And so with the eventful two weeks, Lucas had transformed himself into a major player on the world stage, more or less by coincidence. While he was securing Camp Hearth, the rest of the world haven’t been idling. Due to Reimagination, the Earth had completely new geography, but that didn’t mean that people had changed much. In fact, some regions of the world left such a grand mark on the world, that even the System itself acknowledged their existence as the pre-System entities.
The Balkans region was of course one of them. Centuries of hatred and bad blood between the people living there led to the absolute bloodshed once the System arrived. Tutorials where mostly Balkan people were bloodiest in existence and once the survivors were returned to their lands, they simply went and started killing the group they perceived to hate the most. But hatred, fickle as it is, was ever changing and so did the massacres fueled by it. Groups were mercilessly slaughtering themselves one day and the next found themselves allied and in the pursuit of the completely other group of people to murder. Of course, not all of the people of the Balkans surrendered to madness, the visionary among them walking and trying to plug the plug on bloodshed, talking about the new vision of the world, people cooperating to further their goals. Unfortunately, such individuals hadn’t lasted long in the harsh realities of the Balkans, usually ended up killed and luckier among them managing to escape the region. That tendencies was the last ingredient needed for the System to announce Balkans as the reputable pre – System region, with cycles of madness and hatred killing any hopes of progress for the people there, the majority toiling away before one event or another make them lose any hope and escape to become wanderers in a wider world, usually teaming up with the people that back home would be the target of their hatred. Ever shifting Balkans hadn’t managed to produce a distinct leader, but the region always have at least five of powerful groups with conflicting goals and interests, which make the Balkans absolute headache for people outside of it to deal with.
The Middle East was the second major region that managed to convince the System of it distinction. During Reimagination, System took the modern urban settings and moved them to the oasis of the old deserts then starching them to cover the ruins were the cities once stood. Why the System essentially duplicated those urban setting, nobody knew but the people were quick to accept ways of their ancestors romancing from oasis to oasis from ruin to ruin. One man, however, saw the futility of it and began gathering people to reclaim their civilization. Unexpectedly, old spiritual fervor awoke in those people who follow them, but changed from the ways before System, the old faith now only existing in the memory of the people who were old enough to remember the time before the System. The man’s following became bigger and bigger, and with the Shaitan of The Sand’s skills with manipulating sand all around, his numbers were becoming bigger. The man was currently watching the biggest oasis in the region from the distance, awaiting his scouts return.
“My lord, there is trail in a distance, a rider approaches” one of the Saitan’s honour guard spoke.
The rider was one of the scouts that were sent to gather information and he approached the man and kneeled. Shaitan quickly motioned him to stand up, the fervor people showed to him always unsettling him. He just wanted a better life for everybody, not to become a religious figure.
“My Shaitan, the Iron Raiders are here and in full numbers” the scout informed.
The man simply nodded, his bearded face with green eyes to top it off making a frown. The ensuing battle was sure to be bloody, but the raiders had to be stopped. In the last year, they conducted numerous raids, killing indiscriminately all who oppose them and enslaving ones who surrendered. Lately, they targeted the Shaitan’s group more than anyone else, clearly feeling the man becoming a danger to their dominance.
“We ride then” Shaitan said, his mood already dampened by the losses that were about to happen. In his eyes, every human life lost was a waste, but he knew this was for a greater cause. Knowing his role, he stepped forward and raised his hands. Giant wave of sand started forming some distance from him and, like an unstoppable tide, it went toward the walls that protected oasis. They struck it, sands taking the walls along with all of the defenders that were on it. The rest of his troops advanced forward, real humans mixed with sand soldiers, battle beginning in earnest.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
One man on watched all of this play out from his jet, ordering the pilot to fly them out after the sand wave collapsed into the walls of the oasis. He wore business suit reminiscing of the businessman of the old world. The man himself poured himself a bottle of wine and went into his thoughts. The trade deals he had with the raiders were profitable, but he knew it was a matter of time before someone put a stop to their antics. With the recent loss of Camp Hearth deal, his empire took a hit, but it was far from something that would shatter it.
“Just a minor setback” he concluded, and with the rumors of unrest at Camp Hearth, he was certain at least that will be back sooner than latter. Man was wandering merchant in loosest meaning of the world, seeing as his network of business was spanning the whole globe, at least where civilization still stood. That made him the richest human on Earth and although he hadn’t anyway to be certain, he was sure his wealth was able to challenge much of the multiverse. Of course, this wasn’t old Earth, so amassing wealth wasn’t sure fire way to power, usually making you a high value target for the brigands and bandits and sometimes even the entire civilizations in the multiverse. As his jet landed in his flying citadel, he thought about the precautions he took. He made sure to buy every treasure and every artifact available and his citadel was home to at least five hundreds best crafters money could buy, who pumped out even more powerful relics he could use to defend him. He also made sure to recruit every competent fighter he was able, and even set up rudimentary academy, hoping one day to make his citadel a true cradle of civilization, just as his ancestors did back at the days of the pre – System Earth. He got back to his living quarters and soon the pilot of the citadel arrived.
“Your orders, sir” he simply asked.
“Let’s scout out some, see if there is new settlements. But please, avoid that shithole that once Australia” the businessman said, sipping another glass of wine.
The shithole mentioned was a generous term for the island formerly called as Australia. For some unknown reason, the System decided during Reimagination that it was the island for the whole Earth and started bombarding it with other islands big and small, fusing them. The side effect of this, however, was that the plant and animal life found on all that islands, with every new land mass added a more terrifying form of life emerged. But nothing was more terrifying that the Fusion Beast, a completely new form of life that was the result of the incessant fusion the island was subjected to. The Beast was a giant hive mind, able to clone itself if enough biomass is present. To make matter worse, clones were able to be specialized, of course on the condition enough biomass was consumed for the Beast to learn that specialization. The monster roamed the island, eating everything in its path. When the humans returned, they were completely unprepared for what awaited them. With adding human mind to its available biomass, the Beast became twice as terrifying. Even worse, the unique life form proved capable of absorbing classes and that increased the effectiveness of its specialization by the large margin. Now, intelligent as the human and with access to classes and skills, the Beast begins looking outwards, its incessant hunger driving it to consume the whole planet and when the time comes, the whole multiverse.
There was another region on new Earth, one that was mysterious even to the most learned Loremasters. The icy regions of the new Earth were inhospitable now just the same as it was during the pre – System Earth, except for the ten thousand souls or so that roamed the snow covered plains. Although the regions themselves hadn’t changed much, the people living there have. Their tutorials focused on mirrors of their cold, making them almost immune to any kind of cold and when they got back, the ghosts of old stirred and soon fused with the souls of the humans that were alive. That brought back a culture old forgotten even in the old Earth and not even a footnote on the post – System Earth. Nevertheless, conquers of old walk the Earth once again and they were busy. In pauses between subjugating one another, they were sculpting boats of ice, long and thin marvels of ingenuity, that will take them to faraway lands to plunder and subjugate. The boats were almost ready and the strongest amongst them, Harald Icestare, Axeman of the Frost, predicted his expedition will begin in under the year. His rampage was motivated by this deduction, looking to subjugate every clan imaginable, his vision of unbeatable armada plundering warmer shores becoming closer to reality with every clan subjugated.