The sky above Plata-Central did not merely open; it tore like rotting silk under an iron hook.
A jagged, violet-tinted rift split the upper atmosphere three hundred meters directly above the financial district of the city, spilling atmospheric ozone, raw dimensional mana, and the suffocating stench of decaying cosmic flesh onto the glass-and-steel towers below. Emergency sirens blared in rhythmic, deafening unison across the expansive concrete plazas, their high-pitched wails warning civilians to evacuate into the reinforced subterranean bunker networks before the shockwave hit.
Then came the roar.
It was a guttural, multi-ton vibration that rattled loose teeth and shattered every single reinforced window within a four-block radius. Slipping through the dimensional tear came a Class-4 Wreckage Beast—a Dread-Megalodros. It was a grotesque marvel of natural evolution: sixty feet of segmented, onyx-black chitin, thirty jointed scythe-legs clicking in chaotic dissonance, and a gaping, tri-jawed maw lined with rows of translucent, needle-sharp teeth that dripped iridescent black venom onto the asphalt below.
"Estimate structural damage potential at eighty-four million Platarian credits if it breaches the central banking tower!" a panicked dispatcher screamed through the Hero Association comms frequency. "All available A-Rank and S-Rank assets in Sector 7, respond immediately! Do not let it reach street level!"
From the edge of an eighty-story skyscraper roof overlooking the bustling plaza, two figures stood looking down at the descending monstrosity.
Cassian Drake adjusted his silk emerald tie pin with a slow, deliberate flex of his pale fingers. At twenty-five years old and standing at an imposing one-hundred-and-eighty-nine centimeters, he looked less like a monster hunter and more like a European billionaire heading to a high-society opera premiere. His long white hair, pristine and cascading like spun silk over his shoulders, caught the turbulent wind generated by the spatial rift. He wore an immaculate, double-breasted burgundy suit crafted from specialized acid-proof fibers woven by Nadia Chen, paired with a dark charcoal vest, a crimson silk tie, and hand-polished black leather dress shoes.
In his left hand, Cassian held a delicate, hand-woven bouquet composed of dark lilies, snapping Venus flytraps, and rare, carnivorous abyssal flora that twitched greedily in the ionized air.
CASSIAN: "Look at it, Zach. Utterly barbaric. No symmetry. No artistic dignity. It oozes slime with complete disregard for public aesthetics. The Deoliux Realm used to produce beasts with style. Father’s breeding pits have clearly degenerated in our absence."
Beside him, leaning casually against the roof's concrete ledge with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of an oversized, black heavy-cotton hoodie, was Zach Drake.
At twenty years old and one-hundred-and-seventy-six centimeters, Zach was a stark visual contrast to his older brother. His foliage-green hair was spiky and unkempt, sticking out in wild tufts from beneath his hood, and his glowing crimson eyes sparkled with mischievous, youthful arrogance. He wore dark tactical cargo trousers that slouched low over a pair of pristine, limited-edition neon-green sneakers. Between his right fingers, he lazily spun a dark combat blade, its steel trailing thin, dancing wisps of red ember-smoke.
ZACH: "Who cares about its aesthetics? Look at the chitin plates on its lower abdomen, Cassian. That's Grade-A Wreckage alloy. If we bring it down clean without scorching the carcass, the Association harvest payout is fifty grand. My share pays for VIP access at the Opal Lounge tonight."
CASSIAN: (His eyes narrowing into cold, pitch-black slits for a fraction of a second) "Your share. Must be nice to speak of 'shares.' Must be wonderful to contemplate luxury VIP lounges while I am currently operating under forty-yet-another separate judicial garnishment order that claims ninety-two percent of my base hero salary before I even wake up in the morning."
ZACH: (Bursting out laughing, nearly dropping the half-eaten empanada he held in his other hand) "Hey, don't look at me, 'Gigant'! You're the one who decided to go on a city-wide romance spree across the southern provinces! I told you: keep it strictly zero-commitment! No girlfriend, no strings, no paper trails! Look at me! Clean bank account, zero kids, and a solid five-hundred and eighty grand in liquid assets!"
CASSIAN: (Slapping a hand over his chest in dramatic, aristocratic self-pity) "I am a victim of an unknown, subconscious abyssal reproductive anomaly! I have no memory of those encounters! My mind was compromised by the atmospheric transition into human form! I am a chaste, refined gentleman trapped in a nightmare of biological conspiracy!"
ZACH: (Looking at Cassian with absolute, unadulterated contempt) "Bro. You remembered every single one of their names during dinner last month. You literally gave me advice on which regional vintage wine pairs best with—"
CASSIAN: (His face flushing with cold, aristocratic panic as he taps his suit lapel comms badge) "Silence! The Association frequency is active! Do you want Director Mercer to hear you?! Do you want Lady Death to add a forty-third lien to my bartender wage at The After-Rift Lounge?!"
Below them, the Dread-Megalodros let out another deafening roar, its scythe-legs locking onto the facade of the glass tower as it prepared to smash through the upper executive floors.
ZACH: "Work now, drama later. I’ll take the head. You melt the legs. And for the love of the stars, Cassian, don't let your acidic spray hit the street pavement! A-Rank heroes cause property damage; S-Ranks get fined for it!"
Without waiting for an answer, Zach stepped off the ledge of the eighty-story building.
He fell like a stone for three hundred feet before the air behind his back exploded in a violent, crimson-and-gold shockwave. Unfurling from beneath his black hoodie were two colossal, spectral wings made entirely of interlocking dragon bone and burning sulfuric embers. The undead skeletal dragon within him roared through his soul, spraying a backdraft of sickly yellow flame that ignited the clouds.
ZACH: "Die, you ugly bug!"
Accelerating mid-air like a jet fighter, Zach crossed his arms, his mouth opening wide as he unhinged his jaw slightly beyond human limits. A torrent of Sulfuric Flame Breath erupted from his throat—a blinding beam of dense, yellow-crimson fire burning at three thousand degrees Celsius. The fire slammed directly into the monster's head, incinerating its optic clusters and melting its top jaws into bubbling slag before it could crush the glass tower.
The beast shrieked in agony, flailing its thirty legs as it lost its grip on the skyscraper and plummeted toward the crowded plaza below.
CASSIAN: (Hovering smoothly off the rooftop, his burgundy suit unaffected by gravity) "Always so loud. Always so uncouth."
Utilizing his Abyssal Flight, Cassian glided effortlessly down through the air like an aristocratic phantom, his long white hair streaming behind him like a noble crest. As the falling monster passed him, Cassian's pitch-black eyes locked onto its heavy thoracic armor. He raised his right hand, his fingers spreading wide. Behind his back, the invisible, colossal shadow of an Abyssal Leviathan—an ancient, multi-eyed flesh-serpent from the deepest trenches of Deoliux—twisted in the air.
Cassian opened his mouth. Instead of fire, a pressurized, hyper-dense jet of Acidic \text{H}_2\text{O} shot from his throat with the force of a naval cannon.
The clear, steaming liquid struck the monster’s lower body. The chemical reaction was instantaneous and terrifying. The thick Wreckage chitin did not just break; it dissolved on a molecular level, sizzling into a neutralized, odorless dark sludge in less than three seconds. With terrifying precision, Cassian angled his head, carving the beast’s scythe-legs off its body before the creature could impact the ground—ensuring that when the heavy carcass finally slammed into the reinforced plaza, it landed as a toothless, legless lump of raw meat.
BOOM!
The crater echoed across the plaza. Dust and steam billowed into the air.
Zach landed lightly on his neon-green sneakers atop the smoldering carcass, his skeletal dragon wings dissolving back into red embers that faded into his black hoodie. He wiped a streak of soot from his nose, grinning down at the dead monster.
ZACH: "Fifty grand! Clean kill! No collateral damage to the buildings!"
CASSIAN: (Descending slowly, his leather dress shoes settling onto the crater rim without a single speck of dust touching his trousers) "An acceptable performance. Though I expect my fifty-percent cut of the kill bonus to be processed promptly by the finance department."
LADY DEATH: (Stepping out from behind an armored transport van, her dark coat trailing behind her) "Your cut?"
Cassian’s smirk froze. A cold sweat broke out across the back of his neck beneath his crisp white collar.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Stepping onto the smoldering plaza was a woman in a tailored charcoal blazer, wearing coal-black lipstick and carrying a heavy, neon-pink leather briefcase under her arm. Her eyes were as cold as a frozen tomb, radiating absolute, unadulterated contempt for every male entity within a three-mile radius.
Behind her walked two junior Hero Association auditors carrying digital tablet arrays, followed closely by a massive, powerfully built man carrying a four-ton hydraulic containment crate on his shoulder. The man—Radisson Rex—wiped grease from his rugged jaw, his eyes locked onto Lady Death with a puppy-dog expression of pure, unshakeable devotion.
CASSIAN: (Turning slowly with his hands raised in a polished, diplomatic gesture) "Ah... Lady Death. What a delightful surprise. I was just remarking to my brother how efficiently the Association's oversight committee manages—"
LADY DEATH: (Cutting him off with a snap of her gloved fingers) "Save your aristocratic garbage, Cassian. As of twelve minutes ago, the Plata-Central Family Court finalized the civil suit for child number forty-two. Combined with backdated interest, legal representation fees, and the court-mandated educational trust fund allocation..."
She flipped her digital tablet toward Cassian, showing a bold, glowing red number that had entirely too many zeros.
LADY DEATH: "...your entire fifty-percent bonus for this Wreckage kill has been automatically seized at the source. In fact, you are currently six thousand dollars in the negative for this mission. That amount will be garnished directly from your upcoming night shifts at The After-Rift Lounge."
CASSIAN: (Clutching his chest with dramatic, theatrical horror as his carnivorous bouquet wilts in sympathy) "Six... six thousand in the negative?! I just saved four financial institutions from total structural collapse! I used high-precision acidic liquefaction to prevent street pavement damage! I am a victim of an unknown abyssal biological anomaly! I have amnesia!"
LADY DEATH: (Her scowl deepening as she steps closer to the crater's edge) "If you say the word 'amnesia' one more time in my presence, Cassian, I will personally file an emergency injunction to seize your burgundy suit closet and auction it off to fund public daycare centers. A man sleeping with half the district and then putting on a sad, dramatic act behind a bar counter is the most pathetic display of male entitlement I have ever witnessed."
ZACH: (Doubled over on the dead monster, pounding his fist against the chitin in breathless laughter) "She got you, bro! She absolutely got you!"
LADY DEATH: (Snapping her head toward Zach) "And you. Zach Drake. S-Rank #4. Twenty years old. Pulling in five-hundred and eighty thousand a year while bragging on social media about having no girlfriend so you can run through the city's nightlife like a plague."
ZACH: (His laughter dying as he pulls his hood up) "Hey! I haven't broken any laws! I pay my taxes!"
LADY DEATH: "You claimed a twelve-thousand-dollar business tax deduction last week for 'tactical footwear.' My audit team is currently reviewing your receipts. If those neon sneakers don't contain military-grade mana-conduits, I am fining you twenty grand for fraud."
ZACH: (Pulling his feet back in shock) "These are limited edition! They're an investment!"
LADY DEATH: "They're hideous. Radisson! Load the chitin. The Pantyne recovery team needs these plates processed by five o'clock."
RADISSON REX: (Beaming with absolute joy at being given an order) "Right away, my lady!"
He effortlessly tossed the four-ton crate onto the back of a transport truck and stepped up beside her, offering her an insulated tumbler.
RADISSON REX: "I brought your black coffee. High-altitude dark roast, zero sugar, exactly how you like it."
LADY DEATH: (Taking the tumbler without saying thank you, taking a small sip before glaring at him) "You're standing too close, Radisson. And your coat smells like diesel. Get in the back truck."
RADISSON REX: (Smiling warmly, completely unbothered) "Yes, Lady Death!"
As the Pantyne vehicles rolled away with the multi-million-dollar monster carcass, Zach slid down off the remaining crater rubble, standing beside his brother. Both of them watched the convoy disappear down the street.
ZACH: "She's a terror. An absolute nightmare."
CASSIAN: (Staring at his wrist-comm tablet as his hero bank account balance ticks down to -$6,420.00) "She has no soul. No appreciation for high society. No mercy for a prince of Deoliux."
Cassian smoothed down his burgundy vest, checked his white hair in the reflection of a broken skyscraper window, and picked up his carnivorous bouquet.
ZACH: "Where are you going?"
CASSIAN: (His voice devoid of all joy) "To work. My shift at The After-Rift Lounge starts in twenty minutes. If I am late, Gus Miller will deduct fifty dollars from my tips, and Sam Hayes will make me scrub the floor drains again."
The basement of The After-Rift Lounge smelled of stale gin, spilled draft beer, ozone, and wet concrete. Located three floors beneath a reinforced bunker in Sector 7 of Plata-Central, it was the primary watering hole for off-duty heroes, mercenary scouts, and low-level Association brokers looking to drink away the stress of fighting dimensional beasts.
A buzzing blue neon sign hung above the mahogany bar, casting long shadows across the crowded booths.
Behind the counter, Cassian Drake stood in his dark bartender vest and crisp white shirt sleeves, his burgundy suit jacket neatly hung on a wooden hanger in the back storage room. His long white hair was tied back in a neat, low ponytail. With practiced, aristocratic grace, he swung a silver cocktail shaker through the air, mixing a high-end gin martini with flawless precision before pouring it into a chilled glass.
CASSIAN: (Sliding the glass across the polished wood with a stiff, professional smile) "Here you are, gentlemen. A classic Vesper. That will be eighteen Platarian dollars."
B-RANK HERO 1: (Taking the drink, looking at Cassian with absolute, wide-eyed hero worship) "Thanks, man! Unbelievable! SS-Rank #2 serving us drinks! Look at him, Tommy! Forty-two kids across the district! Forty-two! The guy's an absolute titan! A real man's man!"
B-RANK HERO 2: (Raising his glass in a toast) "Yeah! They call him 'Gigant' for a reason! You're an inspiration to every guy in the association, Cassian!"
Cassian’s hand tightened around the brass cocktail strainer. The metal groaned under his leviathan grip, bending slightly out of shape. Deep within his chest, a bubble of hyper-acidic water gurgled in his throat, threatening to melt the mahogany counter, the bar stools, and both B-Rank heroes into smoking liquid.
Gigant, Cassian thought, his internal monologue screaming in pure, unadulterated agony. They call me Gigant. A name fit for a brainless, club-wielding cave beast. I am a prince of the Deoliux Realm! I compose poetry! I cultivate rare carnivorous orchids! And I am hailed as a king by frat boys because of a biological catastrophe!
CASSIAN: (His smile so rigid it looked like porcelain about to shatter) "Thank you. Your admiration... sustains me."
SAM HAYES: (Slamming a heavy tub of dirty glassware into the sink beside him) "Less chatting with your fan club, 'Gigant.' Table four spilled three tequila shots on the booth leather. Wipe it down, then go check on the ice machine. It's making that weird rattling noise again."
CASSIAN: "Sam. I am a nation-tier hero. I fought a Class-4 Dread-Megalodros three hours ago."
SAM HAYES: "And right now you're an employee earning twelve dollars an hour plus tips to pay off court garnishments. Gus is in the back counting the register. If he sees you standing around looking tragic, he's taking ten bucks off your shift pay."
CASSIAN: (Closing his eyes, taking a slow breath to prevent his abyssal aura from shattering the lounge lights) "Understood. I shall attend to the tequila."
He grabbed a bottle of sanitizer, stepped around the bar counter, and walked toward the VIP booth section. As he wiped down the leather seating, the heavy oak doors at the entrance of the lounge swung open.
A silence fell over the front tables.
Stepping into the basement lounge was a man who looked like he had just walked off a sunny coastal beach, despite it being two in the morning in a subterranean bunker city. He possessed a towering mesomorph build, his massive, muscular frame completely eclipsing the doorway. He wore a neon-pink Hawaiian floral shirt, bright blue board shorts, yellow flip-flops, and had messy blonde hair that looked perennially windblown.
Loungs. SSS-Rank #1 Hero. The strongest human on Earth.
Beside him walked his wife, a sharp, impeccably dressed woman in a designer business skirt suit, casually reviewing financial spreadsheets on a high-end tablet. Walking behind them, looking sullen and wearing a luxury designer dress, was Ashley—Loungs' high school daughter, her stomach showing the early stages of a pregnancy bump.
Cassian froze mid-wipe, the sanitizer bottle dripping in his hand.
Loungs scanned the lounge with his bright blue eyes, his Super Hearing easily filtering out the background chatter of sixty people until he locked onto Cassian’s heartbeat.
LOUNGS: (His massive voice echoing off the concrete walls like a thunderclap as he claps his hands together) "Hey! There he is! The legendary 'Gigant'! Hard at work!"
MRS. LOUNGS: (Not looking up from her tablet as she strides toward the bar) "Cassian. We are here to discuss your parental obligations regarding Ashley."
CASSIAN: (Dropping his cloth, stepping back while placing a hand dramatically over his heart) "Loungs... Mrs. Loungs... As I have stated to the Hero Association board, to the courts, and to the cosmos... my heart breaks for this situation. But my mind remains a blank void. The abyssal biological glitch that compromised my body—"
MRS. LOUNGS: "Save it, Cassian. My legal team already reviewed your amnesia filings. We don't care about your memory. What we care about is financial stability. You have ninety-two percent of your salary garnished, forty-two pending claims, and your current liquid assets stand at negative six thousand dollars. You are a financial black hole."
ASHLEY: (Looking at Cassian with frustrated, tearful eyes) "Dad! Mom! I told you! I want to marry him! He's SS-Rank #2! He’s handsome! He wears burgundy suits!"
MRS. LOUNGS: "You are nineteen years old and your head is full of social media fluff, Ashley. You are not marrying a man who works the night shift as a bartender to pay off forty-two child-support checks. My family line requires asset security."
LOUNGS: (Throwing a massive arm over Ashley's shoulders, his skin briefly gleaming with a bright, mirror-like stainless steel sheen) "Your mother is right, sweetie! Cassian is a great guy for battle, but his bank account is a disaster area! Luckily, my wife and I did the math on the ride over here!"
CASSIAN: "You... you have concluded that a marriage contract is impossible?"
LOUNGS: (Laughing boisterously, slapping his knee with enough force to generate a small sonic boom) "For you? Absolutely! We’re marrying her off to your little brother instead!"
CASSIAN: "What?!"
MRS. LOUNGS: "It's simple math. Zach Drake is twenty years old. S-Rank #4. Pulls in five-hundred and eighty thousand annually. Zero children. Zero garnishments. Clean credit score. He is a prime financial asset. The marriage contract is currently being drafted."
From the far end of the bar, a loud CRASH echoed through the lounge.
Zach, who had just walked through the back door wearing his black hoodie to order a midnight burger, froze mid-step. The glass of ice water he had been holding lay shattered on the floor at his neon-green sneakers.
ZACH: (His crimson eyes wide with absolute horror) "What... What did you just say?!"
Cassian turned toward his younger brother. Slowly, very slowly, a genuine, aristocratic smirk spread across Cassian’s face. The nightmare of his own debt was suddenly eclipsed by the sheer, unholy comedy of Zach’s impending doom.
CASSIAN: (Stepping back behind the bar and picking up a fresh glass to polish) "Ah. It appears congratulations are in order, little brother. It seems your days as an 'innocent bachelor' have officially come to a close."
Zach’s eyes flared brilliant crimson. A cloud of suffocating, yellow-red sulfuric smoke erupted from his hoodie collar as his skeletal dragon wings twitched beneath his clothes.
ZACH: "I am turning around and flying straight back to Deoliux."