Chapter 2: Ash’Kral

However, just as Levi opened the fridge, his ears twitched, picking up on the thundering noise of footsteps coming from the direction of the apartment's front door. Recognizing the owner of those footsteps, Levi could only sigh and close the fridge. Knock Knock! "Big bro! I am coming in!" Before the burly, unpolished voice could finish echoing in the apartment, the front door was already opened widely, exposing a hunk of a man, 6,6 inches tall, and built like a walking tank! Although his size wasn't really the biggest out there, he was still a universal wonder as he was merely sixteen years old! A year younger than Levi, yet looking like a divorced middle-aged man with a white wife-beater tank top on, tightened black shorts, and a pair of plastic slippers. His age wouldn't be questionable if it weren't for the hint of pure innocence on his face, three precise hair strands on his chin, and his lustrous dark ponytail. He was holding a grocery bag filled to the brim with protein-related ingredients in one hand, and in the other, he was carrying a black gym bag. Since the apartment was merely slightly bigger than a studio, Arthur saw Levi standing in front of the fridge the moment the door was unlocked. Immediately, his eyes lit up. "Big bro, cooking breakfast for us?" Arthur grinned widely as he put a heavy emphasis on 'us'. "I am fasting today." Levi walked away from the kitchen, instantly losing his appetite. He went to the closet and put on his training shorts. "Tsk, you don't have to act like this, I have already eaten on the way, I just wanted something light." Arthur looked upset as he closed the door and went to the kitchen, placing the groceries on the counter. "Light, yea right." Levi's eyebrows twitched under his thick curly hair. While he knew his little brother was a genetic anomaly to reach this size and build this kind of muscle without being a daywalker, it came at the price of him needing to eat ten times the average daily. In other words, if Levi were to make breakfast, he would be cooking for the next hour to help him hit his morning protein target. "Ahh, I even bought you some SR pills, you can't even cook breakfast for your little brother...How sad." Arthur sighed loudly to fish for sympathy while pulling a small orange bottle. Then, he threw it in Levi's direction. "To your right, catch." Levi's ear twitched, and in an instant, his hand flashed, catching the bottle with uncanny precision. Yet, neither Levi nor Arthur showed much of a reaction to this incredible scene. "I checked our balance sheet last night, we have just enough to last until the end of the month before we receive the monthly welfare check." Levi asked sternly as he tapped his finger on the bottle, "How did you afford an entire bottle?" "I did some coaching at the gym to a weird rich girl," Arthur replied casually while emptying the grocery bag. It was filled with ground beef, chicken breasts, salmon, bananas, yogurt, eggs, rice, and some vegetables...The only snack was a package of sugar-free biscuits. "Weird? How so?" Levi raised an eyebrow, knowing that his brother was always the weird one in any room. For him to call someone else weird was quite intriguing. "She is bald." "..." Levi went silent for a moment. Sensing that he was being judged, Arthur chuckled and said, "She isn't sick or anything, she is bald by choice and keeps telling everyone to refer to her as Monk Jojo." "Monk Jojo...What's a monk?" Levi tilted his head in confusion. "Who knows?" Arthur shrugged while cracking eight eggs into a massive cup, "I rarely associate myself with her; she always makes a scene in the gym with her peculiar exercises." "I see," Levi smiled faintly while putting a training pad in the center of the living room, "If the money is good, who cares?" "Preach, she paid me one thousand lumen credits for a single one-hour session." Arthur snickered, "What a fool, I would have done it for one hundred to get in an extra training hour." "One thousand? Not bad." Levi was quite satisfied with the payment as he knew that one thousand lumen credits were enough to pamper themselves until the end of the month. Although he wasn't eating as heavily as his brother, he was also training with calisthenics and on a healthy protein-based diet. In this era, natural food was quite expensive primarily due to the great fall of civilization and the nightcrawlers' insatiable hunger to feed on natural light from any source. It didn't matter if they were plants, animals, or humans...Any living being capable of absorbing direct sunlight was in the crosshairs of nightcrawlers. Nightcrawlers fed and evolved on this type of light, but ironically, they could not absorb it directly as the sunlight was able to burn their skin off during first contact. While humans could not store and transform light into energy as plants do through photosynthesis, nightcrawlers still primarily targeted them. It was for a simple reason...They could possess their bodies through a Sleepwalker contract, bestowing them the ability to expose themselves directly to sunlight without needing protection from the Shadow dimension! Fortunately, for a nightcrawler to transform into a Sleepwalker, they could not force the host into signing any bullshit contract. That's why they wait until humans sleep and invade their dreams, seeking to manipulate and seduce them to sign the contract. "Here, I only need a couple of pills to earn me some extra hours for training." As Levi sat on the training pad, he poured five pills into his palm and threw the bottle back to his brother, knowing his location through sound. Arthur caught the bottle and started gazing at his brother in silence, taking in the sight of him dropping to the ground and hitting push-ups with immaculate form. Levi was wearing only a pair of shorts, exposing his fine-attuned body, which would make any other man absolutely jealous. If Arthur was considered a pure bodybuilder, then Levi could be called an aesthetic athlete. But, Arthur wasn't relishing his big brother's physique, but the three clawed scars on his back. As he stared at his brother's scars, his heart couldn't help but feel heavy. Levi paused mid-set and without lifting his head, he said calmly, "Your heartbeats have slowed down...Haven't I told you to stop feeling guilty over something you weren't responsible for?" "I know, but it still doesn't make me feel less shitty." Arthur smiled bitterly. During that horrible night, Arthur was left with his uncle in the capital city of the Holy Heliodor Region. Meanwhile, Levi accompanied his parents to Tamara's settlement as his father had a business venture that would have substantially helped grow his Nightwere company. While it was fortunate that Arthur wasn't with them, it crushed him every single day to know that he wasn't there for his brother, for his parents... Although he knew he was merely six years old at the time and could do nothing but be added to the victims' list, it still didn't alleviate his guilty conscience. "Well, feel shitty somewhere else, you are interrupting my workout," Levi shooed him away with one hand and continued doing his push-ups single-handedly. "Harsh as always, big bro." Arthur picked up their breakfast and placed them on the table next to Levi. Then, he sat down and sighed. "Why are you so stubborn? I told you just to live peacefully, you don't have to force yourself to avenge our family." He narrowed his eyes coldly, "I will handle it on my own and will make sure to retrieve your vision back regardless of the cost." Levi froze in his position while in the middle of a one-arm push-up. Then, he slowly raised his head, his hair covering his scorched marks, and uttered expressionlessly, "I lost my peace ten years ago." As he was saying this, the scene before him reflected more than six new nightcrawlers crowding the entire house, each of them gazing at him akin to a fresh meal. They had been talking and bothering him ever since his brother arrived, but he had already mastered the art of zoning out their voices. "..." Arthur went silent for a moment, knowing that no one truly could understand what his brother was going through daily. It was a miracle he hadn't already lost his sanity living such a life. Arthur understood that everyone in the world could see nightcrawlers. All they needed to do was keep their eyes closed for more than two hours, exposing themselves to pitch-black darkness. This was the reason humans created a drug called Sleep Replacement Pills/Drops. Once taken, the consumer would enter a short period of hibernation that lasted for less than two hours. Yet, when he woke up, he would possess the energy of someone who had slept for more than six hours. However, such pills were made out of ingredients harvested from a specific species of nightcrawlers' blood and other natural dimensional materials. Thus, they weren't available for everyone at all times, as the only ones capable of harvesting and collecting those materials were Daywalkers. In simpler words, sleeping every single day was exclusive for Daywalkers and the rich, as those pills were more precious than gold in this chaotic era. "How many?" Arthur asked coldly. "Six." "Gotchu." Without question asked, Arthur closed his eyes and started eating his breakfast, desiring to connect his spirit to the Shadow dimension and join his brother and the nightcrawlers crowding their home. "No need, I am planning to head out after an hour." Levi stopped him with a faint smile, knowing that his brother always had his back. "You sure? I just want to give them a piece of my mind." Arthur cracked his knuckles. "They aren't worth anyone's time. If they had anything better to do, they wouldn't be here." Levi replied calmly as he gazed directly into six floating nightcrawlers surrounding him. 'Talking crap about us to your brother again?' One of the nightcrawlers smiled sinisterly while facing Levi. Just like how humans couldn't see nightcrawlers unless they established a spiritual link with the Shadow dimension, the nightcrawlers also couldn't see or hear humans. They had to emerge physically into the world, and the only way to gain such access was through either Stygian Gates or establishing a contract with humans. Before Levi could reply, another nightcrawler shaped like a rotten eggplant with thousands of worms biting into its surface jumped in and said menacingly, "Boy, don't mistake our inaction for weakness." "Am I wrong? You being here instead of pledging your allegiance to any Nightcrawlers' Nest makes you nothing but jobless bums." Levi fired back, unbothered. "Hahaha, he got you there." Ash'Kral's amused chuckle echoed from a distance. Heated, the nightcrawlers all glanced in the direction of Ash'Kral, watching him lie on his side while scratching his buttcheeks with his ominous claws, not even looking in their direction. The eggplant nightcrawler floated in the direction of Ash'Kral until he was merely two meters away from him. Then, he uttered with a murderous grimace, "Aren't you laughing a bit too much?" Ash'Kral's chuckles died off slowly until silence invaded the spiritual bridge of darkness. The veteran nightcrawlers, who were used to hanging out around Levi and Ash'Kral, didn't bother to educate their newest member about the hierarchy in this space. Seeing that no one spoke after him and they merely kept looking at him akin to a dead man walking, the Eggplant nightcrawlers sensed that something was wrong. "Bastard, look at me when I talk to you." Yet, he doubled down, knowing that he couldn't be harmed in the spiritual bridge of darkness. After all, his physical body was in a different location in the Shadow dimension and he was here purely through spirit just like Levi. It was like Earth and the Shadow dimension were two physical planes while the bridge of darkness was a spiritual plane connecting them through darkness. 'How impolite of me.' Ash'Kral slowly turned his head until his massive dreadful crimson eye faced the eggplant nightcrawler. The moment the eggplant nightcrawler looked at Ash'Kral's sinister eye, he heard his voice whispering near his ear. "Can you handle it though?" "Aaaa, AAAA, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" In an instant, the eggplant nightcrawler fell on his back and let out the most ear-screeching wail he could muster. Even the thousands of worms came out of his surface and crawled away from him like he was infected with the black plague! 'PLEAAASE!! PLEAAASE!! MAKE IT STOP!!!' 'Hmmm? I don't understand?' Ash'Kral tilted his head in confusion while still staring at him. 'I thought you wanted me to look at you?' 'MERCY!! MEEERCY!!!' The Eggplant nightcrawler screamed for a few more seconds before finally caving in, to whatever agony he was put in... Levi and the other nightcrawlers could only watch in silence as the eggplant nightcrawler faded into nothingness. As Ash'Kral's gleaming crimson eye snapped at them, no one dared to share eye contact with him. Even Levi kept his head lowered, continuing with his push-ups like the whole situation didn't involve him. "That's what I thought." Seeing this, Ash'Kral returned to his relaxation session...