2 [Prologue]

Azrael turned to look around him. He heard people crying, their muffled screams for help coming from underneath the rubble. Odd monsters soared through the skies and came out of odd structures he had never seen before. A few meters ahead of him, a corpse lay sprawled across the ground, its legs turned to a bloody paste.

"T-This, this ought to be fun," he whispered to himself, his whole body shivering in shock as he took in the brutality of it all.

***(A few hours earlier)

*Drrringgggg*

Azrael peeled his attention from the ceiling, directing it to the loud ringing that echoed from his side table. [07:30] read the alarm clock.

"*Sigh* Time for school, huh?" he whispered to himself before getting out of the sheets. He lived in a small run-down apartment, made apparent by the old rusted shower head and broken shower tiles in the bathroom. After cleaning himself up a little he dressed up for school, fixing his tie in front of a large mirror shard that he used as a dressing mirror.

After he was done fixing his uniform he stood in front of the mirror for a moment. His tie was slightly tilted to the side, and try as he may, it wouldn't seem to go in the position he wanted it to. Giving up, he looked up at his face. Dead eyes with bags under his eyelids, evident disinterest echoing from them. For a moment he just stared at himself, his apathetic expression slowly turning into one of anger.

*Shatter*

Azrael picked up his school bag and walked away, leaving little shards of glass on his apartment floor.

***

"Oh, good morning Azrael," greeted one of his classmates as he walked into class.

"Good morning," repeated several others as they noticed him walk in as well. Azrael lifted his hand in greeting, before walking towards the chalkboard.

[I keep telling them not to write stuff on the board, what the hell is wrong with these idiots?] he thought to himself as he stared at the rather vulgar drawings on the chalkboard. He quickly grabbed the duster and began rubbing it off, sending clouds of chalk particles into the air.

"Sorry class rep, we had art class last period," sniggered one of the boys at the back of the class. The other students whispered sounds of dissatisfaction with what he said, though no one openly stated it.

[Art? This? Let me show you art,] thought Azrael before turning around to look at the boy.

"Good morning class, can everyone please take their seats," interrupted a teacher.

"Azrael, did you injure yourself again? You should go get that checked out," said the teacher, noticing the blood that dripped from his knuckles. Azrael lifted his hand up, just now noticing that his flesh had been ripped. After taking one last look at the boy who had made the comment, he greeted his teacher with a smile before walking out. On his way to the infirmary, he began picking out pieces of mirror from his knuckles, it felt somewhat arousing, but not nearly enough to make him fall back into his self-harm addiction.

[This school is just as bad as my last one. Might have to start another fire,] thought Azrael as he passed by a group of delinquents spray painting the front of the school gym.

This school was supposedly the best in the area, however, the academic year had only just started a few weeks ago and already he thought of this place as a pit for the future scum of society.

[But no, someone might get suspicious. A house fire and two school fires, that won't slide,] he decided before turning a blind eye on the delinquents and increasing his pace to the school nurse.

"Ahh, Azrael. How can I help you?" asked the school nurse as Azrael walked into the infirmary. Azrael lifted his hand in reply, showing her his injury before giving her a forced smile.

"Again? You really have a habit of hurting yourself, don't you?" she commented before quickly pulling out a first aid kit from a drawer in her desk.

"I'm sort of accident-prone," replied Azrael, trying to sound as lively as he could.

"You don't really strike me as the clumsy type. But I guess even someone as bright as you has flaws," she said with a smile as she cleaned his wound.

The searing pain that radiated from his hand as clinical alcohol was rubbed on his wound felt warm, invigorating even. The little jolts of pain that traveled from his knuckles sent him to heaven -if only to escape his boring reality for but a moment.

"-kay. Azrael, are you listening?"

"Sorry, I zoned out. What were you saying?"

"I was talking about Millie, the girl that you brought in last week," said the nurse, putting away the dirty gauzes that she had used to clean up the wound.

"Ahh the girl who fell down the stairs," replied Azrael, staring at the white lines of flesh on his knuckles.

"It was such bad luck that it happened to her, especially since school just started," mumbled the nurse as she wrapped a bandage around his wound.

[Bad luck? The only bad luck was the fact that she was in the same class as me. Bullying classmates, disrupting class, she's lucky I only tripped her. If there were fewer people around, I would've made sure that a broken arm wasn't the only thing she had to heal from,] thought Azrael, the corners of his lips twitching as he tried to suppress his smile.

"But at least it was only a minor fracture. She'll be coming back to school in another week," continued the nurse.

[Tssk.]

"There, all done," she smiled, patting Azrael's bandage.

"Thank you," he replied with a forced smile.

"My pleasure. Oh, and by the way, the school psychologist said your parents still haven't handed in the forms he told you to give them. Is something wrong, at home I mean?" asked the school nurse just as Azrael was about to walk out.

"My parents won't be abl-" Azrael's words were brought to a halt by a loud thunderous boom, followed by the sound of walls cracking and metal rending. A split moment later, the roof came tunneling down, and the walls collapsed around them, burying the two in rubble.

In fact, this wasn't just a localized incident, all over the world structures were being destroyed and ripped apart. A blue spatial field spread to every corner of the planet, randomly turning structures to rubble while leaving new structures behind, almost as if they were teleported in.

Fallen structures had turned people to human paste, their blood painting the floor crimson. Those that had survived incurred gruesome injuries; crushed limbs, broken skulls, lungs that felt as if they had been run through a bucket of nails due to the inhalation of millions of tiny glass fragments.

[System booting, please wait...] sounded a voice in Azrael's head as he tried moving the corpse that lay on top of him.

[System fully booted. User Azrael Hathborn has been fully processed. Randomly selecting exclusive ability based on player characteristics...] continued the system as Azrael finally moved the body out of the way. He had been lucky that he was in the infirmary when the blast happened, unlike the other buildings, the infirmary only had a single storey, hence less rubble available to crush or suffocate him to death.

Though after finally getting out of the rubble, he realized that had it not been for the school nurse jumping in to protect him from the brunt of the damage, he would've sustained heavier injuries.

[Ability found: Sadist's Curse]

[Rarity: Transcended]

[Ability Rank: E]

[Overall Ability Rating: Z]

[Skill tree unlocked...]

[Player Stats unlocked....]

[Now linking player to augmented system vision...]

[Linking complete. Player can now access skill tree and Player Stats at will.]

[Welcome Azrael Hathborn to New Azith.]