**Chapter 0: The End or the Beginning**

  “Run, run faster!” A mob of men in black suits screamed and scrambled in a desperate bid to escape. But it seemed they had crossed paths with Death itself. Behind them, a bar had erupted in a catastrophic explosion, reducing those too slow to flee to mere memories. The group surged toward the main road, led by a corpulent man whose bulky frame belied his speed. He was the fastest—and the first to fall. “Damn it! My bar! How could there be a gunman killing people and a suicide bomber? That bomb was small, so why was its destruction so immense?”

  *Boom, boom!* As the fat man ran, his foot caught a thin, nearly invisible silver wire. The faint click of a detonator reached his ears, and he just had time to curse, “This wretched world!” before the bomb obliterated him. The explosion triggered a chain reaction, like dominoes toppling, with multiple blasts ripping through the area. Those near the epicenter were vaporized, while others farther out suffered third- or fourth-degree burns, their chances of survival nonexistent.

  At the same moment, in an alley 50 meters away, Lucien Graye stood watching, his cold, emotionless eyes fixed on the chaos. The shockwave from the explosion pulsed through the air. He had a strikingly handsome face—sharp, chiseled features, a high nose, and deep black eyes that held profound sorrow laced with a deadly intensity. His chestnut-brown hair was styled in a messy, tousled look. Lucien wore a trench coat that reached his thighs, crafted from slightly coarse, medium-thick fabric in a pale earthy brown, exuding an air of refined elegance. Beneath it, he sported a crisp white dress shirt paired with a plain black tie.

  As he observed the explosion and saw police and firefighters arriving, Lucien turned and walked deeper into the alley, his pace deliberate and unhurried.

  After navigating seven similar alleys, he arrived at a dilapidated rental apartment, its exterior suggesting years of neglect. As he approached the door, a sudden unease halted him. He glanced down and spotted a thin thread stretched across the door’s gap. His eyes narrowed. With cautious precision, he reached into his coat pocket. As if gifted with x-ray vision, Lucien drew a black Colt M1911 with a suppressor and fired three shots through the door.

  A scream pierced the air, followed by the thud of a body collapsing. Lucien stepped forward, opened the door, and found a mysterious figure inside. The man wore a black mask and dark clothing designed to meld with the shadows. On the floor beside him lay a Browning Hi-Power pistol.

  The masked man was struggling, clawing toward his gun. Lucien didn’t give him the chance to reach it. With a single, decisive shot to the head, blood splattered across the floor. Lucien surveyed the mess and muttered, “The house is dirty again.”

  After dragging the body to the backyard and burying it, Lucien returned to clean up the scene. He pocketed the Browning Hi-Power without hesitation. 'This is an autonomous zone where disappearances and deaths are common; the police won’t bother investigating,' he thought, unfazed by the possibility of discovery.

  Stowing both guns in a bedroom drawer, Lucien stepped back and sighed as he surveyed the apartment. His rented home stood alone on the edge of the old town, encircled by gray stone walls and barren trees that resembled gnarled, grasping hands. The walls were built from rough, dark bricks, their crumbling mortar exposing web-like cracks. Their color had faded to a cold gray, coated in moss and mildew, as if the house had long since abandoned the world.

  The wooden floorboards, dark and worn, groaned underfoot with every step, their low creaks echoing in the empty space like the whispers of trapped souls.

  The living room, the heart of the rented house, was sparsely furnished with abandoned relics: a wooden armchair with tattered velvet upholstery, a low tea table blanketed in thick dust, and a rickety, empty bookshelf teetering on the brink of collapse. A black stone fireplace was recessed into the wall, filled with cold ashes from long-forgotten winters.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The kitchen, barely larger than a closet, held a cracked porcelain sink and a countertop of cheap wood. A small iron stove sat quietly in the corner, its mouth encrusted with soot, emitting a faint, musty smell of rusted metal and old charcoal.

  The bedroom was austere, with a rusty iron bed frame and a sagging, threadbare mattress. Beside it stood a small wooden cabinet. The bedroom walls, tiled with faded yellow bricks, were speckled with mold. A small arched window opened to the outside, its cracked wooden frame holding a tattered, colorless curtain that fluttered in the breeze like a discarded soul.

  Lucien stepped into the bathroom at the end of the hallway. Its walls were bare, rough brick, and the floor was laid with cold gray stone. A rusty faucet dripped monotonously, the old stone sink was dusted with limescale, and a cracked mirror reflected distorted images, lending the space an eerie, chilling atmosphere.

  In this place, every wall, every floorboard, every brick whispered forgotten stories—tales only the darkness remembered.

  After bathing, Lucien sank into the old armchair, finding solace in its worn familiarity. He closed his eyes, savoring a fleeting moment of peace. After a while, unwilling to linger in idleness, he stood and walked to the coat and hat rack near the entrance. Reaching into the right pocket of his trench coat, he pulled out a sleek black box, surprisingly light for its size.

  Returning to the armchair, he examined the box closely. It was a square, about 5 cm long, an odd item the organization had ordered him to retrieve from the bar’s owner—before Lucien reduced the place to ashes. The organization was a shadowy entity; no one knew its location, origins, or the identities of its members. Everyone operated under secret aliases, and their motives were unclear, though it was said they aimed to reshape the world. Lucien didn’t care much about their goals. 'Complete 100 special missions, and I’ll be free to live a normal life,' he had once believed, clinging to that dream. But after his 98th mission, he learned the truth: 'There is no freedom, only manipulation.' A mysterious figure had shown him evidence and let him witness the fate of someone who completed their 100th mission—captured and tortured to death.

  'The betrayal stings,' he thought, his anger flaring at being deceived. Yet he quickly regained his composure, vowing to exact revenge on the wretched organization. The man he’d killed earlier was an operative sent to apprehend him. Lucien often requested to work with two partners, leading the organization to believe he was weak and incompetent. They’d sent an amateur to capture him, unaware they were dealing with a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 'They want me because I know too much and have demanded my freedom too often,' he realized. 'It seems they want to control everything.'

  After studying the box for a while, Lucien noticed a strange button near one of its corners. Without hesitation, he pressed it. Suddenly, the box didn’t just open—it shattered. A torrent of black mist poured out. Lucien’s eyes widened in shock, but the mist ignored him, clinging to his body before spreading to the house. At that moment, the front door was kicked open, and three men in black stormed in, guns raised. Seeing their target standing there, dazed, they opened fire without hesitation.

  Lucien reacted swiftly, dodging several bullets, but he was only human, not a god. The house was small, with the front door close to the living room, leaving little room to maneuver. A bullet tore through his arm, the pain searing into his brain. 'I want to scream,' he thought, but he stifled the cry and the pain, wasting no time to counterattack. He bolted toward the bedroom.

  In the dilapidated bedroom, Lucien lunged for the drawer to grab his guns and fight back. But the organization had clearly realized he’d been hiding his true strength. They’d sent skilled operatives to eliminate him. Another bullet ripped through his hip, and a second hit his thigh, sending him crashing to the floor beside the small wooden cabinet. Gritting his teeth, blood trickling from his mouth, he roared, “Damn you all! You’ll pay for this!”

  Struggling to rise, Lucien reached for the cabinet. Even wounded, he refused to give up. 'If I’m going to die, I’ll take some of them with me,' he resolved. That was his final thought. He’d worked for the organization since he was 10, and now, at 25, they wouldn’t even spare a loyal servant like him. “Lucien, stop struggling. Hand over the item, and I’ll let you die peacefully,” said a tall man, likely the leader, looking at him with pity. He raised his gun to finish the job.

  Lucien’s gaze shifted—not to the man or his subordinates, but behind them. A massive, shadowy figure loomed, humanoid but monstrous. The leader noticed Lucien’s stare and sensed something amiss. He spun around, and his two subordinates followed suit. Their eyes widened, their faces paling to a sickly white, as if the creature had seized control of their minds. The tall leader, however, showed stronger resolve, though he struggled to raise his gun and fire wildly at the shadowy entity. 'The bullets dissolve like dust,' Lucien noted, watching as the shots vanished upon contact with the creature. Tendrils shot forward, wrapping around their limbs and mouths, dragging them toward its chest.

  Lucien watched the leader’s face contort in abject terror and the vacant expressions of the other two. A grim satisfaction washed over him. “Haha, at least I can drag you down with me!” he laughed, coughing up blood. 'That bullet must’ve hit my liver,' he thought as his vision blurred and his consciousness faded. In his final moments, he saw the creature approach, its tendrils reaching for him.

  **Name**: Lucien Graye

  **Age**: 25

  **Background**: Orphan

  **Status**: …Missing