who enjoyed bullying those beneath them.
"You still alive?" Rahul sneered, cracking his knuckles. "We placed bets that you'd be dead by now."
Aarav remained silent, tightening his grip on the worn-out dagger at his waist.
"I got work to do."
Rahul smirked. "Right, right. You're still hunting goblins for pennies, huh? F-rank trash like you don't belong in our world."
Aarav didn't reply. He had no time for them. Every moment wasted was another moment closer to starvation.
---
Aarav crouched behind a pile of rusted shipping containers in an abandoned sector of the city. The underground Goblin Nest he was hunting was one of many that infested the slums.
He was on contract for a single goblin kill. Easy money, or so he thought.
As he crept forward, he noticed something wrong—the air was thick with an unnatural stench, and the shadows felt heavier. The usual chattering of goblins was absent.
Then he saw them.
Not one. Not two. But an entire hunting pack—eight goblins.
Their bodies twitched unnaturally, as if something was controlling them. Their green skin was slick with a strange black substance, and their red eyes burned with something far more intelligent than they should have.
"Shit."
Aarav had fought goblins before, but never this many, never this… wrong.
One of them snapped its head toward him, letting out an ear-piercing screech.
In an instant, all eight charged.
Aarav barely had time to react.
The first goblin lunged low, swiping at his legs with its jagged claws. Aarav twisted mid-air, kicking off a nearby wall to dodge, but another one was already above him, dropping down with a rusted spear aimed at his chest.
They're too fast!
He swung his dagger, barely deflecting the spear. But the impact sent shockwaves up his arm, numbing his fingers.
Then a third goblin tackled him from behind, slamming him into the concrete.
The wind rushed out of his lungs, pain exploded in his ribs, and his vision blurred.
I can't…
Another goblin stood over him, raising a rusted sword, its edges dripping with black slime.
I'm going to die.
Then, a voice echoed in his mind.
*"Will you accept balance?"*
Aarav's body froze. The world around him seemed to slow.
The goblin's sword descended toward his throat—
Then.
A blast of white light erupted from his body.
The goblins screamed, their flesh burning away in an instant. The entire alley was bathed in energy, and then—
Aarav's body collapsed, his vision fading.
The last thing he saw was the entire street cracked and destroyed, bodies of goblins reduced to ash, and—
The faces of two men standing above him.
---
"Looks like he survived," one of them muttered.
The other, a tall man with sharp, calculating eyes, kneeled beside Aarav's unconscious body. He placed two fingers against Aarav's pulse, feeling the remnants of something ancient still coursing through him.
"This isn't normal," he said. "He wasn't supposed to survive that."
The first man sighed. "And yet, here he is."
A long pause.
Then the kneeling man smirked.
"Perhaps the Order was wrong about him."
---
TO BE CONTINUED...