CHAPTER 4: THE APOCALYPSE

Hermes woke up a few hours later. As he slowly teetered to get up from the large and aura-inducing throne, he noticed something in front of his feet. A pile of clear white sand and the black-gold crown. Kel'thus' skeletal body had been reduced to a pile of dust!

'Could it be that the staff was also responsible for his life force? That probably means that I could have survived if I just dodged his attacks long enough for its energy to run out.'

'Of course, the likeliest outcome would have been me running out of steam before he did. It's often said that offense is the best defense...'

Hermes' initial plan to attack his 'brain' was risky. Because of this, he had formulated countermeasures in the case that it might fail. If his attack proved ineffective, he would use the window in which Kel'thus was recovering to rush towards the vortex-shaped emblem and shout the incantation to teleport away.

Of course, he had no idea what could be waiting for him outside. In his mind, whether life or death waited for him, that was not something he needed to consider, since staying in the palace would automatically spell his doom. He would rather bet his life than die not trying!

After a few rounds of stretching, he found the energy to observe his surroundings as well as his phone. Since his awakening in that dreaded coffin, six hours had passed.

He had no idea when his body would need food or water, since he was unsure if he was provided with sufficient amounts of energy before being put to sleep and frozen in time. Every second counted towards his survival, so it was best to move as soon as possible.

He observed the pile of bone sand and resolved himself to pick up the black-gold crown. On close observation, waves of gold-like aura revolved around the crown's base. It was very faint. Unless someone paid close attention, it was hard to notice.

His initial inspection bore no fruit on its use cases. After all, not every magical item has the properties to relay a user-guide booklet to someone's brain...

He decided to keep it in his hand. He was worried that wearing the crown could give him a negative effect instead of helping him. Kel'thus was wearing it perfectly fine, but he was an undead! Who knows what kind of effects it had on the living?

He decided to move around the palace grounds to look for anything else of value.

At first, he wanted to see if he could chip a piece of the crystals scattered around the pillars and on the roof, however; he underestimated their strength. After finally giving up and seeing nothing else to pay attention to, he decided it was time to head outside.

He strolled to the vortex-shaped emblem and stepped into its center. After calming his thoughts and taking a deep breath, he loudly declared the Solari incantation,

"Activation."

Suddenly, a bluish-white light emanated from the vortex etched into stone and drowned Hermes' entire body. It quickly ascended to the roof in the shape of a large beam that covered the entire emblem. The 8 crystals lined around it glowed in different colors.

After five seconds, the entire light show ended and Hermes was nowhere to be seen in the palace; the dwelling that belonged to the gods had returned to silence, as if it had been that way for thousands of years.

On the other side, Hermes, who had just been teleported somewhere else, did not feel anything during the entire process. The beam of light quickly dissipated and the cold scenery welcomed his eyes. What surrounded him was sand and dust paler than white. He froze on the spot; he finally knew where he had been this entire time:

"The Moon?!"

'How am I breathing normally right now? The Moon has no atmosphere. Could this be some kind of moon base?' He decided to control his shock in order to accurately assess his surroundings for any danger.

Under his feet was a raised platform with a similar vortex-shaped emblem and 8 crystals lined around it, the only difference being that it was inverted. After looking around, he realized that in the distance, large, steep hills surrounded him.

At the edge of the cliffs, a towering glass dome stretched out, enclosing the entire area.

'It seems like this portal gateway is positioned at the center of a moon crater. I wonder which one it is? I might be able to guess from the position of earth and stars above... It seems like the entire crater is covered in a dome of glass to keep the space breathable.'

He cast his gaze toward the infinite darkness above him. What reflected in his eyes was Earth... What was left of it...

"..."

He stood there in silence. He had no words to describe the object reflected in his eyes. Earth, the planet that was called 'The Blue Marble', was torched with streams of lava and deserts. The oceans seemed mostly gone; in their place were large pockets of water scattered around the land masses that had been inflated more than the supercontinent Pangea.

The clear view of the land indicated that the atmosphere had thinned significantly. But what was truly shocking was that the entirety of the western side of the planet was completely gone. What replaced the void were vast amounts of asteroids that numbered in the millions.

Electromagnetic storms could be seen everywhere. It was as if the planet had been cut in half, with one side being completely decimated. The chances of anyone still living there were nigh impossible.

For ten minutes, he stood there dazed. Memories of his family, friends, and the people he had come across in his twenty-five years occupied his thoughts. His fiancée, Ariana, his nephews, his mother. His neighbor's cat that he would occasionally feed. All of it was gone. All his accomplishments, desires, hopes, and dreams. Nothing was left.

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His face warped into a contorted smile as tears that radiated despair sunk towards his chin. His knees almost lost all motivation to keep his body standing. Fate had decided to continuously feed him false hope. He could almost imagine some god laughing hysterically at the direction the skit was taking.

Underneath the brilliant luminosity of the lunar surface, Hermes laughed back at the gods in the audience. Every peal of merriment carried with it the lingering anguish of a youth who had hopes of forging his own legacy, of cradling a family in his arms. Yet no matter how far the reverberations of his laughter spread, no one was present to receive them.

"... So this is the apocalypse, huh? This is what those murals described. I thought that even on the off chance that they were real, the destruction was only limited to cities or countries. Who knew the entire planet would fall apart!", his voice twisted, the frolic expression he had almost fell apart from the torrential misery.

At some point during his awakening, he had thought of himself as some sort of destined savior who would prepare the world for the upcoming apocalypse. Who would have thought that it had already ended before he could even do anything to stop it and take away everything he cared for? It was truly comical.

His lips curled up into a smile. "Maybe I really am alone in this world after all."

...

Eldravia Star System, 4th Planet: Arkenthos. 4,000 light-years from Earth.

The City of Nature, Terren. This was a city that blended civilization and wildlife. In the sea of trees, tall buildings with domes and pillars made from white marble were scattered around. Each building had a large horizontal pole to allow large birds the size of a modern car to perch on them.

The avians flew in all sorts of directions around the city in a display of absolute freedom. Their feathers were an assortment of colors; even peacocks would be put to shame. On their backs, human-like figures with pointy ears rested on large leather saddles with ropes in their hands that were wrapped around the beaks of the wonderful creatures.

Some had black hair, others blonde, and they wore an assortment of ancient robes and pointy hats over their heads. There was no distinct difference in the number of women and men, and some had white skin, while others were more sun-kissed. All of them wore smiles on their faces; to them, this was a city of hope.

In the far distance, a large palace made from white marble and lined with foliage stood above the rest of the buildings. Its top was rounded off with Greek-style pillars that were shouldering the weight of a stone-marble dome.

To anyone who looked at it, the exuded awe would give them the feeling that it was the dwelling of a beautiful goddess of fertility. That assumption wasn't entirely grounded in myth.

At the top of the palace, with an open dome that gave a view of the entire city below, a woman stood there in a pair of beautiful crystalline heels. At the top of her head stood a flower crown that gave off the scent of morning dew. Underneath, long silk-like black hair draped down towards her back. Unlike the rest of the beings in the city, her ears were rounded.

The one-shoulder dress she wore revealed her fair white skin around her shoulder, chest, and neck. It was mellow green with embroideries of white flowers around her chest and stomach as its hem reached the bottom of her feet.

On one side, a slit was opened from her waist down revealing her thigh. Her graceful dark-blue eyes peered down the edge of the palace, looking at the hustle and bustle of the citizens below. She was as enchanting as a fairy.

Suddenly, she lifted her mesmerizing eyes towards the clear blue sky. Looking past her delicately plush and inviting red lips, her nose bridge that was nestled in perfection, her rosy and radiant cheeks, and onto the fair skin of her forehead, a symbol appeared.

Glowing in a cyan-blue color was a symbol of an arched door, behind it was a four-pointed star. Inside the door appeared a pupil-less purple vertical eye symbol. Her lustrous blue eyes peered up into infinity.

The attendant who had her head down next to her noticed the peculiarity and asked in curiosity: "Your Highness, what are you looking at? That symbol is..."

The fairy smiled and replied with hint of joy:

"He has finally awoken."

...

Noticing a large obelisk at the edge of the crater, Hermes decided to explore. He had already organized his thoughts. Although he was struck with despair upon witnessing the scene above his head, he desperately wanted to continue holding onto the sliver of hope in his heart. There could be a chance that his family escaped the disaster and went to another planet.

After all, if he can reach the Moon without a single ounce of propulsion, why can't they? As he reached the base of the towering obelisk, he peered his head back to look at its top.

From the distance, the large obelisk looked only a little bigger than the usual ones he had seen on the internet. Reality, however, can break expectations.

Walking in front of the obelisk, Hermes was nothing but a mere dot, an insect. His neck hurt from the amount he had to bend it in order to finally see the top. Its width, however, was relatively manageable compared to its height, with it being roughly ten meters or so.

'I wonder who built this. Has it always been here since time immemorial? It seems like the history of Earth that we know of might only be the tip of the iceberg. Languages I haven't seen before, monuments on the moon. Relics with magical properties.'

'Could it be that the legends and myths of old that everyone assumed were fake are real? Those conspiracy theorists who believed aliens had visited us in ancient times are finally going to be vindicated, if some of them are still alive, of course...'

Circling around it, he found no trace of murals, symbols, or hieroglyphs of any kind being carved into it. His only option now was to see if saying the incantation he had said before would produce some sort of effect.

He placed his palm on the side of the obelisk and closed his eyes. In a deep voice that was still mottled from the grief he had just experienced, he loudly proclaimed in Solari,

"Activation."

Suddenly, the symbol of an arched door that housed a vertical pupil-less eye and a four-pointed star behind it appeared. The staff he had stored in his body in an unknown place manifested itself into balls of light that started merging together at a center point, creating an incorporeal form of a pole and two carved prongs, a cube rapidly spinning at the center.

Suddenly, the staff itself disappeared, leaving only the rotating and mysterious bluish-black cube that periodically flashed with light on one of its six sides. Hermes stood there in shock as the cube hovered in front of him.

Before he could even react, the cube suddenly levitated away from him and phased into the titanic obelisk that now had lines of blue glowing and streaking across its body like veins.

Suddenly a beam of light that resembled a laser shot out from the top of the mysterious obelisk, going off towards infinity.

'A relay? Or could it be a beacon?' There were too many possibilities for Hermes to decide what was right, even with his hyper cognitive abilities. He was too ignorant and lacked information.

As soon as he started to ponder what might happen next, a cyan-blue vortex appeared in front of him in the shape of an ellipse. It was the size of a regular human. He cast his gaze upwards and noticed the mysterious cube phasing out of the obelisk.

It turned into incorporeal orbs of light. Like shooting stars, they dashed towards him to enter his body. He stood there in silence, unsure of what to do next.

He was afraid that the portal in front of him would send him somewhere dangerous, but faced with the fact that he was starving, his legs were tired from walking across the crater, and feeling his throat becoming more and more dry, he had to do something.

Faced with death behind him and the opportunity to live in front of him, he decided to strengthen his resolve once more and take a step forward.

"Who could have imagined that a humble astronomer like myself would become an intrepid cosmic explorer?", his expression curled into a smile full of anticipation and excitement but also fear for the future.

End of Chapter