He looked at the tall looming figure in front of him and then at the sword that was buried in his chest.
It hurts—deep, burning, the kind of pain that made every breath feel like swallowing glass. Blood welled up around the blade, soaking through his tattered jacket in dark, spreading blooms. He lifted his gaze slowly, meeting the twisted smile on the face that looked almost human. Almost.
The eyes were too bright, too golden, like molten coins reflecting firelight, and the skin carried that faint shimmer of flames beneath the surface. An Immortal from Pan.
Azrael Thorne, older, scarred, thirty-something in this nightmare body.
He knew it was a dream.
He always knew. But as usual, he couldn't disconnect. Couldn't wake up. Couldn't even scream properly. The rules of the dreams kept pinned him in place like a specimen under glass.
"Finally, I caught you. You slimy mortal," the Immortal said, voice smooth and amused. He twisted the blade slowly, deliberately, grinding steel against bone. Fresh agony exploded through Azrael's ribs. Blood spilled from his lips in a hot rush as he tried to force a smile anyway—crooked, defiant, bloody.
"Did you… or did I?" Azrael thought, the words never making it past his ruined throat. His left hand clenched around something small and cold: a detonator, thumb already resting on the trigger.
His right hand shot forward, fingers digging into the Immortal's chest right where the core pulsed beneath pale skin—a glowing knot of golden energy that served as heart or as there call it their eternal flame.
"Still struggling, I see," the Immortal continued, tilting his head with mock pity. "It's futile. You are the last of the resistance. Once you are dead, the whole of your world will be gone." He leaned in closer, breath cool and scentless. "We have already taken everything worth taking."
Azrael didn't need to be told. He could see it all around them: the wasteland that used to be Ferlin. Crumbled spires of Ardeni Prime reduced to blackened skeletons. Rivers of ash where streets once ran. Breaches hanging in the sky like open sores, no longer spewing monsters because there was nothing left to devour. The air tasted of rust and decay. The ground was littered with the husks of people, friends, strangers, entire countries who had believed in alliances, in trade, in hope. They had sucked the life from the planet itself, and now only ghosts remained.
"I was surprised when I found out you had no ability," the Immortal went on, twisting the sword again for emphasis. "No awakening. No mana. No gift from the Inversion. And yet… you still caused us so much trouble. A nobody who refused to stay nobody."
Azrael tuned out the monologue. Words didn't matter anymore. Only action did.
With the last of his fading strength, he pressed his palm flat against the Immortal's chest—right over that pulsing core. His fingers closed around the small, thumb-sized electronic bomb he'd scavenged months ago from a fallen Dermen drone. Crude. Unreliable. But it had enough yield to turn a city block into a crater. He slapped it into place, adhesive side down, feeling the faint click as it adhered to the golden circuits.
The Immortal's smile faltered for the first time—barely a flicker, but Azrael saw it.
He let his arm drop. Every muscle screamed. Vision swam with black spots. But he managed one last, bloody grin.
"See you in hell," he rasped as his thumb pressed the detonator.
White light devoured everything.
The blast was silent at first—then deafening, a roar that swallowed sound itself. Heat, pressure, shrapnel, golden circuits exploding into fractal shards. Both bodies torn apart in the same instant. No pain after the initial flash. Just sudden, merciful nothing.
Azrael jolted awake.
He was back in his bedroom.
It was tiny, cramped, walls stained from years of god knows what. A single bulb flickered overhead. The mattress beneath him was thin and lumpy, sheets damp with sweat.
"Another weird dream again," he muttered, voice hoarse.
He tried to sit up. His body protested.
Muscles heavy, head pounding like someone had taken a hammer to his skull. A deep, bone-weary exhaustion clung to him, the kind that no amount of sleep could fix. It felt like he'd actually run through that wasteland, actually held that detonator, actually died.
He glanced at the cracked digital clock on the bedside crate. 6:35 a.m. The alarm hadn't even gone off yet.
"Shit," he breathed. Work started at 7:30. No time to linger.
Azrael forced himself upright, swaying for a second before steadying against the wall. His legs felt like lead. Every step toward the tiny bathroom was an effort.
He splashed cold water on his face from the rusty tap water that smelled faintly of iron and stared at his reflection in the chipped mirror.
Twenty years old. Dark brown skin, tired eyes shadowed underneath, messy dark hair sticking up in every direction. Nothing special. Nothing awakened. Just another nobody in Carlin's lower districts.
He brushed his teeth quickly, changed into his work clothes. A faded cargo pants, a threadbare long-sleeve shirt, heavy boots, and grabbed his lunch tin.
Outside, the streets of the district were already waking. Vendors shouted advertising thier different products.
People hurried past on thier way to work, shoulders hunched against another day of survival. Azrael joined the flow, walking the twenty minutes to the construction site on the edge of the commercial zone.
The site was chaos as usual: cranes groaning, mixers churning, foremen yelling over the noise. They were raising another mid-tier apartment block—nothing fancy, just concrete and rebar for people who could almost afford to leave the slums. Azrael's job was simple: haul materials, tie rebar, clean up debris. Mindless. Exhausting. Perfect for not thinking.
But today his body refused to cooperate, he felt tired and listless. Everything felt too much, the loads were heavier than usual, every step slower, the sun blinding and 20 degree hotter.
His head throbbed painfully and he felt like he was dying. He tried to shake it off, focused on the rhythm of work, the clang of metal, the burn in his arms but the fatigue only deepened.
Around 1 p.m. while eating his lunch, a sandwich on the 3rd floor right above him. Some of his co worker were arranging rebar for the balcony.
Jack was tasked with carrying bundles of rebar rods across a narrow plank bridge between two sections and setting them.
He carelessly places them and walks away not noticing that he placed them on a slopy platform and they were rolling.
As the bundle of rebar reach the end of the balcony gravity did the rest and they rained down from the sky onto Az who was enjoying his lunch below.
"Az move" he heard one of his co worker shout
Before he had a chance to react a rebar hits him on his head and the rest come crashing down around him barely missing him.
He was relieve to have been wearing a hard hat as he couldnt imagine what would have happened otherwise.
"Az! You good?" one of the workers shouted as they got to him.
"Yeah, I'm fine, thank God I had my hat on." he said feeling fine.
"Are you sure?" Another asked looking at him weirdly.
"Yeah, except I lost my lunch" Nothing much to it he said and he looked down at his sandwich on the floor.
He looked up to find everyone still staring at him weirdly.
"Anything wrong?" he asked confused about their weird looks.
"Uhm..." he said awkwardly pointing at his head "You are bleeding.
Azreal touched his head to find it wet as he bring its to his field of vision. Pain flared hot and immediate.
He cursed, removing his hard hat to find it broken. The cut was bad, deep enough to expose muscle, long enough to need stitches.
Blood dripped faster, down his face, and onto his chest.
Onto the necklace, he had worn since he found the gem it was made out of 2 weeks ago.
A single fat drop landed on the gem pendant.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the gem pulsed. Once, twice a faint blue light flickering beneath the surface like a heartbeat waking up.
Azrael stared at it, confused.
His vision blurred at the edges. The people in front of tilted or maybe that was him. The world blurred and sound receded: the cranes, the shouts, the city hum all fading to a distant buzz.
Weakness crashed over him like a wave—deeper than fatigue, deeper than blood loss. His knees buckled. He tried to stablize himself but there was nothing to hold on to.
Darkness rushed in.
He collapsed forward, necklace swinging, gem still faintly glowing against his blood-smeared shirt.
The last thing he heard before everything went black was a co-worker's panicked yell:
"Somebody call an ambulance! He's out!"