Golden blood

'What doesn't kill, makes you weirder... What makes you stronger can kill you. If it is immortal, consume it and make it a part of you.....'

Yes, these were the thoughts of a young man who was lost in them while walking down the street with no care in the world. Thoughts brought about  because of watching countless movies, gaming, and reading light novels and manga.

Some would say those are the thoughts of a madman, well, only if you think they applied in the real world, but unfortunately, the person who was lost in his head at that time was one who would argue that they applied in any world.

Well, that would bring about a whole other different conversation, which would bring about the question of if there are any other worlds in the first place.

Suffice to say, it's a conversation you could not win with him if you wanted to remain sane at the end of it. Unfortunately many had fallen headfirst into the pit of useless conversation with him that he could convince even an astronaut that the world was flat if he had his way.

"Cough, Cough!....."

He coughed as a piercing headache stopped the memory that he was heaving of himself and what he had been doing that day.

As he opened his eyes, he found himself on a floor that was white and with no roof or walls as he looked around. The floor that he was on was only a hundred meters on all sides and floating in what seemed to be.... well, he could not comprehend what he was seeing at the time.

"A universe?"

He asked out loud out of shock and because the killer headache was still persisting, making him not see as clearly as he wanted to.

After a few seconds, he stood up as his eyes finally adjusted and that was when he saw him.

A man... no, a tall, tall man standing not that far from him and looking at him with a warm smile as welcoming as the food that he had eaten that day. The best food he had eaten in his life.

The man looked like a noble from ancient Rome from the robe that he was wearing together with the look of an old gladiator that was tired of life. His eyes seemed to carry such cosmic power in them that it hurt Arkan to even glimpse at them.

As he looked at him, there was a reverence about this person but at the same time, something was wrong. That was when he finally noticed it.

The man's body, face, eyes, and ears were bleeding, and not just that, he was bleeding some kind of golden blood that emitted some kind of indescribable yearning for it like pirates that just saw the most brilliant treasure they had ever seen.

He gulped and then looked at the man again, and as he did, the memories of that day came crashing back into him. He looked at his hands, and his chest and then suddenly touched his head like he was expecting to find a hole there, but there was none.

'Blood?'

He thought to himself as he did not know what to think of everything happening to him at that moment.

"How?"

He managed to ask as the shock overcame the fear, reverences, and supernatural of what his mind was failing to compute.

"Arkan!"

Golden blood spilled out of the giant of a man's mouth as he said something for the first time, making the boy step back so as to avoid touching it.

As much as every fiber of his being wanted to touch the blood, something... something inside him was telling him not to.

The man's voice also carried with it a power that stopped the headache that had been eating away at him since he woke up.

The giant man held his mouth, trying not to spill more blood, and then pointed his finger at him. Right then and there, he was thrust back to his memories of the day's events.

As he went back to his memories, he was still walking the streets while thinking of how he would kill a wizard using only lasers shooting out of his eyes and hands.

He smiled as the wizard got his head blown off by a surprise attack as he was only fairing lasers using his fingers the whole time, only to surprise the wizard when he was face to face with him and thinking that the wizard had won only for him to shoot lasers out of his eyes and blow his head off.

To him, lasers were everything. Too bad there was no such thing as wizard and magic in his world. Fantasizing about it was the only way to escape the horrors of where he stayed.

There was something wrong as he walked through. Everyone made way for him as if he was a pit bull that no one wanted to stop and ask where the owner was, but while the man would avoid him altogether, the women would avoid him too, but could not help themselves to glance back at this pit bull wanna be.

While still thinking of many other senseless thoughts, he stopped in front of a tall building. That was not his destination though. The only reason he had stopped was that this building's glass window's reflection showed him how he currently looked as if it was more of a mirror than a window.

It showed a tall young man, 17 years old but who already looked three years older than he was. He had rough black shot hair that showed he did not look after it. He was handsome, to say the least with blue eyes and a face of a young model that never made the cut and then cursed the world for such disrespect to his manly features.

He was wearing his best clothes for the day. To him, that meant black boots, black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. You would think he was a cheap knockoff of The Man in Black from how confident he looked while wearing black.

That was not his main feature though. What made people not want to even meet his eyes and stay away from him was because of two things.

The first was because he looked like a gangster that you would see from a mile away no matter how clean, sharp and youthful he looked. He just had that air about him that was unmistakable. The air of someone who had lived a hard life and never got out from its influence.

The second was the long nasty scar that stretched from his left eyebrow, down his eye ending above his cheek.

He smiled when he looked at that scar again as to the girls, it was what made him more interesting than the other pretty boys in town. After looking at himself smile, he frowned as he remembered how he got that scar in the first place.

He was only 11 when he got it and the day he got it was the very first time he had killed someone.

He was someone from the slums and a place that was as ruthless as it was unforgiving. He never knew his parents, but he was one of the lucky ones as he got to be raised by a family member, his sister.

As rough as the times were, she was the only light in the darkness that chirped away the humanity he still had and which his sister instilled in him through the years of living together.

The day he found himself on the floor bleeding from a punch that could knock back a horse let alone an 11-year-old kid, then being slashed with a knife across his left eye when he tried to get up while a man was trying to subdue his sister and do to her something he did not understand at the time but knew it was wrong was the day the darkness finally won.

He took the kitchen knife that had fallen through the struggle and with all the strength he had, plunged it on top of the man's head who had a sadistic smile while in bliss on top of his sister.

There was another man there. When the man saw this, the laughter that he was so enthusiastically letting out with joy and entertainment instantly returned to the pits of hell back to where it belonged.

He looked at the scene like he could not believe what just happened. At that moment, sensing the hesitation and knowing that she had to do something, anything for the two of them to survive, his sister stood up and tackled the man onto the floor while with tears in her eyes looked at her little brother and yelled...

"RUN!"

For some reason, he did not hesitate. He ran for all his life.

"You bitch!"

He heard the man say and then heard a punch landing on something soft, then that something falling down again. He panicked but still ran.

"RUN!"

He heard his sister cry out one last time and managed to look back with his only good eye at that time at their poorly made house using only sticks and mud, the man at the door, and his sister holding one of his legs trying to not let the man catch him.

The last time he saw his sister was the man stomping her head into the ground, his sister all bloody and still refusing to let go as the man continued to stomp at her head, killing her as her skull cracked.

He never forgot that day and the man that killed his sister and one who has hunted him down ever since.

He shook his head trying to forget the past and focus on today.

For, today was his birthday.

He looked at himself and smiled.

"ARKAN, you son of a god and goddess, for only such can give birth to such good looks and a perfect sister who had no flaws in any way."

He said as he fixed his jacket and tried to look slick. He had booked a sit at the most expensive restaurant in town for that day as that was the day he finally turned 18 and become an adult.

The day he had told himself that he would finally turn and be the hunter rather than being hunted. It was the day he would hunt and kill the person who killed his sister so brutally all those years ago.

He turned and walked to his destination.

As if he was not unfortunate throughout his life already, he had no way of knowing the series of unfortunate events that would rain upon his life from that day on and define his life for better or worse.

Becoming the hunter of reincarnates, the bane of the world they are born in, who gain power with the help of a System or A.I and quickly gaining incredible power while having plot armor, something he always hated when reading light novels and manga.