The air in the canteen crackled, thick with tension, heavy like a brewing storm. Every breath was weighted, every eye fixed on the unfolding violence. Peter's face, twisted in a cruel sneer, radiated fury.
"Enough? If it was enough, he'd be on the ground, not throwing lunch boxes at me!"
His shout was followed by a brutal kick, aimed directly at John's stomach.
John didn't flinch.
He couldn't.
Already weakened, already broken, his body gave out. He crumpled, slamming hard into the cold corner wall. There was a sickening crack—bone or concrete, no one could tell—and then blood bloomed across his temple like a cruel flower.
A gasp swept through the canteen. Finally, a flicker of empathy rose among the crowd—hesitant students shifted in their seats, caught between shock and duty. Someone whispered:
"We should tell a teacher… his blood is flowing too fast."
But no one moved.
Fear gripped them tighter than any sense of justice. The Black God Team had seen to that.
Peter stood like a wall at the exit, eyes daring anyone to challenge him. The air itself seemed to retreat around him. Then came Steve, rising from his seat, the true predator among them. His gaze swept the room, voice low and venomous.
"Do you also want to be victims of our anger?"
Silence.
"Go outside. Quietly. If anyone speaks… if anyone goes to the hospital, or the hostel to help him…"
"You'll lie next to him."
His words were soft. Measured. Deadly.
The cafeteria emptied like water through a broken dam. No one met John's gaze. No one looked back. Even the birds in the rafters fell silent.
And so, John lay alone.
Time slowed. An hour passed. Maybe more.
The blood didn't stop.
His fingers pressed against the gash on his temple, the cotton of his shirt soaked deep crimson. Every breath became a battle. His vision blurred, his body growing colder.
But in the void of his pain, something stirred.
A desperate will. A refusal to die like this.
With the last reserves of his strength, he stood—unsteady, shivering, teeth gritted in defiance. The hallway spun as he staggered forward. Step by step. Toward the one place in the school that still had light, still held hope: the infirmary.
His hands trembled as he reached the door.
Knock.
Then he pushed it open—
—and the world went dark.
Meanwhile…
Far below the school, past layers of concrete, steel, and secrecy, a vast, humming research lab glowed with sterile light. The silence was heavy, sacred. A body lay motionless on the operating table, surrounded by figures in white coats.
Doctor James Will adjusted his gloves, his face tight with skepticism. He eyed the glowing object behind the glass chamber—a stone pulsing faintly, like a heart.
"Do you really think this will work?" he asked.
Doctor Luna didn't flinch. Her eyes were focused, her voice quiet and unwavering.
"Doctor James, you know how long we've worked for this moment. Eight years. The Divine Stone… this is our last shot."
They both remembered the day clearly.
Eight years ago, the skies over their city split open. An asteroid, burning like a fallen star, crashed into the lower-class district—their district, where the weak were forgotten, where John had lived.
In the chaos that followed—explosions, fires, screams—they found something strange buried deep within the crater.
The Stone.
It defied explanation. It absorbed light. It pulsed with a rhythm that felt eerily alive. The scientists soon realized that it could do more than power machines or mutate cells.
It could bring back the dead.
For four long years, they studied it. Experimented. Sacrificed. Two more years were spent crafting a stable resurrection chamber. Countless test subjects had been used—none had survived the full process.
But this time… this subject was different.
Luna's eyes lingered on the lifeless body before her. She knew what this meant—for the city, for the world, and for him.
"We named this mission the Divine Stone," she whispered. "Because this is how humanity becomes gods."
James glanced at her sideways.
"Or devils."
Their conversation was cut short as Thomas, the young intern overseeing the machine's energy grid, stepped forward.
"We're ready," he announced.
Luna exhaled slowly. Her hand hovered over the activation panel.
"We can't fail this time," she said. Not to James. Not to the room.
Not to herself.
With a single motion, she pressed her palm against the console. The room filled with a blinding white light as the Divine Stone awakened.
Somewhere, high above the facility, in the infirmary of a school built on ancient secrets and modern cruelty…
John's body twitched.