SOVEREIGN OF BLOOD: The Emperor's Debt System

Jakarta never truly sleeps. But that night, the city was forced awake into a nightmare that transcended the limits of human sanity. At 9:00 PM WIB, the megapolitan’s heart was still beating at full throttle.

Horns blared along Sudirman, and the neon lights of skyscrapers reflected off asphalt still damp from the afternoon rain. However, the usually stifling, humid air suddenly plummeted in temperature. An unnatural chill swept through the streets, freezing breath into vapor and leaving the sensation of ice needles pricking the skin.

Inside a TransJakarta bus trapped in the gridlock of Bundaran HI, Satria, a 22-year-old man with dark circles under his hollow eyes, stared blankly out the window. He had just finished a twelve hour overtime shift as a logistics courier. His mind was fixed on only one thing, reaching the restaurant near Grand Indonesia on time.

Today was the 12th birthday of Maya, his younger sister. His father and mother were already waiting there, bringing the chocolate cake Maya loved, bought with the remains of last month’s savings.

Then, the sky of Jakarta split open.

It wasn't torn by the lightning or the thunder that usually accompanied a tropical storm, but by a streak of golden light so pure and blinding it caused momentary blindness to anyone who looked up. The atmosphere seemed to rip apart, revealing another dimension behind the veil of the black night.

A moment later, the sound came.

It was the sound of a trumpet. But to call it merely a 'sound' was an insult. It was a primordial frequency, heavy, majestic, and laden with an authority that shook the very foundations of the earth. The sound wave was so powerful that Satria could feel his internal organs vibrating.

In a single strike of that sound wave, the glass windows of office buildings along Sudirman shattered into millions of pieces, raining down on the streets like deadly crystal shards. The buildings, symbols of economic progress, swayed violently before collapsing like sandcastles crushed by the foot of an invisible giant.

"What is that...?" Satria whispered hoarsely. His voice was drowned out by a high, pitched ringing that tortured his ears. A warm, thick liquid flowed from his ear canals, blood. Around him, bus passengers began to scream, but their cries went unheard, smothered by the massive thuds of destruction.

The light from the gaping rift did not fade. Instead, that was where they descended. Thousands of creatures that appeared as beautiful as they were lethal swarmed the earth. They possessed wings made of pure light, meters wide, flapping with a terrifying grace. Their armor was pristine white, reflecting a blinding golden shimmer. Yet, the most horrifying part was their faces. Flat, perfect, devoid of pores, and stripped of any human expression. Their eyes were nothing but pits of white light radiating a profound emptiness.

The people on the street, initially paralyzed by awe, began to realize the bitter reality as these "angels" brandished spears of light. Without warning, without negotiation, they began to harvest.

"Run, Satria! Don't just stand there!"

His father’s voice broke Satria’s trance. He jerked awake. Somehow, in the midst of the chaos, his family had managed to reach the stalled bus. His father, a man with thinning grey hair, was pounding on the jammed bus door. Behind him, his mother was clutching Maya, who was shaking uncontrollably.

Before Satria could respond, a blast of energy from the sky struck the front of the bus.

The force tossed the twelve ton bus like an empty tin can. Satria’s body was hurled upward, slamming against the ceiling before crashing down onto a pile of wrecked seats. His vision spun; the metallic scent of blood and the acrid stench of burning wires filled his senses.

Satria crawled out through a shattered window, his lungs constricted by concrete dust and smoke. In front of him, the Jakarta skyline had transformed into an artistic hellscape. Asphalt was cracked, cars were piled high, and bodies lay strewn about without any obvious physical wounds.

A winged creature, a Heavenly Vanguard, landed with the grace of a dancer on the cracked asphalt, just a few meters from Satria. The creature raised a hand encased in golden metal. Instantly, Satria’s father, who was trying to pull Maya from the rubble, was lifted into the air by an invisible force.

"Dad!" Satria screamed, his voice raw. He tried to stand, but an agonizing pain shot through his leg. His right leg was pinned under a twisted piece of the bus's steel frame.

The angel made no sound. With one small flick of its finger, his father’s body suddenly went rigid. Within seconds, the old man’s body exploded. But there was no spray of blood. His body dissolved into billions of bright gold dust particles, a pure essence that was then sucked into the palm of the creature's hand.

They were not killing to exterminate, they were harvesting souls as a commodity.

His mother shrieked a cry of suffering that transcended the limits of human sound before suffering the exact same fate. In the blink of an eye, the two people Satria loved most were gone, reduced to mere fuel for the light of these celestial beings.

"Nooooo!" Satria roared, his hands clawing at the asphalt until his nails snapped. Despair choked his throat.

Now, only Maya remained. His little sister huddled in the corner of a collapsed building pillar. Her large eyes, usually full of joy, were now wide with pure terror. She stared at her brother, her lips trembling as she mouthed his name silently.

The angel began to step toward Maya. The tip of its light spear hissed as it touched the cold air, leaving a trail of heat on the asphalt. To that creature, Maya was not a child with a right to a future; she was simply a "fruit" ripe for the picking.

At that moment, something inside Satria snapped. Something once called humanity, innocence, and fear evaporated, burned away by an absolute hatred boiling in every cell of his body. If God sent angels to destroy his family, then Satria no longer had any need for God.

"DON’T TOUCH MY SISTER, YOU BASTARD!"

With an impossible strength, a strength born of madness, Satria wrenched his pinned leg free. He didn't care as he felt muscle and skin tear away, leaving chunks of his flesh in the iron grip of the bus. He lunged at the creature with bare hands, abandoning the logic that a mere human could never win against a celestial entity.

Satria swung a punch at the creature’s armor. The sound was like a fist hitting solid steel. Not a scratch. The angel didn't even look at him. To that sublime being, Satria was nothing more than an ant trying to stop the wheel of a divine chariot.

With one casual sweep of its wing, a massive wave of air pressure was created. Satria was sent flying dozens of meters, his body slamming into a concrete pillar with a force that shattered his ribs. He lay on the ground, coughing up clumps of black blood. His vision began to blur, leaving only a golden silhouette in the distance.

There, he saw Maya enveloped in the same golden light. His sister was no longer screaming. She simply looked at Satria with tears flowing one last time before her small body disintegrated into golden dust, sucked dry by the harvester until nothing remained.

Satria’s world truly collapsed. There were no more laws, no more future, no more birthdays. All that remained was a gaping black hole in his chest a void demanding vengeance.

The Heavenly Vanguard finally turned toward Satria, as if only just realizing there was a pest still twitching amidst the rubble. The creature drifted closer, its feet never touching the filthy ground. It raised its spear of light high, preparing to end the suffering of this final "vermin."

Thwack!

The spear was not aimed at his head, but driven straight through Satria’s left chest, pinning his body to the cold Jakarta asphalt. The pain was so intense it surpassed human sensory limits, turning into a deadly sensation of cold. Satria spat out thick, fresh blood. Blood that flowed heavily and seeped into the cracks of the asphalt.

As his consciousness began to fade and darkness crept into the edges of his vision, Satria felt something impossible.

His blood, flowing into the cracks of the road, did not stop there. It flowed deep underground, piercing through layers of concrete, water pipes, and down into the deepest foundations of the burning city. His blood seemed to be a key, or perhaps a promise, that unlocked an ancient gate that had been sealed for millions of years beneath the earth's crust.

Thump-thump... Thump-thump...

A massive heartbeat, far too large to be human, echoed inside Satria’s head. The sound was so loud it drowned out the screams of the people above and the trumpets from the sky.

From the darkness below, a gravelly voice filled with ancient malice whispered into the remnants of Satria’s consciousness,

"Do you wish to pay them back, boy?"

Satria could no longer speak, but within his shattered heart, he had only one answer. An answer that would change the fate of humanity forever.