A villain's secret

Chapter 1: Survivor

After the first ring came the second ring which was made up of four towns. Being so close to the farm lands the second ring was generally well taken care of. The majority of residents in the second ring's towns were soldiers and their families. A perk of being a royal's dog, you got a nice kennel. The houses were tightly packed but every home and street was clean and well lit with electricity. Most people lived and worked in the numerous shops that lined the main streets. They traded the goods from the first ring and some shops even provided training for people to become skilled in different crafts in hopes of moving to the stalls in the first ring towns. But everything had a price and education was more expensive then most reaper bounties.

Nox had heard stories of reapers spending all their wealth just to be taught how to read and write their own name. And reapers could make a lot of money if they were good at what they did.

The last two rings of the kingdom; the third and fourth ring, were the worst place you could end up. The third ring was nothing more then a shithole. There were eight towns in the third ring, each town worse then the one before. The buildings barely standing, rubble and mud making up the street floor. There were bars and taverns everywhere, sending streams of drunkards and sleezy men into the streets at all times of the day and night. Disease plagued every filth ridden home. Most houses there didn't have the luxury of running water, forcing the people to leave the safety of their home to find wells that were shared by thousands of others. Some had to travel days to get to the dirty water source only to wait in line for days and die of thirst before reaching the well metres in front of them. It was the breeding ground for all things rotten. The rare visits of traders who dared to pass through the gates of the third ring with goods and supplies were the only source of food these people had. Your only hope was to be employed by a tavern or brothel owner.

The final ring of the kingdom was the largest, sectioned into ten towns. It was the graveyard for the entire kingdom. Ruins of old stone houses remained as the only shelter for the damned that lived there. People who were so diseased or close to death were cast out into the fourth ring. Orphans with no hope abandoned by their relatives at the giant iron gates. Corpses piled high from 100ft holes in the ground drowning in bloodied water. The living that were forced to endure life in the fourth ring had only the pooled water at the bottom of the graves to drink and food was anything they could find. But even the unfortunate residents of that cesspit weren't free from their life bounty. Reapers were sent to kill and extract the life energy from even the forgotten souls.

The life energy of a person was very valuable, it powered the electricity of the kingdom, fertilised fields for the best crops, fused with diamonds to make them glow, crafted into the strongest weapons. The amount of life energy a person had depended entirely on their souls structure as well as the strength of their will.

Nox remembered the first time he'd seen an extraction. He was still training to be a reaper and his small eight year old frame stood over a dead elderly man he had just poisoned. Nox's teacher lounged against a wall his arms crossed against his massive chest.

"Put on the gloves and hold your hand above his heart, then do exactly as I showed you before." His cold grumbling voice echoed over the stone walls as Nox did as he was told. The glove crackled with a kind of electricity as a flash of sea blue jumped from the man's body onto the glove. Nox pressed his gloved hand against a small smooth black stone he kept in his pocket. It flowed into the rock, that same blue lighting up the surface showing the transfer was completed.

When Nox grew up he discovered his ability. A simple ability that allowed him to manipulate his energy. Over the years his powers had evolved and grew, allowing him to change his energy into a shield or enhance every throw of his fist or cut through metal with the flick of his finger. Another advantage was he could extract and manipulate the life energy of a newly dead person. And to Nox's lazy delight he didn't need to use the bulky gloves that reaper's wore to extract the life energy from someone.