Choking on brackish water and diesel fumes, I dragged my face out of the gutter. Mud clogged my nose and throat, tasting of copper and decay. Spluttering, I rolled onto my back, my fingers clawing at the slick, wet asphalt of a Guayaquil alleyway. Lightning cracked overhead, illuminating the rotten wooden balconies of the old city for a brief, blinding second. Thunder followed, shaking the damp ground beneath my shivering spine. My chest throbbed with a phantom agony so intense I screamed, but only a wet rattle escaped my lips. Touching my ribs, I expected to feel the jagged, hollow ruin of a hollow-point bullet. Nothing was there. My skin felt intact beneath my soaked, dirt-streaked tank top. Gasping for air, I stared up at the dark sky as the torrential tropical downpour washed the mud from my eyes. This was impossible. Just minutes ago, I had been staring into Arcael’s cold, smiling eyes while he pressed a smoking barrel against my sternum. I remembered the smell of his expensive cologne mixed with cordite. The sickening crunch of my bone shattering under his betrayal still echoed in my ears. Slowly, I pushed myself up to a sitting position, my knees shaking like weak reeds. Looking down at my hands, I saw they were younger, missing the deep, jagged scar on my left wrist that I had gotten during the dock heist last winter. My breath caught in my throat. Squinting through the sheets of rain, I spotted a discarded newspaper plastered against a rusted metal dumpster. Stepping closer, I ripped the soggy paper from the metal. A smeared date on the front page stared back at me, blurred but legible: October 14, 2005. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped beast. This was the night before. Tomorrow was the day they planned to lure me to the abandoned warehouse near the salt estuary under the pretense of a major cocaine drop from Tío Wilson. In less than twenty-four hours, I was supposed to die. Furious heat surged through my veins, boiling away the chill of the rain. They had sold me out. My brothers. Arcael, who had sworn on his mother's grave that we would rule the Guayaquil docks together. Baby Boy, who had shared my bread and my bullets since we were starving orphans in the slums of Bastión Popular. Every scrap of loyalty I had shown was sold for a larger share of the cartel's distribution rights. A violent tremor shook my shoulders, my jaw clenching so hard a tooth chipped. Anger, raw and volatile, threatened to tear me apart from the inside out. I wanted to rip their throats out with my bare teeth. --- Growing up in the slums of Bastión Popular, we had nothing but each other. Hunger was a constant shadow, a dull ache that we drowned out by stealing stale bread and copper pipes. Arcael was always the one with the plans, his silver tongue convincing the local shopkeepers to look the other way while Baby Boy and I cleaned them out. We were a trio of stray dogs, ready to bite anyone who dared to threaten our pack. But dogs get greedy when you throw them a bone. Tío Wilson, the ruthless kingpin of the Guayaquil docks, had thrown us a massive bone. He promised us a direct route to smuggle bricks of pure cocaine through the southern ports, a ticket out of the dirt forever. But there was a catch. The old man only trusted one of us to run the operation. Instead of sharing the crown, Arcael and Baby Boy decided it was easier to divide the spoils by two. My hand clenched into a tight fist, my fingernails digging so deep into my palm that they drew fresh blood. Flashes of my final moments replayed in my mind like a broken reel of film. Rain just like this. An empty lot overlooking the murky, sluggish waters of the Guayas River. I had turned my back for just a fraction of a second, trusting them implicitly. Then came the sudden, burning impact in my back, followed by the metallic taste of my own blood pooling in my mouth. 'Nothing personal, brother,' Arcael had whispered, his handsome face twisted into a mock grimace of pity. 'You're just too unpredictable for the business.' Baby Boy hadn't said a word, only humming that damned salsa tune as he stood guard, his gold-plated Desert Eagle gleaming under the dim streetlights. They left me to choke on my own lungs in a shallow ditch. But death, it seemed, had other plans for me. --- Stumbling backward, my foot slipped on a slick patch of oil, sending me crashing against a stack of wooden crates. A sharp, agonizing sting sliced through my right palm. Hissing, I pulled my hand back and saw a jagged shard of a broken green Pilsener bottle embedded in my flesh. Thick, dark blood welled from the deep cut, mixing with the rain. Before the blood could drip onto the concrete, a strange sensation gripped my chest. It felt like a cold current of electricity surging from my heart straight down my arm. My blood didn't run down my wrist. Instead, it began to hover. Droplets of deep crimson suspended themselves in the humid air, defying gravity. Staring in absolute disbelief, I watched the liquid mass together, swirling into a tight, dense sphere. *System Initialization complete. Valas blood-forging unlocked.* Floating blood began to crystallize, hardening into a solid, metallic form. Light glinted off the surface as it reshaped itself, taking the exact form of a nine-millimeter bullet. As my skin made contact with the shell, a surge of raw, destructive knowledge flooded my brain. A dark power resonated within the round, forged directly from my own life force. My mouth curled into a dark, vicious grin. Fate had rejected my death, and in doing so, it had given me the perfect weapon to paint the streets of Guayaquil with the blood of my betrayers. "Arcael," I whispered, the name tasting like ash on my tongue. "Baby Boy." I squeezed the crimson bullet tightly in my fist, ignoring the bite of the sharp metal. They thought they had disposed of their loyal dog. Their plans of stepping up the food chain to become lords of the underbelly were about to fail. But I was back, and this time, I wasn't playing by their rules. --- My thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, needle-like prick in my temples. A cold, mechanical voice echoed inside my skull, completely separate from my own consciousness. *Host alignment verified. Valas System fully integrated.* *Current Blood Level: 92%* *Available Forging: Cursed Lead (Grade 1)* *Cost per round: 5% Blood Volume.* A wave of dizziness washed over me as the floating droplet of my blood solidified. My vision flickered, a temporary blackness creeping at the edges of my eyes. It felt as though a small portion of my very soul had been violently ripped out to create the bullet. Yet the raw, destructive energy radiating from the glowing red ammunition made the sacrifice feel entirely worth it. I held the crimson bullet up to my eyes, watching the dark veins of energy pulsing beneath its metallic shell. This forged projectile was a physical manifestation of my hatred, a piece of my own life force designed specifically to end theirs. It was time to prepare. --- Feeling my waist, my fingers brushed against the cold, familiar grip of a steel frame. I pulled out my old weapon, a rusty, reliable Taurus revolver, checking the cylinder. Slowly, with deliberate, chilling calm, I popped one of the standard lead rounds out and let it clatter into the mud. In its place, I slid the crimson-glowing blood bullet into the chamber. Its cylinder clicked shut with a sound like a coffin lid closing. I could feel the power vibrating through the metal frame of the gun, eager to be unleashed. If I could forge these bullets from my blood, I was no longer just an executioner. My position had changed completely; I was a god of death in these godforsaken streets. My mind raced, mapping out the territory. Tonight, they would be celebrating at the local pool hall, drinking cheap beer and counting the money they thought they’d secure once I was out of the picture. I would walk in there and paint the walls with their brains. No, that was too quick. They needed to feel the terror. My vision blurred with a red haze of pure, unadulterated hatred. My pulse pounded in my ears, a relentless drumbeat demanding violence. I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to force the explosive anger down. Impulsivity had gotten me killed once. Rushing in blind would be a mistake; I had to strike when they least expected it. Yet, the urge to kill was a physical itch under my skin, begging to be scratched. I started walking down the narrow alleyway, the mud splashing against my worn sneakers. Every step felt lighter, stronger, as if the new power in my blood had stripped away my physical limits. Heavy rain continued to hammer down, washing away the grime of my rebirth but doing nothing to cool the fire in my chest. Guayaquil was a city of ghosts, and tonight, I was the angriest one. Approaching the mouth of the alley, I kept my eyes peeled for any of Tío Wilson’s scouts. Tío Wilson had eyes everywhere, and if he caught wind of my survival, the entire cartel would be on my neck before dawn. Suddenly, a sudden chill ran down my spine, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. A heavy, rhythmic splashing sound echoed from the main street. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate, and entirely devoid of rush despite the pouring rain. I pressed my back against the wet brick wall, holding the Taurus close to my chest. My heart did a violent flip as a familiar melody drifted through the sound of the storm. Someone was whistling. It was a slow, mocking tune, a popular salsa song played at a hauntingly sluggish tempo. I knew that whistle. Hearing that melody made my skin crawl with the memory of my own execution. A heavy shadow steps out of the tropical downpour, holding a gold-plated desert eagle—it is Baby Boy, humming the exact tune he sang right before he shot Victorino in his past life.

Chapter 1: Rain, Blood, and Cold Iron