I was just a child who didn’t care about much.
Life was ordinary, and I was content with that simple daily routine alongside my parents.
They were honest, ever-happy people.
My father, a civil servant, often told me stories of his past life in the capital, Calderon.
My mother, on the other hand, was a stunning woman who lived only to satisfy her “two loves,” as she fondly called us.
In short, it was a peaceful life in a small countryside far from the noise of the world.
One evening, after going out for a walk, I was calmly heading back home.
I noticed that the sky had darkened—a strange occurrence in a land usually bathed in bright light—but I paid it no mind.
When I reached the house, an eerie silence reigned.
It was an extremely rare atmosphere.
Usually, I would walk in to the sound of my mother complaining that I had wandered off too far again, or my father teasing her about the upcoming meal.
But this time, there was only a heavy, deathly silence.
Coupled with the oppressive sky, nothing about it was reassuring.
I decided to step inside and call out:
“Father…
Mother…
I’m home…
Where are you?”
Nothing.
Still that same suffocating silence.
The house was dark; not a single lantern had been lit.
My anxiety quickly turned into dread, then sheer terror.
After a few agonizing minutes spent scanning the darkness for any sign of life, I heard a sound upstairs.
What could that be?
I had to check.
My instincts screamed at me to run, but in that moment, the fear that something might have happened to my parents overruled everything else.
As I climbed the wooden stairs, I reached the hallway leading to the bedrooms.
I approached my parents’ room with slow, cautious steps, my heart pounding violently against my ribs.
The moment I reached the door, I pushed it open slowly…
and terror froze me where I stood.
It was a macabre, unimaginable nightmare.
My father was bound to a chair, iron nails driven deep into his eyes and head.
Approaching him with trembling legs, I noticed insects crawling out of his open mouth.
I was terrified.
His blood had pooled all around the chair, heavily staining the floorboards.
The expression frozen on his face was one of pure agony, and I quickly understood why: on the other side of the room, the woman I considered the most beautiful in the world was suspended against the wall—crucified with heavy nails, her face horribly disfigured by deep lacerations.
My heart skipped a beat.
Fear, grief, and shock collided violently in my mind.
Overcome by a sudden, sickening wave of nausea at the gruesome sight, I vomited right there on the floor as tears flooded my face.
I couldn’t believe it.
It was impossible.
They were ordinary people…
Why them?
Why like this?
While grief consumed me, heavy footsteps echoed through the bedroom.
I spun around sharply.
A tall, scarred man had just walked in.
A prominent dragon tattoo covered his neck, and he held a gleaming sickle in his hand.
Seeing me, he remained disturbingly calm, as if the carnage surrounding him was the most natural thing in the world.
“Who…
who are you?!” I choked out, my voice trembling but dripping with raw rage.
“Was it you…
did you do this to my parents?!”
The man stared down at me, then let a cruel smirk curl his lips.
“Oh, those were your parents?
Sorry, kid, but yeah…
I’m the one who killed ’em.”
He had just uttered the very words I feared most.
They were dead, having suffered unimaginable agony.
The moment the realization sank in, absolute fury took complete possession of my mind.
Screaming with rage, I lunged at him.
But no sooner had I leaped than he caught me mid-air and slammed me violently onto the floor.
The impact was so severe I nearly lost consciousness.
Without giving me a second to catch my breath, the man began brutally beating me.
I couldn’t fight back.
He stood over me, a smirk plastered on his face as he relished my total helplessness.
After what felt like endless hours, broken by pain, I could no longer move.
The man finally stopped, visibly bored, and prepared to leave.
“Well, this ain’t fun anymore.
Listen, kid—my boss only paid me to eliminate your parents.
He didn’t mention a brat, so I’ll spare your life.”
I couldn’t even manage a response.
The man turned and walked away, abandoning me amidst the corpses of my family.
Tears streamed down my face uncontrollably as I lay there, my body shattered and my spirit destroyed by my own weakness.
I remained trapped inside the house for two days, paralyzed by physical and mental anguish.
Then, drawing upon the absolute last reserve of my strength, I managed to stand up to prepare myself.
I couldn’t die here.
Ever since that night, something had ignited deep within my gut: a black fire called vengeance.
I had to find that man and make him pay.
The next day, I packed my meager belongings and went to say my final goodbyes to my parents.
Their bodies still lay there in the quiet room, and maggots had already begun to feed on them.
I burned that horrific image permanently into my memory.
Then, I set fire to the house, burning our home to the ground to bury that cursed night and allow their souls to finally rest in peace.
After that, I set out on the road without a clear destination.
Each day brought a new horizon.
The early days were manageable, but the further I walked, the scarcer provisions became.
Occasionally, I would arrive in small villages where I scraped together miserable, underpaid odd jobs.
Eventually, to survive and feed myself, I was forced to resort to stealing.
It was far from easy.
Every night, I fell asleep tormented by hunger and bitter cold.
The rare days I ate my fill felt like an unattainable luxury.
Left entirely to myself, I constantly had to defend my life against thugs and highway bandits.
Time passed quickly, but my thirst for revenge took precedence over everything else.
For over a year, I hunted for the slightest lead on the man with the dragon tattoo.
It was all in vain.
What little money I managed to save was spent buying information that always turned out to be useless dead ends.
Then one day, in a remote village, someone spoke to me about a city located not far away.
A vibrant, bustling, ultra-modern metropolis where anyone could make a fortune.
But they also warned that it concealed a vast, abyssal dark side.
Its name was Malbour: The City of Miracles.
It took a full day’s journey of relentless walking before I reached it.
At the end of the road, it finally loomed before me: a colossal fortified gate guarded by sentinels.
Whispers circulated that one could enter without official papers, which relieved me.
The moment I stepped inside the perimeter, I was struck by the splendor of the buildings.
The architecture and ornate decorations were breathtaking.
Everywhere, massive crowds moved through the streets, testifying to the sheer density of the city.
Hope tightened in my chest—here, I knew I could accumulate money and track down the man with the dragon tattoo.
So, I settled in Malbour.
But despite its glowing moniker as the “City of Miracles,” I quickly discovered how deeply entrenched its caste system truly was.
Here, the poor were abandoned to their fate, left to starve and condemned to sleep on cold cobblestones.
One day, while walking through the streets, I watched a noble savagely trample a beggar who had merely bumped into him.
The man writhed on the ground in agony.
Yet, deep down, I felt no pity.
I told myself it was only natural.
Simply because, in this world, the strong crush the weak.
If I had been stronger, my parents wouldn’t have died, and I wouldn’t have had to endure any of this.
I had been weak.
And so today, if the strong chose to crush the weak, it was simply because the weak had failed to become strong.