Thunder clashed against earth as rain poured over untold amounts of desolate land. The loud sounds mixed with the constant cacophony of falling water on dry soil created a tragic melody.

A requiem for a dying world.

On the surface, gigantic creatures roamed about. Their slow and measured steps brought yet another note to the harmony, as their colossal feet stomped on the ground and broke wet stone with their massive weights. Towering everything around them by being dozens of meters tall, these creatures looked around with deliberate attention, as if searching for something.

Their bodies were pitch black, made of some coarse material, even rougher than stone. Their structures were humanoid, and yet completely featureless, with slender limbs and a neckless head. The only thing that gave away that they were live beings instead of badly sculpted monuments was the fire pit right in the center of their faces. These fires shone with supernatural heat, moving around as if alive. Huge, unblinking fiery eyes.

The other, last component of the melody that heralded the last age of that world, was the stifled and slow breathing of dozens of creatures hiding in some stone crevice on the ground. Humans, hiding inside a cave.

Scared, hungry, weak, and dirty, they squeezed themselves on the stone corners of the cave. Their eyes were desperate and soft prayers could be heard on their lips. Pleads to forgotten gods in hope that reality just went away.

The cave looked as if it was originally a tunnel. The tunnel, however, seemed to have collapsed at some point, trapping those people there, near the surface and hunted by the gigantic creatures.

Inside the cave, however, there was a single man with something more than fear inside his eyes.

Defiance, rage, hope, and sorrow all battled inside that man's heart.

In his arms, he held something. It was covered under thick blankets and seemed to have a spherical shape. It was slightly larger than an adult's head, and if you looked close enough, you would realize that it shone with such light that even the coarse cover couldn't fully block its brightness. 

Huddling with the man were a woman and a young boy. They whispered among themselves with soft words, making weak promises for a better future of safety and comfort. Things they had lost for what felt now like an eternity.

Still, there was love there. Even in the end.

It was only when certain demise came into the cave that the family let go of each other. Despair came in the form of an enormous black fist breaking through stone as it violated the group's last refuge. The ceiling exploded and instantly the dark limb smashed half a score of refugees. Chips of bloodied stone flew all around the survivors, splashing on their faces and cutting exposed flesh.

The mysterious man took a last look at his family and then crouched to the child's height. Hell had broken loose around them, but the man seemed to ignore everything as he whispered some few last words to the young boy. When he was finished, he passed the spherical object to his son and then turned around.

The monster's punch had made a hole in the ceiling, from which the creature had already retrieved its arm. Body parts and collapsed stone were all around the dark cave as the screaming of the survivors mingled with the yells of pain from those that had been unlucky enough to be pressed down by the falling stone.

Suddenly, the darkness of the cave was pushed back as the giant creature outside moved its fiery eye to look through the hole. The orange tinge on the walls only served to panic the people inside the cave even more. As if burned by the hotness of the magical eye outside, the people inside screamed in despair as they soiled themselves from every possible orifice.

The exception was, again, the man and his family.

Aiming at the fiery eye looking straight at him, the man extended his arms with open palms.

Upon seeing the man's stance, for a single moment, the creature's fiery pupils seemed to contract. But it was too late.

From the man's hands, a blue beam emerged with the cold fury of a thousand dying suns.

BZUMMMMMM! 

The blue whiteness blinded everyone inside the place as it pushed into the creature's head. Soon, the fire from its face was extinguished and the black material it was made of exploded outwards into innumerable pieces.

Not taking any breaks, the man looked around the cave and waved his arms.

The collapsed stones that had fallen from the ceiling floated upwards and rotated in sync with his hands. He made some movements with them, and soon, they pilled upon one another to form a ramp to the hole in the ceiling.

With a yell, the man gathered the attention of those inside the cave that still had their senses. He only said a few words, but those who listened to them seemed to surge with hope once more. He then pointed out of the cave, and without another word, jumped outside.

From inside the cave, the man's family, together with over a dozen of the more courageous individuals, all rushed outside with him.

On the surface, the man took his bearings and somberness appeared on his face. There were over a dozen of the giant creatures around, all now moving to his position. With his almost godly vision, he could also see in the distance that even more of the creatures were being formed, as mana surged and black rock assembled itself on the horizon.

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Rain whipped at his face and soaked his clothes and hair as he looked back to those that followed him. Thunder echoed in the distance as he took a deep breath and pointed to one direction.

It took but a moment for the people around him to understand his meaning and put themselves into a run, towards that direction. Even his wife and son, only took one last look at him, before turning around and fleeing.

And then he turned around again.

To face the monsters.

His battle cry slashed apart the skies louder than the thunders, as his body surged with blue energy that poured from his very soul. His eyes blazed with blue light as his body floated a few meters into the air and his hands lighted up with mana.

The creatures also roared. They also became infuriated and also unleashed their deepest powers as they rushed towards him. But their rage and will were not the same as his.

No. They were monsters. Mana Aberrations wired with sinister purpose by corrupted forces. They had no souls and definitely did not have what the man had.

He was a human. A father. A husband. The Guardian Of The Everlasting Core. Protector Of Zathar. A soon to be martyr.

His mana and soul burned together to fuel the desires of his heart. With a roar and a punch, mana beams pierced the dark clouds in the sky as his fists extended his rage through the monsters cores. Creatures were destroyed and exploding dark stone showered the ground as the tempest picked up speed and more monsters formed from the ground.

Different designs of monsters also started to appear. Twisted copies of what once had been normal creatures. Wolves, bears, chimeras, wyverns and even dragons. All made of black stone and with fiery cores in the form of giant eyes in their faces.

But the man was unstoppable.

Flying around like a trailing blue star, swerving around giant arms, fangs, and claws while focusing his mana into beams that blasted the monsters' fiery cores to oblivion.

The collapsed stone from the dying forms of the creatures started to gather up and form a mountain. Seeing the undying man, atop the remnants of their allies seemed to make the creatures even angrier. The world seemed to rage, and even more creatures surged from the ground.

And days passed.

The mountain grew to an enormous size. Unscathed, even if tired, the man stood atop it. During all this time, the tempest had never stopped. Rain still fell around him and black monsters still formed to destroy him. Suddenly, the ground opened up and from it, lava surged in waves. Monstrous arms took shape from the hot magma and tried to reach for the man, but he just flew higher. Swerving around his mountain, he now fought against the lava from the ground and the mana aberrations at the same time.

Weeks passed.

The man's once raven black hair was greying. His sparkling green eyes were losing their color. His muscular frame, withering. But still, he fought. Over the last weeks, the lava surging all around his mountain had solidified over and over again, providing even more mass to the accumulated stone from the dead creatures. The mountain had risen to loom over even the tallest of the enemy creatures. It was almost a hundred meters tall.

During all this time, the tempest and the rain had become more and more furious. Down there, at the foot of the man's mountain lakes were being formed over the stone bodies of the long deceased. The wind had started to magically condense itself into air pressured blades, constantly chasing him from everywhere. Tornadoes had formed around the mountain and they whipped stone around the mountain with furious disregard for the creatures attacking the man. More than the aberrations, the man was now fighting against the forces of nature.

Months passed.

The man's visage was that akin of a tortured prisoner. His magically enhanced robes had all been slashed apart by now, under the constant cutting power of the wind. The man's flesh was completely scarred, by being cut over and over again, at the same places. His hair was now completely white, and so were his once green eyes. Looking like wiry old man, he stood naked atop the mountain of stone corpses.

The mountain now was hundreds of meters tall, rivaling even famous natural formations. It stood atop a raging sea, from which stone creatures constantly surfaced to climb to the top. Most of them died on the way, thrown into lava pits by the tornadoes, smashed apart by the huge stone debris flying all around, or even cut into pieces by the sharp wind blades that constantly roamed over the mountain. Regardless, some still managed to get to the top. And those, the man still fought.

As if enraged by the man's defiance, the dark clouds in roared. Like rage, some red electricity had been building up inside of them over the past few months.

Suddenly, a red thunder came down from the sky. Cutting through the rainwater and wind like a heated blade, it targeted the man with unerring velocity.

The thunderous boom of the thunder came only after the pained roar of the man, and even then, it paled in intensity.

But still, the man held. With tired body and soul, but unwavering defiance.

This was his universe. For it, and all there was in it, he would resist.

Black smoke rose from his charred body as raised his hand and fired his mana at the skies once again.

Earth, fire, water, wind, and thunder. Nothing would break him.

Not until his universe was safe again.

A hundred years passed.

Atop his mountain, the man stood. Atop this world, his mountain reigned.

Breaking through the skyline, taller than the clouds, the winds and the influence of earth itself, his mountain had now thousand upon thousands of meters. It reigned supreme over all mountains of this world, the man was sure.

Risen from the bodies of all the monsters he had defeated, of all the elements he had overcome, the man felt pride of how high he had reached.

His skin was cracked, and from the openings on his body, one could see the still massive power of the man's soul. Potent, blinding mana escaped through the gaps in his pale, dry skin. His white hair pooled around his feet and it shone with the same intensity of his mana beams. His eyes were the same, in a permanent state of overflow.

Only his facial expression gave away the true state of the man's body and soul. Twisted in a permanent grimace of pain, his godly eyes leaked a constant flux of blood. Tears of utter, unspeakable, agony.

His soul was stretched thin, like a taut string. His body had been broken apart so many times that only his will maintained it together.

And still, he fought.

Many years ago, the Enemy had switched strategy. After the man had resisted the elements and risen above their influence, the focus had changed from quantity to quality.

Every day, the man fought a single beast. Different in design every time, the creatures all held inside the power of thousands of its lesser siblings. They also possessed titanic sizes, being hundred of meters tall.

Upon rising the mountain, these creatures were blessed by the elements, instead of hindered by them, like before.

Atop the mountain, the fights were always difficult and only barely the man managed to win. But he always did.

Until one day.

One day, when, instead of a fight, what he got was jubilation.

He could feel it. The mana flow was restored. They had made it. The universe was alive again.

After uncountable years, the man's perpetual scowl softened. He smiled.

"I hope you are alive, Xer'er."

And then, the man was no more.