A list of warnings so I can kill expectations before they are birthed. You know how some demon king goes around killing children of a certain age group to prevent the birth of a hero or something like that.
Warning 1: There will be copious amount of focus shifting, and character jumping. While an MC does exist, I will usually jump to other people almost every other time, sometimes lasting individual arcs. Expect to see the MC roughly 50% of the time.
Warning 2: There will be some terrible poems, and songs. Why is it even here? IDK, I read too much wuxia.
Warning 3: No hot blooded exchanges here folks, just mellow fights. Do no expect thrills, tension or anything like that. It's all mellow.
Warning 4: Characters will not be relateable, they aren't designed to be.
Warning 5: Pace, and focus are changed depending on my mood, often for the worse.
Warning 6: Fights are steampunk/Animeish, expect superhuman things, due to the nature of the world itself.
Warning 7: Info dumps galore, conversations are trojan horsed as info dumps. A normal conversation? Info dump. They are having breakfast? More chance for me to info dump. Someone is dying? Looks like It's time for more info dump. A guy just sat next to you, and is talking really loudly? It's an info dump!
What's on my mind right now? I--o D---p
Warning 8: Forced character building.
Warning 9: POV changes depending on my mood, often for the worse.
Warning 10: This story is designed to be a dumping ground of ideas, and less about being a sophisticated story meant to attract readership.
Warning 11: Here for review purposes.
Warning 12: You would probably think you have an idea on where I'm going as you read, you are most likely wrong. It's better you expect nothing if you're assuming an expected pattern I will go.
Warning 13: I will never explain mysteries that I deliberately nuanced. If you can't figure it out that's fine, as it does not impact the overall story. Just know that the hints exist.
Warning 14: Will be cheesy in some ways, and overly dramatic in others.
Now that the list of warning are done. Here's the chapter..............
Above a ruined city various buildings could be seen scattered for as far as the eye can see, like an endless sea of scrap metal. A gigantic dome is hovering above; it's massive size casting a permanent shadow over what used to be a bustling city. It was covered in what could be described as a black glass that absorbed all light. Five thick, and curved obsidian pillars looked like a giant black metallic claw holding the dome in it's clasped hand.
This bio-dome is called Galileo, inside the dome a large amount of fresh water existed, like a snow globe half filled with water, and with five grey towers situated around the dome like a pentagon. In the center of the water floated a giant metallic disc, with numerous sky scrapers, and buildings all crumpled together on top of it. It resembled a enormous porcupine made of steel, with massive highways connected from the disc to each tower.
Only one building on the disc was glowing a faint blue light from it's windows, inside this building numerous tubes, and circuits covered the entirety of the inside of the building. Pulses of golden light could be seen travelling at blinding speeds to the center of the hollow building like a infinite highway of lights. At the center lies a human sized tubed filled with green gel, inside the gel lies a little girl.
A few meters away stood a solitary man, he looked to be in his fifties. The man's limbs were all mechanical, one of his eyes were covered with an eye patch, and his dull brown eye looked steadily at the little girl floating in the gel.
The man's name was Elithas, he has spent countless years modifying his body to keep it from aging, all so he could create this place, and watch this little girl grow up. The little girl had long black hair that was messily floating in the gel, she looked 5 years old, and could be described simply as a doll.
After what seemed like hours, the little girl finally showed movement, and slowly opened her eyes, Elithas smiled.
"Welcome my daughter, you have finally awakened, I was waiting for this day."
The little girl stared at the man, and she smiled gently.
"Father."
The disembodied voice directly penetrated his brain, it could be described as telepathy.
She stretched out her arms to him while inside the transparent tube. Even though she was not able to completely awake before, she received knowledge of many things from Elithas during her half-asleep state; the machines were sending data packets into her brain. He always kept her company by talking to the tube for many years, so she knew many things even before awakening, both from the information flowing into her brain, and the constant one sided dialogues from Elithas.
Before Elithas could open the tube, and let the little girl out, a large rumbling sound could be heard. Red sirens were blaring, and explosions shook the room. Black rifts inside the dome were opening one after another slowly multiplying from tens, to hundreds, and to thousands. The rifts looked like black murky whirlpools stuck in the sky. Humanoids with fiery wings, and golden Armour poured in, each one had golden emissions of light flowing out from their bodies.
With a light fizzling sound, 3 holographic screens popped up in front of Elithas.
In the screen thousands of beings slowly poured out from the black whirlpools.
"The divine race is invading? Now of all times! Lana, are you there?"
A mechanical female voice responded, "yes professor."
Elithas screamed, "what happened to the security force!"
"I'm sorry professor, something is interfering with my controls of the automated security, apparently my program is being invaded by a time lapsed virus."
Elithas hurriedly tried to get the frightened little girl from the tube hatch, as he was about to open the hatch the air around Elithas vibrated, and hummed. Moments later, the man was flung two meters away, slamming into the wall. The little girl looked in shock at the sudden impact.
A large murky rift appeared next to where Elithas was standing. The handsome man had a chiselled face, and flowing blond hair. He wore a red, and gold robe, accompanied by four fiery wings. The oppressive heat from his wings could be felt by Elithas, the strange man looked like he was in his early twenties. His piercing blue eyes glanced at Elithas, and he formed a charming smile.
"Thank you very much professor, your 'goddess' will be an immense help to us, as thanks, you can die peacefully."
Within seconds a glowing red magic formation appeared from the palm of the young mans hand, a beam of fire raced forth at blinding speed, penetrating Elithas' body, the heat evaporated his blood, charred his bones, and melted his skin.
The only thing left were charred bones. The little girl could only scream wordlessly as her body futilely tried moving in the tube.
The man grinned at the little girl, and summoned forth a black magic circle under the girls feet. She slowly started to sink into the magic circle like quicksand, and after thirty minutes she completely disappeared.
Slowly another rift opened beside the unknown man, a woman with short golden blond hair appeared. A gigantic scar was covering half her beautiful face, and on her back were four fiery wings. She looked at the charred remains before turning to the man standing next to her.
"Is that ok? Shouldn't we keep the old man to recreate more."
"It's fine, Elithas can't produce that anymore. As for the child, the restriction code on the her brain hasn't been unlocked, we have someone that will help us with it."
"We probably didn't even need to bring our army, looks like the defensive forces really were immobilized."
With that the two people standing in the middle of the room opened a rift, and slowly disappeared.
The system avatar Lana slowly recorded it all, it's priority programming informed it to contact Elithas' personal friend should anything have happened. Lana could feel that a virus was slowly eating away at her systems, with her remaining administrative power, she sent an independent drone from Galileo's launch pad to certain co-ordinates received remotely from a far off frequency.
One hour later the system known as Lana was completely wiped out, a single capsule shaped air craft could be seen escaping Galileo, and zooming to the south.
The sky was pitch black, and for some reason no stars could be seen. The suns golden rays had long been absent from this world, the capsule shaped aircraft passed countless ruined cities, all signs of vegetation had long since ceased to exist naturally on the planet. But instead, have been replaced by mutated variants.
The air craft flew past a battle field between two bio-domes, where thousands of humans fired ammunition, and clashed with each other. It flew past a small ruined village being set on fire by mysterious creatures, it flew past a floating land mass surrounded by mist. It finally approached a large shore of red, and purple. Countless wreckages of bio-domes, and ships could be seen littered for several kilometers. It slowly approached a land covered in ice, and snow, with howling winds, and blinding white skies.
After passing through the eerie ocean, and into the frozen land mass, the capsule entered a mountainous region, on top of this snowy landscape floated a similar dome as Galileo, known as Advantis, which was covered with a thick layer of snow, and frost.
The air craft sent a landing signal to the bio-dome and prepared for a landing at one of the flat edges on the side of the dome, the ice, and blinding snow caused an unsteady flight, but the capsule landed safely.
Despite landing safely the hatch never opened, it just waiting quietly in the edge of the ice covered surface. Fierce winds blew, and heavy snow eventually encased the small capsule, like a coffin slowly entering it's cold, and lonely grave.
Comments:Regular chapters are not this long, but I'm just using re-upping, so it doesn't really matter until I reach the latest.
Shortly after a capsule shaped air craft flew past the wreckage of ships, and bio-domes, a small vessel could be found floating in the midst of twisted metal, and filthy water. The salvage ship was rocking back, and forth, and on top of the ship stood a young woman. The wind was blowing her long silver hair wildly, strands of her hair brushed against her face. She was wearing a black black suit with silver stripes, her red tie was blowing as wildly as her hair. The woman standing among the graveyard of metal made quite the eerie sight, like a ghost guarding a massive grave.
Her skin looked pale, and her face resembled that of an elegant young woman around her late teens to early twenties, from an objective stand point she was indeed very beautiful. However, it causes one to wonder if such an appearance could ever belong to a flesh, and blood human. The person standing on the ship was named Kalithas, she had been standing their stiffly for over two hours, her face was oddly expressionless, and her red pupils had a sharp hawk like gaze as she stared at the surface of the water. It was as if she was expecting the water to come alive at any moment.
From the depths of the water a blue diving suit could be seen, the suit suffered some scratches, and tears. The suit on the left arm looked like it was ripped open from the inside out, but Kalithas stared at the scratches rather than the much larger tear on the person's left arm, she looked slightly worried, but remained silent.
The man took off the diving mask that covered his entire head, he had short black hair, and a slightly roundish face, which gave off a slightly cute impression. He looked in his early twenties, he had a clean shaven face, and wore a wry smile, his left eye had a brown pupil, but his right eye had a slight mechanical glow.
Seeing this, Kalithas sighed.
"Professor, your eye."
The man looked slightly puzzled, his right eye quickly lost the red light, and a brown pupil emerged. With a small smile, he slowly took off the diving suit exposing clean black pants, and a damaged white shirt. Oddly enough despite water seeping into the suit the man was dry. Kalithas narrowed her eyes, and saw countless microscopic silver machines across his body.
Kalithas frowned, "professor, please don't use nano-machines to dry yourself, the energy required for the nano-machines usage is limited, please do not use it for such trivial means. I could easily provide some new clothes for you."
The Man scratched his nose a bit, then looked at his destroyed shirt.
"I knew the population of mermen in this area was growing, but to think they made a small colony near this grave yard. Anyways I already found some materials that I salvaged from some of the bio-domes, it's already hooked unto the ship, lets leave before more of them show up."
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"Professor, something new came up," a man with light brown hair, and a short ponytail walked unto the deck. The man could be described as nothing less then eerily handsome. A face that looked like it was made by an artisan, the handsome man looked to be in his late teens, he had brown eyes, and slightly tanned skin, which was odd due to the lack of sunlight.
What's unusual was that he wore a full body suit, silver, and black with thin metal plates, running across his body, occasionally slight blue electrical pulses can be seen skimming across the suit.
Looking at Leon, the professor asked him what happened, Leon explained that some smoke had been spotted, rising from a nearby village, and signs of flames could be seen.
Looking at the distance Saia's mechanical eye magnified the view of flames, and smoke, "hoh...this is interesting, let's go investigate."
Kalithas stared at the rising smoke, she looked at the professor, and tried to speak up, but with a slightly annoyed expression she gave up, and kept quiet as they arrived on the shore. They took a land rover to cover the distance, since no paved roads were maintained, the ride was incredibly rough.
On the land rover Leon was driving, he had already put on a black encased mechanical helmet, with a small red visor glowing where the eyes should be, to both of his sides hung what looked like remodelled semi-auto hand guns, with blue pulses of light running along the tip. On his back hung a long silver, and black sheathe.
Looking at this sight the professor smiled, "isn't that uncomfortable, especially with that sword, you might accidentally hurt your back. Let me drive, I think you're really tired."
Leon paled, if the Professor drove, it meant a one way ticket to hell, Leon shook his head furiously, and continued to drive.
The professor looked at the landscape, a sense of nostalgia can be seen on his face. Towering black sky scrapers could be seen leaning on each other, fragments of glass, and steel littered the landscape for as far as the eye could see, the ground was barren, cold, and the sky was pitch black, as if the world was covered in a thin black shell. But for some reason, despite the lack of light, the surface of the world still retained visibility for the naked eye.
Even the concept of night, and day still existed, because it could go from dark, to darker. The professor, otherwise known as Saia, could only assume the thin black shell covering the world offered some form of distorted visibility. The human eye needs light to reflect visual information, but how was it possible when no visible light source was available?
Despite how long he tried, he could never figure it out. He could only assume the black shell had unknown qualities to it, that emitted a different form of ocular aid, different from the sun.
He slowly thought about the civilization, and the world, as he stared dazedly at the ruined city. The humans who could not afford to live in the bio-domes after the 3rd great war, had survived by living off the unpolluted ocean areas. Some parts of the surface remained polluted, but the majority of it was still teeming with life, and untainted.
The humans who could not live in the bio-domes gathered, and made villages across the edges of the ocean. They made their homes hidden inside of the towering dilapidated buildings, caves or underground pathways, all across the world. Some of them even formed small countries for mutual protection.
Occasionally armed soldiers, and war machines from the bio-domes would scout out, and raid the earth bound villages, using the men as slaves, the women as toys, and the children as commodity. The old, and sick were of no use, so either they were killed, left alone, or used as test subjects. Not all bio-domes operated in such a barbaric manner, and the grounded communities also formed their own nations for mutual protection, so the world wasn't completely dyed in chaos, or depravity.
As the professor thought about various things, the hidden village Arcadia could be seen. It was a village built under a large bridge, smoke, and fire could be seen heating up the atmosphere, and lighting the sky red, and orange. The territory was owned by bio-dome Galileo, so other bio-domes would rarely cause trouble in this area.
From the rover Kalithas' seat was already empty, and she re-appeared five meters ahead. Her movements were similar to a ghosts, eerie, and incredibly silent.
"I'll go ahead," she exclaimed, as she disappeared from view.
Leon complained what's the point of the rover if she could run faster than it. After a few minutes drive, the rover pulled over near the village. They noticed bodies littered all around the bridge, hulking green humanoids in feral looking clothes could be seen scattered around, and lying dead on the ground. Some had holes in their foreheads while others had their heads cleanly sliced off.
Looking at the corpses the professor confirmed.
"Looks like the Orcs are raiding this village."
Looking in the distance, a young woman with silver hair could be seen, holding the throat of one the orcs with her left hand, and a silver sword on her right hand digging into the skull of another orc. A loud snap could be heard, the hulking creature limply fell unto the floor, with a thud. Two orcs rushed at her from both sides, one used a large hammer to smash her skull, while the other used it's long spear to sweep her legs.
Kalithas jumped backward, in one smooth motion she landed on the orc's shoulders, and lodged it's head in place with her legs, she then twisted her body in one quick revolution. Blood splashed outwards, and the orc's severed head fell to the floor, along with it's body. Two silver blades were dyed red as they retreated back into the sole's of her black shoes. As she was on her way to land on the ground Kalithas kicked up the dead orc's body to prevent it from falling. As soon as she landed, she sent a powerful kick into the corpse, shooting the dead body into the other orc with the hammer. She then kicked up the spear that was dropped down from the dead orc, and threw it, skewering the two orcs together into a wall. As she casually approached the two impaled bodies, she stabbed her sword into the last one's skull.
While pulling out the blade, splatters of blood landed on her face as she grimly turned around. Kalithas noticed the professor, she spun around in a panic, and brought out a cloth to wipe her face, then immediately looked back, while trying to regain her composure, with her cheeks turning slightly pink.
After wiping the sword she put it back into it's sheathe that was on her back, and slowly walked towards the professor.
Kalithas gave a slight wave indicating the area was cleared, as she casually walked towards them, she tilted her head, then pulled out a gun hidden in her sleeve, and fired a blue energy bolt towards her right side without looking. An orc with a dissolved head holding a cross bow, tumbled from a crack in the wall, and fell down with a thud, sending some dust floating in the air.
The professor gave a light whistle, "around 30 orcs huh... Looks like you didn't even need use your ability?”
Kalithas gave a stern look, "it's inefficient to use it on something like an orc, you should know how much battery power, and stored energy we have to save up for."
The professor looked around the village, a red glow appearing on his right eye, "I can't detect any bodies other then orcs, I can detect human hair, and human detriment though."
After fifteen minutes the professor identified a group of human foot prints leading towards an open plain 10 km away. Dozens of foot prints from small to large going in a single line formation. To the left, and right side, gigantic foot prints with deep imprints could be seen running parallel. Trickles of blood, pieces of hair, and some tears could be seen on the path, followed by what could be a cart or wagon.
The professor sighed loudly, "looks like a rift from the other world opened around this region, the orcs must have found the village while scavenging. All the people alive were tied up, and marched towards the rift, the corpses must have been brought along to be used as food later, if I had to guess the captured people would be used as food or slaves."
The professor sighed again, annoyed at this unreasonable world, "what is Galileo doing?"
Honestly even now the Professor had no idea how rifts kept appearing, but he did know it all happened after the floating continent had appeared. It was ironic that past experiments did not allow for them to go past the rift, but somehow the orcs, and invasive races could do so easily.
As the professor grew more, and more curious, a light beep could be heard. The microchip loaded unto his brain was ringing, as Leon, and Kalithas slowly surveyed the area, the professor listened to the communication. A cheerful voice could be heard, "hi Saia, how are you doing? Where are you? And remember to bring me a souvenir."
With a wry smile Saia looked at the dead orc's body that he loaded unto the rover, "hah... I have an orc's head, do you want it Maya?"
"No thanks, you can keep it. Anyways, you do realize it's your fault I have all this work you know?"
Saia knew Maya was an valuable figure towards the management of Advantis in other words, she can be considered the manager of it. She took his responsibilities so he could live the life of a NEET, and pursue his hobbies to cure his boredom of the world.
Because of his hobbies, Advantis had been morphed into a place with varying sections that further extended his past hobbies.
One of those sections was the mercenary section, from armed conflicts, to escort duty, to protecting convoys.
The second section was for research, and development from researching new weapons, furniture, to making different games.
The third section is bio-technology, capturing various hostile alien creatures, and races from the other worlds, and researching them. So far only the lower races without any special characteristics were available. Researching new strain of poisons, and to some extent medicine, as well. Creating new crops or preserving old ones, were one of it's main functions.
The fourth section is transportation of goods to other bio-domes to bargain for materials, and services.
The fifth was mining, and salvaging materials. Using robot workers to excavate, and salvage usable materials for other departments, but it was more related to maintaining the bio-dome in most cases.
Of the 5 sections, mercenary work was the most lucrative, due to the inherent dangers of the present. At the moment excluding all machines, and robots, the population of Advantis was a measly 81. It could be said that the main modus operandi of the dome was the pursuit of interests.
If a single term can be used to describe the nature of it all then it would simply be hedonism. Infatuation of tea, love of music, obsession of video games, courting of death, desires of war, and longing of adoration. Pleasure of exploring the unknown, rapture in experiments, joy of creating plant life, lust of creating machinery, pleasure of acquiring more knowledge, and fascination of culture. Some wanted to see the limits of flesh, and blood, others wanted to see the happiness of their siblings, while some longed for nothing at all, but only sleep.
Everyone have their desires, the dome was merely a place where they all lived, and strived for those individual lusts. It was simply a den of hobbyist, that took their hobbies that border on hedonism. To those sisters, and brothers, Advantis is what they call home.
Other departments existed as well, however those were not related specifically to hobbies, but vital functions for the dome in general, on it's day to day operations.
As Saia thought about random things involving his former bio-dome, Maya filled him in on what happened in Galileo.
With a slight frown Saia called for Kalithas, and Leon. "We are heading back to Advantis, something interesting happened to Galileo, I'll have your sisters on stand by."
Kalithas wondered, "those from the Mercenary section right? Is there going to be a trouble?"
Saia thought for a moment, "no, they're just for insurance, the political stability of the area around Galileo should deteriorate once the other bio-domes notice the oddity around Gallileo for not responding to invasions in it's territory."
A Sinking feeling was growing inside Saia, it has been many, many years since he felt the emotion known as foreboding, staring into the night sky he could only mutter.
"What do you have for me now?"
Comments: Despite what you may think, this is indeed magic fantasy, and not sci-fi. I labelled those tags properly!