A place where the death soul rest The Nexus World wasn't always a hell.
Before the crimson moons bled, before the mountains grew teeth, it was sanctuary. A vacation spot for dead souls. White beaches. Rivers of liquid starlight. You'd sip ambrosia under diamond-leaf trees while aging slowly.
Then Zarumaro arrived.
Old Earth doc. Genius. Crazy eyes. Saw eternity in the Nexus and got greedy. "Why get reborn," he whispered, "when you can live forever here?"
He experimented.
Test Subject one was a dying grandpa—cancer-riddled, wheezing his last breaths in some hospice back on Earth. Zarumaro injected him with Soul Resin. Promised him paradise.
Big fucking mistake.
Grandpa woke up here changed. Not human. Not soul. Demon. Skin like cracked asphalt. Fingers ended in bone syringes. And he was hungry. Not for food. For life.
First victim: A little girl building sandcastles.
Grandpa stabbed her ribs with those syringe-claws.
Her soul-light drained into him. She didn't die—just flickered, weaker. Confused falling to the ground.
Second death. Third. By the tenth?
She screamed herself into static. Gone.
Grandpa got younger. Stronger.
He grinned with too many teeth.
"More."
Demons spread like rot.
Life-Stealers in the starlit rivers
Soul-Miners in the diamond forests
Hope-Eaters whispering in the ambrosia halls
Nexus wasn't safe. Wasn't home.
It was a farm. And souls were the crop.
THE PROTECTOR: ZANJI
The man who never died. Walked into Nexus World alive—some say he kicked Death in the balls and stole his keys. No rank. No system. Just a scarred leather coat and fists that cracked demon skulls like eggshells.
He fought.
No fancy powers. No magic.
Just rage and a spiked knuckle-duster named "Collector."
Saw a Life-Stealer sucking a kid's soul?
Jawbone through its eyeball.
Found a Soul-Miner hoarding life-lights?
Spine torn out, used as a fucking whip.
Zanji carved a safe zone from the chaos. Ash on his boots. Demon blood crusted in his beard. The surviving souls whispered his name like a prayer.
They offered him the throne.
"Rule us," they begged.
He spat. "Ain't your king."
"My job's not done. He's still out there."
He. Zarumaro. Hiding in the ruins he made.
THE WAR NEVER ENDED Zanji hunts the doc to this day.
Chicka's family runs the safe zone. Her mom's the stern-faced lady tallying lives on a cosmic clipboard. Her dad patches up soul-wounds with starlight bandages.
But outside the walls?
War.
Demons multiply.
Souls fade faster—burning lives just to survive another day.
We need Soul hunters.
That's why they scan every new soul.
Searching for the ones who will protect the weaker ones. Zujikes.The Hezukes.