Somewhere in a new place; at the centre where many of these cryptic creatures died.
Above a certain spot, the usual scarlet sky abruptly forms a dark whirlpool that pulsates with a tremendous amount of force. The strong wind then gathers and increases the whirlpool circulation in the air. There inside of the whirlpool, the core glows with a bright yellow spark. Though, from the moment the massive whirlpool arrives, it obscures the spark appearance. The presence of this spark is smaller than the size of an eyeball at first, but it quickly increases in size as the whirlpool circulation intensifies. The circulation speed is on the rise; forcing the wind to travel much faster in disarray and interfering almost with the whole mid-air level in the sky.
Despite the entire unusual phenomenon that occurs in the sky, the land is not affected instead, whatsoever.
Until the black whirlpool suddenly dissipates and the yellow spark; which is now immensely massive in size, starts to illuminate the entire sky in golden appearance. The sky becomes bright as if the Sun has descended incredibly near to this land, yet there is no sense of hotness and any signs of burning on the ground. The spark stays in the sky for a long time - disguising the usual scarlet colour.
When the bright illumination from spark finally expands vastly across the entire sky, it begins to slowly disperse. At the same time, at the heart of the whirlpool where the spark appears, a concentrated golden sphere takes a form. It appears as if the sphere is accumulating the dispersing illumination. The brightness in the sky is rapidly fading away; as the sphere spun horizontally-anticlockwise. The golden radiance disappears until finally, the sky regresses to its usual scarlet.
Everything returns to its former silence. The solid sphere in the mid-air has a silvery, smooth surface and a golden radiance is held in reserve inside this sphere. The object compresses into a fist size; with a radius of 8 centimetres from its core. Not long after its creation, the sphere then immediately comes to a halt. The sphere loses its spinning momentum; soon after it promptly descends down.
As the sphere falls, it gains a rapid boost of kinetic energy. The energy further increases its speed. Until the sphere suddenly halts.
The sphere does not reach to the ground. Instead, it starts to spin in chaos; then halts again in the mid-air. The sphere descends and soon, it stumbles upon something.
Its course of direction shifts until it reaches a top of humanoid flesh. The sphere falls directly toward the humanoid's skull. The impact of the fall causes the skull to have multiple fractures. The sturdy skull now has multiple fissures across the gap in the fractures. At that moment, the sphere immediately materializes into the skull through the fissures. The corpse twitches a little as if it has overcome from a shock. The entire process is obscured; as the sphere emits a tremendous amount of heat and light.
The humanoid corpse consequently comes to life. It abruptly screams out loud:
"I don't want to lose everything precious in my life. Please, everyone, come back. I will not give up on this life!"
His voice reverberates throughout the land distinctly. It becomes the first sound to ever appear since a millennium of years of silence has watched over this land.
____
Prinz regains his vision.
His mind is clouded and everything he sees through his vision is now blurred by countless fragments. He tries to focus, yet it is not so easy. He feels as if he has just woken up from a deep and long slumber. Consequently, his eyes have not in use for so long - the blur is promptly disfiguring all images from his vision.
Prinz deliberately gathers all his thoughts and he closes his eyes to focus. After a while, his vision recovers; albeit gradually. Countless tiny black spots are still obscuring his vision. He blinks his eyes posthaste to recover faster. His attempt works, but then he becomes numbed in disbelief.
"What is this place? Ugh, my head feels terrible."
Once the pain calms, he tries to look into his memories. Prinz mind steadily recovering in a momentary silence; until he finally becomes aware of almost everything – Prinz remembers all the significant details.
"Is this a revival?" He asks himself in confusion.
He recalls from the memories - the experience of being trapped in an unknown dark place. He was seized by an entity, who claimed that the worlds had evolved. Most importantly, the stern voice of this entity told him a terrible indictment - all intelligent life has died.
"Ahh, what kind of tasteless joke are you giving me? Telling me that I have died too, yet I'm still breathing in my body. Hold on, my body!"
Prinz quickly grabs his other hand and checks its condition twice. He does not stop there, as he thoroughly examines all his physical limb.
He found that something is amiss:
"This is not my exact body! My flawless abs are gone! Not just that, my whole body is now incredibly thin; to the extent that the bones have become visible from the skin. The revival process; it couldn't possibly be true right?"
He is still in shock and confused. Upon checking, Prinz realizes that his current body is not his and it is physically in a miserable state. The muscles are malnourished. The skin-and-bone body is lacking vigour and strength. It becomes difficult for him to grip his other arms. He could not even stand on his own.
"Strange! Is this the 'revival' that will allow me to start over my life?"
He feels complicated inside. But then, Prinz realizes that he has interfered with the entity during the revival process. Prinz remembered that he has used all his energy to protect himself. He utilizes the unique ability that he has received in order to protect his mind and memories. At that time, he felt a sense of loss. The presented risk of losing all his memories is susceptible; if he simply consents to everything that the voice said.
Deep inside, he is not convinced that interfering with the entity is the cause of his current predicament:
"No, my condition might not be because of my action. Besides, the voice had told me that my essence is insufficient. Could it be the reason? Although, acquiring this body isn't bad at all as compared to reviving in a very sickly body or with a terminal disease or even worse."
Prinz is seriously contemplating his current condition. He still does not realize that he is being hemmed in by the remains of many creatures. Even more so, he is the only odd one; who is still alive amid of all those creatures that are now dead.
"Ahh, my memory is kind of being a little fuzzy right now. The very last thing that I vividly remember is the time when the tremors from the ground are collapsing the entire Assembly Room. Yes, I recall that I was about to be flattened by a massive dome that was descending down."
But, it was just a dream, right?" Prinz questions himself.
But then, instead of continuously questioning; he convinces himself:
"Now is not the time to be doubtful."
Prinz remembers a sentence that quickly draws his attention:
'A dream typically shows you what you want. Heck, it even shows you your true desire - upfront for free. That's why people love to sleep. Meanwhile, a reality makes you depress out of anxiety. Worse, it even makes you want to die out of regret.'
"No, no, no... Why do I keep recalling Hikki's words? Am I slowly being influenced by him pessimism? Huh, did I recall anything recently from Hikki before?"
His mind becomes more disarray. Right now, he could not stop questioning himself even while he is still in confusion.
"I should stop! Racking through these bits of incomplete memories from my mind right now, looking for an answer, would not help much. I should first assess my current predicament."
Prinz turns his head right and left; with elevated concentration to his current surroundings. He notices that he is actually alone in this area while being encircled by countless dead creatures. What's more, he is oblivious of their type and species. His lips curled upward in surprise. As a result, his mind comes to be disturbed.
"What freaking nature are they? They are dead, but my nose does not smell anything from all these corpses. Ugh, I feel a little sick."
Prinz feels like he is about to vomit, yet nothing happens. Perhaps it is because his stomach is empty, thus nothing comes out of it.
He then takes a deep breath to calm himself down.
Once he settles down, Prinz swiftly starts to formulate an escape plan. But, he first has to find out the present location he is residing right now.
He massages his temple to soothe the pain. Then, he moves his hand to the back of his head for a feel. Prinz happens to touch his cold fractured skull atop of his head; before a sudden display of his current status, appears before him.
[Prinz Heilig]
????.
????: ????
????: ????
????: ????
????: ????
"Huh!?"
____
Time has instantly passed by.
Prinz takes shelter in a small cavity of a huge tree trunk. The trunk originates from a magnificent tree that has been completely uprooted from under the ground. At one end of the trunk, the ground is deeply scraped out. The roots, however, have been completely devoured while the remaining tree trunk has nourished the ground soil in the surrounding land; although, only small areas are effectively nourished. Even so, there is much vegetation that grows and thrivingly cultivates in those areas. The nourished soil appears white and fair in appearance; completely different than the greyish soil that covers the entire land.
At the moment, Prinz is collecting these plants for his daily consumption. He refuses the idea of consuming any of the corpse flesh. Those dead creatures that cover every corner the land are too massive in size. He does not possess a knife cut them. Even if he finds bite-size chunks of flesh, he could not chew the meat with his fragile teeth.
Previously, Prinz walked aimlessly all across the land. With the help of a long stick that accompanied him everywhere, he was able to walk for so long; albeit at snail's pace. The stick is actually a long femur bone of one of the humanoid remains. After long hours of walking, he finally found a haven. There, he discovers a tiny hope of survival.
"This is edible. This is not edible for now. This one is still young, maybe I'll wait until it matures a little more. This one tastes good and I have eaten it before!"
Prinz is busy at choosing the various plants before he digs them out from under the soil along with the roots.
But how he manages to recognize these plants?
Prinz can easily recognize the plants due to the vegetation status that displays its information, every time he touches them.
____
A few hours ago.
Prinz has wandered around looking for a very long time; looking for something edible to eat. He looks haggard in tattered clothes. His eyes have always brightly radiance in gold, but now it has been dimming as Prinz gradually losing his consciousness. He is also slowly but surely, losing his stamina and strength.
"I'm tired and hungry right now," he laments inside.
Prinz is conserving a lot of energy by not talking or moving too fast in a chaotic manner. He also thought that it is important not to provoke or entice any other creature; should he ever come across one. He recognizes that he is not in a condition to care about every other thing but his own survival. He needs to stay alive.
Coincidentally after much time passed; as he walks in stealth and avoiding the open sky, he comes into contact with a super huge dead creature that resembles a serpent with a lizard-like body. The creature has four short limbs with an elongated body and protracted neck. If one has read a myth from Chinese folklore, this creature appears like a flood-dragon or perhaps a hybrid between Western and Eastern dragons. Most prominently, its huge size is beyond comparison.
Would an ant able to realize how big an adult human is? A human would personally not even care for an ant; much less about an ant's size. In the present reality of Prinz, he feels as if he is standing alone; like a speck of dust; in comparison to the creature magnificent size. Its mouth has sharp fangs that awfully protruded outwards. The tongue extends in great length and left out in the open. The soil is still wet from the drools that are still coming out from the mouth. The creature also has a greyish-black skin and almost all of its body is fortified with a myriad of sharp and hard scales. Prinz at the same time can clearly see the small image of the creature's long tail that stretched far from the long body; comparing to the creature's massive size.
Most importantly, unlike many incomplete humanoid corpses, the flesh of this creature is still completely in one piece.
Although he could not confirm everything about the creature, Prinz perceives life-threatening fear just from looking at it. Despite that, he is in need of a place to rest.
The creature's skin and its huge size. At the same time, they are perfect for him. He is able to conceal himself from any prying eyes in the sky, by hiding in the shadowy and close background. Should there is any other life found, he does not want to let any creature that flies in the sky to notice him.
Rapidly losing his consciousness, Prinz approaches the creature's head and closing his current distance from it - step by step, at a time. When he finally reaches the head, he touches the skin with his arms and leans on it for support. Then, a notification appears before him.
The notification surprises him. At first, he immediately removes his hands from the creature's skin. Realizing that the creature is dead, Prinz regains his composure. After a while, he touches the creature again and a second notification is given to him:
"I'm reading through these sentences from language that I don't understand from a status notification. It looks almost identical to the characters that I saw on my own notification status."
He attentively looks at the details of the status while trying to comprehend the language. Same as what Prinz saw last time, at the bottom of each line of the sentences, there appears to have small translations notes that he could read and understand. Prinz recognizes all those translation characters rather than huge unknown symbols of the main sentence. He focuses on these alphabet characters and read the information given by the notification:
[World Eater]
A creature born from the beginning of the universe and lived through the creation of all worlds. The creature had been kept in dormant for perpetuity; until a time comes for all worlds to be destroyed before created anew. World eater's sole purpose is to be the foundation of the new beginning after the existence of the entire world is destroyed - marking the beginning of all other lives again.
Status: Dead
Life: 0
Energy: ????
????: ????(grayed)
????: ????(grayed)
????: ????(grayed)
????: ????(grayed)
{You are not in or have no form association with World Eater. Your proficiency in acquiring particular information regarding World Eater is restricted.}
"This is a World Eater? Does that mean this creature can eat a world or a planet? What about Earth then, will it eat it too? Silly me, of course, it could if it is alive," Prinz murmurs softly inside.
After reading the information, he contemplates about the information he read in his mind. He leans his back comfortably in a sitting position to rest. He is far from anywhere from the wet soil radius.
It takes extra time for him to be conscious again after staying deeply in contemplation. When he does, Prinz anticipates to stepping inside the World Eater's mouth, so he could examine what is inside. He is barefooted, thus when his feet touch the creature's tongue his skin feels an extreme cold. The rigid ambience change in temperature from inside the mouth does not affect Prinz whatsoever when he is outside. However, once he steps over the sticky tongue with his bare skin, Prinz exhibits a severe coldness ailment that permeates from the skin into his bones and flesh. He quickly turns to the rear - attempting to escape.
"Ugh, too cold! My feet feel like they are frozen. The cold that I'm feeling on my skin is can affect me inside."
Prinz wants to carefully look at what is inside. He initially witnesses an amusing spectacle. The World Eater's flesh does not deteriorate inside its mouth; unlike its skin on the outside. He concludes that there perhaps something that can reduce the creature's inner body temperature; to a certain degree, where the body could never disintegrate. Although, the surroundings outer temperature is not too extreme; both in the hotness or coldness they are about common, the creature's skin is still declining also the scales are falling off at any point in time. Although, the flesh inside of the World Eater's body is well preserved.
Prinz turns around and he sees something; with a size of his fist; glowing in bright green. The bright radiance comes from the creature's jaw, rightmost; attaching to one of the World Eater's teeth. He immediately decides to approach it and to have a look. Equipped with strong will and curiosity, he goes inside and resisting against the cold from his feet. He found that it is actually a round-shaped fruit that looks harmless. He touches the skin of the fruit. A slick touch on the skin makes the edible fruit irresistible.
"I'm hungry!"
With no hesitation, he pulled the fruit out from the tip of the sharp teeth. The fruit reaches in his hands. Upon looking and checking its condition close, he takes a single bite before chewing it ravenously then swallows the rest in one go.
It shows just how desperate Prinz has been in hunger. For a long time, he has always wanted something to eat, ever since he arrived in the new world.