Everything was dark around me, I could only feel warmth and felt as if I was locked in a coffin, a skin-tight coffin with no room for moving.
After some time the world suddenly opened up and brightened, I let loose a cry of joy as I escaped from that dark yet warm prison. I was shocked to see an ordinary man holding me in his arms and in alarm I let loose another cry.
“Alia look, it is a girl, just like you wanted” The man smiled, handing me over to the girl that conceived me.
The woman in front of me was no more than a teenage girl of 16 years, everything about her screamed plain, the blond hair over her left shoulder, the dress she was wearing, her skin that didn’t sparkle nor pale. Her eyes filled with happiness didn’t even make her any prettier.
“Dilan my dear, we shall call her after her grandmother Julie.”
“As she shall be called, Welcome Julie, welcome to the Larkenbottom family.” My new father said. “Julie Larkenbottom, that name seems familiar, hey wait a minute…… that was my name from my old world.” I thought about this and when the realization hit me I cried and cried.
My father grew frantic and tried to calm me down but no matter what he did it didn’t work. My new mother reacted just as frantic but she hugged me to her chest and started to nestle me, the flimsy sweet milk intruded my mouth and she soothed me.
I calmed down after that, taking in what is happening around me.
I feel like I forgot a few important things but other than that I could vaguely understand what was happening.
What was I doing again? I felt like something important slipped out of my mind. But what is this delicious liquid, I was starving for so long I just want to eat till I am full.
I mumbled and said Goo Goo and Ga Ga. like any baby would..... What did that mean?
I felt myself go drowsy and went to sleep.
Parents POV:
"Darling she is such a cutie" Aila said softly trying not to wake the new child.
"I have good feelings about her future, we must go thank the Rose family for sending their maid to help us" Dilan said, "More importantly are you okay dear, you seem quite pale."
"I will be fine, the labor of birthing new life is always a struggle, but for any mother, it is one they want to experience" Aila said and she cuddled the tiny baby in her arms.
"If you need anything just call for me, I will be here with haste" Dilan spoke and he turned to leave.
"Please goddess of growth, grant my child success in the future" the father spoke in prayer and he starts to prepare food.
(Several years later)
I wiped the sweat from her head, the training sword I held in my hands tipped toward the ground and my friends Chance and Yoshiro resting nearby.
"Finally done training Jules?" Yoshiro asked.
"Not yet, a few more and I feel like I can link my moves together" I replied
"Man you train to hard, why not take a break" Yoshiro said lounging on the grass.
"And you don't train enough, I mean I know your a prodigy but training is still training, if you don't work then you won't earn" I countered.
"Ya ya, I get it just lay off me" Yoshiro sighed.
I scoffed at Yoshiro and examined his status, true he had the stats of a hero class person out of the 4 elemental type humans, he was a Dune Nomad which had high resilience and vitality, combined with the traits of a fire-attribute human his offensive power was nothing to laugh at.
I was perplexed the first time a window popped up, showing me the details of what certain objects are, what stats they have, special moves, practically everything about them.
Over time I grew accustomed to it but still, it pops up without thinking from time to time.
"Can you guys quiet down I am trying to meditate over here" Chance exclaimed, the girl sat in her meditative position
"Whats so important about your meditation anyway, are you sure it isn't a past time" Yoshiro laughs.
"Meditating is very important to a Wind Disciple, it allows them to control their emotions and emotions, I told you many times before, are very important to Wind Disciples. " Chance retorted.
"I thought Wind Disciples required the movement of their body to activate the wind powers" I asked and Chance sighed and opened her eyes, positioning herself to lay in the grass.
"What you say is half right, in actuality there are two ways that a Wind Disciple can train, one is through toning of the body and allowing the body to become one with the wind. Those are the people you see gracefully dancing through the battlefield attacking enemies and supporting and defending their allies. Their flaw is when their movement is interrupted." Chance explained.
"Then there is my way, which requires our minds to become one with the wind, this way we control the winds with our emotions, the more calmer the mind the more control you exert over the winds become. This method is more powerful as the mind is much deeper and harder to understand than the body, the only downside is that if you lose control of your emotions or you are distracted then you lose control of the winds and they become..... destructive."
"Alright alright, but why meditation, how is this linked to your training" Yoshiro asked.
"Meditation is the teaching of how to control the mind, it allows you to seek deeper insights of otherwise incomprehensible subjects. The Aerolite Garudas require an understanding of the void to evolve, likewise Wind Disciples need deep understanding of the winds, how they flow, why they flow, their very nature and being in this limitless world. Meditation allows me to train my mind, to be able to control my emotions, to think deeply about the mysteries of the wind."
"The path of the Wind Disciples sounds very deep, but your almost at a breakthrough... I can feel it" I replied
"Your intuition is always correct, I wonder how soon is soon" Chance laughs.
I looked away from Chance, I had used the windows again, it practically told me how close she was to advancing to the next step.
"Anyway its getting dark, we should make our way home soon, we ought to thank the guild master for letting us train once more" Yoshiro exclaimed
"Says the guy who rarely trains himself" I retorted and we all laugh.
"Just you wait, I'll be training myself..... eventually" Yoshiro grins and Chance and I replied "Oh sure" with heavy sarcasm.
Gathering our items and entering the Adventurer's guild we say lines and lines of high class adventurers preparing their equipment with haste.
"Old Man whats happening in here" Yoshiro called out to the guild master and he abruptly turns toward us.
"This is a disaster, a grand disaster I tell you, you kids best hide now, its not something that you can handle" the guild master says and he ushers us out of the door, Yoshiro puts up resistance and escapes his arms and firmly plants his feet inside of the guild. "I'm not leaving till you tell me whats happening. " Yoshiro exclaims stubbornly.
"Will you promise that you will leave once I explain" the guild master asked frantically and we all nodded our heads.
"Your parents might have told you but there is a tale about how back in the old days, before this tranquility on this planet there used to be four god-like beings whose aim was to destroy the world."
"We've heard bits and pieces of it, but isn't that a legend" Chance asked.
The guild master give a sigh and he motioned for us to gather round. "This story is indeed true, but if you only heard bits and pieces might as well tell you the full story."
"Everyone listen up, many of you might have heard this before but I will say this once. This story is not a legend, but an actual event in history, the terror and destruction that happened was so horrific they told it as a legend. And so it begins, Once a time when the first ancestors of our species walked this planet, we were diverse, we lived separately living our own lives with no contact with each other other than for war or trade. but one event brought us together, this event was known as the birth of the Beasts of Calamities." pausing to take a breath the guild master continued.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
"Water Beast of Calamity: Poison Leviathan, a large leviathan that secreted poisons that destroyed water supplies and ecosystems, Earth Beast of Calamity: King Glutton, a giant creature that had a void-like stomach, always hungry always eating. Wind Beast of Calamity: Queen Kylia the Plague Valkyrie, a huntress of the sky made of poisonous gases aiming to wipe the skies clean of usable air, and finally Fire Beast of Calamity Dracio the Fire Tyrant, a dictator who burned anyone who fought against him, scorching the area around him into smithereens"
"Of these four tyrants they ruled the land for hundreds of years before the people blessed by evolution given by god, they made a plan to fight back. After many years of fighting, the first to fall was the Poison Leviathan, not long after King Glutton was sealed, it took many years after for Kylia to be banished to the void, and finally the last of them Dracio went on a rampage. years passed, the number of fighters no matter the numbers burned, stomped on, sliced to pieces, bitten in two, and many other gruesome deaths, the path of Dracio was death until a sword was broken a grand curse consumed the tyrant. " The guild master paused and looked at everyone in the eyes, including us youngsters.
"After that, the fate of the beasts was thought that they have perished, sadly that is not the case, right now we are in a crisis, and this crisis is because one of these beasts have awakened."
Once this news was heard an uproar of shouts filled the hall. "CALM DOWN, CALM DOWN, We have to stay calm in this situation, " The guild master bellows and the shouts failed to die down. Suddenly the guild master's voice resonated from all over the guild, "Quiet down, since we have to send people to fight this beast to ensure our peace might as well tell you who you are fighting, that would be Queen Kylia the Plague Valkyrie, this mission will favor Wind Nomads, and air attribute adventurers, as well as long range combat units. Prepare yourself, everyone on this planet is gearing up for this fight"
After he said this the guild master glared at Chance, Yoshiro and I and the three of us bolted from the guild.
"This is news to us isn't it" Yoshiro said gloomily,
I was about to say something when a spire of gas struck a place in the distance and the wails of death was heard from the initial place of the impact. "Isn't that the location of our village" Chance asked distraught.
"Please don't let it be, please no, FATHER, MOTHER" I screamed and ran toward the village with my friends closely after me.
it took an hour but when we arrived at the scene, all that was left was dried corpses, many were smoldering and the area was degrading as if poison coated everything.
Chance lost it, she screamed and rolled herself into a ball, her whimpers affecting the mood for the rest of us. Yoshiro looked around uneasily, his guard seemed to be put up but he was trembling, I myself was in a daze, I could only see the smoldering rubble that used to be my house. the wood eaten away till it was as brittle as decayed wood. the roof collapsed into the house and half of the walls remained standing. from the doorway a shriveled hand was seen. a familiar ring glinted on the hand but it was corroded and partially melted.
I wanted to walk forward but Yoshiro held me back, I advanced forward again but this time he slammed me against the floor, my vision blacks out for a few seconds before I regain my sight, feeling my legs and arms tied up.
"Don't go in there, that is a field of death, ready to claim it's victims just from breathing in, let Chance clear the way first" Yoshrio said and he gave a pitiful look at Chance, who seemed broken, she curled herself into a fetus position, tears in her empty eyes, and short gasps of incomprehensible words muttered from her mouth.
"Despite that plan it might take a while" Yoshiro sighed.
In the distance another spire of gas descended onto the earth and a mushroom cloud of death appeared.
"The power of Kylia, how terrifying" I muttered in my daze, a sudden flashback happened in my mind, I could see Kylia in the skies and she was fighting a swarm of fighters, many people fell from her Plague Soldiers and her decay arrows. In the distance a group of people were protecting a very strange Aerolite Garuda, it had many more wings than a regular garuda, but it was darker in color, this strange creature appeared to be chanting something.
At the last few syllables, don't ask me how I know, Kylia noticed the garuda and shot an arrow at it, at the split second before the arrow hit a fellow took the arrow and fell to his death as a portal opened and Kylia along with the strange garuda both were sucked in it.
A title flashed after the memory ended and it said "The Sealing of the Wind Beast of Calamity by Mesphisto the Void Messiah.
I came back from the memory fully alert and I noticed movement. "Who goes there" I called and a few adventurers from the guild appeared.
"Your some of the lucky ones I take it" an adventurer asked as he observed the scene. "Can you tell us what happened."
Yoshiro shook his head "We arrived here after the spire of gas struck, we found it like this but my instincts told me that this place is poisoned, one step into it and we decay instantly. "
"I see, Arielle come clear the way, the kid claims poison gas, Inda come heal this girl" the guy asked and two people stepped up, one of them was a wind disciple like Chance and the other had a shifting outline, a water spirit.
The girl named Arielle sat in a meditative position and the winds swirled around her, before it advanced into the village.
"The boy is right, this air is very poisonous, its so heavy with poison my winds can barely move it, this is a good thing since it means the winds of the world won't shift the poison" Arielle said softly, meanwhile the water spirit named Inda put her hand on Chance's head and recited some words, a pulsing blue light wrapping around Chance's forehead.
After many hours the area of the town was finally safe enough to explore and what met our sight was gruesome, the decaying and decomposed bodies of many, nothing escaped decay, metal, wood, humans, practically everything died and rotted away.
I crouched next to the hand with the ring on it. "Mother......" I whispered, tears pooling in my eyes. I sat down and took the ring from her hand, and then took dirt and attempted to bury her.
Someone from the adventurer's party came to help by moving the earth through his magic, we did this for the other villagers including Chance's siblings and Yoshiro's grandfather. As we all were finishing up a shadow started to descend and we all looked up to see a valkyrie made of gas.
"Puny mortals, answer me this" Kylia asked, her speech and body movements seemed crazed.
"My comrades..... why can't I hear them, ......where have they gone, .....why do they not answer my calls" her voice breaks many times as she repeats this sentence over and over again.
"RUN" Arielle exclaims and with a push the winds send us all flying, and the area that we once were standing in got converged by gases, the screams of Arielle who remained behind spread terror into everyone present, her body decaying rapidly stumbled from the gas before she fell to the ground as a shriveled corpse.
"You know something?, tell me, TELL ME...." Kylia cried out in mad grief and a dozen Plague Soldiers materialized around her.
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Sorry for the hiatus, I was very busy with school and work, hopefully I can get another chapter out to you guys soon.
Remember to give me any feedback you want to give me, whether it is good or bad on my part, like hate for how this story is going, or what elements you like about this. Fire your insults and compliments away. I will gladly accept them.
Your author- Sederance