Pendants. Stainless pendants held by a long and thin line of chain dangled from the ceiling. It was Hayazaki's only view after the man who stood before him had given him a heavy blow. 

The pendants shimmered above. They took in the blue light that came out of the crevice in the plastered ceiling and refracted the light amongst themselves in what resulted to resembling a multicolored symphony. 

Hayazaki brought out the Axis terminal in his vision. Being a kind of nerd he was able to discern that not only was he transported to another world or universe, but that the Axis terminal gave him the information he needed to survive in this world. 

Fully certain that he can probe the terminal with a mental command, he asked the terminal if he could slow down time to browse through the windows in its system. Everything around him came to a halt. The man attacking him, the swinging pendants and their dancing lights. 

AXIS: TIME TEMPORABILITY GRANTED. CAN ONLY BE USED WHEN BROWSING TERMINAL.

"so that means that I can only stop time to browse the terminal" Hayazaki thought as his body was suspended in the chair tilt. 

"Good enough" He browsed the terminal on his information. He found out that the name of the body he inhabited was called Filis. There was no last name as street-children as they are called in this world, did not have last names. He did get something of a title. Filis the Ratcatcher. He got the name from his time hunting rats during the time a plague descended upon the eastern ramparts of the city. 

Filis was also a Malara. In the world of Svethlaad, races did not develop out of a biological evolutionary progression but instead they evolved from cancerous growth that had simmered in the long sickened population for centuries. 

These cancerous cells grew as a defense mechanism against the constant sickness that plagued the residents of the great city. Sicknesses like the Purple lung. Some of the cells triggered biological changes in the body in order to help them deal with the illnesses but they ended up encoding these changes in their genomes. 

And thus subraces like the Pathos, Zelion and Malara were created. The Malara especially were known for having poisonous spit and blood that was extremely purple and extremely deadly. A bite from one of them could kill. Poisons barely worked on them, and pathogens and bacteria did not really die in their body but were instead used by the body for protection. 

They were called the sick race or purple teeth and people treated them with contempt. 

The man who was decking Hayazaki or the body he inhabited, was called Slasher. An unoriginal nickname. But something that was common among the Street-Children, after they gained a little bit of notoriety, was discarding their birth name and adopting a new one more in line with their curated identity. 

And Slasher's curated identity was one that was easy to figure out. He robbed people. Usually he has his team, of which Filis the body Hayazaki inhabited was a part of, do the robbing but when he robbed people he liked to tear a smile on their face. 

His criminality was peculiar because of the cruelty at the end of it. Most robbers wanted to act fast so as not to be seen and caught but Slasher liked the terror that came with his crime. When he shook you down of all your personal belongings, he would take your face in his hand and with the other carve a smile on your face. 

That way you left happy. He had a way of leaving lots of people happy. His criminal enterprise was a bit more complicated and sophisticated than the usual street robbery that most of his peers partook in. 

Slasher liked to profit from the cracks in the system, which meant that he used spies and assassins and cursed arcane powers to build his wealth. 

Filis was just one of those people. Filis was weak, which was the most prominent drawback of his subrace, so he could not go dungeon raiding like the rest of the subraces but he could make a very potent poison from the excretions of his body and that proved to be very useful to Slasher. 

Just before the great raid had happened, Filis stole money from Slasher to use and buy weapons and armor so that he could participate in the great raid. The thief thought that the worst case scenario of dying in the dungeon was much better than dying by Slasher or the Authority, 

Alas, he was dead but his body was host to Hayazaki somehow so Hayazaki blitzed through the terminal hoping to find something he could use to his advantage.

First, Hayazaki needed some information from the Axis Terminal that could help him survive in this strange, sickly world. He knew that the Axis would not put them without giving them some tools for their survival. 

He wished that he could actually speak to the Axis entity and get a comprehensive rundown of their mission in this world but, browsing through the terminal, there was already a wealth of information available of what they could and couldn't do. 

The information about the Arcane Ash specifically was interesting. Arcane Ash, ususally gotten from the ashen remains of a burnt corpse, helped heal ailments in this world, it was also used for cleaning nearly everything, from soiled clothes to sewages, it could purify and most importantly, for some people with impressive lung capacities-it granted them arcane powers if they smoke it. 

The Arcane Ash was considered sacred because it was produced when a soul and a body were burnt together. The body breaks down into ash and the soul, which is a pure Spectral, imbues its essence into the broken down body, hence the Arcane Ash or as some people call it, the pure Ash.

Looking at a Terminal window that contained information on his vitals, Hayazaki saw that his body still had some Ash in his system. It was not enough to completely overpower the situation that he was in but he could use it, along with his inherited abilities, to make a grave threat. 

He unsuspended time and the chair which tilted upwards came crashing down. 

Hayazaki raised his head upwards and his swollen eye landed on Slasher. Slasher had a smile on his face. A real smile. Not the crooked scar that lent him a permanent smirk. He prepared his hand for another attack, wrapping it in a cloth before landing a blow because even someone like him was cautious of touching a Malara.

However before he could set in the attack, Hayazaki warned, "That's not a wise thing to do boss!" in the weasel tone of the body he inhabited. 

"Oh yeah and why is that" Slasher asked him. 

Hayazaki opened his mouth, blaring his locked in black teeth and a purple smoke oozing out. 

"Baumer!" Slasher screamed for one of his goons as he jumped away from Hayazaki. The man was quick on his feet and the landing was silent. The goon he called out activated his prosthetic defibrillator and the thing pulsed out a white spark. The other goon pointed the nozzle of his injector at Hayazaki.

"Didn't know you had the balls in you Ratcatcher" Slasher screamed out from behind his men, "smart move angling for a quick death".

"I won't be so sure about that Slasher" Hayazaki retorted. "I've got gas in me all swelled up. One push and I'll pop and it will send some nasty poison exploding everywhere". 

For the first time the face of the underground boss soured. The fact that someone so powerful could be put in the predicament of danger and none other by a Malara certainly ticked him off. 

"Since when'd ya learn to pull a thing like that huh, You're bullshitting" Slasher called out. And he had a point, normally Filis the person whose body Hayazaki existed in, was a low level Malara, a small and sneaky man whose abilities was not much to sing about. 

But the Axis system had given Hayazaki some upgrade, and even gave him along with his friends, the ability to level up his Arcane powers, something that was not available to the people of this world. And so, filling his body with large poisonous gas enough to take out an entire building, was something that was certainly within his capabilities. 

"You wanna try me" Hayazaki said, as his eyes bulged a purple and red hue and leaked, dark streaks. His skin turned darker and his veins were displayed prominently on its surface. 

He looked deviously monstrous. He looked like he could blow up at anytime. 

"How about we forget all this Slasher", Hayazaki said. "Call it an occupational mishap. Lets be co workers again".

"Who knew the Ratcatcher had tricks hidden up his arse" said Slasher. He called down his men with a wave of his hands and they dropped their weapons, although they kept on their guard.  "I see death has given you a chip, kid".

"Lets say we got on to the wrong foot" Slasher said as he undid the ropes that bound Hayazaki to the chair, "huh? let bygones be bygones and keep the work going". Slasher stretched out his hand. 

Hayazaki took it. "Much obliged boss". The he was pulled. He was pulled close enough that he could feel Slasher's breath on his neck. 

"I will work you to the bone, dog" Slasher threatened in a low, sullen voice. "Don't think you can play with me however, I only let you live because you could be of much use to me", he poked at Hayazaki's skin and purple blood oozed out, the he scooped a bit with his finger and licked it, "poison don't bother me much" he said, "if it did, I wouldn't be called Slasher. I'd be called dead. So don't get your head to far up yer arse".

"I'm gonna work you hard" he continued, "put you down in the dungeon and make you burn pits. I remember you didn't like the dungeons much. You begged me not to work you there but I'll put you there you here. You fucking parasite". 

And with that he left. The dungeons, Hayazaki thought, that was good. According to the Axis terminal, if he was going to level up, he needed to start hunting loose Spectrals in the dungeon. 

He decided that he was going to start levelling up, also find his friends and although this was not necessary to the mission he had in this world but after reading up on Slasher and everything he did, all the innocent people he hurt. He decided that when he was strong enough, he would kill him.