Prologue – White Void


    *BANG*


    A thunderous explosion tore through the walls, the walls burst asunder, as a monstrous roar obliterated the once silent peace. Everywhere was fire. Everything was too hot.


    Smoke had filled the surroundings; breathing became barely possible. Amidst the burning wreckage lied one child on the verge of unconsciousness, heavily bleeding, his back extremely red. A laceration on his head could be seen. He tried desperately to scream, for his parents, siblings, anyone—even as his bloody snot tears masked his face. But his throat was gone, ripped by a rock. Just as his life slowly fell to darkness, a man grabbed him and barked:


    "Hold on boy, you will be saved! Hey, cast greater healing sphere now!"


    "On it!" Immediately a healing sphere formed around the boy. His wounds started to disappear without a trace of pain, and a soothing effect appeased the boy''s disorderly emotions. The last thing he saw was a man, a rugged man with a beard and a scar. Then, he fell to darkness.


    "Good, at least we managed to save one last person...." The rugged man carried the boy over his shoulders, turned his head towards the distant reverberations. The silhouette of the humongous creature, a Continental-Ender class, could be distinctly made out beyond the smoke and the blinding sunset. The skies above were bloody red, signifying the destruction incarnate''s descent.


    "Bloody hell... that thing is impossible to subjugate. We shouldn''t have signed up for a fucking Elder Ancient."


    "Hey, what''s the situation over here? Oh—shit, we got a boy?" Another person came by, this time with the company of dozens of others, varying races alike.


    "Yeah, the last survivor for this village." The rugged man shrugged.


    "Lucky him, we managed to pass by on the way here."


    "Maybe." The rugged man turned somewhere, where the remains of the boy''s parents crushed under a pillar already burnt to charcoal crisp could be seen.


    "Hey, where''re the others?" He asked, changing the topic. But the group went silent.


    "All dead huh." The rugged man''s face darkened, before he shuddered. An acute whistling sound shrilled.


    "QUICK GET DO—!"


    *BANG* The white void. Everything went into the white void. Noise retreated, in fear of the blank whiteness that suddenly painted the whole world. Eternity seemed to pass before it gradually fades out of existence, like a dream just as it appeared out of nowhere. When the scene cleared down, the rugged man noticed he was still alive, he could still feel his limbs. He got up and tried to gather the situation.


    "Anybody out th—?" When he opened his eyes at the same time as the others, what they saw shattered their hearts. Although their group survived, the same couldn''t be said of everybody else. There were supposed to be thousands of them still fending off the calamitous creature, yet for the whole 100 miles in front of them, a gigantic crater appeared. It was bottomless. Above which, a vacuum of smoke formed trying to fill up the freed-up space and before it could—they saw the creature''s menacing figure roaring to the celestial bodies above. The world shook, the earth quaked under it. Their eardrums threatened to burst, and indeed, some fainted with bleeding ears. Even their eyes bled for some strange reason.


    "Fuck, look away damn it. Go, go go RUN AWAY!" The rugged man instantly bolted out as did the others. A few tried to pick up their fallen comrades, however.


    "Leave them behind, DON''T LOOK BACK!" It was too late. Those few also fell back down, never to breathe again.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story."Curses, curses. curses! Just why did it have to show up here?!" Their group ran and ran. It was unknown for how long they did. Even after running for so long that their legs became a pulp, they could still feel the presence of that creature. It was unknown, as well, how many survived in their group.


    By miracle, the rugged man survived as did the boy. He laid down beside a ruined wall of a building as he checked their group. He chuckled dryly.


    "Three of us only left huh. Cough." The others coughed too.


    "How much time do we have left?"


    "3 hours give or take." The others spoke. Their faces looked like accepting of their fate. The rugged man pitifully looked at the boy.


    "And here I thought you could''ve survived. What a pity you''d have to die with us strangers...?" The boy whom he thought was on death''s door, appeared completely fine though covered in dirt, grime and blood. Looking closer, his hair had turned white. Realizing something, the rugged man laughed.


    "What the hell? Have you finally gone crazy fool?" Someone asked, prompting the rugged man to point at the boy. They all realized then.


    "Well, well I''ll be damned. The boy will survive then."


    "Maybe, but he won''t wake up for at least a week. Someone has to take care of him." Then silence. No one knew what they thought at that moment.


    "Bah, we all know we won''t survive a day longer. That monster''s radiation is a super bitch that not even our meager antibodies can hope to resist for a while. Come what may, let us defy fate until the very end. Dine with our gods for struggling like the worms we are, and perhaps expect a miracle. Don’t let a little lad beat us now." They all smiled as they got up. Days of their time flitted through each their minds before it all went to smoke.


    Twelve hours later, they were all dead. Lying in the middle of a dirt road outside a forest. An entourage of knights meant to rescue any surviving refugees stumbled upon them. Planning to give the unfortunate enlisted hunters their proper burial grounds and pray for their souls when somebody shouted:


    "My lord, th-there''s a boy along with them! He''s alive! He''s alive, my lord." The commotion gathered many people along with the leader of the knights. The noble knight came up and inspected the boy, who appeared to be dead at first glance, only to be weakly breathing.


    "But how could a boy survive...?" The noble knight muttered.


    "This boy, I''ll take him in." Everybody turned towards the raspy old voice, almost grating like the sound of stone and metal. A mysterious robed figure walked towards the center where everyone parted, but their frame did not look human—strange proportions and shapes were apparent all over them.


    "Master Hartold, is there something about this boy?" The leader asked.


    "Indeed," Master Hartold put his hand on the boy''s head, a glassy shard of sorrow and pain reflected on his voice, "This boy would be my adopted son."


    ....


    Archived History: 2nd War of the Beasts Revelation. The Ancients'' First Reappearance.


    The Miiphul region, its surrounding 2127 square kilometers, located in the southwestern part of the Atlas Confederation Republic, Karan Continent, in the 3rd Common Wealth Era, the 22nd year of the Eagle Moon Cycle, which prospered for hundreds of years—was a major collateral damage during the 27th hunting attempt of the Calamity-rank beast, one of the Elder Ancients, Seventh Stage Monster, the White Void Hydra: Ithivora. It is estimated around two million people died.


    The monster is only repelled back into the dungeon by the Hunters'' valiant effort.