Shoba POV

Naturally, how else could Shoba comprehend the being before him right now? After all, most entities resembling the figure he now observed were invariably labeled as aliens in his world.

"Your mind struggles to understand what I am? Or simply... You won't allow yourself to believe it," The strange being spoke in a deep hollow voice. Shoba sensed something almost alluringly heavy about it. With a sharp click of its gloved fingers, Shoba experienced an irresistible force wrenching the silver staff away from his grasp.

Helplessly, he watched as an invisible force carried the staff toward the enigmatic figure suspended in the air.

"Polaris... my son. And this Gear? Red Eyes Wheeler. Fufufu It's a shame a boy as bright as he was so easily dispossessed of such a pure relic... such a shame indeed." It spoke, with a subtle regret lingering on its tone. But to Shoba, it felt like a dark storm was looming.

The water in the figure's tank-like head swirled with each movement. Shoba found himself unable to remove his gaze away from the absurdity, lost in a deep sea of confusion and the very real feeling of fear mounting within his heart with every growing second.

'Calm down Shoba,' he willed to himself, clutching the damp clothes around his chest.

'We've faced worse than this, just remember...that night.' He reminded himself, trying his best not to become a stuttering mess in the presence of someone he suspected was the supreme King Po mentioned.

"Mortal One. I know what you seek." The voice heralded loudly like a king in an ancient movie Shoba had watched many times before.

It annoyed him that his body couldn't compose itself right now. Shoba couldn't stop himself from shivering for some reason. He was spellbound beneath this oppressive presence. Biting his lower lip, he maintained an impassive gaze as he fought every fiber within his body screaming at him to run. The floating figure snapped his gloved fingers again, this time the sound didn't reverberate as before. Instead, it transformed the silver-winged staff into a longer, golden one.

The tall golden staff was adorned with a half-moon sickle and an image of a sun melded together, was twice the length of the previous one.

A third snap conjured a sizeable throne, draped in crimson and gold and floated behind the fishbowl-headed fellow. The figure seated itself, elegantly crossing one hidden leg over the other. Shoba noticed it was wearing strange golden shoes with a theatric curl on the end.

'What's the point of all this?' he smiled weakly to himself, carefully observing everything about this strange being with a careful look.

" I foresaw your arrival today. I can count on one hand the amount of lesser beings granted access to this realm, so I must say, your actions merit great honor." Shoba, hearing this, thought of Po, wondering if he'd be upset about being left on earth like that. A pang of guilt struck him, and he was assured his mother would have scolded him for treating a guest, alien or not, in such a manner.

"Concern yourself not with Polaris, Mortal One. Instead, I advise you use this time wisely...

Since you're here, I'll entertain your hard work. Go on, ask of me three questions weighing upon your heart. I, Lord Helvetios, Grand Master of one of the Eight's strongest universes, promise to enlighten you."

As he spoke, a life-sized hourglass filled with red sand materialized beside the spherical fishbowl head. The sand began to sift into the lower half, but for some reason, seeing this strange and rather theatric thing, ignited a sense of dread deep inside of Shoba.

A brief silence fell, but the glass-headed figure did not rush or speak again. Shoba, feeling the atmosphere's intensity, employed a breathing technique his father had taught him, a method developed in his childhood to manage high anxiety.

'Why,' the question was simple, but Shoba understood it was perhaps the most important question. Only he felt this creature, or being, or whatever he was meant it when he said Shoba only held 3 questions. 'Why is he doing this? Is he trying to help me? Or not?'

Shoba thought long about this, his nerves calmed a little after a short while and his eyes strangely felt clearer than they had ever been during these past few days. Perhaps the trauma had shed away all his anxiety and heavy worries. Or maybe standing face to face with something this...OP. (Over-powered).

"My... ahem... my parents were taken by one of those re-red portals. Can...Ahem...c-can you help me find them?"

His voice, though shaky, carried a firm resolve to it.

An awkward pause ensued before he detected a soft exhale from the distant figure, Shoba observed the stillness of the elegantly dressed figure, seated nonchalantly against the smaller floating throne, a gloved hand resting on the armrest. With its other hand propped lazily beneath its...bowl? Shoba had to refrain from staring at the fishbowl head, he ended up focusing on the goldfishes swimming around and felt a little rude doing so.

"Your father? Your mother? Such strange and yet easy things you ask of a great being. Disappointing to say the least. But nonetheless...Yes and no, there is a strong chance they have already been sucked into an entirely different universe." He tapped his golden staff again and Shoba watched in awe as dozens of golden spheres appeared.

"Little Mortal, how much do you grasp about life's fabric, about the powers within the cosmos? Your Earth is a peculiar realm, after all. One so unique in its aloofness amongst the other universes."

Shoba noticed the golden staff, inscribed with amber runes, began to glow fiercely with each softly spoken incantation. Shoba heard a faint crackle of lightning, then his gaze lifted to a constellation of lights forming a familiar globe directly above him, the planet Earth!

"Your Earth is perhaps the most unique among the over seventy planets mapped across our galactic realms. None can be deemed as special as Earth."

'S-seventy planets.' Shoba's eyes almost fell out of their sockets hearing that. Between the floating constellations, the strange fishbowl head, and the mysterious revelations being told. It was no wonder he could mostly stay still and listen.

"Even my kin desire to one day rule Earth." He continued. "Kuku and yet it's an unwritten rule amongst us guardians, that the will of Earth, was intentionally designed for it to elude the grasp of beings like myself…"

Shoba envisioned a multitude of other fish-tank-headed entities, realizing he had uncovered a world-altering secret. A secret to which countless scientists, researchers, and conspiracy theorists on Earth would possibly commit terrible acts to discover themselves. And yet here he was, a mere boy entangled in an extraterrestrial calamity, arriving at a truth many had long suspected ...Earth was not alone.

Frozen in fear, Shoba's emotions remained suppressed. He simply swallowed hard, unable to remove his gaze away from the levitating figure. Caressing a simple truth in the back of his mind,

'This being was dangerous.'

Helvetios resumed speaking. Almost keeping in line with what Shoba suspected already.

'Somehow, someway...it can read my mind.' He felt

"Detailing the purpose of the guardians would consume too much time, a commodity humans fear wasting, I imagine. So...I'll avoid lengthy discussions and focus on matters crucial for your understanding.

The ' Greyzdier Ventulos ,' or the mana storm disaster, has disrupted the balance between the worlds' and the binding rivers of time have been disturbed, and polluted with the blood of the one who sailed across its celestial waters to protect it."

Above Shoba, the holographic display shifted. He now observed various spheres floating amidst a dense sea, 8 in total and not of water, but more like shimmering golden sand. Helvetios twirled his gloved finger, and a set of illuminating arrows appeared within the holographic sea, thirteen in total, each pointing towards a different direction.

The display resembled an electrical circuit or perhaps a kind of pathway as the sandy sea seemed to flow through each of the 8 spheres. But with a deeper look, he noticed the arrows only pointed one way against the sea.

"The arrows show us the flow. And the spheres represent realms guarded by my kin. And who are my kin? To mortals, you might refer to us as guardians, divine beings, protectors of the multiverses, or perhaps… game-masters ."

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An unsettling chuckle resonated in the air.

Shoba felt a vibration around him as though the very air itself was growling.

'Game masters?' Shoba pondered wordlessly, 'As in...those people who preside over game lobby's? th-that cant be right?

"The direction of the flow indicates which dimensions have access to others. This design prevents us and our subjects from venturing into other dimensions at will, mainly to avert invasions and anomalies. Too many anomalies lead to disasters, and directly interfering with another GM's world is a forbidden act among us guardians."

Every time Helvetios mentioned the term 'game-masters,' a wave of dread washed over Shoba.

'Are we merely pieces in their game? All the planets and the countless people existing across the world… is it all just a game to them?' His thoughts furrowed his brows as he wasn't sure why he felt so angry towards hearing all of this. Most of this felt way too surreal, but with how Shoba's mind worked there was no use ignoring the truth being shown to his very eyes.

Helvetios responded ominously, as though he could read Shoba's thoughts again.

"Yes. That is precisely how you must view it… as merely a game to us Guardians, the same way our lives our to the Gods, and beings perched loftily in realms beyond comprehension.

All things beneath them, all the things you chase endlessly, your ambitions, your goals, your hate, and your frail love. To beings dwelling in a higher plane, all these things are mere play."

Those words left Shoba visibly stunned, the sternness and the bravado of those words

"The longer the cosmos remain in chaos, the less chance you'd have in finding what you've lost."

A look of distress noticeably appeared on Shoba's face, he suddenly felt all the repressed anxiety surging throughout his body again.

"W-wait then... how d-do we stop it...h-how can I stop the chaos?" His voice broke tenderly, he attempted to snatch at his voice reminded that this would likely count as his second question

"It's simple...master the art, the breath of the cosmos, and grow...grow stronger little mortal, for in our world of divine, that is the only way. The strongest will inherit the world as foretold to us long ago by the voices that welded the runes of power into existence. And what are the runes you ask? they are the very fabric of life that binds us to the Gods. "

The fishbowl head twirled his gloved fingers again.

From his opened palms gently flowed a surge of sparkling golden dust. Almost dancing on their own volition, forming a symbol likened to two feathers welded against an arrow with several strokes against its shaft.

"Take a look. This is what we call a Rune, one forged by power."

The strange symbol glittered with an ominous wonder in the air. Shoba could faintly see it was a strange thing made up of thousands of tiny golden particles crackling with a faint incessive chirp. Like millions of tiny screeching birds.

"To form such a rune, you must seek out the knowledge of the worlds, seek out the mysteries hidden within the cosmos, seek out the strongest of foes, and those creatures that claim to be the mightiest, seek them out one by one...and defeat them all!"

Shoba felt his heart rapidly pounding away. The fishbowl-headed fellow carried this overbearing authority about him, from the very first moment Shoba laid his eyes upon the being. Fear and something else had quickly taken root in his heart. Pride. He felt an overconfidence in merely being present here. A subtle notion reinforcing his uniqueness within a world filled with billions of people who held no idea there were beings beyond the fabric of the world.

'What's going on with me?"

He swallowed harshly, trying to maintain some level of clear-headedness amidst this inconceivable being. Although he felt incredibly terrified, there was something he couldn't ignore. Somehow, deep in his gut, with every word spoken, he felt a fire burning softly... a familiar feeling he could liken to all those years of competing in high-intensity and high-level sports.

This feeling was excitement.

"To ascend to leadership, one must scale a mountain of adversaries, for it is only atop the mound of the valorous fallen where you can forge the mightiest rune conceivable, akin to the Lords of yore.

The champions, and the judges....the Game Masters... Kukuku. Do you think we have not all gone through it too? Of course, we have mortal. For how else can one obtain such power without defeating all who have approached this throne in a bid to snatch me off from it?

Dear mortal... you have no idea what you are asking of me... to stop the calamitous ones, you must yourself be strong enough to control the calamity."

Within that very moment, Shoba realized he truly understood very little about anything.

He had once believed he possessed a somewhat mature perspective on the enigmatic gift of life. In fact, until recent events, he considered himself rather adept at navigating through it.

However, the calamity of a single night had upended his entire existence and shattered his previous thoughts about life.

"Time beckons me to haste you with your third and final question."

Using his white-gloved hand he pointed towards the giant hourglass quickly sifting red sand into the lower chamber.

Suta felt a strange wave of anxiety crawling down his spine again watching those tiny granules of red sand rushing down.

'what happens when the timer ends, do I just go back to my world... or worse? Mother...Ringo...Father, where are you...What about that strange being in white? Was that an angel...or a devil-'

Too many variables still lingered in the air. But Shoba guessed there was only one real question he desired to know the answer to.

"Then...w-what happens once the timer stops?" His childlike voice carried itself along the grand hall.

Silence ensued for the first few moments, only the soft pattering sounds of the red granules hitting the bottom of the hourglass could be heard.

Shoba stood there in a slightly anxious daze, the hourglass had almost filled the bottom chamber by now, and still, he heard no response from this strange, and ominous being.

And then...

"Ku...kuku...aha...haha...Heh...haha-Buahahahaha!"

An almost sadistic laughter shattered the silence, and Shoba unconsciously took a few steps back in horror.

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‎ Concern ladened against his features whilst he beheld the floating figure in the near distance almost drowning in a cackling fit of laughter.

His attention was torn between the sudden rupture of that crazed laughter sending chills through his bones, and that incessant pitter-pattering of tiny granules falling. Shoba felt a dreadful feeling. The feeling of powerlessness mixed with the sense of not knowing a single thing right now

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‎ Suddenly that image of being frozen in grey appeared. That chilling demonic smile from that red-eyed being surfaced.

He clenched his two fists, feeling surges of panic, dismay, and loss, spurning into a single pale flame.

Anger rose suddenly. Overwhelming all sense of reasoning

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‎"Hey! Tell me! Why are you laughing? Answer me!" Shoba blindly roared,

In that moment , he sensed something stir in the shadowy air above him. The constellations seemed to have been knocked. He saw countless particles scatter

"MORTAL!" The voice thundered like an earthquake.

"Heh-keh…J-just a simple mortal... Your final question should've been your first. But… let's entertain it. Do you know why until this very moment you and your kind have never met anything from across the cosmos? It's simple if you think about it deeply."

'I d-dont understand? Why would our world be purposely separated from the others? Wh-whats so different about humans.'

Shoba searched for answers within his own way of reasoning, he heard that heralding voice again overlapping his thoughts

"Why are the beasts of the skies, purposely made to never meet the beasts that dwell in the deepest reaches of the oceans? Because they were never made to stand in each others realms. The sky beasts would drown, and the beasts of the seas would suffocate. Just like you mortal one,you were never meant...to ever step foot in this realm... Buahahaha.-do you understand"

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‎ The moment Shoba heard those truths. Before even a gentle sound could escape through his lips, he felt warm liquid rushing out of his nostrils.

Shoba touched the dark carmine, staining his fingertips.

Blood was falling and a deep panic finally struck his heart.

"Wh-whats going on?"