Earth: The Second

Battle of Life and Death

Chap and Mila grinding their teeth, Kiki’s cry goes louder, and Izanagi just starring in terror. The monster, as if enjoying the show of despair, once again letting out a weird, otherworldy unsettling chuckle. It then presents the final c****x for the former teammate of Yulia. 

More tentacles are coming out from the stem. It has pointy tips, like an injection needle. The tentacles then stabbing all over Yulia’s body, and it starts sucking blood, meat, and everything it can squeeze from a human. Yulia does not even ask for help, all she can do is just wailing and crying, like an animal at death’s door.

In front of her teammate, she gets sucked until ran out of blood. Her pretty face is now like an old woman and that voluptuous body is but a history. After that, she just stopped moving and responding, just like those corpses.

Izanagi feels pain and anger in his heart, but he can’t even swing his sword right now. All of his body is telling Izanagi to flee from that thing. He would start crying if Chap not patting his shoulder.

“Izanagi, we have to run now. The mission is a failure, but we have something to report to the guild,” Chap plead to his leader, hoping that Izanagi is not clouded by emotional judgment. They all understand that the Dark Monster is not something that they face every day. In fact, only a handful of adventurers have the experience to face off that thing.

And most of those stories did not end well.

“Kiki, please give me the Quanta,” asked Chap. Kiki has stopped crying, probably too tired to do so. Her hand still shaking when she give Chap the marble, and she back to her sobbing.

“May The Sevens protect us,” said Chap. With all of his might, he slams the marble on the floor until it was destroyed, activating teleportation magic inside the Quanta stone.

What would happen next supposed to be an appearance of a magic circle that will teleport them to the ruin’s entrance. But nothing happened. 

The team exchange look at each other, especially Chap, and the broken marble on the floor.

Sweat rolls down on Chap’s helmet armor as he looks at Mila, Kiki, and Izanagi. “Our magic is neutralized…”

A neutralized magic, only happened when a spell conflicted with another spell with the same function. This means right now, a teleportation spell has been activated inside that room. Suddenly, a massive magic circle shines brightly on the floor where they stand and covering the entire room. The team can feel the gust of winds coming under them, and they have to close their eyes because the light is so bright.

“Guys!” 

Izanagi letting out a shriek, before they all transported into another place. When they opened their eyes, they can see the blue sky and fresh air outside. There are no roofs or darkness of the underground.

“Where… are we…” asked Mila. She is hugging Kiki the entire time because she is afraid of what will happen to that child. Both Chap and Izanagi opened their eyes and mesmerized by the beautiful scenery.

“Is this… The top of the ruin?” Izanagi mutters as he realized a large tree that bursting out of the ruin. He has seen this landscape outside of the ruin before.

Kukukuku! Guhiiiii!!!

Shocked, the team does not realize that they are not the only people who got teleported. The Dark Monster body is now wriggling, it abandons the shape of a tree, and melting into a slimy substance with blinking eyes covering its surface. Seconds later, the slime reshapes into something that looks more like an animal, with four legs, a tail, and a pointy head, similar to a wolf.

The Dark Monster letting out a howl, and charge straight into Izanagi.

“Watch out!” Chap storming forward with shield lifted, while Izanagi falls to the floor. The impact from the creature’s head and the metal shield create a loud noise. “By the protection of the seven, protect my ally from the befallen tragedy! Aegis!”

Chap uses another skill, he projects the mana on his body into the shield and creates a second layer of protection made by magic. The creature itself is not giving up, it tries to gnaw the magic shield, but his mouth can not reach Chap or Izanagi.

“Urgh… No other choice! We have to fight!” Chap screams while striving to keep his shield toward the enemy.

“How the hell you think we can take that thing down!” answer Mila. She shoots three arrows that flew through Chap’s protection. The arrows successfully stabbed the Dark Monster, but it gives no reaction whatsoever.

“We need Kiki to cast holy magic to our weapon! It is the only way to fight against dark attributes!” answer Chap. “Izanagi! You have to get yourself together!” the old man turned to the leader which is much younger than him. 

Izanagi, once frozen, now mesmerized by his companion’s strive to survive. As if in slow motion, he looks at Chap, then Mila and Kiki. Especially Kiki. He realized that all of this is because of his plan, a poorly made plan that snatches the life of his loved ones.

Izanagi then gets up, sword unsheathed, and is in battle stance. He looks at the creature, with eyes full of rage.

“I swear with every bit of my soul, I will slay you, damned beast!” Izanagi screamed as he makes his final stand against the otherworldly evil force.

***

Meanwhile, not far from the place where those adventurers fighting for their life…

Cold is the only thing he can feel. Floating in nothingness, as if darkness had swallowed him whole. He can feel no concept of ‘time’ or ‘space’, he has no memory, and because of that, he has what other beings don’t.

Peace, tranquility, freedom without anything to hold you back, or force that will oppress your cause. But what cause means if there is nothing to fight against? What does peace mean if there are no people to celebrate with and a home to return to? 

And that is what he is. Nothing.

That is until he hears something that comes outside of this sea. 

A scream, or something that sounded like a battle cry. Followed by shouts here and there, metal clashing, and then, beastly growl.

“What… Happened…?” 

For the first time, he finally started to think. What is happening outside? what is happening beyond this so-called ‘peace’?

This time, another voice answers his question, but it is not from the outside. Instead, it is a machine-like voice that comes from inside of his head. “A compatible lingua-franca has been detected, motion sensor has confirmed multiple activities outside of the capsule.”

“Are you ready to conduct waking-up protocol?” asked the machine.

“Wake up…? What… is… that… mean?”

“Wake up protocol, only conducted when I confirmed that Earth has returned to its habitable condition. There is a huge probability that the landscape will change, either its civilization or even the intelligent species that you will meet outside of this capsule.”

“Nevertheless, would you take a chance to step forward? To the new world that full of new possibilities. Full of suffering, but also happiness along the way?”

Asked the voice once more.

Despite its expressionless machine tone, the voice has awakened something deep inside the man. 

He stopped talking, but his thought is racing even harder than before. He only knew nothingness all of this time. Finally, something filling up his chest, it was a desire to find something new. Even more, he feels a sense of urgency to come out, to find something that extremely important.

“...Yes…” he finally replied to that voice.

“Voice authentication acquired.”

“Proceeding into wake-up protocol….”

“Protocol failed… Retrying.”

“Protocol failed… Retrying.”

“Protocol failed. Commence troubleshooting.”

“A large object has been detected outside of the capsule. Solution: activating annihilation mode to force-open the capsule. Warning: may result in damage to the environment outside of the capsule. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

“Uh… Yes…?” 

“Voice authentication acquired. Commencing Annihilation Mode.”

The 'peace' and 'tranquility' have ended. The man is now feeling something that flowing on his mind that feels like a jolt of electricity. At the same time, he started to see some images that he has never seen before. A child hand, reaching out to adults, the scenery of flowers, cities, theme park, and a football match. 

Suddenly, his chest also feels stuffed, he finally feels the sadness and rage for the very first time.

Bearing that whole emotion, the man reaching out the light in the darkness.