From Outcast to Legend: Thiago's Rise

Chapter 2

The words hit harder than any weapon. Thiago felt his entire world collapse.

"No..." His lips trembled. "You're lying."

Leandro smirked. “We’ve been together for years. The timing just worked in our favor.”

Everything shattered inside Thiago. Every sacrifice. Every injury. Every moment of survival—done for a family that was never his!

At that moment, the zombies reached him.

Hands grabbed his body, and teeth tore into his flesh. Pain exploded through him as blood mixed with the filthy water. But the betrayal hurt more than anything physical.

Then pure fury erupted within him, and despite being an ordinary human without powers, his rage unleashed monstrous strength.

“AAAAAHHHH!”

His roar echoed across the flooded wasteland as he violently smashed the zombies away, cracking bones and sending bodies flying.

Still enduring their bites and grip, he tore them off himself and turned his gaze toward the tower above, locking onto Vespera and Leandro—the adulterous pair who had stolen years of his life.

Even if he had to die... He would drag them to hell with him!

He surged upward, grabbing the hanging basket rope and pulling himself onto it as it swung violently above the water. Blood poured from his wounds, but he climbed anyway, driven purely by fury.

Above, Vespera’s calm broke for the first time. “Leandro!”

Leandro only chuckled. Scissors appeared in his hand.

He snapped them shut once.

Then cut the rope.

The thick cable severed instantly, then the basket dropped.

Thiago’s eyes widened. “NO!”

He fell through the air, slamming into the water with bone-jarring impact.

Before he could recover, the zombies swarmed again. Dozens of rotting hands dragged him under, tearing him deeper into the flood. His screams faded as the water closed over him.

Vespera stood there beside Leandro, looking down at him as if he were nothing more than debris in the water. Just then, Leandro raised a hand slightly, almost in a polite gesture.

“Thiago,” he called out.

His voice carried an irritating calmness.

“I must thank you.”

Thiago’s eyes widened slightly, even as a zombie tore into his arm. Thank him?

Leandro smiled.

“Without you, things would’ve been much harder.”

Thiago frowned. “What…?”

Leandro lifted his hand. On his finger was a worn ring. It was Thiago’s ring. The family heirloom he had worn since before the apocalypse. The one Vespera had taken from him during the early chaos, claiming it would be “kept safe.”

Leandro turned it slowly in the light.

“This little thing,” he said with a widening smile, “turned out to be quite extraordinary. I dropped blood on it during an injury, and that’s when it awakened.”

“It’s a hidden storage artifact with a four-cubic-meter space—enough to store food, weapons, medicine, water… everything needed to survive the early apocalypse.”

He smirked.

“While everyone else was starving, I stockpiled resources. I recruited survivors, built influence, and gathered awakened fighters.”

Thiago’s breathing hitched. The world seemed to tilt as his mind struggled to process it.

“No…” he whispered hoarsely.

Leandro chuckled softly.

“Oh yes.”

His eyes gleamed with quiet satisfaction.

“And eventually… I became the leader of this group.”

Thiago finally understood. The way Leandro always had supplies when others didn’t, the way his authority grew so quickly, and the way capable fighters flocked to him, hadn’t been talent or luck. It had been Thiago’s stolen legacy!

A low, broken sound escaped Thiago’s throat. Something between a laugh and a sob. So that was it. He hadn’t just been used. He had been harvested. He was a walking resource farm for another man’s rise.

His vision darkened at the edges, as rage surged again, but only despair remained beneath it.

Vespera leaned forward slightly with her expression full of mockery.

“Pathetic,” she sneered. “You carried a treasure and never even realized it.”

She smirked. “It belongs with someone worthy, not a fool like you. You deserved to lose it. You're nothing but a waste.”

Each word struck like a blow in Thiago's chest.

Thiago’s body spasmed as another wave of zombies bit into him. His strength was completely gone now. He could barely lift his arms. The water around him turned dark with blood.

The tower above seemed distant now, like a fading memory as the thought formed slowly in his mind.

"If I live again… If I get another chance…"

His fingers twitched weakly as the zombies pulled him deeper.

"I will make sure none of them escape."

The last thing he saw was the tower window closing slightly, sealing away the people who had destroyed him. Then the floodwater engulfed him entirely, and his eyelids fell shut as death claimed him.