The Glorious Evolution Chapter 1: Levi Larson, A Blind Child in A World Ruled By Darkness.

"I CAN'T SEE!!"

"My Eyes!!! MY EYES!!!"

"MOMMY!! MOMMY!!"

Within a living room wrecked halfway, a small boy knelt on the floor, shrieking as loud as possible. His fingers dug desperately into his face, drenched in blood flowing from his hollow eye sockets...

Agony overwhelmed him so fiercely that all he managed were cries until his breaths grew ragged and shallow.

Such a response was natural, since a tall figure with a noble, impassive face had just torn out his eyes from their sockets.

He dangled the eyes casually in his grip, like some ordinary fruit.

His black suit, white shirt, and blue tie remained spotless without a trace of blood. Yet his white-gloved hands were soaked crimson, blood dripping steadily onto the wooden floor...

This devastation stemmed from the slaughter he had unleashed in the living room.

Near the sobbing boy, two gore-soaked bodies lay several meters from Levi... Their forms twisted beyond recognition, riddled with huge bite wounds that scattered ripped flesh everywhere.

Even so, their arms extended toward the child, depicting parents desperate to shield their son yet doomed by death...

"Silence him, but leave him alive...It won't take long before he becomes a Sleepwalker." The tall man commanded without emotion.

Instantly, a dark silhouette materialized behind the boy and delivered a sharp chop to his neck, muffling his cries... Then, with one wave over Levi's bloody vacant sockets, they sealed closed.

The whole sequence unfolded in under a second.

Thud!

As Levi's face smacked the wooden floor, his blood chilling and awareness slipping, one vision rose in the blackness overwhelming his thoughts... Two terrifying beasts striding away, one far larger and more frightening.

As if feeling the stare, the bigger horror whipped its head back and flashed a wicked grin.

That evil smile stretched wider and loomed nearer until...

Beep! Beep! Beep!...

The piercing alarm blared through Levi's head, shattering the nightmare and snapping him upright with a pale, trembling expression.

Sweat streamed down his forehead, yet Levi ignored it. He clutched his racing heart, head down, forcing steady breaths with deep pauses.

Once his frantic pulse eased, Levi muttered flatly, "The same nightmare again...You guys are losing your touch."

"Tsk, the rumors were true, you are a tough nut to crack, boy."

Abruptly, four hideous monsters encircled Levi, spaced a few meters apart from one another.

He seemed trapped at the heart of total darkness, aware only of those dreadful horrors.

Anyone else in the room would spot just Levi on his bed, muttering to himself like a madman.

Levi swiveled toward the speaker and replied coolly, "I will say the same thing I said to the ones before you...If you want to sign a contract with me, then it has to be through official channels."

"Official channels? Do you mean you want to become a Daywalker through me? You? A crippled useless blind! Ha, hahaha! You guys never told me he was such a jokester."

The nightcrawler cackled wildly, its huge mouth yawning open to bare a throat crammed with shark-like fangs.

"What can I say, it was funny at the beginning, but now, it's just getting sad."

The other nightcrawler, resembling a drifting skinless golden fish, merely shook its head in frustration.

It realized Levi meant every word; if any proposed starting the Daywalker contract, he'd seize the chance immediately.

But that was the issue...

"I would rather choose an old man with one step in the grave before I link my legacy with a worthless cripple like you." The first nightcrawler sneered coldly, "A human with no eyes desiring to become a Daywalker, truly, the joke of the century."

With those final words echoing in Levi's mind, the nightcrawler spun away and vanished, bored with the harassment.

"Let's get out of here, Ash'Kral will be here soon."

The remaining nightcrawlers departed as well, aware Levi's home served as a haunt for a mighty nightcrawler nearby.

"Your loss."

Their departure left Levi unfazed by the insults.

He extended his hand toward the right nightstand, fumbling briefly before sliding open the top drawer. Next, he retrieved a tiny key positioned in the far right corner, as if deliberately placed there.

Once he had it in hand, he settled on the bed's edge and pulled up his trousers, revealing two metal cuffs clamped firmly around his ankles.

Short chains linked the cuffs together, anchoring them to the wall.

Leaning forward, he inserted the key into both locks, finally releasing his legs. As he softly rubbed his ankles, Levi let out a sigh upon feeling the black monitor strapped securely to his right ankle.

Metallic cuffs and an ankle monitor—these harsh precautions might appear strange, yet for Levi, they were vital to safeguard those dearest to him.

Ever since the Great Fall of Civilization a century ago, caused by the Nightcrawlers' invasion from the Shadow Dimension, the blind, traumatized survivors, mentally unstable individuals, and the like were all viewed as dangers to public safety.

This was because Nightcrawlers could invade dreams whenever minds formed a spiritual connection to the Shadow Dimension.

Forming that link proved simple: exposure to utter darkness for over two hours nonstop. Put another way, it required sleep, total blindness, or deliberately shutting one's eyes for prolonged periods.

Therefore, under the stringent new laws, anyone scoring high on mental instability had to wear this ankle monitor, restricting them to their assigned Holy Regions.

The device enabled governments to obtain real-time location data if a Nightcrawler manipulated or tempted them into signing a contract that surrendered their bodies for some reward.

Levi had merely been tormented with a nightmare by those Nightcrawlers, reliving his life's most horrific memory: his parents butchered and his eyes torn from their sockets.

That devastating ordeal gave the Nightcrawlers exactly what they needed to try luring Levi into signing away his life, in exchange for his revenge.

Totally blind and thus eternally tied to the Shadow Dimension, he endured their relentless daily assaults over the past ten years.

Regrettably, hundreds or even thousands of Nightcrawlers had tried their utmost, but none succeeded in shattering Levi's mental barriers or prevailing over him.

His resolve wasn't invincible; rather, he possessed the wisdom to see that such contracts would never yield the answers he sought, vengeance for his family, or his sight restored.

Certainly, some temptations came perilously close, yet he persevered through them all.

If he believed those Nightcrawlers capable of delivering, he would have eagerly signed those dreadful pacts, even if it turned him into a rampaging Sleepwalker.

Ignoring the customary horde of far-off Nightcrawlers wandering the endless void, Levi took a compact device from the nightstand, resembling a silver hearing aid.

This was the NeuraLens, the most widespread gadget worldwide in Holy Regions, thanks to its smartphone capabilities combined with hologram generation.

Normally sold as a pair: an earpiece paired with a slim hydrogel contact lens fitted to one cornea.

The earpiece acted as the primary unit, linked to the lens, granting access to a personal Astra AI assistant and the power to generate personal micro-holograms visible only to the user unless enlarged.

Sadly, Levi depended solely on the AI's audio features.

He placed it in his right ear, tucking it beneath his disheveled curly black hair. A quick press of the side button brought a feminine robotic voice to life in his ear.

"Welcome back, Sir Levi. What can I help you with?"

"Please enlighten me with today's news in Tamara's settlement." Levi asked courteously while heading toward the bathroom, one hand pressed against the nearest wall.

Though the NeuraLens AI could direct him there, Levi chose to navigate solo by counting steps.

He saved the device's assistance for unknown areas, avoiding over-reliance on it for routine chores.

"In Tamara's settlement: The Sunstrike Agency has succeeded in its twentieth major expedition, conquering a Shadow Castle and reclaiming more than fifteen kilometers of surface area."

"Interesting, they succeeded in less than three days." Levi smiled faintly in admiration, "As expected of a tier 5 agency with a 97% clearing rate...They don't mess about in their expeditions."

Levi cherished a grand ambition: to enlist in an elite Daywalker agency and join the campaigns liberating their world from the Nightcrawler plague.

Besides rescuing his planet, he understood that gaining entry into such agencies would greatly simplify uncovering the secrets of the incident from ten years prior.

Those elite agencies operated privately, yet commanded vast influence across their sacred domains.

Just as Levi drifted into visions of that radiant destiny, a sinister low snicker ambushed him from behind.

"Boy, wipe off that silly grin—it won't happen, not today, not tomorrow, never."

Levi didn't need to glance back to identify Ash'Kral's voice, one of the rare Nightcrawlers who'd stuck around him for years.

Ash'Kral noticed Levi still toweling his face, ignoring the barbed comment, so he drifted in front, inching toward his face.

"Boy, didn't I tell you not to brush me off?"

Levi gradually raised his head, locking eyes with Ash'Kral's enormous single orb commanding the middle of his skull.

Deep crimson light emanated from the eye, its slit pupil pulsing like molten flames, weaving a weird mesmerizing pull.

Cracks spiderwebbed the leathery ash-gray hide encircling the recessed eye, evoking a volcanic pit teetering on explosion.

Three ragged, membrane-like wings jutted unevenly from his gaunt form.

Veined grayish skin stretched taut over his bony build, painting him as a hellish specter that could drop any child in terror on sight. Even Levi required over a year to grow accustomed to his horrifying visage.

This said volumes, given he'd witnessed countless Nightcrawlers over the decade—some fearsome, some enigmatic, some in alluring humanoid shapes, others even endearing.

Still, Ash'Kral ranked among the handful who sent shivers down his spine each time. Beyond his looks, an aura of pure malice radiated from him.

Nevertheless, years of companionship had inevitably sparked a bond of familiarity.

"Ash'Kral, will there ever come a day when you stop hating?" Levi exhaled in frustration, commencing to brush his teeth.

His words instantly dissolved the heavy atmosphere as Ash'Kral emitted a soft laugh. "Is it hate when it's just the truth?"

Levi gurgled the toothpaste froth in his mouth, spat it into the basin, wiped his mouth, and responded steadily, "It becomes truth only if I fail."

"Truly, your delusions never fail to astonish me."

Ash'Kral hovered supine, cradling his head on elongated savage talons... Then he hurled at Levi the query that routinely demolished his hopes.

"You still haven't explained how you'll turn Daywalker and take in light without possessing the essential organ required."

Ash'Kral grinned maliciously while gesturing at Levi's eyes.

"..." Levi stood mute before the mirror.

He sensed the mirror's presence there... Sensed his reflection staring back, revealing a youth with defined jaw, pale complexion, disheveled damp curly black tresses cascading to his neck, and above all, two ghastly charred scars where his eyes once were...

Levi slipped a hand beneath his sodden hair, softly tracing the scars as a tender smile danced on his narrow lips.

Then softly he murmured, "I know that in this age, light is revered while darkness shunned... I know folks see me as a ticking bomb, ready to morph into a sleepwalker and wreak chaos anytime... I get that eyeless, my progress lags behind others, slimming odds of landing a Daywalker pact with a Nightcrawler to nothing—I grasp it all."

Maintaining that smile, he faced Ash'Kral and added, "You call it delusion, but I'm merely maximizing my dire circumstances, nothing extra, nothing less..."

Ash'Kral offered no scoff or taunt upon those words. Instead, his eye flickered momentarily.

But the glint vanished swiftly, replaced by a chuckle. "Boy, your maturity at your age always unnerves me."

"I know, I'm a genius—strike while the iron's hot and bind a contract with me."

"You wish."

"Tsk, useless." Levi smacked his tongue and headed to the kitchen for breakfast prep, disregarding Ash'Kral's echoing laughs.