Years had passed, and District 9 was now nothing more than a faded memory, buried beneath the towering shadow of a monument to ambition.
At the heart of the city's brightest district stood a skyscraper minimalist in design, yet deeply intimidating: No Name Corporation. No one truly knew what went on inside the silver tower whose peak pierced through polluted clouds.
Logistics? Energy technology? Or merely a hollow shell for corporate laundering?
The world only knew one thing: never get involved with them.
At the very top floor, behind bulletproof glass overlooking the entire city, a man stood tall.
He was no longer the frail boy who fought over synthetic bread.
His body was now wrapped in an expensive black suit, concealing muscles infused with absolute power.
His face remained cold, his eyes harboring a darkness far deeper than the night below.
No Name had become a king without a crown.
But the throne he sat upon was built atop a mountain of corpses.
"Today's report," No Name's voice was heavy, echoing through the silent room.
An assistant trembled as he handed over a digital tablet. "Subjects from batch 402 to 405… all failed, sir. Their bodies turned to ash when the Pure Darkness seeds were injected. Total loss has reached 1,200 lives this week alone."
No Name didn't even blink. To him, it was just a number.
Thousands of street children orphans unwanted by the world had been "acquired" and brought into the underground laboratories beneath this building.
He had tried to replicate his power, to implant fragments of his Pure Darkness into their fragile bodies.
The results were horrifying.
Most of them ended as melted flesh or exploded into uncontrollable black mist.
The cremation chambers beneath No Name Corporation never stopped burning.
The sweet, metallic scent of death lingered constantly through the hidden corridors of the lab where thousands of lives had been discarded for the ambition of one man.
"Find ones with better potential," No Name ordered coldly. "I don't need piles of flesh. I need shadows that can hold weapons."
Among thousands of rotting failures, only a handful survived.
Those who could tame the darkness within their veins reborn as emotionless monsters, pawns that knew only how to kill and obey.
No Name stared at his own reflection in the glass.
He knew every life lost was a price he had chosen to pay to build this empire.
And as he felt his own heartbeat growing colder, he realized he had gone too far into the darkness to ever return to being human.
"This project will not stop," he whispered to the sleeping city below.
"Not until those three colors… are in my grasp."