In the crowded streets of New Eden, a fragile-looking young man with pale skin and an empty look in his eyes ran through an alleyway in a hot pursuit. He had bruises all over his body, from his arms to his legs, even his face was no exception.
"He's one of those bastards!"
"Don't let him escape!"
"Kill him!"
Behind him, four men chased after him relentlessly, like a lion chasing it's prey.
The boy shot a quick glance over his shoulder, his ragged, torn hood that sat on his head whipping sharply in the wind as he moved.
"Catch him!"
Just as the four men caught up to him, the boy made a sharp turn and slipped out of the alleyway, running down a busy road crowded with speeding cars and motorcycles.
"He's made his way into the main roads!? Get him before he manages to escape! Whatever happens, he must not live to see the end of today!"
The four men spilled out of the alley and onto the main road, their footsteps echoing against the asphalt as they gave chase. Horns blared and engines roared around them, but the boy didn't falter.
He weaved between the speeding cars and motorcycles, using the chaos to his advantage.
Each sharp dodge and sudden turn made it harder for them to follow, and soon enough, swallowed by the traffic and confusion, he vanished from their sights.
"Damn it!! You fools! You let him get away!!"
The boy pressed himself against the side of a building, hidden in the shadows. From there, he watched silently as the four men ran past, shouting and scanning the crowded street.
Their faces were twisted in frustration and anger, and their movements were frantic, but they couldn't find him. He stayed perfectly still, letting the chaos of the traffic and the dim light keep him unseen.
Once he confirmed they were no longer in sights, he pulled down his hood, revealing his sliky white hair, and deep blue eyes that spoke volumes about the trauma he had suffered.
"Tsk, persistent lots. Even after evading them, they somehow manage to keep finding me." His voice was deep and cold, but mostly unbothered, as if he didn't just escape a race for his life.
It has always been like this since the day transmigrated into this world, his life was not much different from his previous life. Except this time, he had a family that abandoned him to the streets, and he barely survived on scraps and little pieces of bread he managed to steal.
Those men that chased him, they didn't want him dead because he stole from them, hell they couldn't care less.
Even one who crossed paths with him felt sorry for him, that is, until they discovered the mark on his hand.
But his keen survival skills, honed and developed by years of begging and living on the streets ended up saving him. He knew the roads like the back of his hand, he knew the exact time specific cars sped by this exact road.
And he used it to his advantage, disappearing into the streets like a ghost.
With a sigh, he turned to walk away from the wall, but in that moment of escape, a small mistake cost him everything.
His foot missed the edge of the ground, and before he could react, his body dropped. The world around him seemed to tilt as he fell, crashing down into a dark pedestrian underpass hidden beneath the street above.
..
Seconds... Minutes... Hours.
The boy had no idea how long it had been since he fell, but since then, everywhere fell silent.
He landed on his head, and undoubtedly suffered from some concussions as his vision blurred a bit.
The faint sound of horning cars faded in the distance, and he felt like he was being drawn into an abyss, that was untill... The voice of two men whispered above him.
"Look, his hand."
On the back of his right hand was a medium sized circle, with a heptagram touching it's edges from within.
"Yeah... He's definitely one of them. To think we spent all this time searching, only for one of them to drop right at our feet."
"It's already progressed that far huh?"
The boy raised his head weakly, and his blurry vision caught a glance of two tall men in sleek black suits standing right above him, but it was difficult to make out what they were saying.
"Time is no longer on our side anymore, the solstice is almost here, and the mark of the sanctuary has already started to reach it's peak stage. We need to get him back to the base, now."
The mark of the Sanctuary.
It was a phenomenon that appeared decades years ago. At first, it was an emergence that had the whole world talking, and it was made into a trend that lasted for months.
But when the people affected by this mark started disappearing globally, the governments of each nation finally panicked. And the reason for that was, after their disappearance, what was left in their place was a transdimensional gateway.
A rift.
These rifts poured out indescribable beasts and mystical creatures into their world, beasts and creatures that should have only been allowed to exist in fantastical settings.
These beasts immediately overwhelmed the military of each nation, and plunged the world into chaos.
Years ago, mankind was estimated to be around 8.30 billion in terms of population. But after the rifts arrived, that population dwindled to just 5 million in that short amount of time.
In the end, just before humanity was close to being wiped out, it was the Soul Awakeners — individuals previously marked by the sanctuary and survived, who put an end to humanity's extinction.
But by then, it was already too late.
Too many lives were lost, many casualties shook the balance of the world, and society came to loathe and despise these Soul Awakeners.
But as far as Rentaro was concerned, it was none of his business. That was until an inverted triangle appeared at the back of his hand on his 15th birthday.
It first started as an inverted triangle, but as months passed, it progressed. And now, it took took the form of a pentagram.
The day his family discovered this, they kicked him out their house, and out of their lives. They cut off all ties with him, and they wanted nothing to do with his existence.
Ever since he lived on the streets, surviving off the scraps of other's trash while constantly escaping death in the hands of those who discovered what he was.
...
After what seemed like a few minutes later, the young boy's eyes opened slowly. His blurry vision cleared up a bit, and he found himself in a small, dark room. The ceilings were heavily reinforced with titanium alloy, so were the walls that lined the room.
Five men clothed in a full tactical suit surrounded him, they all wielded automatic rifles, and the moment the boy so much as flinched, they aimed it at him without hesitation.
"What?" He tried to move his hands, but they felt heavy and held in place. He looked over his shoulder, and he found himself bounded by several large chains that held him in place on the ground.
"What is this?" He tried his best to break free from the heavy chains that restrained him, but all his efforts proved worthless.
He glanced at the five men with a grim expression. "Who are you people?"
The man in front of him shoved his foot into his mouth, then pressed his head down to the ground.
"Shut up! Who said you had the rights to ask questions you damn monster!?" The empty look in his eyes just made them even more terrified.
Then the other men pointed their rifles down at the boy, and their rifles clicked in unison.
"Now officer Kane, let's not get hasty." All eyes turned to the formidable steel door that opened, and a brown haired middle-aged man in a sleek black suit walked in. He had a stern and face, and several scars that spoke volumes about his countless battle experiences.
Officer Kane drew his foot out of his mouth, and the boy immediately spat out a tooth.
"Now then." After checking the boy's restraints, the middle-aged man glanced at the tattoo on the back of his hand.
"My name is Alister Vance, and I'm the chairman of the S.A.C." He pulled out a badge to verify his identity. "And your life is pretty much over." He said disdainfully.
"It seems what we feared the most had come to past, it has already progressed into a full star Nexus? That means we don't have time for the formalities, what's your name kid?"
The boy spat out a mouthful of blood, then he slowly glanced at the man with the same empty gaze in his eyes.
He didn't feel obliged to answer, especially not to the people who kidnapped him.
"Answer him!" Officer Kane slapped him hard across his cheeks, and the boy spat out another tooth.
"Officer Kane." Alister said firmly, and Officer Kane retracted his steps and stayed in line with the other men, pointing his rifle at the boy.
"We're trying to help you kid, the solstice is almost upon us, so I'll appreciate it if you cooperate with us. Otherwise I don't know how much longer I'll be able to control my men."
The boy slowly glanced at the five men, and their eyes suggested they all waited for one thing — the order to pull the trigger.
He sighed, then reluctantly replied. "Rentaro."
"Good. Where is your family? Why aren't they here yet?"
"I have no family. At least not one that's coming from me while I'm still alive."
For a second, the man's face darkened, then his expression changed immediately. It was the worst case scenario that they all wished would never come to past.
It wasn't a problem if the bearer of the mark of the sanctuary came from a wealthy and influential family, but it became a great security risk when it the bearer was an average person.
Kids from rich families got the best training. They learned from famous fighting instructors and practiced cultivation methods that had been handed down for generations. This made their bodies strong and sturdy, capable enough to survive the harsh conditions of the sanctuary.
Basically, the power of money increased one's chances of surviving the sanctuary, and if they are lucky enough — emerge as a Soul Awakener.
The middle-aged man shifted his sleeves and quickly glanced at his watch. "It's 21:40, which means the solstice is almost here..." His expression changed completely.
His neutral, indomitable demeanor disappeared, and he looked even more concerned than the men that aimed their rifles at Rentaro.
"We don't have a lot of time left kid, what do you know about the sanctuary?"
"What else is there to know? Anyone who bears the mark of the sanctuary will be transported into it once the solstice arrives, and their lives are over."
"I'm not talking about the basic stuff about the summoning trial or any other crap you see in the shows, what do you actually know?"
Rentaro remained silent, only staring hard at Alister with an empty expression.
Alister sighed, then he said. "Listen kid, once the solstice starts you will be transported into the sanctuary, and you will see things that you never thought possible. But you will also see people in there, other humans who were unfortunate to also be marked by the sanctuary."
Almost immediately, the atmosphere in the room slowly began to change. The air felt heavier, as if something unseen had settled over it.
The dangling lights above dimmed just a little, and a quiet tension crept in, pressing against the walls. Even the smallest sounds seemed louder, sharper, as though the room itself was waiting for something to happen.
Then, an indescribable pain washed over Rentaro as the chains tightened around him. It wasn't just his body that suffered, every nerve cell in him screamed at once, as if the pain was crawling beneath his skin.
His muscles locked, his breath hitched, and a deep, burning ache spread through him like fire.
Thankfully, the chains held him in place, but the agony surged again and again, leaving him trembling and gritting his teeth with no escape.
Alister could feel it in the air, the heavy, suffocating presence that plagued the earth yearly, and there was no questioning it.
The solstice had arrived.
"There's no time again, so listen carefully, there's no such thing as luck inside the sanctuary. It is an unforgiving dimension where survival highly depends on your skills, generally all those marked by the sanctuary have been given a crash survival course, have been trained by renowned fighting instructors and acquired the skills to manage themselves in the sanctuary. But people like you are a different story, that's why the S.A.C actively... Hunts for people like you before the solstice arrives. But it's too late."
The searing pain that coursed through his cells made it harder for him to follow in Alister's warning, but he understood one thing.
"If by some magical chance you manage to survive, you will obtain abilities that will help you through the course of your journey, and if you are lucky, you will be granted abilities from the start. But if you fail and die, you'll just end up becoming a nuisance that me and my team will have to deal it, and humanity has no way to defend against those atrocities. So please... Try not to die, use your street survival skills to the best of your abilities. Good luck, Rentaro."
"If I do survive... And manage to come back here." He said with ragged breaths, then raised his head slowly to Alister. "I promise, I will be the one to kill you..."
He turned to Officer Kane, and he flinched immediately, strengthening his grip on his automatic rifle.
"Then you next."
He understood that Officer Kane, Alister Vance, and all the other men in the room wanted him dead.
No, it's safe to say that they tried to kill him, but because the Solstice was already close, it was advised not to.
If a Soul Awakener is killed during the Solstice, or even close to the arrival of the Solstice, his corpse automatically transforms into a rift which was the casualty they wanted to prevent.
Then in that moment, everything faded away slowly.
And in that split second, a mechanical chime spoke.
[Synchronizing....]
[You have been registered as Creator 401.]
[You are being transported into the first sanctuary...]