《Guardian of the World》 Chapter 1 : The End My first attempt. Expecting lots of grammar error. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 1 : The End ¡°Goodbye, love¡± ¡°Farewell son.¡± In front of me, a large screen pictured my parent image. They were holding hand while sitting in the sofa. While they not crying anymore, traces of it can still be seen. Right now they were smiling with calm look. ¡°Goodbye, father. Goodbye mother. Thanks you for raising me.¡± 5 sec left. The time counter goes down 5..4..3..2.1..0. The last image of my parent kissing each other lovingly has gone to be replaced by black screen with red font [LINE DISCONNECTED]. I cried. Before, there only some tears drop. Now like a broken dam I can¡¯t hold it the tears back anymore. I sobbed and cried like never before. They gone. Memories of happy days spent together with my family kept resurface. Enveloped by sadness, I did not notice the time went by. -Beep--Beep--Beep- A noisy alarm beeping woke me up. It seem I cried myself to sleep. 8.00 AM. 31st Dec 2050. The last day of humanity. No. The last day of earth. It seem I overslept. Not that it matter anymore. Earth going to be destroyed today. The cause? A meteor crash. 3 days ago the news broke out. Look like the world government have been holding back the news and cover it up to give the chance for VIPs of the world to evacuate. No wonder there been a lot of those tycoons making their own private space villa these recent few years. Some even made a small facility on the moon. There also rumors about them going to Mars, some decades ago the first project to colonize Mars was successful and by some miracle they survive to make a small colony there. Still I heard the life there were harsh. Hardly a desireable place for a pampered rich guy to live at. The meteor impact was yesterday, nearby my parent place. I was virtually on the other side of the planet for my study. The shockwave was calculated to reach my place 14 hours after first impact. 3 hours left. I went to the balcony of my apartment to get some fresh air and immediately regretted it. My apartment have a good scenic view of the whole cities being at strategic and also luxurious location. The suite was expensive, but my parent can afford it and insist that I live here. They really took good care of me. The thought of them suddenly made me sad again. I look at the city. The normal peaceful city is no more. I can see fires and smoke coming out at many place. As soon as the news came out, riot broke out all over the world. This city is included. Right now there groups of people at the top of many building. One by one they jumped down. Sometime in pairs. Must be lovers. And a few time in a group of 3 or more. Probably family. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.Some chose the easy way out - suicide. It probably less frightening if you decide the end by yourself. Sick of the view, I went back inside. There nothing to do. I decide to open my album of picture and watch them in my big screen one by one. Drowned in the nostalgia the hours went by quickly. 10 min left. The temperature already risen a lot. The fire shockwave from impact will be here soon. Once again I went to the balcony and saw the reddish horizon. Far in the horizon I can clearly see the blazing sky. Very frightening, yet beautiful. There nothing left to do. I thought about my life. A simple and blessed life. Was there anything I regret? I search my mind. No, nothing. I was borned to a rich family. My father an accomplished businessman and my mother a well respected top researcher in her field. Loved by my parent and blessed with talent, I skipped grades and quickly graduated with flying honours. While I might not be a genius, but I reckon I am close to one. It was only a week ago the graduation ceremony where I last met with my parent. I was looking forward to my new phase of life. Get a good work. Get married, have a family, live a good life. Oh. Marriage. There is one regret. Since I was too focused on my studies, I never had any chance to get a girlfriend. It more like I was not interested that much in the opposite sex. No, thats wrong. I was too shy to even open a conversation with them and used my study as an excuse. I wonder how it felt to be in love. With a sigh i pushed that thought out of my mind. It already too late for that now. I watch my custom timer. 50 sec left before my death. The fire wave won¡¯t be here until a few minute later, but a human will long be dead before then because of the high temperature. The temperature steadily rising. 30 sec. It felt hard to breath now. 20 sec. I close my eyes and start counting down. 19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1..0.. 0¡­ Huh? I guess my calculation were off. I stopped counting but kept my eyes close. A few minute passed. And suddenly I noticed, it not hot anymore. This is impossible. ¡°You could open your eyes now.¡± A stranger voice called out to me. Next - Chapter 2 : A New Wold Chapter 2 : Another World Chapter 2 : Another World Surprised, I quickly open my eye. I am floating in a clear cylinder shape container. I tried moving around but was stopped by an invisible barrier. Then I look around the room. The surrounding wall was pure white with lined with blue stripe, which light up occasionally. Look like a unnecessarily hi-tech wall to me. I notice an old man, straight hair all white, his face covered with a well groomed beard. Clothed in a simple light blue robe with some pattern on it. His eyes gives out a strong impression of him. A face with some wrinkle, still I could say he quite handsome. It hard to tell how old he is. My guess he should be in his 50s. ¡°This...this is..where..what?¡± I asked disjointedly. My mind was too jumble up from the surprise. The 4 Ws 1H question went through my head. What, where, when, why, how. Quickly my mind sorted out some possible answers. However, that only some assumption and guessworks, as a few moment passed I decide I better get the answers from the old man in front me. ¡°Have you calmed down?¡±. He asked as he made a swiping motion. A transparent screen appear in front of him with unrecognizable character flowing through it. A Holo Interactive Interface, I recognized the technology. However I did not see any instrument producing the holo. ¡°Yes.¡± Tearing of my thought of the missing holo instrument I answered him. It would not do to be rude to him. Whoever he is, this certainly not normal and I have to tread carefully. ¡°Welcome, to the Realm of Eorion, young one.¡± He said in a calm voice, with a hint of excitement in it. I frowned at him calling me ¡®young one¡¯ but didn¡¯t mention it aloud. ¡°My name is Gadriel Elwin, Keeper of Azure, Guardian of the West, Protector of the Ancient are some of the title I known as. But, you can just call me Gadriel.¡± Quite a lot of flamboyant sounding title there, time to introduce myself. ¡°Please to meet you, lord Gadriel. My name is..¡± ¡°No, do not name yourself.¡± My introduction was cut short by Gadriel. ¡°In this realm, your true name held power over your being. You best remember not to mention it to anyone but your most trusted. Before we continue, pick a new name for yourself.¡± That surprised me. A few thing in my mind clicked together. So true name-realm-power...The answers I seek continue to narrow down with this clue. Then I push the thought back to the corner in my mind and utter my new name. ¡°Alva. My new name will be Alva¡± It not hard to pick a new name. I just use the nick I like to use for my mmo character. I pick ¡®Alva¡¯ since I like the sound of it. Later i found out it was a common name for Sweden and Norway. Since it a common name it usually got taken by others before i could use it, thus my character name usually ended up as AlvaZero or DarkAlva. Since this new name I will be using for myself it would be improper to attach ¡®Zero¡¯ or ¡®Dark¡¯. Silently I laughed to myself. ¡°Very well. From now on I will call you Alva. Now Alva, please listen to me carefully. I am not sure if we got enough time as it is.¡± He threw his glance to his holo-panel. Some kind of unknown character keep changing. It is a timer. A countdown timer, my instinct told me. I gave a nod and said ¡° Please do.¡± Gadriel made a few gesture while touching the panel. A large holographic image appear in front of me. It is an image of a blue sphere, I recognize it, although different then earth this sphere should be an image of a planet. ¡°This is where you are right now. A planet known as Eorion. Compared to your planet Earth, Eorion is several times bigger. It inhabited by several different sentient life forms. Me and you, human, are one of the sentient life forms which inhabit this planet.¡± A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Gadriel made a gesture and the planet image zoomed in. I could see the land more clearly now. ¡°70% land and 30% of the surface covered in water. With a total of 14 different continent all together.¡± I studied the continents. Weird,except for one all those continent was spread evenly with same shape and size spreading like a flower petal. The final continent with a even circle shape was in the center of the other continent. ¡°The continent shape look weird, how the shape get to be so even?¡± I asked. Gadriel raised his eyebrow. Currently his look reminded me of my old professor giving lectures to his student. He raised both of his hand and do a outward swipe motion and the image turned into a flat map. ¡°So you noticed, not that it was not obvious. Eorion also known as Grand Flower of the Realm. As how to it get to be that shape. It was artificial - it was made to be so.¡± His answer gives me further surprise. ¡°Artificial? It was man-made?¡± ¡°No. To be exact, it was made by Gods. The whole planet was created by them.¡± Gadriel short answer sent my mind further reeling. ¡°At least they are known as God in this realm. A sentient being powerful enough to create a planet. However in my opinion they are not real god. They might be powerful, they also have infinite life span, but they not almighty and could still die.¡± The screen change and show a human. At least he look human but a human emitting flashy colorful aura from his body. He heavily clothed in a grand looking robe, suddenly the image moved and he raised his hand. So it a video this time. He was floating in the sky above the continent. His raised hand start to collect the surrounding aura in a small sphere form. After a while the sphere was shining like a second sun. He threw the sphere onto the land and a large pillar of light appear. After a while the pillar of light disappear and a large hole appear. He start collecting his aura again, this time a sphere of blue aura and once again threw it. This time there no explosion or a pillar of light. The blue sphere went to center of the hole and suddenly expand. It kept expanding till it cover the original hole, in a flash the sphere stopped glowing and all that left was water. The being look at his handiwork and from his face I saw he gave a nod and smile satisfied. And then he disappear from the view. The video ended a few seconds after that. My mouth left gaping while I look at this spectacle. While in the video perspective the hole does not look too big, but I knew from the map the area blown out was at least 1/10 of the continent. And this being made a large lake easily. Changing the continent geography to his liking. What kind of being this is? While I do not acknowledge them as god, but with that kind of power I could understand if other revere him as one. ¡°However great they are though, they still can be killed.¡± Galdriel said as he gives out a harrumph. It seem that Galdriel does not like those being. ¡°Umm. Can I ask, why did you save me?¡± I tried to change the subject. While the new world and its inhabitant overwhelm me, I still do not know why I was saved. Gadriel looked at me and gave out a sigh. He suddenly look weary and older. ¡°I am sorry for your lost, child.¡± Great. Now I am a child. ¡°I, Gadriel Elwin, was like you. An unfortunate stranger in this realm.¡± ----- Chapter 3 : http://www.royalroadl.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=12237 Chapter 3 : Death Chapter 3 : Death ¡°I came from a planet name Zenlia. Compared to your earth civilization, ours is already several thousand years more advance. We all spread all across the galaxy, inhabiting many planet and star system. However, after journeying far and wide we still haven¡¯t encounter another sentient life form. It was then, a number of scientist band together and propose, if we can not find them in this universe then we shall search in another. The one who spearheaded the research was me.¡± Gadriel then fall silent. He take a few step toward me, and suddenly out of nowhere a comfortable looking chair appear. He sat down and continued. ¡°After long years of research and innumerable failures, we discovered a location where there a tear in fabric of space and time, an anomaly thought impossible to exist. Excited with that discovery, we quickly build our lab and facilities there, with all the personnel you could even call it a small city. Our research then advanced quickly and before long our effort finally paid off.¡± ¡°We finally able to tear down the space time and reconstructed it to our will, making the travel through another reality possible. It was then we discovered Eorion and Earth. After sending our probe to both world we found that Eorion more fascinating than Earth, which only have human as sentient life form plus at very low level of civilization.¡± Somehow I felt offended by his word. Low level of civilization. Indeed, by the look of it, his technology far superior than Earth. However, I thought sooner or later Earth will definitely catch up. Although the Earth was destroyed, other human still survived in space. The current Earth might be scorched, but I believe the other survivor will definitely returned to Earth and revive it back. Even if it will take thousand of years. ¡°I could understand that, on one hand there Earth which is a uncivilized planet with nothing extra to offer, and on the other you got Eorion with different sentient being in it. If it were me, Eorion would be more appealing than earth.¡± Gladriel give a wry smile and chuckle. ¡°True, I was being insensitive. Please forgive me, Alva. It was not my intention to be rude. I hope no offense taken.¡± Somehow he could see through me. ¡°No,no. No offense taken. I don¡¯t mind. Please continue¡± ¡°Where were we?¡± Gladriel made a face trying to recall his memory. ¡°You were at the sending probe part.¡± I answered. ¡°Ah, yes. Forgive me. Look like the years have catch up to me. The memories of long ago feel so distant and slowly fading away.¡± I raised my eyebrow. ¡°You still look great to me though.¡± Gladriel let out a big laugh hearing my word. ¡°Appearance can be deceiving. I am not as young as I look. Now then, back to the story - We sent the probe to Eorion and discover the various sentient life form there. Not to mention great flora and fauna which fascinate our best biologist and zoologist. However our excitement does not last long. It was then we discovered the Gods. The being revered as gods, are also known as Ascended in Eorion. The clip you watched before was our first encounter with them. After that our group opinion was divided, some against going to this world, some push for a meeting with them and see what we could learn and a few propose to silently observe this newly discovered world. After a while without clear decision. I decided that we need a break and our success definitely call for a celebration. The next day the whole research center celebrate and the news of our discovery spread far and wide. It was in the middle of our celebration an alarm sounded. Hurrying to our laboratory, we encountered a group of armed personnel. I do not know their affliction, maybe from a Conglomerate or maybe they just a simple mercenary trying to make a quick money from our research. I will never know. After getting stuck and exchanging fires with our security personnel. Suddenly the group was blown away to nothingness. Behind them stand a strange glowing man. It was then I realised my mistake. The tunnel is a 2 way route, if we could go there, then surely it not strange for them to come here. Activating the reality tunnel would take an enormous amount of energy, normally it would be impossible, however given their display of power - it not impossible. After that, the situation goes from bad to worst. The Ascended laughed with childish glee and start blasting around wildly. It was a miracle that I alone survived the onslaught, the rest of my research group unfortunately did not. I requested backup from the surrounding galaxy and in a few minute several armada of our best assault ship arrived. It was a ghastly battle, the Ascended managed to destroyed half of the armada before getting mortally wounded. Then he slowly retreat back to the reality tunnel. I made up my decision, the tunnel was too dangerous. While the armada and the Ascended was battling each other, I hide on my own spaceship, which I armed myself with experimental technology way superior than any other ship. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. I power up my ship experimental Reality Blaster - a side product of our group research. However since it just a experimental prototype it had a short effective range. I had to fire it point blank to be effective. So I flew my ship toward the opened reality tunnel and ram the back of unaware Ascended. I pull the trigger and saw the Ascended slowly got disintegrated. The blasted tunnel slowly lose the integrity and collapse. My ship fall into the tunnel, it was calculated I won¡¯t be able to escaped in time. I thought it was fine. As long as I destroyed this tunnel. There won¡¯t be another one. All other researcher have died. The research center will be blown out of existence in a short while along with the research data. As the space collapsing around me, by chance I saw the tunnel exit with blue planet Eorion shining at the center. I direct my ship toward the exit and left the collapsing tunnel safely. However with it, my path back to my own universe was forever gone. ¡°..........¡± I listened quietly through his whole story. It was quite a long story, however that still does not tell me the answer. Why did he save me? Gadriel look at my face and said. ¡°Well, there just a bit more to the story. I will tell you the short version of it. Somehow I survived, then went to live with the human in this planet and eventually appoint myself as their guardian.¡± ¡°Guarding them from what?¡± ¡°Human is the weakest among all the sentient in this planet, without my protection at best they will only be prey for others. Under my protection, slowly human civilization advance, from a primitive caveman to currently Middle Ages equivalent of your Earth planet. At least now they can fend themself from other races. Aside from the Ascended.¡± His face turned grim at his last sentence. ¡°Ascended rarely involved themself directly with other races, they often view those with limited lifespan with disdain. Anyway, in some rare instance some of them would came and wreck havoc. That when I came in. I am protecting the humankind from Ascended.¡± I was astonished. The Ascended show almost godlike ability. How in the world could he oppose them? ¡°Time running out. I need to make this quick. Any question?¡± Gladriel threw his glance toward the timer counter. Look like time running out. I wonder what going to happen when it do. Then I better quickly ask my question. ¡°Why did you save me?¡± ¡°I am weary. It nearly been 10,000 years since I protect the humankind. I am looking for successor.¡± Again, the answer surprised me. I can surmised that I am supposed to be his successor and somehow I ignore over the 10,000 years claim. Next question. ¡°Why me? There should be other human in this planet. Why go as far as to pluck me from other universe?¡± It was mind boggling to think of the effort Gladriel went through just to get me as his successor when other human are nearby. ¡°The others human won¡¯t do. There are reason for this. As for why I specifically pick you from Earth, well the truth is, you got lucky, I picked you at random among the still living human.¡± I was horrified. So the reason I am still alive now because I got lucky?! ¡°Quickly now, time running out.¡± He urged me. ¡°So what do you want me do?¡± ¡°Lots of thing, but not enough time to explain. I will send a guide to you when you reach 16 years old.¡± ¡°Huh? But I am 18 already.¡± I was puzzled. ¡°You will be 16. Again.¡± ¡°Again?¡± His word does not make sense. ¡°Yes, you see, I was only able to pull your soul to here. Your physical body already perished back on earth. So, what you need now is a new body. Don¡¯t you worry, one of my newly acquired skill in this world was soul manipulation. While I can¡¯t do much, transferring soul is still within my capability. I¡¯ve set you be reborn as a human, but I do not know where you will end up. I hope you will somehow survive till 16, that is when I can detect your soul again.¡± I was speechless, I thought he was some kind of scientist now he a magician too? ¡°It is time. Farewell Alva, till we meet again¡± Then my body start disintegrating, particle of my body falling apart. I tried to scream, but there no voice coming out. There was no pain, ironically that made the experience much more frightening. My vision continue to darken and my consciousness fading. Dread filled me. Is this death? With that last thought my mind goes blank.