What is the cost of your dream?
Most people didn't have an answer. Some never had a dream to begin with. Worse, some hadn't even figured out what they wanted from life, still confused.
But if you asked Corvin, he would give you a number without hesitation.
$800,000.
That was the price of a dream he was chasing.
The cost of a halfway decent house in Queens.
One in a neighborhood where the crime rate was tolerable. Where sirens didn't scream through the night.
Of course, with a weekly paycheck barely scraping $1,400, the odds weren't in his favor.
Still, he did what he could.
Walked instead of taking the metro. Rented the cheapest room he could stomach. Ate just enough to stay on his feet. Not to enjoy.
"Haha! Look at that bastard, he eats like a damn elephant."
"What's so great about food, anyway? I waste my hard-earned money on something hot, greasy, and gone in minutes, just to feed gutter trash like you."
"And where does it go? Down the toilet the next day, like it never fucking mattered."
Those were the words Corvin had heard his whole damn life back in the foster home, usually from someone older, trying to sound wise with a cigarette hanging from his lips.
Back then, they were meant to disgrace him. Insult him. Now, they only fueled his resolve.
"Two value burgers, please."
He stepped up to the stall counter.
The cold had settled in for the night, and it had already been an hour since he'd shut the roll-down at the shop.
Behind the stall was a converted van parked under a flickering street lamp.
The paint was peeling off its panels, and a rusty fan buzzed in the corner like it was working overtime just to keep breathing.
Behind the counter stood a tired-looking man, Asian, maybe mid-thirties, with a stained apron and a thousand-yard stare like he had died sometime last week and just hadn't caught up with it yet.
"Five forty, boy."
"...Here."
Corvin nodded once and reached into his pocket, peeling off the damp bills with fingers stiff from the cold.
The man grabbed them without a glance.
A plastic bag crinkled as two foil-wrapped burgers, sweating through the paper like they were ashamed of themselves, were shoved across the counter without ceremony.
Corvin took the bag.
He turned without looking back and walked into the alley, bag in hand, heading toward whatever passed for home these days.
Damp bricks. Old beer bottles. A mattress slumped against the fence like a corpse.
Brownsville, by this point, was dirt-poor and riddled with crime.
It was also the only place he could find a halfway decent apartment at a price that didn't bleed him dry.
"Somebody help me—help me, please!"
"Shut up, bitch. You don't get to cry now."
"She was askin' for it anyway, dressin' like that."
"Hold her down, yo, quit movin'!"
But being cheap came with one major downside: you didn't get classy people or a neighborhood free of crime.
The sound of a woman — and several men — reached his ears.
As vigilant as he was, Corvin stayed skeptical. Mr. Patel once said he'd been mugged by someone pretending to be injured in the middle of the road.
"Please! I have a fiancé—please, sir, let me go!"
"Bitch, bend over and shut the fuck up."
Meanwhile, the noise only grew louder. Corvin didn't want to step into that corner of the world.
But… what if it wasn't staged?
Could he really walk away from something like that?
Despite everything, Corvin was still human — at his core, a good one.
He stopped walking.
"Stop it, you bastards!"
And he ran toward them.
Four men hovered over a girl pressed flat against the concrete, her face half-covered in blood.
Torn hoodie. One sneaker gone. Arms pinned like she was a thing, not a person.
Then—
Boom!
A bullet zipped past Corvin — too close. But what he feared most wasn't the gun.
The woman he thought was being attacked suddenly stood up and started kissing the black-haired thug with a scar on his cheek.
"Darling! How was it? Didn't I say I could make things easier?"
"Haha, Carla — baby is sure my lucky charm."
"…"
"And you — get your ass to the wall. You got five seconds. Give us the money. All of it."
The next thing Corvin knew, his head was shoved against the wall. Hands patted down his body, searching for anything valuable.
Sadly, as broke as he was, all they found was a single ten-dollar bill in his pocket.
"Damn it. This bastard can't even pay for our cigarettes."
"Darling, don't get mad over a beggar. Let's find someone who looks like they've actually eaten today."
And so, the group of five wandered off.
Maybe out of frustration, one of them stomped on the burger bag he'd dropped on the road.
Just like that, his lunch was gone.
"At least I'm still alive…"
It wasn't the first time for him.
Thankfully, all his money was already in his bank account.
So he didn't feel the sting of getting mugged.
Instead, he smiled.
"At least it wasn't real."
Corvin picked up his pace again this time, he didn't plan on stopping until he reached home.
The streets slipped behind him in silence. An hour later, he was already back in his neighborhood.
The rental house stood as it always had, an aging American frame, slouched from time and weather. Ivy clung to the porch posts like brittle veins, half-dead but still holding on.
No lights in the windows. The place looked abandoned, haunted in a way it hadn't before.
Corvin climbed the steps. Each footfall felt little heavier, the long walk settling into his legs.
"Mr. Robert? You still up?It's me. Corvin."
No answer came.
He figured the old man was asleep, until something sharp crept into his nose.
The smell of fresh blood.
Fresh, faint, but there. No mistaking it.
The hallway stretched ahead like a throat.
A single lamp flickered in the corner, throwing a sickly red glow across the warped floorboards.
He reached for the wall switch and clicked.
Light flooded the room and froze him in place. What came into view was blood-slicked walls and a room torn apart by chaos. Mr. Robert sat slumped in his chair, like he'd nodded off mid-paper.
But a katana pierced his chest, skewering him clean. A single bullet hole marked the center of his forehead, drilled between wide, glassy eyes.
Corvin stood there, breathing shallow.
"You think the world owes you something, kid? No one gets a free ride."
Just yesterday, they'd argued over rent, more than a month overdue.
Even though there weren't many emotions he had for the man.
Maybe all the killings he'd seen in his life had made him numb already.
But still…
"..BANG.."
Destiny didn't give him any chance to think.
A sudden clang shattered the silence, Something heavy cracked against the back of his skull.
A baseball bat?
His knees gave out instantly, floor rushed up to meet him.
Face pressed to the wood, his nose stopped inches from Mr. Robert's blood as it crept toward him in a slow, glistening trail.
"EPD7, Visual on the target. Breathing steady. No signs of resistance. Subject appears confused."
"EPD123, Target confirmation received. Weapons live. Engaging on command."
"EPD234, Perimeter sealed. No civilians in range. Ready to execute."
"Authorization granted. Terminate the subject. Now."
Several mechanical voices crackled through the static, unfamiliar, cold, and hundred percent hostile.
Corvin didn't know who they were. He didn't need to. They had guns.
In the next breath, lights flared, mounted on heavy rifles, all aimed at him.
Red dots danced across his chest, his throat, his forehead.
And then, without warning, they opened fire.
But time fractured. A second time.
He didn't know if it had stopped or simply slowed, only that reality bent, stretched thin around him like old plastic.
For the second time, everything dulled. The world around him distorted. It slowed, not metaphorically, but literally.
The soldiers' shapes unraveled. Where black-clad humans had stood, he now saw the truth: reed-thin skeletons with hollow eyes, wrapped in phantom flesh.
Just like the scene at the convenience store.
Only a hundred times more violent. A hundred times more real.
Their biology was intact, closer to human. But something in their souls had rotted, as if they'd crawled out from the underworld.
"Damn it, Corvin."
Blue lightning danced across his skin.
His green pupils shimmered gold, shaped like the ticking hands of a golden clock.
A thousand luminous clock halos spun into life, orbiting him like shields.
Bullets hit mid-air and froze.
Time bowed.
He didn't understand how. He didn't understand anything.
Only that something inside him had broken.
"EPD89, initiate laser protocols. Subject's threat level, upgraded. Danger grade, Above Class-D. Terminate immediately."
He had only ever wanted a home.
A quiet, peaceful life.
A front porch.
A place to return to.
So who gave them the right to take that away?
Wasn't surviving this long enough?
Did he have to die, without ever owning a home, without ever being someone, without achieving anything, just like a poor bastard he was?
That dream, his precious, his stupid dream, was crumbling.
And from that rubble, a menacing rage surged.
Pure. Merciless.
"No... no. Absolutely not. Absolutely not, Who gave you the courage..."
Deep in the folds of his mind, a single blue spark snapped loose like lightning.
His power surged, gold lacing into the blue energy.
"All of you"
White garments shimmered over his body. Silver-lined robes with ancient clockwork symbols glowing at the chest. A cape like silk spun from moonlight fell behind him.
"All of you... every single one of you bastards—rot in hell."
Anyone could tell, he wasn't corvin anymore.
One soldier managed to choke out.
"D-Danger level... s—up-upgrade to SS. Full Legion protocol—initiate—"
The words barely left his mouth.
But it was too late.
---[Breath Of Death]---
The attackers froze where they stood, muscles locking tight, jaws clenched to the point of pain, hearts breaking beneath a weight they couldn't see or fight.
No one screamed.
No one moved.
Resistance never even had the chance to begin.
Like a stone dropped into still water, blue and gold energy burst from Corvin.
A shockwave exploded outward.
It split the air.
It cracked the clouds.
It tore through the neighborhood, erasing two kilometers of walls, fences, homes, and vehicles in a single, devastating instant.
When the dust began to settle, only a vast crater remained, thick with smoke and heavy with silence.
At the bottom, Corvin lay half-burnt and bleeding, he had stopped it with powers, but he hadn't yet learned how to shield himself from its aftermath.
Stray bullets had slipped through. Lasers had sliced his skin. The robes were scorched. His chest rose and fell, ragged.
He smelled death. It was in the dirt, the smoke, the back of his throat, close enough to touch.
He stared at the moon.
And waited for it.
( End Of The Chapter )