Author's Notes: The entirety of this chapter was lost, so I aplogize for the late release. So... this marks the end of the prologue. Thanks for reading thus far, but know that this is not my best work. The quality will rise, I promise :). Comment for faster releases and to be an awesome person.
The sky revelled in its carnival of flame. It violently writhed like the sea in a storm, occasionally calming only a moment to fling a red bolt of lightning to the ground below. The deafening boom served to bring a sense of reality to the situation; horrible realism to a nightmare. From horizon to horizon, all there was was blazing sky above and scorched earth below.
It was as if someone switched heaven and hell.
My strong, new lungs drew in a gasp of surprise, searing my nose with the smell of ash and ozone. My old body held zero chance of even surviving a second in this terrifying landscape. But what happened next, I would always recall fondly.
I smiled. Not fake nor a grimace, but a bona-fide one. Some primal part of me clicked. Chaotic memories of battles past danced in my mind and the echo of war-drums filled my ears. I suppose that it was the thousands of battles in Axis online, but the memories felt fresh, real.
People were waking up around me, at first groaning from discomfort, but it soon became shouts and screams. Men, women, adolescents, and even young children all joined in the terrified clamor. Why some people chose to play toddlers, I'll never know. All I knew was that it was damn annoying. My smile abruptly turned to a scowl.
I glanced back at Devros, expecting a similar reaction, yet all I saw was pure euphoria. His eyes were rolling back and his mouth hung open in a disgusting fashion. Then I realized it: the freak actually enjoyed the crowd's horror-stricken din. This is my summoner? Why God?! Why not a super-hot goddess who's into me? ...I'd settle for a greedy king? No?
He abruptly stopped and composed himself a moment before loosing some more of his booming voice.
"OI! SHUT YOUR DAMN TRAPS!", his deep bellow resonated. All fell silent immediately. ...Well, as silent as a hellish world can be.
All traces of joy were vanished, and his glowing eyes had acquired a feral grace.
"...Do you want to know why you are here?", he whispered. Yet, somehow I knew that everyone could hear him perfectly. All stood in rapt attention, almost reverance, like cultists to their false prophet.
He peirced the crowd with his scanning gaze, garnering flinches from them when his eyes would rest on a particular 'player'.
"...Look above. Nightmarish, is it not? But this type of occurance is not unusual when someone with extremely dense qi enters a low-jui atmosphere. The latent energy in the air can't help but become hyperaccelerated, creating self-fueled flame."
All around were looks of confusion, I was too. All I got was that his presence had somehow caused this.
"...This is the type of information children should know easily. After all, qi is the key to life. But, imagine our surprise when we found a world without it. The only discovered universe to display this blatant reversal of the laws of nature. By all rights, you all should be dead. In your terms, it is like finding a fully functional zombie. It defies everything we know to be true. So, we summoned you here."
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At this he grinned.
"Yet, don't think for a moment that makes you heroes, contrary to what your culture has told you about situations such as this. The most you are are idle curiosities for those bored enough to take interest in your mudhole of a world and its denizens. We have bigger projects. But don't think this is a blessing either. This, obviously, is not your native environment. Your summoning here is like putting a maggot 10,000 feet below water."
His grin widened as he surveyed their shocked expressions.
"So, I have a deal for you: survive one moon cycle, and I'll personally give you a reward. If even one of you neanderthals manage that, I'll be shocked. ...But I am not cruel. I will give you some advice. Don't fight anything. Run for your pathetic lives. Even in this backwater planet, the beasts hold at least one iota of qi, something you all cannot say. It would be like an ant picking a fight with a dragon, even with your new bodies."
He took another moment to savor their sheer fear, before it happened. A reddened bolt of lightning blasted downward incredibly quickly from the sky, abruptly clashing with earth.
BOOOM.
The soundwave alone was enough to kick me off my feet, knocking the air of my lungs with a dull thud. My new eyes could track it but what use would that be if I couldn't move fast enough to react? It was truly frightening, even for some kind of side-effect of his mere presence.
I shook off the blow and rose up to see the crater, which had to be sizable. I immediately smelled charred flesh and vomit. It didn't take much looking to find out why. There were people in the blast radius, not thirty yards from me. The huge black indent in the ground was empty, but was surrounded by bodies and the heavily injured. Some had lost limbs, part of their torso or face, and the lucky few were instantly atomized.
Devros gave a sort of half shrug/snort in a dismissive manner before saying, "I guess you all have a taste of reality now. Well, it has been fun, but I'll be going now. See you, or your corpses, in a cycle. Don't worry, I'll find you."
And he was gone. It didn't take long for the sky to return to normal, the cheery sun a stark contrast to what had transpired. It almosted seemed like a nightmare, but Devros was right about something. Reality was sinking in for all the 'players'. They had just seen human life taken quickly and cruelly. Even their attempts to help the injured were half-hearted and somber.
As for me, I was excited to try out my new body, and hopefully put some distance between me and the group. I competed against most of them over the years and I knew firmly that I hated them all. The last thing I wanted to do was help them survive. I had my own survival to take care of. Perhaps that was why I was unaffected by their deaths, or maybe it was something else.
My head was filled with so many questions to eventually ask Devros. I needed answers, and for those I needed to live for a while.
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