Chapter 15
The Man Loved by The Cosmos
“BUAHHAHA, YOUR HEAD IS EVEN BIGGER NOW, YOU LOOK FUNNY, BUHAHAHA”
“Yes Mahaar, I just hope it won’t turn into a fully-fledged cucumber in the back of my head”
“A what?”
I raised my arm to show him a holographic image of a cucumber on the PDA, only to increase the volume of his thunderous laughter.
“so, what’s with him? he didn’t speak a word since you brought him back with you”
“He's probably still in shock from all the shit he saw, It was a real clusterfuck down there, and to be honest, I don’t really know why he’s still sticking with me, I tried to shoo him away, but he just kept following me wherever I went, so eventually, I gave up” I turned to the silent Noran feeling the table with his hand in search of his plate.
To be honest, I felt really bad for the guy, when Cordi came back online, I asked her what was wrong with him, and she told me that he has some rare, incurable disease, even transplants and cybernetics won’t work because it was directly linked to his brain.
And what makes it much worse, is that he was losing his sight in a fast, rapid pace until it’ll completely blackout for him, the problem also affecting his ears, skewering his perception by a high degree.
I let him stay as long as he wasn’t annoying us with his shitty personality, I was going to drop him at the cube anyway, but I wondered how would he react when I rip his father’s heart out.
“you still didn’t tell me how did you get out from the arena? I was shocked when you just disappeared from the table without warnings”
“Well Mahaar, my memory is still fuzzy, but I remember that after I killed nearly everyone who came at me, a Bloody portal just appeared next to me, allowing me to come back, as if someone or something opened it for me when I’m finished” I explained to the Grokati, but what was really strange, is the feeling that I had, as if someone was watching everything, scanning everything thoroughly, a pair of eyes staring into the depth of my soul.
“Let’s go guys” I called my friends out as soon as Ryola finished her food, my head was still aching from what happened a few hours ago, I needed some rest, a rest that I will never seem to get today.
Cordi pointed me to a nearby news channel, it showed an alien speaking of news of a raging war between the tribes on planet Masdak, home world of the Grokati, but no footage was shown in the video.
I looked at Mahaar only to see furrowed brows and tightened fists, his anger was building up so I had to do something about it.
“Mahaar, don’t worry my friend. I promise you, as soon as we finish business in the Cube, we’re gonna head there as soon as possible” I patted the Giant’s back, which seemed to calm him just a little bit.
“Ammar, you filthy goro” left his mouth spontaneously, I didn’t elaborate and slowly dragged away from the holovision.
Cordi explained to me more about the first Arm war that happened decades go in Masdak before the emergence of the Octamanus, and the incredible death count and the devastation it left behind, and according to intelligence she hacked out, the planet was on the brink of another one.
She said after the death of Loftar, the only eight armed Grokati recorded in history, his eldest son Ammar took over the tribes, after that, the years that followed were simply a downfall of the unified Planet.
Under Ammar iron rule, resources were shifted to strengthen his military might, for what reason, she didn’t find any data on the matter. Usually, Masdak was one of the few self-sufficient planets, full of lush jungles and large variety wildlife, but after the discovery of a rare metal under the surface of the planet, Grand Empires rushed to trade with the locals.
Invasion of Masdak was not an option, because, and to my utter shock, Masdak wasn’t just a planet, it was a living, breathing planet, and for why invasions were impossible, it was because the planet repeatedly emitted electromagnetic pulses around it, making it impossible for anything electric or cybernetic to approach, and even if someone managed to land troops on the surface, only a handful of races are able to face the Grokati in direct combat in melee, so the only way to conquer the planet is to eradicate it with an orbital strike from a great distance.
In a certain place on one of the mountains of Masdak, the Grokati discovered that the EMP was not present, so, with the help of universal empires, they erected a teleportation beacon to transfer goods, this was the only place they found to be EMP free, so they moved the capital nearby and heavily guarded the area.
Ammar had a different vision for the Grokati, a bloodthirsty one, he wasn’t a ruler but a conqueror, he wanted to build a Grokati universal empire, but his plan was starting to fail as the Grokati were fed up with him and started to reform the tribes of old, and so, the signs of another Arm war has come.
As we were walking back to our suite, news hit of hundreds of traders missing, police force massed at every corner, questioning and scanning everyone present in the city, it looked like it was a big deal, but thankfully Cordi took care of most of the annoyances.
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We almost reached the warp gate, guarded by thousands of warships and giant mechs, thoroughly scanning every ship from passes to cargo and passengers.
There was a fairly large line of ships waiting for their turns in inspection, a single ship took around half an hour for the drones to scour every corner of the vessel.
After what looked like to be a whole day, our turn came along with a plethora of scanner eyebots, and I thought Cordi would take care of everything as usual, but something I half-expected rose up.
An Asian man in military attire that looked like some kind of a commander appeared in view, followed by six heavily armored men and two three-meter mechs with huge cannons on their shoulders.
“It’s a huge ship and all, but it’s a ship after all. Man, that’s a bit of an overkill”
He began interrogating people at random, eyeballing them like a hawk with every word they spoke, until it was finally our turn, he walked towards us with a look of arrogance second only to Saido’s.
“Hmmm, Darrell Locke, Gobshi Dorafang, Liora Kuubi, and … Saido Alaaly” he spoke the last name while looking at the Noran staring at some building, which I was sure he was looking at him.
“Cordi, why the fuck didn’t you give him a fake identity like us?”
“This is for the better Adam, this freeloader is only going to cause trouble in our journey, and you said we can’t use him to deal with Mekshima, so this is the best course of action I have calculated”
“You could’ve asked me first you Bit-”
“Yes, I’m Saido, what the fuck do you want?” Answered the cross armed Noran and instantly, a vein popped on the commander’s forehead, looks like he wasn’t used to this kind of treatment.
“I have a report right here that you escaped the cosmic control school back in Neo-Tokyo. Tell me Saido, what are the son of one of the highest ranking Noran Lords in the universe doing here? With these”, he gave us a look of disgust “Trash”
I raised an eyebrow at his rudeness, but I didn’t want to cause any trouble until we reach the Cube, however, the Giant in top hat next to me disagreed, a golden string of light started forming under his white tank top.
“Mahaar, calm down, I would be troublesome if shit happened here, don’t forget that we’re on a ship after all” I whispered as I barely held his tree trunk of an arm, thankfully calming him down before he goes ham, what made it worse is that his mood is still bad from the news on the holovision.
The commander kept walking back and forth, careful not in insult the Noran as best he can to avoid the wrath of his father, but he found us acceptable to spit his poisonous words at us, he walked up to Ryola and looked her in the eyes.
“Why do I have the feeling that I saw your face somewhere before, a holovision perhaps? And what’s that on your side, didn’t you know that weapons are prohibited on this ship for visitors?” he spat as he reached out to her, moving her hand over her voluptuous body until his hand reached out to grab the weapon holstered on her side, and she didn’t seem to mind.
Before I could react, he touched the weapon, and instantly, the weapon hissed and the man dropped on his back like a log, his body spasming as his soul left his body.
“SIR? SIR! , OPEN FIRE!!!!”
“Let’s go, NOW!” I grabbed the Mahaar, which has an instant mood improvement after the commander died, with my left and signaled everyone to follow as Cordi started blasting the soldiers with the mechs.
Alarms and sirens started echoing in the distance, and the four of us ran as fast as we can, Ryola was fairly fast, Mahaar was dashing with his big body, trying his best to keep up with me, and I shoved Saido on my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, ignoring his stream of curses.
“Cordi, can you move the ship into the warp gate?”
“Already started, just give some time”
“How much time?” I hastily questioned, the Noran squirming like a worm on my shoulder.
“Enough time”
I gave up on the elusive AI and started running, people running left and right like an ant colony hit by a flood, everyone seeking shelter in their homes and hotels, exposing the running trio that is dashing like thieves across the ship.
We entered a tunnel that seemed to be an entrance to somewhere enclosed, after Cordi drew a map of the place, I realized that it was leading to the cargo bay. It was simply hallways, leading to rooms with huge holes in the middles, with crane-like object that moved square metallic containers down into the holes.
Looking down, the holes seemed bottomless, but a small army of guards were tailing us, so we had no choice but to cling to one of the containers and hope for the best, but a stray beam hit the crane that was magnetically holding our container, and we dove down into the bottomless dark hole into the cargo bay or our deaths.
“Cordi, wings, NOW!”
“CORDI, CORDIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!” I shouted as hard as I can, but she was busy with taking over the ship and controlling the mechanical guards that made a big distraction away from us, I don’t for how long we fell, but I felt like there was some force suffocating me. I heard a very faint whisper even my ears found it hard to catch.
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Hastily activating my night vision, I saw Ryola and Mahaar unconscious, and the Noran was falling on his back, staring into the fading lit top the hole with a look I didn’t really understand, the pressure was too much for me to handle and I too, found my conscious fading away.
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On this barren hill I stood yet again, it seems that the visions are coming way more often these days.
The army lined up as usual, in the first row stood the twelve scientist-looking individuals holding the wrapped babies, with Secundus on my right and the girl holding my hand on the left.
“Lab-73 representative, step forward!” ordered Secundus, pointing at a blond woman in the middle of the line.
The woman started moving toward me with confident steps as if she was presenting me with the most precious gift of all time.
This has happened to me before, where another handed me the baby that looked like Mahaar, the one Secundus called him Asura, so I already had an idea who this baby was, the beautiful woman with strange eyes that accompanied us with her living weapon, Ryola.
The woman handed me the swaddle, and I graciously accepted it from her, I looked inside and was met with something that crushed my expectations.
“WHAT? HIM!!!? WHY?” I spontaneously blurted in annoyance.
“What is the matter Lord Primus, you don’t like it?” asked Secundus while looking at the shaking woman in front of him.
“No no no, it’s just…” I kept looking at the blue baby that looked it was about to cry, but refusing to let its tears go, looking at me with eyes that clearly said: “you think you’re too good for me?”.
I let out a chuckle and took out the baby and held it to me chest, then turned to the woman with tears in the corner of her eyes and nodded before speaking for the first time on that hill.
“Thank you, this is a fine gift, I accept” and the woman bursted in tears, along with the baby that I held tightly to my chest and started patting until it finally slept.
“What’s his name, young lady?” I was curious about what they called him in this land.
“T-Tian Gong, Lord Primus” the woman sniffed and announced the name of the baby, a name I heard before but couldn’t remember.
Then we were interrupted by a voice of a man popping out from behind me.
“Ooo what’s that, a new baby? Let me see? Ewww, so ugly” I turned my head to see who the owner of the somehow familiar voice was, it was Karido, the man from my previous dream, but slightly younger.
“Hello Karido, glad to see you again” I spoke, handing the baby back to the lady to swaddle him back.
“Hello brother, again? We were playing chess this mornin-. What the hell?” A strong wind suddenly hit the hill, getting intense over time, it wasn’t strong to blow us away, but it succeeded to blow my conscious and bring me back to my surroundings.
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***
I opened my eyes to see my companions sitting down in a fairly dark room with slight reddish light, leaning on one of the bigger containers in the cargo hanger,
“W-what happened?” I asked as I rubbed my bottom, it seemed that our landing wasn’t very smooth.
“I don’t know, I just woke up a while ago” stated Mahaar while looking at Ryola, who’s, in turn, shook her head as if she didn’t know either.
“It was him!”
Zao’s voice came out from Her side, stating that the one who’s responsible for saving us was the Half-Noran sitting in the corner with his usual crouch drawing nothing with his finger on the ground.
All heads turned to him, expecting him to answer.
“Fuck off, I did nothing” without even lifting his eyes from the ground, he answered with his usual rudeness.
“Adam, we’re here” the sound of Cordi cut the conversation short, she took control of the ship and warped us into the cube.
We got up, and per Cordi’s instructions, Mahaar dipped his fist in one of the containers, twisting the metal and taking out a clothes fabricator, of which we used to make ourselves a set of robes to hopefully get out of the ship using it as a disguise.
We hung into a container going up back into the city, going up to see that the ship already landed on the Cube61, however.
“Cordi, what the fuck did you do?” my mouth dropped as I saw a hole the size of a mountain in the ship’s hull, every soul in the city rushing to the exit like they were finally getting out of hell itself.
We blended with the crowd and got out of the ship, only to find an army, a literal army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers waiting for whoever destroyed the ship and killed the traders.
“Looks like you made us a new enemy, you stupid AI” I spat at the Cordi, who’s, in turn, spat back at me.
“I’m not the ones who killed thousands in a bloody mess, some of them were one of the biggest traders in the sector, some giga corporation will surely retaliate for what you did” she coldly replied.
I sighed and joined my friends in the file of panicked passengers getting out of the ship after making it clear to Cordi that Saido need a fake identity to avoid further annoyances.
Our turn came for inspection, a PDA scan was enough and went on without a hitch, but right after we left the file and started heading into the city, a voice called me back.
“You, stop!”
I stopped but signaled everyone to keep moving, for some reason they refused and went back to the guard with me.
“Hmmm, Darrell Locke, I know you,” said the guard, giving me a suspicious look.
“Um, yes?” I acted like was confuse, releasing my claws under the robe, ready to quietly slit his throat him at any moment.
“You’re the one from the Neo Roma Colosseum, the one who took out the Grokati dominator”
“Yes?” my confusion turned real, I didn’t know what the guard was going for.
“Please, my son is a big fan of yours, if you could kindly sign this card for him, I would be forever thankful for you”
I let out a mental sigh of relief, retracting my claws and moving my finger on the card of which started carving what I wrote with my finger.
“Thank you, my son will be very happy”
I nodded and pulled back my hood, then I turned back to leave, joining my friends going down the belly of the cube.
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*** Earlier - Saido’s POV ***
“LET ME THE FUCK DOWN BEFORE I BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OF YOU….”
“Why? Why am I following him? Why did he take me in?”
“IF YOU VALUE YOUR WORTHLESS LIFE, LET ME DOWN AT THIS MOMENT, YOU SON OF A….”
“Why I feel this weird attachment to him ever since the day I met him at the school?”
“I WILL KILL YOU AND ALL YOU HOLD DEAR, LET ME DOWWWWWWN…”
“why am I following him? Why did he save me at the bloody arena? What am I doing? Where am I going?”
I kept asking questions I didn’t have answers for as we ran from the guards after I felt the commander die.
My vision was getting worse since the day that man stepped in the school ground, the closer I get to him, the darker my vision get, it won’t be long before I go completely blind, and I was still being getting care of, I was sick of it.
Ever since I was little, everything was provided for me, guards escorted me around the clock, I couldn’t even take a dump without cursing and threatening.
Yet this man, only got more excited when I told him that I was the son of Mekshima and nearly killed me, yet again saved me when I was in need, it’s so fucking confusing.
That weird powers he showed, the thousands he killed in moments, just how powerful is this man?
“GET ME THE---”
Now we were falling down into a cargo hold, it’s two kilometers deep and should kill us right away.
But the man kept trying to find an away, moving around as if he has a solution to everything, what was his name again? oh yes, I remember, they called him
“Adam” the word left my mouth despite my inner protest.
*Swoosh*
A strong headache hit me as I felt a cool breeze of air surrounding me, an otherworldly yet a charming voice hit my defected ears, but it clear as crystal.
“The wind serves”
*Swoosh*
“W-what was that? Is it one of this man’s powers?”
Wind engulfed me along with everybody else, it held me like a mother holding her child, and I found myself land carefully on the ground, looks like the others had a hard time landing judging from the thuds.
Everyone except me was unconscious, I found myself a comfy place and started thinking about the questions I keep asking myself until everyone woke up, the man called Adam was the last.
Surprisingly they started questioning what happened to them until someone I didn’t recognize spoke and said it was me, I did nothing, so I politely stated that It wasn't me.
After that, I heard some metal bending and a figure of someone handing me a robe, then we went out of the place with minor interruptions.
My vision is getting darker more rapidly now, along with my hearing ability, I feared that I would be just a useless piece of flesh in a few hours, but the man grabbed my robe, guiding me along the path they walked, I wanted to curse at him, but I kept silent.
It seemed that we were already in one of the cube’s cities, I have visited cubes before, they were a marvel of creation, a floating metallic objects swimming in space, created by an ancient unknown race as history books said, at least when I had the ability to read.
The cubes were mostly used as large trading hubs between civilizations, and a lot of warp gates were built near it, but the cubes itself were independent, no grand Empire had any control over by a decree made millions of years ago.
As we rode some kind of an elevation device, we entered some room far away from the hustle of the city, the man started pouting in anger that he didn’t find something he was looking for.
By now, the ability to even determine shapes was nearly lost, and the man noticed, so he ordered the Grokati to carry me, but I politely refused, so he kept holding my robe behind him.
We went back to the city, had some food and moved around the streets until I heard people approaching us. The man already knew that they were coming, his friends perhaps?
We followed the men for so long my feet started to hurt from the walking, by then my ears nearly stopped working, I could barely differentiate voices.
In an open space, the man started speaking with several others until I heard my name, I recognized the voice, it was my father’s, the asshole who threw me across the universe to hide his shame.
A whirling sound like the one from the earth control classes which I constantly failed echoed loudly, followed by the sound of piercing flesh, I felt the man disappear from my side, along with the giant and the woman, and something sticky wrapped around me constricting my movement completely.
“SEE, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT, WORK, WORK ONE LAST TIME” I was hopeless, I was weak, I didn’t know what to do, I was blind, I was deaf, I begged, I screamed, I cried to my senses that imprisoned me, I cried to the sickness that was eating my body, and it seems that it had a shred of pity to allow me to see and hear one last time.
I opened my eyes as wide as I could, perked my ears, I didn’t want to see my father, I was to see him, the enigma that entered my life a few days ago and was currently changing it.
What I saw really confused me, I had an idea, but I wasn’t expecting it, my father was on his knees, impaled by an earth spear, and blue filled his clothes.
His eyes didn’t move away from me, it wasn’t resentment or shock, but one of a fatherly love and concern, which really confused me, the man was approaching him after the Grokati and the woman killed the surrounding guards.
He freed him from the spike and rested his head on his arm, then both of them looked at me with a sad look.
The last thing my eyes allowed me to see is an incoming throng of Noran Lords, led by a
“black Noran?”
They headed directly at them, the Grokati braced himself, his arms started to shine golden and his muscle bulging, the woman was nowhere to be seen, like she vanished from sight.
Then everything went dark.
Then I went silent, tears flowing nonstop.
I felt what I felt my whole life, useless.
I felt weak, always needing protection.
I wanted to get up, I wanted to help the man, I wanted to save my father, i wanted answesm but I was weak
I had nothing to give, except the shit show I put for people to leave me alone
I was a hollowed ball of glass, I was a … An Araki
I gave up, I leaned back, I delved into nothingness and let go
I felt myself drown in a deep ocean, sinking down into the bottom.
"Rise"
Until a vision appeared before my blind eyes, a vision I will never forget until the day I die.
I found myself behind the back of this man, Adam, kneeling along with others, waiting for his command.
He spoke something, a request I didn’t understand but shouted out that I will be the one who carries it.
He turned around, his face was different, his physique was different, but it was him, it was Adam.
He slowly walked up to me and put his big hand on my shoulder, telling me to rise, then he smiled in satisfaction, a smile brighter than the biggest star, a smile of a … God.
"Rise"
I opened my dark eyes, feeling what has been shackling me shake violently.
I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear, but finally, they came for me, filling my very core.
“The Wind Serves”
“The Earth Obeys”
“The Fire Heeds”
“The Water Surrenders”
“The lightning Accepts”
“The Ice Complies”
And that was the answer to my questions, that, is how i reclaimed my throne.