Concept Art 40: Malik pt1 (Patreon)

All the midnight blades have been victims of the system in many ways, but their misery does not excuse the actions one decides to take afterward, especially when these become selfish and inhumane, hurting innocent people.

Such is the case of Malik, a young man who grew up in extreme poverty, unsure if he and his little sister would get something to eat today or tomorrow. Their parents suffered a fatal disease that struck their hometown, which only aggravated their economic situation, and due to their social class, their opportunities for treatment were very few and of poor quality, which sadly led to their death. While his parents were slowly fading away before his eyes,  Malik could only beg anyone to help them, but doctors and neighbors ignored his pleadings. Sadly that's how the world works" If you got no money, you don't matter." The traumatic experience made him learn that by heart. After that, he tried his best to keep his little sister afloat, doing whatever it took to earn money, which often led him into shady business. It wouldn't take long until he became the head of local gangs doing unimaginable things to assure his economic stability, for malik anything goes as long as it makes money, especially if he can strip the rich from their power. He despised the world that ignored him while his parents were slowly dying, people would only laugh and look at them with contempt and pity, but no one ever helped them, and no one ever cared, so why would he care for them?

Malik's initial goal was to give his little sister a life with no worries, where she would never pass hunger nor need anything ever again, but that slowly turned into a desire for power that corrupted the young man. It was only a matter of time until Malik had done something big enough to make Lord Adonaios pay attention to him. But instead of punishing him for his crimes against noble figures of the kingdom, the lord saw the potential and decided to recruit him. Malik didn't trust Adonaios, but he knew he could take this opportunity to become even richer and more powerful.

Malik's story is still in the works and lacks nuance. I want to make his misery the result of the rich exploiting the poor and getting rid of them when they aren't useful anymore, so it's probable that his parents got sick as a consequence of the actions of high-class nobles, which ignored their impact on the rest of population in the lower class only caring about their situation and profit. In the same way, his story could be drastically different at the end since I'm not entirely sure of the direction of his backstory yet, the one thing I do know is that the themes of money and power won't change cuz he is the counterpart of Leila's, so there is also a chance he could be a very obnoxious and vain man coming from the royalty that only sees common people as ways to earn more money and power.

As a side note, Malik is the midnight blade responsible for persuading Vidia to exploit the orphans of Omelas. Of course, he gets a percentage of the profit by being the link between Vidia and the twisted nobles in the black market looking for  "exciting" things to indulge themselves in.