1% Lifesteal

There were numerous theories, though. Given that computers, and perhaps more notably, old weapons, no longer worked, some speculated that whoever was the creator of the interspace, if such a being existed, deliberately tweaked reality to ensure that newly integrated species didn\'t attain any undue advantages. If humanity still had access to the horrible weapons of mass destruction they once had, they would be akin to an invasive species being let loose into the interspace.

Despite even reality itself working against them, humans were a special kind of stubborn. Indeed, even with it being torn out of their grasp, as time passed, more and more of the old was being recreated anew.

Freddy pondered this as he boarded the bus. He was at a station in Imperta, starting his journey to Nova York.

The bus was a gray vehicle that appeared nearly precisely the same as the vehicles of the old he had seen in a local museum. All except for the wheels. While those of old were designed to be small and elegant, those on the bus before him were gigantic. Spanning over two meters in diameter, they were polished smooth, so much so that he could see his reflection within as he moved in the line of people.

Eventually, he stepped inside, leaving the humbuzz of the streets behind as he boarded the vehicle. It was cramped, and people rushed to take the best spots. He slowly made his journey toward the back.

On his way there, he spotted numerous empty seats. And he took none of them. This was his first time on a bus, and finding a place to sit was surprisingly challenging.

He walked past a cute girl who was sitting alone with an open seat beside her. The thought of sitting beside her never even crossed his mind, as her sharp glare made it evident that she had no desire to sit next to him. There was a moment of temptation where he wanted to sit there just to spite her, but spending a week next to a stranger who wasn\'t comfortable being next to you would get old fast.

A similar thing happened with an older woman, and he walked past a stinky old man that he himself didn\'t want to sit next to. He glanced at the back of the bus, where he spotted a door. For a moment, he thought that might be the entrance to a VIP compartment or the toilet, but as it opened, a… stewardess walked out. Not only that, but he could also smell food. Huh. A kitchen? On a bus? The woman was carrying drinks, pushing past him as he continued his trek. This was one fancy bus.

Eventually, as he reached the back of the bus, he spotted a completely empty seat. As he approached, however, he realized that the spot wasn\'t entirely unoccupied. There was a massive suitcase on it.

He looked around, spotting nobody who rushed to declare it their own. Then, without any hesitation, he picked it up and put it in the middle of the row.

"Hey!" the deep voice of a man called.

Freddy turned to face the bulky figure sitting on the seat behind the one he was trying to occupy.

"That\'s my suitcase!" the man declared.

"Good for you," he replied.

But the man grabbed the suitcase again and threw it back on the seat.

Just as Freddy was about to remove it again, the man yelled, "Don\'t you dare touch it, punk! They ran out of storage, and I had to buy a second ticket to carry the case with me!"

"Fair enough," he said, grabbing the case again. "But how about you put it here instead?" Freddy said as he pushed it on the seat beside the man, which was entirely empty. "There you go. That\'s two tickets, no?" he asked sarcastically.

Ignoring the man\'s protests, he sat down.

The man got up and put his suitcase on the seat next to him. "I dare you to move it," the annoying prick said.

He could tell exactly where this was going. Either he backed down, or things would escalate. The wise thing to do would be to walk away. Trouble was unwelcome. He could cool this guy down easily, but that would be troublesome if the authorities got involved. On the other hand, he really didn\'t want to be the one who backed down.

For a brief moment, he caught a few troubled glances coming his way, and a thought crossed his mind. He subdued the smirk threatening to quirk up on his lip as he opened his mouth and screamed. "Help! This maniac is attacking me!"

"You motherfucker!" the man spluttered incredulously. "You\'d better shut the fuck up or—"

"Help!" he kept yelling. "Please, help me!" he screamed with such conviction that the entire bus was getting on their feet and turning in their direction.

And, of course, what they saw was the bulky man making threatening gestures at poor old Freddy.

Minutes later, the man was out on the streets, his seven suitcases beside him.

He cheerfully waved at the fuming brute and started his journey in a smug, self-satisfied silence.

***

There was no immediate overt destruction when the Earth was first integrated into the interspace. No great beasts came pouring out and wrecking the landscape. In reality, there were very few passages in the beginning, and most of them went to relatively safe realms.

But there was no need for outside influence. The civility of old had been founded on the luxuries provided by technology. As soon as the comfort was taken away, so did the civility vanish. In a matter of days, roving gangs of raiders were looting stores and breaking into houses. Early manifestations of primes started happening, and numerous people acquired magical superpowers overnight.

Guns no longer work, they thought. I can bring ten men to their knees with my bare fists. It was a thought countless ambitious individuals had. So they used that power, marking the start of a world-spanning civil war with casualties that put even ancient Chinese conflicts to shame.

It took a long time for the population to recover from the turbulent period, but once it did, it ballooned.

In no small part, the massive increase in available real estate and resources was to thank for this. Sure, the interspace was a great source of both, but things were dangerous there, and that limited the possible size of settlements. It also made life harsh for those who weren\'t archhumans.

What truly made the population boom was something else entirely—the changes that the Earth itself had gone through.

While, geographically speaking, the overall layout of the continents was almost the same, the planet\'s total surface area was over ten times greater than before the Rift. Yet, strangely enough, the gravity didn\'t change. It was consistent throughout the entire interspace, which baffled the scholars dealing with the subject.

As the bus went from one stop to another, slowly inching out of Imperta, thankfully, Freddy was left alone in his seat. He lamented not having Magic Before Ether with him. That was his favorite book, and he really wanted the comfort of having it in his hands yet again.

He was tired. A bone-deep fatigue had settled in his body, and it refused to go away. It wasn\'t a physical exhaustion, either. He was healthy, and he had slept enough.

No, his fatigue was a psychological one.

He had finally reached safety after so long. His instincts demanded that it was time to rest.

The massive buildings of Imperta were left behind as the bus finally escaped into the wilderness. It had been driving at a sedate pace, as he presumed buses usually did.

Then once it hit the open road, it sped up. A lot. He let out an embarrassing yelp of surprise as the bus kept accelerating far above what he expected it to. The trees to the side of the road became a blur, and a sharp turn appeared, but the bus kept its speed up, turning in a gut-churning move that left him holding on for dear life.

Through whatever ethertech bullshit, the vehicle had managed to keep its wheels clamped firmly on the road.

As he got used to it, however, the anxiety swiftly turned to a childish excitement that cast the tired fog away. He knew the world was a massive place, but he hadn\'t realized just how far Nova York was. The bus trip would last for over a week. Given how fast they were going, that suddenly made the sense of scale sink in. The most fascinating part was that he was relatively close to Nova York. Just how far away was the rest of the world?

He had to be honest. When the ride started, he felt pretty depressed. Pittersville was close, and he couldn\'t risk going there, but still, even with that fact, leaving it behind was… well, it was too easy. After twenty-one years of living there, he had built so little for himself that he could simply go away without leaving anything of consequence behind. Sure, there was Mark, whom he would like to contact one day again, but that was it.

No family, no friends, no lovers. No career, no property, no… nothing.

The bus eventually drove out of the forest. Outside, vast verdant plains of wild pastures appeared, grass stretching to every horizon. The soft clouds tickled the cyan gradient of the heavens, and the silhouettes of distant mountains scattered the far ends of what he could see.

The sight left him breathless. It was as if his heart was being gently held up by hopeful, kind, ethereal hands.

If… if he did have something to leave behind… what would he have wanted it to be? He wondered.

What did he want to build at the place where he would go? Who did he want to become?

He examined his desires and pondered the next step in his life. If he was being honest, he wasn\'t the family type. Even though his parents\' absence had left an aching hole in his heart, he never truly cared much for family or relatives. Getting a wife and settling down just wasn\'t something he wanted to do.

He wanted to make some friends. He wanted to get filthy fucking rich. Have adventures, make a name for himself, get strong—strong enough that no Madame or Janhalar could drag him by the nose and dictate his life for him. And he wanted to have fun.

His mind flashed back to that night when Madame forced him to attend that party. Gritting his teeth, he lightly slammed his head against the seat.

"Fuck, man…" he whispered under his breath.

The feeling of having a girl on each side, loud music filling his ears, alcohol flowing down his throat, and just that feeling of importance. Shit. That was good. He wanted more of that.

Not even the fact that he had been kidnapped during the party was enough to ruin his memory of it.

The trip continued. Eventually, the sun set and the night arrived. He slept through it, only to wake up to violent rain and thunder. The gloomy, oppressive feeling invaded his bones again. It did so every time it rained. But this time, it felt weaker. Perhaps it was the bus\' AC, but it might have just been that he had changed. He became less soft.

The food served on the bus was no luxury cuisine, but it was plentiful. For breakfast, he had fried eggs and rice; for lunch, it was mashed potato and stew; and for dinner, he had plain chicken and rather depressed-looking veggies, showing tell-ale signs of having been frozen for a long time.

The road took him down many plains, through massive forests, and up into sky-scraping mountains. There, he saw the collection of massive floating islands he had heard about once and witnessed the waterfall that flowed out of a passage high in the sky. The passage itself was above the clouds, so it looked as if the heavens themselves were crying a river.

The giant kelpen falcons, with their striking greens and blues, soared the skies, casting their predatory gaze down upon the land in search of prey. One flew directly over the bus, and he felt his nuts climb back into his body from the scare that gave him. Those things were even bigger from up close; the wing span enveloped the whole bus in its shadow.

Each day that passed, he witnessed more fascinating sights: ruins of old-world settlements, streams of floating rocks ascending into the sky, and rivers that spanned the horizon in both width and length.

They passed by the active volcano on Mt. Ussusurus during the night, an awe-inspiring mountain that reached mind-bogglingly high into the air. The fire raging within and the lava flowing down its sides lit up the night sky in its searing hues, and the flowing magma that cooled solidified into massive fiery avalanches that sparked down the mountainside. He could see the faint shapes of the buildings of the Leffen clan lining the sides of the titanic sight, the home of famed fire-affinity archhumans.

Each sight left him with an aching desire to come closer, see the peaks, dive to the bottoms, and put his damn hand into the lava.

He wanted to ride on a giant falcon\'s back and swing from one floating island to another.

Just as he felt that he could ride like this forever, the immense outline of a city with a gray-tinted haze hanging above it appeared, the man-made settlement kissing both ends of where New Earth met the sky.

Nova York.

In another six hours, they would arrive at their destination.

***

Mark strode down the stone hallway, anxiety filling his every step. Brown, runic patterns drawn in dried blood were scattered all along the walls to his side, and the metallic tang was deeply unpleasant.

Every so often, a Kraven Clansman would walk by him. Most treated his existence with the same indifference with which they treated empty air, but some raised an eyebrow at his presence.

Eventually, he reached the end of the hallway. As he did, he gulped. A few minutes ago, he was invited to the patriarch\'s quarters. This was his first time meeting the Kraven patriarch, and he could feel sweat dripping down his back.

Steeling himself, he approached the massive stone door with the drawing of a poshly dressed man on it and lightly knocked. The door crawled open slowly, screeching all the while. Given how smoothly and quickly other doors operated in this building, he knew this was by design. Still, it did its job, adding to the drama of the whole thing and heightening his anxiety.

As the doors reached the height of his eyes, he spotted a figure dressed in red robes sitting at the large desk. A mere moment later, he saw the face, too, but as he did, he frowned. "Nahar?" he asked his direct superior.

Instead of who he had expected to see, the young master, or rather, Janhalar\'s son, a crimson-haired man he regularly worked with, was the one who greeted him. His snarky attitude and playful nature were nowhere to be seen, however, and even the sunglasses he wore practically everywhere were gone. Mark shivered under the direct gaze of the man\'s blood-red eyes. Whatever was happening was serious.

"Sit down," Nahar commanded.

"Yes… sir," Mark complied as he strode forward.

The office was precisely what one would expect. Cold, dry, and dark. The desk was the only thing made from wood, and even that was a deathly pale material that burned with a sinister gloom.

The moment he sat down on the surprisingly comfortable stone chair, the door behind him slammed shut with a loud bang. He winced.

They sat there silently, and Mark could feel the quiet but seething disturbance within Nahar.

"I\'ll be direct," Nahar said, glaring at him. "What you\'re about to hear isn\'t public news and hopefully won\'t be for a while," he declared, sharpening his gaze. "My father is dead."

Mark\'s eyes shot open. "What?"

Nahar nodded. "Yeah." He clicked his tongue and pinched his brows. "I always knew my pops was an airhead, but this…" he said with a sigh. "This really sucks."

He gaped. "Don\'t tell me you\'re—"

"Yup," the man confirmed with a nod. "I\'m the new patriarch."

"But you\'re—" he started, but—

"Yes, I\'m a three-star arch," Nahar confirmed. "Hell, I\'m not even thirty yet." He sighed again. "Frankly, I was hoping to never become the patriarch. Technically, I wasn\'t supposed to. My father hadn\'t been grooming me to become one," he said, smiling bitterly. "But at the moment, there is nobody more qualified. I invited you here to offer you a promotion. Well, you keep the same job, but you know what that means."

"That\'s," he started but hesitated. "Is there nobody more qualified?"

"There are many old farts in this clan that could replace you if you refuse, but I wouldn\'t be a fan of that," he admitted plainly. "All of them are just power-hungry bastards looking to improve their standing in the clan."

A storm of emotions was brewing in Mark\'s heart. This was big news. Terrible and life-changing—the exact type of news he never wanted to hear.

Nahar, as usual, could read right through him and noticed his concerns immediately. "Yeah, I\'m gonna be honest with you; my offer is far from a dream promotion at a time like this," he said while getting out of his chair to walk around. "Without a four-star, our influence will drop rapidly, and tough times will be waiting ahead.

"The empress luckily offers two years of protection to any clan that loses their head like this, but that doesn\'t change the fact that we\'ll have to give up a lot of power. By the time these two years are up… the Kraven Clan will be a pale shadow of what it is now."

Rather than say anything, Mark turned his gaze to the ground. Sweat trickled down his sideburns, and he could feel his pulse in the back of his head. Why now? Why again!?

"Will my…?" he started, afraid to ask the question.

"If you stay by my side, your sister will still have a place in the academy. Don\'t worry," the young master eased his fears.

That answered his question, but the sigh of relief was still stuck halfway up his throat. How good of a thing was that, really? Working to keep things together in an establishment that was falling apart was no easy task. And as a mere two-star, his safety was far from assured as long as he held a position of any importance.

This wasn\'t a choice he could make lightly. On the one hand, he would do anything for his family\'s safety and his sister\'s future. On the other hand… dying wouldn\'t secure either of those two things.

"I want to give you time to think about it, but I can\'t afford that," Nahar said bluntly. "I know this is an awful thing to do to you, but you need to make your decision now. Things are already moving, and—"

Three loud knocks interrupted his words. Nahar\'s expression immediately became stormy. Indeed, anyone who dared appear unannounced at the patriarch\'s office was unwelcome for one reason or another. But Nahar had no choice but to let them in.

The doors slid open slowly, revealing a figure wearing a pearly white suit. The stone rose above the man\'s chest and revealed his face. He was extremely attractive, with sharp, appealing features. Both his eyes and hair were a stark black, so dark they appeared to absorb all the light in the surroundings.

The man strode into the room with the confidence of a king, and Nahar looked extremely pale.

Mark recognized this person, but he couldn\'t quite tell from where. He knew he didn\'t know him personally, so he had perhaps—

His thoughts froze, and a giant lump appeared in his throat. He knew who this was.

It was Harold Maskart.

A man also known as Basilisk