rise of a monster

In a place alive with twinkling lights and pulsating music and beats.

People drank and danced without a care in the world.

meanwhile, in a corner, several young women surrounded a handsome man with long, luscious black hair and sharp facial features.

"Have a sip from my cup senpai" one girl said with red flushed cheeks and drowsy eyes.

All of them looked heavily intoxicated while the man still had clear eyes suggesting he was still out of the influence of alcohol.

Another of the girls stroked her delicate finger across the man's face seductively, "how are you shoo handsome" her voice wobbled.

"If you are not interested senpai, then hook me up with a handsome friend of yours. I am quite fine with that too,"

The man smiled, "My lil bro might please your taste. Not sure about his taste though," his face turned sour remembering something, "he isn't normal too..." he whispered to himself.

On the other side of the city, in heavy traffic, multiple cars and vehicles made a usual jam.

In one of the cars sat a young man around the age of 20 his face resembled a certain handsome man but his physique wasn't as muscular even so he had impeccable cold eyes.

He glanced at his parents who sat in front of his seat in a relaxed position after returning from a global medical conference.

As the traffic opened a bit, the car entered a narrower road.

However, as the car moved the young man felt his chest heat up while his senses heightened, a rather peculiar thing out of ordinary.

His gaze shifted to look around and saw a truck speedily approaching their car, instinctually without a second of delay he pressed his legs onto the door where the crash would happen.

A heavy crash and a loud thud noise followed by screeching metal noise.

When he came to consciousness, his eyes were blurry while he hung upside down. Blood dripped from his head as he saw his parents in even worse condition than him before his consciousness faded again.

Several days later when his eyes opened he was lying in a hospital bed with heavy plastered bandages on both his legs.

A young girl sat next to him as she stared at him with curiosity.

She had jet-black hair and green eyes, an unusually rare shade. She wore an attire similar to a patient's, while it looked far dirtier than what hospital staff might overlook.

She had a strange pureness in her it felt unreal as even her skin seemed to have a faint glow.

'A mental patient maybe?' he thought as there were no other possibilities that came to his mind.

"Who are you?" he asked with a nonchalant tone. 

she asked with gleaming eyes looking more curious than before, "How are you so calm? Why are you so different?"

He squinted his eyes with a frown as she didn't answer while going as far as asking him questions.

"And what does that even mean?" he asked in annoyance.

"I mean, the people who were able to see me were usually dull and close to death while you look like you are gushing with life and absorbing the surrounding reiki"

He stared the girl deep in the eyes before ringing the bell near his bed.

When a nurse came he stared at her and then looked at the girl as he stared back at the nurse.

He again made a frown as he saw the nurse oblivious to the girl's existence, "I want to talk to my family" he said to the nurse.

The nurse rushed to call the doctors as the patient woke up from a coma that had lasted for several days.

"He looked at the girl distinctly. "You are dead! Arent you!?"

The girl nodded her head several times with a big smile.

'Now that I look at her, she is hovering in the air,'

"I am a bit curious now, what do you mean that I am absorbing surrounding reiki?" He kept his cool as if it was not anything out of line.

The girl tilted her head slightly while feeling perplexed, "If you have not been doing it, then it might be an involuntary action of your soul. It means that you are absorbing life force from the surroundings to keep your body in better shape."

In the next several days, he had multiple body examinations, and he came to know that he was the only one who survived the car crash.

He questioned himself multiple times, 'Could have I done something back then to save Mom and Dad?' though every time the answer was the same.

In those days he often talked to the ghost girl to understand his current body.

A young man sat in front of the bed peeling apple slices one by one and keeping them in the tray in perfect order.

The man wore blue formal attire with a suit of top with his black long hair tied in a ponytail.

"Mom and Dad have left us with an equal share in the company, and today I participated in a board meeting to discuss the company's future plans," he said as he peeled another slice and placed the knife down on the tray. "They also want to hear your opinion on the matter, since you hold almost one-fourth of the company's shares," he added plainly, though the sadness of their loss was evident on his face.

"My opinion? Take my voting rights in the board temporarily till I am well enough. would like to focus on healing myself before anything"

Yang Kai narrowed his eyes, "Do you have anything you would like to talk about jun?"

"Not at the moment" Even after losing his parents his cold temperament didn't change, his eyes still cold and unsympathetic.

"If you got nothing. Then I will take my leave for the day," Kai said as he rose from the stool.

"Actually, before you go. I need two favors from you," Jun said with a smile that he showed only when he wanted something from others, while it wasn't something new for Kai, it still felt strange.

"..." 

Not too long after Kai climbed on the same stool and unscrewed the ventilation duct, "Have you been smoking weed or something? Anyway, how did you even manage to hide something this high with your broken legs?" Kai feeling perplexed reached his hand in the ventilation duct as his hand touched a ringed object.

"Is this what you want?" Kai asked intriguingly.

Far second Jun's pupils moved to the side to look at the ghost girl nodding, after which he nodded to Kai.

Kai tossed the ring to Jun and jumped back on the ground.

"What's the other one?" Kai asked.

"Nothing too much just put me in the wheelchair," Jun said as he wore the ring on his hand.

Kai didn't have any difficulty picking and placing Jun in the wheelchair with his physique as he effortlessly did the deed and left the room after giving a good look at his younger brother.

'I have my doubts that it wasn't an accident, but he doesn't need to know that,' Jun thought as he saw Kai leave.

"Ghost girl, where are the spirits you were talking about?" jun asked adjusting to the chair.

"Yin mei! that's my name," she said with a heartwarming smile exuding an otherworldly charm unseen in the mortal world.

"Sure, now lead the way"

From time to time, Yin Mei found herself pondering over who among the two of them was more human, and her answer often surprised her as it was not Jun most of the time. The only other time when Yin Mei felt that Jun was more human than her was when he was kind and friendly to people only when he needed something from them.

In the days he talked to Yin Mei, he understood that his body could absorb life force from the surroundings to heal himself, while the life force was too thin in the surroundings to make any noticeable change in the short run. Any source of life force could do the same for him.

Spirits were fundamentally the remaining life force of the living before they passed the bridge of life and death.

"Even though spirits might be the least conspicuous source you can consume, they still have a higher resistance than the living." Yin Mie explained.

Jun followed the ghost girl into an elevator and rode it to one of the upper floors. This floor was currently empty, as it was only used during times of epidemic emergencies. Previously, the floor had been filled with countless spirits and souls at the end of a particular epidemic. However, after a thorough cleaning, priests were called in to perform a cleansing ritual that exorcised most of the lingering souls. Those that remained had more than just lingering attachments.

The spirits Jun witnessed on that floor had a blurry vague figure opposite to Yin Mei who had such a defined structure of the human body that it could lie to one's eyes.

With cold eyes, jun stretched his hand and widened his palm as light surged inside the palm with the spirit in front there was close to no resistance from the spirit he felt.

Yin Mei's eyes widened as she saw the scene unfold in front of her eyes, 'he just learned about reiki a few days ago… how in the hell is his proficiency in elder stages,' she felt an awkward shiver throughout her ghost body.

If she had a physical body, she would have been gulping saliva constantly in fear while sweating buckets. fortunately, that wasn't the case.

As the life force coursed through Jun's body, he felt exuberant and full of vitality. He checked his condition and noticed that he could move his ankle more freely than before.

'Am I raising a monster to help myself out of this situation?' Yin Mei thought as she saw a malevolent smile on Jun's face.

"I just wanted to let you know that what you've done is worse than murder. When someone is murdered, they lose their body, but when someone is devoured, there's no chance for reincarnation," Yin Mei explained with an awkward smile.

"I will think about it after finding the truth about my parent's death," instead of feeling any regrets he felt a sense of freedom.