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Total war. The conflict between leaders, their war machines, their beliefs, their peoples. Carnage shook the world, unprecedented after even the toppling of the gods. The elemental realms paused their endless clash for supremacy witnessing the opposing sides draw from them for battle.

When the war began to slow to a conclusion, the realms screamed as a hole was ripped through the interrealm then through all their realms. All battle ceased in horror at the hole oozing in primordial energies. One side decided death before defeat.

09/31/ AWAD 200

Storms filled the night. Anyone with a drop of sensibleness had long before barricaded themselves into their homes. The storms almost didn’t seem just of rain and thunder but a siege of the world against man. These were horrid conditions for any except the most twisted of actions.

The storm mirrored the chaos Jorn would bring with the ritual set up in front of him whether he succeeded or not. The markings would only be twisted versions of the ideograms of magicraft language to the ignorant. That included almost everyone—Jorn was the exception.

He knew the truth. These were the originals, runes on the disks the cardinal mages extracted out of the still warm bodies of monsters. The magi language was but a distilled and more manageable form. The fact that the others didn't desire more of the truth was baffling.

Jorn looked back on the years he fruitlessly called for everyone to reach even farther. What was stopping them now that the gods were thrown down? The instincts of a whipped meek species it seemed. They accused him of insanity while he accused them of cowardice. In the end, he received no offer of cooperation.

He had picked up an assistant but that fool didn't count. At best Kisorn provided Jorn with amusing ideas in 'experimenting.' The idiot let the one summoned obtained using the original ritual escape. No matter, though. The escapee only served as a proof of concept and didn't know their language, No one would be able to question him on Jorn’s whereabouts.

Jorn’s makanol scrambled the escapee’s mana making any reading mind reading or enchantments of significant duration impossible with him as the subject. Didn't his stupid assistant mention that the escapee’s marker indicated he was a slave at the moment?

With the room as a newly expanded and unsmoothed cavern barely lit with candles -- Jorn still couldn't believe he had to resort to using candles-- he was amused to find that this would look like some sort of ritual offering sacrifices to some dark god to those ignorant naysayers. Then again when Jorn became God he wouldn't be a benevolent one so maybe there was some truth to that. Wait he could actually ask one of those nay-sayers right now couldn't he? Jorn had one right here!

"Hey Asani you never thought I would make it this far did you? Give me your thoughts. Oh wait I forgot I took your tongue. Kisorn, go lessen the effects of the scrambler on her a little," he pointed out a battered woman.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Her eyes sparked and she mentally sent, [you sick dog! You will never succeed! The guardians will rip you limb from limb if this insanity of yours doesn’t do...]

Jorn kicked her in the face. Asani should have been able to endure a little more abuse according to previous data. Instead of bouncing back to berating him again, though, the spark of defiance in her eyes died. The data would have to be reanalyzed.

"Well that was no fun. I broke her faster than I thought I would. Kisorn, don’t bother turning the scrambler back to full power," he sighed at his miscalculation.

Failing to predict trends of mental strength was no matter. Although only a little more than a proof of concept, his new “hero summoning” ritual would still herald a new age -- his age -- and he relished holding the world itself hostage. As if an attempt by the world to smite him, lightning struck. Only a shimmering of the shields and slight strain in the sound nullification was prompted. Maybe the world didn't appreciate what could only be a mutilating of the laws of existence.

Jorn scoffed. An actual guardian regiment would be an actual threat soon if he didn’t finish quickly enough rather than the philosophized sentience of the world. All the calculations panned out.

He only had to execute the first step to godhood. Not the cheap mantles the so-called-originals of his world had and pursued by the former revolutionaries and their descendants. Godhood that stretched across the worlds was his goal. Within the ritual plebeians considered the “hero summoning” ritual lay the key to true power. The ritual took advantage of how the world would leak in primordial energy occasionally and simply used summoned beings as focal points. Some summoned beings just happened to gain massive power from soaking in the blood of the worlds.

Most of the summoned beings were indoctrinated into the summoners’ views and presented as "heroes". If the indoctrination failed then they were framed as the "enemy of the world.” The strategy probably had varying degrees of success but apparently enough to make people believe the ritual to be the hero summoning ritual.

Jorn had no interest in summoning a potentially powerful adversary. Even if the sentient beings he summoned weren’t of high moral character, they would probably deem him as a threat. The first and last time he tested the authenticity of the ritual resulted with a dud of a specimen luckily or unluckily. No, the modified version of the ritual would siphon off primordial energy from the summoned.

The groans of his sacrifices reached a volume that tore him away from his thoughts. "Shut up you hideous meat bags, be glad you will have an actual purpose to your otherwise meaningless lives!"

Their groaning turned into outright yells in response, so Jorn ordered them to be bludgeoned.

He exhaled heavily. The suffering of lower beings always soothed him but became obnoxious when too loud. Looking into better ways of silencing captives could be interesting. The venture would have synergy with his efforts to study pain thresholds. Those were thoughts for another time, because he needed to get started.

With a dash of mana, the ritual began. A mash of colorful mana from the sacrifices lit up the various rings of symbols. A moment later, a ring of runes rose into the air. Every few seconds, a ring lifted up into optimum position. The result was a sphere of symbols flickering with a myriad of colors.

Screams were elicited from the sacrifices as they felt their very existences being consumed. A bubble began to form in the center of the created sphere. This was what a hole between worlds looked like according to every record. Jorn had to look down from that point. He couldn't very well let himself go insane from foolishly looking too long.

The deviations started from there. Instead of the leaking primordial energies forming an egg like shape around the bubble, the energy should be siphoned into the first test subject. At least in theory. Jorn kept an eye on his first subject through various mediums but the rupture came without warning.

The summoned subject slammed through the membrane that had formed. Jorn groaned at the failure in his life’s work. The issue was obvious but would he have the time and resources for another attempt?