"MOTHER!"
Ran shouts while rising from his sleep. He looks around and notices that he's inside a mountain cave.
"Where am I? Why am I here? Where's mother? "
After asking himself, he heard noises outside the cave.
He went out of the cave and tried to climb up to see what was going on on the other side of the mountain, but couldn't reach the top because of the mountain's steep vertical slope.
After multiple attempts of trying to climb up the mountain, he notices his mark on his upper arm glows again when he uses his strength.
"It's done this before, but I'm not sure why it always glows when I use my strength."
Recalling a time when he was in his father's room, he read a book about this that contained these kinds of marks. These marks are called runes. And when he reads about the page of this rune that he has, it's called the Rune of Power. A rune that overpowers the user's attributes of any kind but only what the user wants.
"Let's see if it works again by focusing my strength on my feet."
Ran tries to use all of his strength from his feet to jump to the top of the mountain. The rune from his upper arm glows again, and after his attempt, he successfully gets up.
Looking around, a beautiful scene of twilight and a vast forest can be seen. There were rocky mountains that seemed to be the habitat of the dragons that were flying in the distance. There were also birds flying that were less big than the dragons, and looking down into the forest, there were some animals that he recognized, but there were also some that were big and furry-like monsters. There were also some big insects and unknown plants that could be seen in the deep forest.
Ran: "What is this place?"
Stranger 1 (Girl 1): "Hey! A little help around here! "
Stranger 2 (Girl 2): "Help? I'm struggling to even hold down its legs down here. Hey! What's taking you so long? Just shoot its core in its chest! "
Stanger 3 (Guy): Ugh. I'm trying! Will you stay still? Damn it! "
Ran heard voices below the mountain.
He saw three people fighting against an enormous fire dragon.
Each of them has their own unique power.
A guy with a cybernetic figure who can fly and shoot lasers from his palms; a blue-haired girl who's fast and produces bioelectricity from her body; and a girl with black hair, dark skin, and a voluptuous figure who uses fiery acidic chained blades as her weapons.
He confidently jumped from the top of the mountain towards the dragon and tried to land a punch, focusing all his strength on his fist, but this time his hand lit itself on fire. Unknowingly, Ran still proceeds with the punch and successfully lands a fierce blow on the dragon.
He knocked down the fire dragon with intense power and immediately broke the core from its chest by landing another punch on it, defeating the dragon in a short time.
The three guys who fought hard against the fire dragon were all surprised and couldn't believe what happened.
After defeating the dragon, he lost consciousness and fell to the ground.
The 3 guys went to check on him to see if he was okay.
"Hey, are you okay?"
"Hey, wake up!"
"What happened to him?"
"I think he lost his consciousness."
"Quick!" "Bring him to the Magemedics."
The guy lifts up Ran and, together with the guy's teammates, goes home to their kingdom to treat him to the Magemedics.
After a half day of resting, Ran gently opened his eyes, looked around, and swayed his eyes towards the girl with blue hair whom he had helped defeat the dragon before lying beside the bed waiting for him to wake up.
"Uhm, excuse me."
The girl woke up and replied in a morning voice.
"Oh great, you're awake. I need to tell you— "
"Wait! Don't go yet; I need you. "
The girl was flustered as she looked back at him.
"Eh? Me? What do you need me for? "
"I need you to tell me where I am." Ran teased with a serious face.
"Huh? You're in a hospital, duh? Where do you think you might be right now? " "Hmph. " The girl was reproached.
Interrupting their conversation, a guy showed up, entering the room. His body was ripped while he was dressed in a plain white tank top and combat pants. He has long black hair. His skin is brown-colored but both of his arms are colored black, like molten rock from the surface of a volcano.
"So this one's the stray survivor. I had never heard of that until now. The guy chortled in a deep voice.
"Stray survivor? What do you mean? " Ran questioned
"You survived a disaster without the assistance of the Godslayers, and you even made it here to Ecliptica." How did you even do that? "
"Catastrophe? Godslayers? Ecliptica? I really don't understand. "Who are you anyway?"
Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Mino, an elite instructor of the Slayers here in the kingdom of Azona, and this short girl right here is Elainna. She will be your teammate.
"Teammate? What does he even mean? Ran question through his mind.
"Who are you calling, you air-headed gorilla?" Elainna ranted.
"There you go again with your behavior, Elainna." A familiar voice groused irritably.
All gazing outside the room, Ran recognized the two that he also helped defeat the dragon. The guy with a cybernetic body, and the girl that has black hair, dark skin, and a voluptuous body figure.
"Oh! And these two will also be your teammates. " Mino bragged.
"Come on, you guys, introduce yourselves."
"Quit your mocking Mino-sensei. My name is Kez, and the girl behind me is Akana. She's a little too shy, but you'll get along with her sometimes. Thank you for helping us earlier; that mission really is important to us to qualify for the Advancement Exams. By the way, what's your name? I bet you haven't introduced yourself yet, right? " Kez greeted themselves, thanked, and asked Ran.
"R-Ran, Ran Shoku. It's nice to meet you all. And also, Elainna, I really appreciate your effort in looking after me while I was unconscious. " Ran replied with a big smile on his face as he looked at Elainna.
"I-It's not even a big deal. Well, we're your teammates now. S-so d-don't worry about it. " She replied, turning around from Ran, with her face all red.
"B-but Mino-sensei, is Ran also qualified for the Advancement Exams?" Akana questioned.
"Of course he is. I mentioned that he's your teammate now, right? " "You guys will help out each other, train together to be stronger, and avenge all the important people from your own worlds against the Divinities." Mino answered.
"You don't even teach us anything, Sensei. All you have to say to us is to train, train, train. How are we supposed to get stronger if you don't even teach us? " Elainna griped while facing Mino. "
"What? So that meteor that landed on our home was just the beginning? Are there more parallel worlds other than mine? What happened to my world? Well, I guess I just need to accept my fate for now. Besides, I don't even know where to start searching for my mother. I might as well train and work hard so that I can fight along with my teammates. " Ran spoke through his mind.
"Uhm, Sensei," "Are there more parallel worlds other than mine?" Ran asked.
"Yes, there are millions of parallel worlds and a quarter of them are being conquered by the Divinities." Mino acknowledged.
"What are these Divinities?"
"These people are faithful worshippers of the Celestium who were chosen by the Celestials to be their vessels in order to take control of them, be able to move around and to reproduce more celestials in every parallel world, but all of the chosen vessels fought back against the Celestials in order to take back their own control of their mind and body. After they learned to embrace the power of their own mortality, the power of the Celestials remained inside of them. Even after owning these celestial powers, they still felt unsatisfied. Invading, conquering, and even destroying every parallel world they come across. These new beings are now called "Divinities" They call themselves gods, but they are monsters to us."
"And we, the God Slayers, need to prevent them from destroying and conquering other unbothered parallel worlds. If we were too late, we saved the remaining survivors and let them be one of us."
Let's change the topic for now. Since you're all here, we're going to talk about something important. It's about all of your family and friends. "
The atmosphere changed, and everyone was surprised by what Mino-sensei said.
"Well, the Worldwatchers are still busy finding them in every parallel world if they are still alive or not."
"Don't worry guys, if you all pass the Advancement Exams, I will help you all to become even stronger and avenge what you all have lost."
"And by the way, if you want to train with the other instructors, go ahead. They might help you become more proficient, but don't let your guard down. They also have their own teams to teach and become powerful, too.
"And every one of their teams might also be the first one that you're all up against." Mino bantered with everyone.
"We're done talking for now."
"Ran." "Yes sensei?" "Let's continue our matters tomorrow. I haven't finished asking you about your arrival here in this world. Let's talk tomorrow.
Together, the three walked along with Mino-sensei out of the room and finished their discussion.
Everyone of them got their chest burdened from Mino-sensei's statement, but for Ran, he got all fired up with a glorious grin.
"Mother, I will find you no matter what."
And after their discussion, they went on their way, training in their own places.
============================================
BONUS
But for Elainna...
Why don't you help us become stronger now, Mino-sensei?! Elainna complained in a loud, irritating voice while following Mino-sensei.
"I'm even more scared about the other teams we might face."
"What if they're much stronger than us?"
"What if they have a better instructor?"
"What if they are just some big fat bastards who just leer at my fine, curvaceous body and do whatever the fxck they want?"
"Will you shut the fxck up?" Mino shouted in an irritating way.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
≠========================
A little bit of information of the characters that were mentioned in this chapter.
Name: Ran
Title: the Firebringer
Power: Fire
Source of Power: Bloodline
Race: ?
Archetype: Fighter
Weapon/s: None
Glyph: Rune of Power
Name: Elainna
Title: the Glitch Spark
Power: Lightning, Glitch, Swiftness
Source of Power: Bloodline
Race: Human
Archetype: Assassin, Fighter
Weapon/s: Razorblades, Shock Daggers
Name: Kez
Title: the Enhanced Blaster
Power: Plasma Beams, Nano-tech
Source of Power: Technology
Race: Automaton
Archetype: Artillery, Fighter
Weapon/s: Weaponized Nano-Suit
Name: Akana
Title: the Ravenous Punisher
Power: Feiry Acid
Source of Power: Bloodline
Race: Human
Archetype: Fighter, Assasin, Controller
Weapon/s: Chained Blades
Name: Mino
Title: the Infernal Warden
Power: Magma, Insane Durability
Source of Power: Spirit
Race: Aspect
Archetype: Fighter, Tank
Weapon/s: None