Chapter 1 - Levi Larson, A Blind Child in A World Ruled By Darkness.
"I CAN'T SEE!!"
"My Eyes!!! MY EYES!!!"
"MOMMY!! MOMMY!!"
Inside a half-destroyed living room, a little child was seen sitting on his knees, screaming at the top of his lungs. He had his hands grasping tightly into his face, which was covered in blood, seeping from his eye sockets...
He seemed to be in so much pain, the only thing he could do was wail until his breaths became rugged and short.
His reaction was understandable as his eyes had just gotten ripped out of their sockets by a tall man with a dignified stoic expression.
He was dangling them from his hand like he was holding onto a piece of fruit.
Although he was wearing a black suit with a white shirt and a blue tie, not a single drop of blood tainted its fabric. On the other hand, his white-gloved hands had turned crimson, dripping with blood on the wooden floor, drop by drop...
This was the result of the massacre he committed in the living room.
Besides the wailing child, two bloodied corpses were seen lying a few meters away from Levi...Their bodies were mangled beyond recognition, filled with massive bite marks, leaving torn flesh all over the place.
Yet, both corpses had their hands stretched toward the little boy, leaving a scene of two parents desiring to protect their child, but falling hopelessly to their mortality...
"Silence him, but leave him alive...It won't take long before he becomes a Sleepwalker." The tall man ordered expressionlessly.
In an instant, a shadowy figure appeared right behind the child and landed a straight chop on his neck, silencing his whimpers...Then, he waved his hand once in front of Levi's empty bloodied sockets and they were sealed shut.
All of this happened in less than a second.
Thud!
As Levi's face landed on the wooden floor, feeling his blood running cold and his consciousness fading away, a single image surfaced in the darkness filling his mind...Two nightmarish creatures walking away from him, one bigger and scarier than the other.
Seemingly sensing being seen somehow, the bigger monster turned his head around and smiled devilishly.
His smile was so sinister, it started to get bigger, and closer until...
Beep! Beep! Beep!...
The irritating sound of the alarm engulfed Levi's mind, collapsing the entire nightmare and forcing him to sit up straight with a shaken visage.
As drops of sweat flowed down his forehead, Levi didn't even bother to clean them. He held his beating heart and kept his head lowered as he tried to regulate his breathing, taking deep breaths with pauses in between.
The moment his agitated heartbeats died down, Levi said expressionlessly, "The same nightmare again...You guys are losing your touch."
"Tsk, the rumors were true, you are a tough nut to crack, boy."
Suddenly, four monstrous creatures appeared around Levi, leaving a few meters of distance between each other.
It was like he was at the center of pitch-black darkness and the only thing he could perceive were those nightmarish creatures.
If someone else was in the same room, he would see nothing but Levi, sitting on his bed, murmuring under his breath like a crazy person.
Levi turned his head to face the one speaking, and then said calmly, "I will say the same thing I said to the ones before you...If you want to sign a contract with me, then it has to be through official channels."
"Official channels? Do you mean you want to become a Daywalker through me? You? A crippled useless blind! Ha, hahaha! You guys never told me he was such a jokester."
The nightcrawler laughed, his gaping maw widening immensely, exposing a throat filled to the brim with shark-like teeth.
"What can I say, it was funny at the beginning, but now, it's just getting sad."
The other nightcrawler, who resembled a floating skinless golden fish, could only shake its head in annoyance.
It knew that Levi wasn't joking and if one of them were to suggest commencing with the Daywalker contract, he wouldn't hesitate to accept it in a heartbeat.
But, that's the thing...
"I would rather choose an old man with one step in the grave before I link my legacy with a worthless cripple like you." The first nightcrawler sneered coldly, "A human with no eyes desiring to become a Daywalker, truly, the joke of the century."
As the last sentence resonated deeply in Levi's mind, the nightcrawler turned around and left, no longer having interest in tormenting him.
"Let's get out of here, Ash'Kral will be here soon."
The rest of the nightcrawlers went away too, knowing that Levi's house was a hanging spot for quite a powerful nightcrawler in this area.
"Your loss."
After they left, Levi didn't seem too bothered by their words.
He reached out with his hand to the right nightstand and opened the first drawer after a couple of attempts. Then, he picked a small key that was placed in the rightmost corner, seemingly marking it there.
After picking it up, he sat down on the side of the bed and lifted his trousers, exposing two metallic cuffs tightened around his ankles.
The cuffs were connected with two small chains, which were linked to the wall.
He reached down and entered the key in both holes, freeing his legs at last. As he gently massaged his ankles, Levi sighed after touching a black monitor that was secured tightly on his right ankle.
Mettalic cuffs and an ankle monitor, such extreme measures might seem bizarre, but in the case of Levi, they were a must to ensure the safety of the people close to him.
After the Great Fall of Civilization a hundred years ago under the invasion of the Nightcrawlers from the Shadow Dimension; blind individuals, traumatized victims, mentally unstable people, and such, all became considered a national threat to the safety of the citizens.
All due to the Nightcrawlers' ability to invade people's dreams if their minds were spiritually linked to the Shadow Dimension.
The way to link it was quite simple, they had to be exposed to pitch-black darkness for more than two hours straight...In other words, they had to be asleep, completely blind, or willingly close their eyes for a long time to establish the link.
Thus, anyone with a high index of mental instability under the new rigid laws was forced to wear this ankle monitor to keep them within the confines of their designated Holy Regions.
It helped the governments get instant location details if they ended up getting manipulated or seduced by a Nightcrawler to sign a contract that would give away their bodies for a price.
In the case of Levi, he was just shown a nightmare by those nightcrawlers of the worst memory of his entire life...The memory of his parents getting slaughtered and having his eyes ripped out of their sockets.
Such a traumatic experience was all the fuel the Nightcrawlers needed to attempt and seduce Levi to sign his life away, for the price of getting his revenge...
Since he was completely blind, linking him permanently to the Shadow dimension, he was under their constant harassment daily for the past decade.
Unfortunately, hundreds if not thousands of nightcrawlers had given it their best, but not a single one of them managed to break Levi's mental defenses and get the best of him.
It wasn't because his mental fortitude was indestructible, he simply was wise enough to understand that signing such a contract would never get him the answers he wanted, his family's retribution, and his sight back...
Of course, there were bound to be some close calls, but still, he pushed through.
If he knew those nightcrawlers had it in them, he would have signed those horrible contracts in a heartbeat even if it meant becoming a Sleepwalker running amoak.
Unbothered by the familiar crowd of distant nightcrawlers roaming in the infinite darkness, Levi picked a small device that resembled a silver hearing aid piece on top of the nightstand.
This was NeuraLens, the most used device across the globe in all Holy Regions due to possessing all the qualities of a smartphone and the ability to produce holograms.
Usually, it came in pairs; an earpiece, and a thin contact lens made out of hydrogels placed on a single cornea.
The earpiece was the main device and was connected to the contact lens, allowing the user to tap into the services of a personal Astra AI assistant and the ability to create tiny holograms that only he could see unless he wanted to expand them.
Unfortunately, Levi could only rely on AI services through sound.
After picking it up, he wore it on his right ear, hiding it under his messy curly black hair...With a single press of a small button at its side, a feminine robotic voice resounded in his ear.
"Welcome back, Sir Levi. What can I help you with?"
"Please enlighten me with today's news in Tamara's settlement." Levi requested politely as he started walking towards the bathroom, keeping his hand affixed to the nearest wall to him.
Although he could use the NeuraLens Ai to guide him to the bathroom, Levi preferred doing it on his own by counting his steps.
He only relied on the device's services in unfamiliar places so that he wouldn't be always reliant on it for every simple task.
"In Tamara's settlement: The Sunstrike Agency has succeeded in its twentieth major expedition, conquering a Shadow Castle and reclaiming more than fifteen kilometers of surface area."
"Interesting, they succeeded in less than three days." Levi smiled a little in awe, "As expected of a tier 5 agency with a 97% clearing rate...They don't mess about in their expeditions."
One of Levi's biggest dreams was to join the ranks of a high-tiered Daywalker agency and also be part of the expeditions to reclaim their planet from the infestation of the Nightcrawlers.
He knew that besides saving his planet; if he were to succeed in joining those agencies, finding out the truth about what happened a decade ago would be much easier.
That's because those high-ranked agencies might be private, but they had significant authority in their respective holy regions.
Alas, just as Levi started daydreaming of such a bright future, a low-pitched snicker suddenly assaulted him from the rear.
"Boy, remove that foolish smile of yours, it ain't happening, not today, not tomorrow, not ever."
Without needing to turn, Levi knew that it was Ash'Kral speaking, one of the few nightcrawlers, who had spent years hanging around him.
Seeing that Levi continued wiping his face with a towel, not bothering to address his snarky remark, Ash'Kral moved in front of him, edging closer to his face.
"Boy, haven't I warned you not to ignore me?"
Levi slowly lifted his head and gazed directly into Ash'Kral's massive singular eye that was dominating the center of his head.
The eye glowed deep crimson and had a resonating slit pupil that seemed to ripple like liquid fire, creating a bizarre hypnotic effect.
There were cracks in its leathery ash-gray skin around the sunken eye, making his head resemble a deep volcanic crater on the verge of eruption.
He had three worn skin-like wings that extended asymmetrically from his thin body.
With his veined greyish skin that clung tightly to his skeletal frame, it made him resemble a fiendish nightmare that would make any child faint at first sight. Even Levi had taken more than a year before finally getting used to his terrifying appearence.
This was quite telling, as he had seen tens of thousands of nightcrawlers in the past decade; Some were terrifying, some were mystique, some were taking beautiful humanoid forms, and some were even cute.
Yet, Ash'Kral was still one of the few ones giving him the creeps every time he saw him. It wasn't just his appearence, his entire atmosphere screamed of sinisterness.
Still, after spending years in each other's company, some familiarity was bound to be born.
"Ash'Kral, will there ever be a day, where you will stop hating?" Levi sighed exasperatedly as he started brushing his teeth.
The moment he said this, the ominous mood collapsed immediately as Ash'Kral let out a faint chuckle, "Is it hating when it's fact?"
Levi paused to bubble the toothpaste foam in his mouth before spitting it in the sink. Then, he wiped his lips and said calmly, "It will be a fact when I fail."
"Truly, your delusion never ceases to amaze me."
Ash'Kral floated on his back while resting his head on his long gruesome claws...Then, he threw a question at Levi, a question that always seemed to shatter Levi's dreams.
"You have yet to tell me how are you supposed to become a Daywalker and absorb light when you are lacking the most important organ to make it happen."
With a cruel smile, Ash'Kral pointed at Levi's eyes.
"..." Levi went silent in front of the mirror.
He knew there was a mirror there...He knew that his reflection was gazing back at him, showing him an image of a teenage boy with a sharp jawline, fair skin, messy wet curly black hair reaching down his neck, and most notably, two hideous scorched scars in place of his eyes...
Levi reached out with his hand underneath his wet hair and gently caressed the scars with a soft smile playing on his thin lips.
Then, he uttered softly, "I know that in this era, light is worshiped and darkness is avoided...I know that everyone thinks of me as a walking time bomb, capable of turning into a sleepwalker and causing havoc at any moment...I understand that without my eyes, I can't grow as fast as the others, and my chances to sign a daywalker contract with a nightcrawler is slim to none, I understand all of this."
With the same smile, he turned to Ash'Kral and said, "You think I am delusional, but I am simply trying to make the best of my unfortunate situation, nothing more, nothing less..."
After hearing this, Ash'Kral neither mocked Levi nor teased him if even by a little. Instead, his eye gleamed for a split second.
But soon, the look disappeared and Ash'Kral chuckled, "Boy, for a child of your age, your maturity always freaks me."
"I know, I am a genius, you should strike the iron while it's hot and sign a contract with me."
"You wish."
"Tsk, useless." Levi clicked his tongue and went to the kitchen to prepare his breakfast, uncaring about Ash'Kral's chuckles in the background.