Ben and Rubicom quickly headed west, crossing the land without owner, while Kramer began the rite by which he would give way to his direct descendants, an army of "numans", without guilt, remorse or pity. Exact copies, boys and girls who would act like a plague of locusts, multiplying rapidly throughout the world, until they became the dominant race. Hours of lust passed, all of them together, with him, and they all became pregnant by Kramer. Finally, the end of the world had begun. Shooting stars fell that night, as if foretelling an inevitable Armageddon.
Glowen went out to watch the stars at dawn, in the multicolored sky, wrapped in a thick, soft blanket, and drinking sweet tea in goat's milk. She began to remember how she got there. Thinking about her family, her mother, father and brother, an exemplary and organized family. Her parents are in the discreet trade, groceries and groceries, having a very nice store nearby, with wooden shelves lined to the ceiling with fruits and vegetables, flowers and preserved meats. They have been a very stable couple through the years.
Centinela is his younger brother, fifteen years old. A very special young man. His new name was acquired of his own free will. His appearance is disturbing, impressive and sometimes terrifying. He is two and a half meters tall, with an impossible, tremendously developed musculature and a colossal strength, but with an angelic face of a child, very white skin, pink cheeks, short jet black hair, spiky, and black eyes, with long eyelashes. A child's face on a monstrously huge body.
Centinela's temperament was very strong, stubborn and he had no patience to listen and much less to solve problems that did not matter to him. He respected his parents and his sister, and little else. Despite his imposing appearance, he respected Glowen as his older sister, and they had a very close relationship. Considered a giant in the community, he was accepted in a special way in the Lebrassian military forces, because of his physical ability and determination.
In war exercises, on several occasions he had to be pacified due to the cruelty of his temperament in battle, in combats he even left other warriors unconscious with a single blow, and he had to be moved away to avoid killing his adversary. His condition was from birth, and not necessarily from training.
Glowen was a natural leader, always being the voice in the youth groups, and being pregnant by Kramer, among a small group of chosen ones, made her feel special. However, the order to wear the gas mask most of the time, as long as the majority of the group was together, was still in effect. Her hatred of Ben seemed to be totally irrational and perhaps had been largely inherited from her leader. At that instant, Kramer approaches her, and shares that he has a special mission for her.
At the beginning of dawn, with the first ray of sunlight, even in the cold twilight, Kramer gathers the newly fertilized young women, uniformed with impeccable light armor, telling them that he will make the last adjustment of the dimensional portal, something technically impossible for an ordinary human, given its great complexity, and that, therefore, he must use magic to exponentially increase his intelligence to divine levels, temporarily. This will cause him to fall into a deep sleep for several days after finishing his task, from which he will not be able to wake up.
Now, they will have to take care of him with all their strength, and at the same time protect the portal which will be activated by Kramer when he wakes up.
In a final rite, the mothers of gods would pass one by one through the portal, carrying a copy of Kramer in their wombs, who upon becoming conscious of themselves would become the first of the Numan army, to face the elves of the east and conquer the lands of light. The amount of magic within a Numan is comparable to that of an Eastern Elf or a Western Dark One, however, having the power of chaos within them, they have the advantage for an invasion.
The elven lands of the east, in a higher dimension, are unknown landscapes, said to resemble the dawn, but with soft and warm rays of light from everywhere at the same time. Angelic and ethereal landscapes, beautiful beyond the understanding of man.
The far western lands, on the other hand, beyond the sea and the eternal sea storm, is a cold, dark, moon-dominated place, home to ice trolls, black dragons and other abominable species. It is a barren ligar dimly lit only by the stars and the freezing moon. Men have nestled comfortably for eons on this peninsula to the west of the lands of light, a small layout in comparison to the rest of the alien territories. Being so, everything else, very strange landscapes for the common people, and where survival in the environment is not guaranteed, especially in the extreme cold of the far western lands.
Thus, Lebrassia and Oldania, and their surrounding territories would currently be the only lands accessible to men. The elven lands are the origin of light magic, coming from the Sun god, while the mysterious black magic, or ice magic, comes from the far west, the frozen lands, ruled by the Moon goddess, and only very few magic practitioners dare to use it.
The main reason for not invoking black magic or ice magic is the bodily destruction it produces in the human body, with a few exceptions. In exchange for this sacrifice, black magic is powerful in terms of damage to opponents, being the most propitious of the three (black magic (ice magic), light magic (elven) and red or fire magic (human)) for this purpose.
The ownerless lands, where Ben and Rubicom would have entered, were inhabited by various practitioners of non-human magics (ice or light), banished from Oldania or Lebrassia, some of them physically deformed by extreme magical abuse and imbalance. They are also home to defectors from the Lebrassian regime and the Oldan kingdom.
While running west, both Ben and Rubicom noticed a small town on the outskirts, in the middle of the darkness. With torches and lamps, it was lit up like the firmament with stars. Entirely built of wood, it was pleasantly decorated with multiple light fixtures in series, like cascades of light. There were many chairs, and furniture upholstered in vinotint-colored leather, and a strong smell of stale wine and damp wood. It was cold. They both went inside to ask for more information.
They sat at the bar, the feeling of the place was unsettling. One of the young women serving the place was staring at them, as if she was about to tell a truth that she could not contain. Then they looked at a painting hanging behind the counter, it was the same painting that their neighbor Irma had shown them! The young woman gives him a look as well and turns to look at Ben again, approaching him. "-It's a nice painting of Princess Cristalia isn't it?" "-Who?" asks Ben. "-Well, it's time to go, Rubicom exclaims." "-Wait, I want to hear this, exclaimed Ben". Rubicom got up from the spot in annoyance.
The tavern keeper settled down to tell the following story: ...
Long ago, two thousand years ago, in the first age of men, all people worshipped the sun. Their worship was inherited from the angelic divinities, the elves, from the east, the land of light, who led the first men to these lands. They showed them the power of light magic, elven magic, apparently more powerful than our natural human magic, red magic, also called fire or blood magic. The elves taught us to worship the Sun god, and to live in harmony in the central land (the land of men), the inherited land.
The society adopted the solar religion and priests and clergymen were delegated. It is said, that a family had a calamity in those days, the youngest member, a boy or girl less than a year old. An accident or an illness, there is not much clarity on that. His parents went in distress to the local clergyman, seeking help. Only elven magic could save the little creature's life. However, for some frivolous reason, the clergyman refused, expelling them from the sacred precinct.
The family went to the vicinity of the sad sea, where they cried for hours. His father, desperate on that cloudy and somewhat rainy day, began to hear a voice that seemed to come from the horizon. That voice indicated him some tasks to help his son, which turned out to be the first black magic ritual performed by the human race.They were discovered practicing forbidden magic, worshipping the moon, the icy wind and darkness. And in the end, that family, surnamed Boros, were all expelled precisely to the west, on a small barge, condemned to die. The newly excommunicated, now with a dead infant, were angry with life, with the gods and with everything. They wandered the seas waiting to finally die.
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But the mysterious voice did not leave them... Days later, in the middle of the fog, the barge touched land, a gray and pale sand, with a damp cold. They looked up through the fur blankets, and saw a hitherto unknown land.
Large hills of dark stone, grass between gray and gold, and fields with ears of corn. And in the background, the most impressive, a black sky, with white mountains, as if discolored, with a blue and red aurora in the background of the firmament. The Boros were blessed with this new magic, adapting quickly to the extreme cold of the west. They survived by hunting some cold bears, fishing, and harvesting strange mushrooms that grew abundantly on the land.
The Boros were not the only ones. Word spread throughout the lands of the sun, and some inhabitants ventured to experiment with black magic. Almost all of them were discovered and expelled to the west, beyond the sea. All of them were welcomed by the Boros, who would have become the monarchs of these lands, founding the kingdom of Gobegor and erecting a castle near the mountains.
Several generations of Boros Kings passed, the kingdom of Gobegor grew, constantly fed by exiles who came to practice the new black magic. Some time later, Gobegor already had its own army, and its own fleet of warships, built by magic trees that grew and regenerated rapidly.
For almost a thousand years (second era), there was a naval war between the west and the east, without any resolution. The army of the lunar lands was much smaller than the solar army, so they did not have the capacity to invade the solar lands. And, on the other hand, the solar army was weakened by the extreme cold as it approached the shores of Gobegor. Many ships were sunk on each side, with no clear outcome. Hundreds of years passed, and the inhabitants of each kingdom had already forgotten the origin of the conflict.
Several clerics and seers had predicted, at that time, that soon, princes would be born on either side of the sea, who would bring a new era of peace and reconciliation.
In Boros castle, a little girl is born, with beautiful big blue eyes, and the most beautiful face ever seen. Her parents, the king and queen, have named her, Cristalia, Princess Cristalia, - to whom the painting hanging there belongs.
Cristalia was a long-awaited and much-loved baby, who would happily run and play in the cold corridors and ice gardens of Boros Castle. As a very young girl, she played with her cousin, Orius Boros, Nephew of King Boros, three years older. They were the joy of the place, and the royal family was very proud of their infants. On the other side of the sea, in the solar kingdoms, something similar was happening.
The children of the solar king had also been blessed with a new generation of hope. Approaches and truces were made, between the sun and moon kingdoms, to end centuries of war.
When Cristalia was alone, it is said that she talked to herself in the ice gardens of the castle. When Cristalia was 20 years old, and Cristalia was 17, the kings of both kingdoms agreed to the beginning of perpetual peace, uniting in marriage a prince and a princess from each kingdom. Cristalia had fallen in love with her own first cousin, something that was suspected from the castle. Orius did not really wish to marry the solar princess, as he also loved Cristalia. He let himself be beaten by the waves of the sea on that gray west coast, contemplating the horizon, while Cristalia saw him behind. Sitting on a dark rock.
The wedding day was held on the shores of the solar kingdoms, in a special ritual, which took place at sea. Many banners and flags witnessed the day. The people rejoiced with joy, after centuries of war, the longed-for peace had finally arrived.
At the climax of the ceremony, while both were in the water, next to the priest, a mysterious current of water took the solar princess by the feet. In an instant, everything turned into chaos, and the solar prince, her brother, mortally wounded Orius with his sword. The lunar guards escorted the princess quickly into the harbor, and executed her escape. The lunar kings, parents of Cristalia, were embarked on another ship, which was destroyed by enemy fire from dragons mounted by solar horsemen, after receiving countless gigantic fiery arrows from the enemy scorpions. Cristalia sees how the royal ship that transported her parents is destroyed and shipwrecked among burning boards.
The lunar fleet manages to get the ship in which Cristalia escapes to Gobegor. A terrible naval war was unleashed at sea. Cristalia, sad and furious, with a desire for revenge, immediately heads for the ice gardens, after crossing the entire Boros castle.
She speaks again in the voice with which she spoke as a child, and this one identifies herself. It is a gigantic black dragon, which had been decapitated in a war eons ago between the dark and cold west, and the elves of the lands of the light of the east. Crying, Cristalia demands that he help her to seek revenge in some way. The dragon tells her that they must merge into one, body and soul, to achieve a balance between red magic (Cristalia's) and black magic (the dragon's), which would unleash a power so great that the world had never seen before.
Cristalia accepts, and the dragon, under the ice begins to emit a great flow of black magic. This magical and dark flow is detected by solar wizards from the other continent, and they warn the king, convincing him to send a small group, with the best warriors and wizards, to enter the Boros castle and kill the princess Cristalia before she merges with the "source" of black magic that threatens the world.
This special team, consisting of two wizards and five warriors, was uniformed with black bear skins, and among their weapons, the best forged of all the kingdoms of the sun, was a very special one, a powerful and indestructible magic sword called "sunbeam" given by the elves to men, in its beginnings. The "black bears", as this group would later be called in its beginnings, decided to embark on a small merchant barge of wine, hidden under some cloaks.
They managed to circumvent all the security of the castle, with a lot of cunning, and avoiding the checkpoints. They were able to reach the royal hall where Cristalia was sitting, on the throne that had recently belonged to her father, the Moon King. The black bears declared their intention to finish her off, on behalf of all the men and women of the world, while a transformed Cristalia, with a faraway look, scantily clad in black leather harnesses, a silver-gold crown, and metal bracelets and guards, showed her superhuman tolerance to the extreme cold of Gobegor.
The huge room had giant wide open gates at the back of the throne, overlooking the ice gardens, right where the giant decapitated black dragon was buried under the ice. A pair of huge automated mechanical crossbows defended the princess on either side. The mages summoned the power of fire against Cristalia, but the flames froze instantly. The warriors could barely move because of the cold, while Cristalia did not even get up from her throne. She only raised the index finger of her right hand pointing at the black bears, and the mechanical crossbows launched huge two-meter long frozen arrows, which, upon hitting the ground, exploded into frost and froze the entire assaulting group.
The black bears were immobilized, barely able to move their eyes, completely covered in ice, and about to die. As she sat watching her enemies with disdain, the black dragon calls her to begin the fusion. Cristalia's body resists the balancing fusion, and she sidelong glances at her turning her head back, whispering "I'm coming..."
Practically defeated, the black bears cry out to Cristalia not to merge with the dragon as it would destroy the whole world. One of them loses control and angers the princess with his derogatory remarks, so she finally decides to get up from the throne, and go through the back gates to the huge ice garden, where she stands on the ice just above the dragon's location.
The sky was black, and the ground was white, with a thick fog that did not let you see your feet. The fog formed a gigantic whirlpool around Cristalia, and then swallowed her up.
All corners of the world trembled, and from the ice emerged fury incarnate. An indescribable figure, an unnamable and abominable monster, merging with the mist and the ice, exhaling hatred. As tall as a tower erected and as bulky as twenty warships. It rose up like a wolf as it howled, and uttered the most horrible roar ever heard. And so began the great ice storm with the winds from the west to the east, the lands of the sun. The great sea froze, and dark creatures, such as ice trolls and other black dragons began to make their way across to the solar realms.
However, one of the black bears manages to untie himself from the ice with the help of the sunbeam sword, and approaches the giant creature and with an accurate attack, manages to break the fusion, causing the dragon's body to be destroyed, and Cristalia returns to her human form, but in a deep sleep, inside a crystal of eternal ice.
The black bears manage to escape, losing the elven sword in their haste, before the entire realm of Gobegor succumbs to a terrible dimensional electrical storm. After escaping on the ship, they see the moonlands disappear in a stunning burst of electrical flashes.
With great difficulty, circling the icy road, they managed to sail to safety, where they were greeted as heroes, but saw the great catastrophe. The land had frozen, the sky had darkened, and the land was now barren and muddy. Ben is perplexed, and realizes that there was still some of that barren land left, and that is, where he was at that moment, in the land without an owner, a shadowy place that witnessed the uncontrolled fury of a figure from the past.
Rubicom stood outside, looking off into the distance, as if waiting for Ben to hear, what he had to hear, one way or another.