Architect, god of Laws and Structures and Conjurarum, god of Magic appeared out of thin air on a completely destroyed world for their ‘clean-up’ duty.
The air was foul, the sky was hidden behind heavy, black clouds. There was no life, not even the hardiest of viruses had survived.
The atmosphere was saturated with a dark miasma.
“Did you feel it?” Conjurarum turned to the Architect behind their protective forcefield as they felt a disturbance in their fate connections...
“Yes. It is finally awakening.” Architect nodded as his three compound eyes flashed with bright light, piercing through the vast space between dimensions, he observed Orbisia. He saw everything, the changed Stone’s body, Lucifer on the ground, Jarka sitting nearby and unconscious Dafur.
“Are you sure it's a good idea?” Conjurarum
“No… But what choice do we have? Perditio is dead. Mortalitas accepted a challenge from a mortal and refused to join the battle alongside his whole family. The taint is spreading and the Big Guys are acting like lazy bums… “ Architect replied, redirecting his attention, carefully examining the dead world with his three eyes.
“What about Them?” Conjurarum’s pretty, androgynous face scrunched in a frown.
“They said it’s our job to protect our Universe. Lazy bastards…”
“They are still partying?” Conjurarum raised the long eyebrows.
“Yes. Lazy bums… they created this place and now refuse to do anything else. I can’t wait for Woo to return from his vacation.”
“What about the Core? Does the Taint threaten it?”
“Ask Mortalitas. After his refusal, I assigned him the duty of taking care of it.” the god of laws replied with a certain amount of self-satisfaction. “And to answer your other question; not yet, but it’s only a matter of… ugh, can’t believe I have to say it… time.” He spat the word.
“What about Chronos and Eros?” Conjurarum asked about the god of time and goddess of space.
“Still taking turns in keeping the All-Bridge in check. They have no time to join the main battlefield.”
Before Conjurarum could say anything else, a dark-red shadow leapt at the deity from a tear in the space. Conjurarum gracefully evaded with a well-timed teleportation, materialising him several kilometres away and swiftly cast a colourful ray of energy from his long index finger, but the colourful nature of the ray disguised its world-ending power.
The ray landed on the tainted godly Monster. Azure blood sprayed over the world from the deep gash, stunning it. However, the injury began to rapidly close.
Meanwhile, the Architect's three eyes glowed with the colour of magic as he read something.
“Conjurarum, magic can’t kill it! Keep it down, I will seal it!”
Conjurarum nodded and raised his arms as if praying to the Sun. A net of pure magic, imbued with a sliver of the Law of Binding itself, slowly coalesced above the deity.
Then, as fast a light itself, the net enveloped the Monster,
Suddenly, what was left of the dead world split three times, the world itself morphed, 8 spikes formed, each spike connected to another with tendrils coming together to form bars with complex structure, it fell into place and solidified, creating a cuboidal prison.
The immense Monster roared, pouncing at the walls.
The two deities teleported outside and Architect grabbed a blacksmith hammer from his waist.
He hit the prison eight times on each side. A large amount of white Essence left him, enveloping the sphere.
“You good?” Conjurarum ported to Architect.
“Yes.” The god frowned, his three long, white eyebrows frowned. “The Taint is spreading faster than I thought… The Entity has to grow faster.”
“If we meddle with Orbisia's fate even more, Big Guys will notice it. They will separate that world from us and we will lose the ability to even check on him. Not to say what that would do to the Universum system.” Conjurarum protested, raising his six hands.
“We doomed Orbisia the moment we sent the Entity there. We need it to unravel and decipher itself faster! So… Let’s ask others. This decision cannot come from only me anyway.” Architect offered a compromise, hoping the rest would agree. He missed Perditio very much so. Even though they always fought, they were good friends.
“Agreed.” Conjurarum nodded.
They disappeared into the thin air again, leaving the imprisoned tainted Monster inside the cuboid.
The Sun exploded soon after, pushing the prison to a crack in space.
Nobody… well, nobody alive knew, but the locals had called that world Earth. But when shit hit the fan, their only escape had been a time-space crack in the fabric of reality that sent them, surprisingly, into Orbisia’s northern pole. From there they spread further, until they reached Dwarven and Elven lands. That had happened thousands of years before Stone awakened… Some could call it the origin of the Human Race as we know it.
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Back at the Eternal Party, few of the unoccupied prime and high gods were gathered for a meeting.
“So, it’s true that Lucifer failed! He got caught by local Shadow Mages. Why weren’t we informed sooner?!” Prime god of Life, Fufluns, angrily shouted, while nervously tapping on the table with a wooden staff.
“It was not important. He pushed the Entity to the first evolution, allowing us to unravel a bit of its existence!” Architect defended himself, raising his perfect hands.
“By a mere fluke! And for what price? Orbisia’s forces and Shadow Mages now know about it. And he pushed him towards the path of the butcher instead of the protector,” The first Beholder, All-Gaze, god of Fate, barked at him.
“That doesn't matter. We have a perfect agent to steer it towards the path of the guardian.” Architect proclaimed, his white beard shifted in the Elementum’s gust.
“Who?” The prime god of elements, Elementum asked with a voice resembling a hurricane.
“Her,” Architect waved his hand and a construct of a big ant with lightning stripes on her thorax showed in the middle of the Table.
Everyone incredulously looked at him.
“An ant?” High-god of Festivity and Acting, Hirsche, asked, his theatrical facemask showing a smile.
“Yes.” Architect answered, and silenced Hirsche with a profound glare. The rest did not care; all mortals were ants to them.
“What about Lucifer?” Luvia, goddess of Love asked.
“Failure is a failure. He is mortal now, so who cares.”
“His fate is hidden.” Until now silent god of Karma, Roland, added.
“It’s because of contact with the Entity and their unusual… connection. Nothing to worry about.” Architect replied to Roland, who looked at him funny. Architect barely noticeable, but nervously shifted.
“What are you hiding?” God of Karma sent a divine message directly to his mind.
“... Nothing… And don’t try to peek inside my memories. I learned from the Entity how to protect myself.”
“Uhuh…” Roland grinned, but didn’t say anything aloud.
“I have heard that the system keeps acting up around the Entity,” god of emotions, Passione squinted.
“Nothing serious. I will update it later with the newly uncovered knowledge.” Architect dismissed it, but a flash in his third eye betrayed his true emotions; concern. “Now, onto another matter; the Taint is spreading faster than I thought. We can suppress it and slow it down, but not stop it.”
“Do we know where the Taint comes from yet?” Hirsche worriedly asked.
“No. We only know it spreads from the outside of our Universe.” Architect replied.
“How long do we have left?” One of the ascended high-gods staying behind their respective prime-god, asked.
“According to Chronos, around 5 000 years of linear Core time.” Again, Architect was the one to answer.
A nervous murmur from the gods spread over the table. Some were arguing, some were nervously trying to think of a different approach. In the end they were silenced by the Architect, who suddenly appeared in the middle of Table.
“So. Let’s vote! Will we meddle with Orbisia’s fate once more and risk that Big Guys will notice or will we let it be on its own accord and risk the death of the Entity?"
“Stone.” Conjurarum suddenly said.
“What?” Architect asked.
“That’s its name. Stone. Lucifer named.” Conjurarum did not know if he should laugh or cry.
“Meddle.”
“Meddle.”
“Disagreed.”
“Meddle.”
“Disagreed.”
…
In the end, the only ones disagreeing were Hirsche and Conjurarum.
“It’s decided then. We will meddle with the Entity’s progression once again for the last time,” Architect said, “I repeat; one, last time. Otherwise, Big Guys will notice.”
All of them gathered around the Table and cast an unison spell of Fate, connecting it to Orbisia and nearby realms. They carefully steered the fate of the world with All-Gaze at helm. They made changes here and there, changed the probabilities, helped others, while subdued the detrimental beings.
After all was done, all of them disappeared to their realms or returned to the Eternal Party to continue their debaucherous festivities, leaving the space empty, except they ‘forgot’ to disable the spell.
A black portal appeared in the corner and Mortalitas emerged from it. He carefully looked around, and walked towards the spell.
He raised his long, pale finger to it and added one single change.
“Now, we are even, Luci…” He murmured and entered his portal back to his Realm of Death.
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“Are we really letting them do it?” One of the unnamed Administrators asked as he planted a card with a picture of a star on the simple, metallic table.
“Yes.” The other player simply replied, conjuring a star above them and planting a black hole over the first card.
“It’s breaking the rules.” The first Administrator stated, conjuring a black hole next to the star. It began to slowly consume it.
“What the Will of Origin doesn’t know…” A third Administrator chipped in and drank from the Black Hole as he could not place another card.
“How very… mortal of you. We are here to protect the Core and uphold the rules.” The first Administrator threw a card with a white hole on the small pile.
“The Taint is threatening the Core. We all know that. These changes will be for the last time. I attest to that.” The second Administrator said, negating the black hole.
“Fine. I will let it slide. Now… Where were we? Ah, yes… You drink!” The third Administrator handed him the Keg of Eternal Beer.
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Back with Stone, who still sat in the middle of the battlefield, looking over his journal and tablets. Jarka waited for orders, it was in her nature to be obedient and Stone with Lucifer had saved her life. Dafur was still unconscious, Baelgin, the second Stone-Breaker was gone…
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He ignored the loud battle with great self-repression, next to Lucifer, who tried, though unsuccessful, to gain his attention.
At least, your evolution didn’t hurt me the same as your friend who is suffering from Stockholm syndrome... Still, deciphering this insanity was a pain in my proverbial ass! So be Me-damn happy I did this for you, you tool! Apparently, you are the natural evolution of the Mana Crystal race. You are bigger, more cohesive and your natural attunement to mana strengthens by a great amount. Also… Hehe… You can now be considered as a mid-tier mana crystal. And you are surrounded by greedy Dwarfs and Goblins… *menacing cackle* Perks: 50% faster learning of mana-based expertises 2x faster mana regeneration and larger mana pool Due to Refined Mana coursing through your body during evolution, mana refinement became 2x faster and your pool had expanded 2x times larger. You can naturally feel the ambient mana to a great extent. You can use the Monster perception sphere as your natural sense. Talent: Refraction Ailments: You can be sent to Berserk through outward exposure to refined mana, including your own expertises fueled by refined mana. Due to being cursed during your evolution from Mother Fire Elemental, you cannot be attuned to any Natural Element (fire, air, water, earth) and their combination. Permanently. The rest is not possible to decipher by me. ME! The Greatest system in existence! Sub-Race: Magical Calcite Android You are weird, but, at least, I can now put you in a category… Still, it does not make sense! What and how have you done it?! You have built yourself as an Android, aka a sapient, artificial, anorganic being. Strength and dexterity unlocked! (base 30 strength, 30 dexterity) Lifeforce: Hardness x 150 + strength Strength: +5 per level due to growth (Monster perk) As a rock-based idiot, dexterity is heavily impeded: Dexterity x 0.5> He also noticed that he could evolve his expertises. “You are too loud,” Stone plainly stated. “Evolve everything.” Stone ordered, mentally shrugging. It was not worth arguing with the Universum after all. It would just get louder. His journal began to flash in new messages; “Evolve my skills!” Stone repeated and waited but the Universum did not respond. “Uni? Hey! Do it!” Stone’s tablets flickered and disappeared. He tried again and again to open them, but there was no reply. “Stone!” Lucifer yelled once more, but Stone completely ignored him, panicking over his missing tablets. The Devilish Sorcerer exasperatedly sighed, slowly sitting up. He slapped Stone with his stump of arm, in which he took quite a good measure of pleasure. This was something he wanted to do a long time ago. “What?” Stone finally registered Lucifer. “Look around!” Stone examined the battlefield, at least as far as he could with his perception sphere and shrugged, “what? Plenty of meatbags and experience packs,” he stated. “Ah! Thanks, Luci!” He realized that he could level up some more. “What? Why are you thanking me?” Lucifer was confused. It took a moment to realize what the idiot was planning. “Stone! No!” Lucifer really did not want to deal with this. Stone prepared himself and tried to cast a spell, but nothing happened. “Luci! I cannot cast spells!” Lucifer heaved in relief. Right now, they were not in a position to fight. Meanwhile, Harkon was still fighting the Ogre. Both of them had to limit themselves, so there was no risk of collapsing the mountain on their armies. Still, it was a savage battle, powerful blows made scars on the ground and even damaged the enchanted keeps. Bolts, spears, spells and skills were flying from both sides above Stone, trying to destroy the ramparts. Some of the attacks were sent at Stone and his group, from both sides, but Harkon always deflected them with a silvery bolt. Lucifer could not tell who was winning, the Ogre or the powerful Dwarf, he only knew that if they did not move from their entrenched position, they would die. “Stone, we need to go.” “But I want to level up!” “Ahhh! No… Look, you are in no position to fight. This is a battlefield with powerful beings!” “But…” “This again?” “Fiiiiine… Where to?” “Away from here and then we need to find Lich Hen’Tai, otherwise I will die.” Lucifer put all hope into the Lich. Fortunately for him, Stone was Stone. The peb… actually, Golem… “Android.” “Huh?” “Android, not a golem.” “... how do you know what I am thinking?” “I always could.” “...” “You just did not care, didn’t you?” “No. You are my friend, teacher… Hmm… There was a word for it… Parent! You are my parent.” “... oh god, no…” Bloody tears streamed from Lucifer’s eyeholes. “Luci. How can I walk?” Lucifer sent him pictures through their unique link of different people walking, running, sprinting… Everything he could remember. Stone walked around soon. Even jumped a few times, but that felt too weird for him. Still, even he had to acknowledge that a ‘proper’ body was good. Stone got a bad feeling. Very, very bad feeling. He conjured the tablets. Every explanation, status screen, lists... Name: Stone Title: Guardian of Talc Anthill Race: Augmented Calcite Android Tier: 2 Level: 50 Exp: 60.48% Hardness: 3 Lifeforce: 480 / 480 Mana: 1340 / 1340 MReg: 100 / sec Refined mana: 335 / 278 MRef: 0.63 / sec Strength: 30 Dexterity: 15 Intelligence: 67 Talents: Ageless, Lucifer {wielder}, Refractor Resistances: Heat T1L5, Electrical T1L3, Poison T2L10, Acid T2L10, Curse T1L1 Expertise: Mana Point T2L10, Ambient Mana Generation T3L1, Mana Carving T2L10, Healing Bath for minerals T1L7, Ants’ Souls T1L15, Mana Shield T1L33, Mana Missile T1L27, Mana Expulsion T1L15, Meditation T1L50, Weak Manakinesis T1L5, Tracking T1L1 And except the status screen, with adjacent lists, everything else was gone! A menacingly hissing acidic ball hit Stone squarely into his chest, interrupting his child-like weeping. Lucifer watched it, horrified and fearing the worst. He still needed the pebble; their connection through souls was still there and he still needed to drain the refined mana. Except, nothing happened to Stone. It flowed down and hissed on the ground as it slightly melted the rocks. Stone was angry, but another, much more powerful attack came swiftly after it, this time from the goblins’ side. Harkon was too busy fighting the increasingly more enraged Ogre and couldn’t protect them in time. A spear with a bloody mist enveloping it landed next to them, the crimson mist slowly spreading. Stone felt danger from it. He had never before felt danger. Until today. “Meatbag Jarka! Grab the other meatbag and follow!” Stone grabbed Lucifer and ran from the rocky hill. “Side! Go to the wall!” Lucifer pointed as his perception sphere was much more potent. Harkon covered their retreat and protected them from powerful spells and runes. The rocky hill exploded, propelling debris everywhere. “Stone! Careful!” Lucifer yelled as a quite large rock entered his sphere. Stone suddenly stopped and spun around. The bluish The spellfire got more intense the more they left the battling leader’s duo. Under their clashes, the whole immense cavern shook. Fortunately, the enchantments held, otherwise everyone would have been already buried. When they were reaching a small, forgotten mineshaft, their way was blocked by Tafur and a squadron of 6 dwarven warriors, each of them on 3rd-rank. “A druegar female, a blighted dwarf, an Ethereal and the largest piece of mana crystal I have ever seen,” Tafur dismissively proclaimed. Stone could see the greediness in their gazes. “Seize them!” “Fight!” Stone ordered, seeing the meatbags powering their skills. Tafur stood in the back, clearly not wanting to waste mana. However… They made a grave mistake. Stone’s and Lucifer’s full-powered Jarka’s instincts of a hardened warrior kicked in and she took down the nearest one to her with a snap of his neck. She equipped herself with the dwarf’s axe and clashed with the other two, bloody mist leaking from her forearms. A goblin appeared seemingly out of nowhere behind a surprised dwarf, slashing his spine with a curved knife, instantly killing him. “Kretin!” Stone had completely forgotten about him. The 3rd-tier goblin had evaded his and Lucifer’s perception spheres. Kreting was battling the last dwarven warrior, who was also at the 3rd-tier Tafur got nervous. This was not going as he had planned it. He activated his He wanted to shoot it towards Jarka to free his warriors who were bombarded by Lucifer’s and Stone’s missiles. They were barely holding their defences up, however, their cooperation was impeccable. Stone saw the last magical dwarf and got an interesting idea. He conjured the ants’ souls near the Tafur and led them under his enchanted robe. “Hahahahaha!” The runemaster apprentice began to madly laugh and the rune fizzled into motes of mana. “What? Where?” Dafur suddenly woke up on the hard, cold ground by the familiar laughing. Lucifer was out of Stone shot a few Kretin jumped towards Jarka and helped her to dispatch the other two before Stone could kill them himself. “My experience packs!” He smacked the goblin, making Lucifer giggle. Tafur was on the ground, abruptly laughing amid his moans of pain and screaming, as the ants’ souls took turns either nibbling on his very private areas or tickling him. “Tafur?!” Dafur confusedly looked around. First, he thought he died and he was in hell. Then he asked himself if the hell would be so chaotic. Before he and the rest of the group could gather their bearings, Therdreag, along with a Baelgin appeared with a gust of air before them. “Your apprentice lost. Pay up!” Baelgin grinned, stretching his hand towards the 5th-rank runemaster without hesitation. Therdreag grabbed the pouch with the mana crystals and handed them over, suppressing the desire to kill the 4th-rank runemaster on the spot. And then Tafur, for disappointing Therdreag’s Expectations for the first time ever. “Who are you?” Stone asked, observing the powerful dwarfs before him. His newly gained sense of danger flared. He focused and he could feel the ambient mana flowing around them differently. Similarly to him. “You were right, Baelgin… I am sorry I doubted you.” He looked at Lucifer in his son’s body with an expressionless face but his eyes betrayed his true feelings; sadness and fury. “Oh… Shit…” Lucifer was feeling the end coming. “Luci?” Stone asked with his rocky voice. “It’s Dori and Eriv’s dad…” “Who?” “The two bodies I was inhabiting.” “Oh… And?” Lucifer sighed. He should have explained to him a lot more… He was too caught up in the murderous Stone’s rampage and levelling up, the insane events. “It’s bad.” “Will we die?” “Probably.” “Oh…” Stone’s process was simple; if there was nothing to lose… He powered a blueish Therdread just slightly smiled and waved his hand, deflecting the missile with ease. Still, it damaged his metallic gloves. “You were telling me that it was only a pebble.” “You… wait… Didn’t you see how they arrived here?” “Nah. I was just having dinner. Ah! Watch out!” He cast a powerful “Well… Let’s bag them up.” Therdreag observed the battle between Harkon and the Ogre which was growing fiercer by the second. Stone powered another missile, but it got deflected again. “Stop it… Be happy they don’t want to kill us immediately,” Lucifer grimaced. He prayed to all the gods so hard, he thought that he would change his path to a classed His prayers were listened to for once; as Therdreag reached for Lucifer, the ground opened below him and he fell through. So did Kretin, Jarka, Dafur, Tafur and Stone. “Well… I did not expect this!” Therdreag frowned, preparing himself for the pursuit. Baelgin stood behind him, his mouth gaped. But before the two could open the ground with powerful spells, two portals opened a few metres from them; one green and one red. Two beautiful women emerged from them, wearing red and green dresses. Therdreag paled. Then yelled; “SHADOW MAGES!” He grabbed Baelgin and retreated as fast as he could, activating every single movement enchantment he had. “HARKON! SHADOW MAGES!” The Ogre looked confused as Harkon hastily retreated. Meanwhile, the two women stared at each other, two auras battling over domination over each other. “Sia.” “Tia.” As this was all happening, Stone and the rest were falling again. He was getting fed up with this theme already. They stopped soon after, just a few metres below the battlefield on a heap of mushrooms. “Guardian! You changed so much!” “Holy… fucking… shit…” Lucifer could not believe it. The Queen Ant had returned!