Year: 2000003500 (2 Billion years later)
Even after 2 Billion years Aariv was still there sitting at the same place with eyes closed, he was currently waiting for his next tug of war opponent. He didn't know how many opponents he had defeated, he did not know how much time had passed, all he knew was that he must win or else he will become someone's food.
Soon his thoughts were interrupted with a wave of pulling pressure, he tried to pull in the opponents casually just like he always did, but this time he was loosing, his consciousness had started leaving him, he had to put the highest amount of focus on just keeping his consciousness within him, he knew that he and the opponent were nearly equally powerful.
Aariv was in this equilibrium situation for god knows how much time, he was waiting for the opponent to show weakness so he could surprise attack it. But that chance never came as his opponent never showed any weakness.
Aariv had started to get weaker now, he did not know for how long he could keep this up. He started remembering his past life and his painful death, then suddenly he felt that his opponent lost control over its consciousness a little so he pulled as much as he could.
He was at least winning now and gaining that little bit of soul, energized him a little, he was trying to figure out why his opponent showed such weakness.
He kept thinking for a long time then it struck him. His memories, just when he remembered his painful death his opponent showed reaction. Keeping this in mind, Aariv started to form a plan.
~ haha, let's see how you take this ~
He started thinking about his painful death while he was being disintegrated, he tried to recall it in as much detail as possible, soon he started getting fruits of his labor, the opponent lost control of its mind and totally lost its grip from its soul.
Not wasting the chance, Aariv pulled the consciousness with all his might and finally won. He did not understand why his opponent was so afraid of those memories.
~ all of the astral bodies in the dark place must have died somewhere, that's why they were here right?. ~
With this new addition Aariv felt much more powerful than before but putting all the thoughts back in his mind he prepared himself for the next opponent.
He waited for a long time but no opponent came, finally getting bored he decided to check the dark world outside, so he opened his eyes but instead of looking forward he rolled his eyes to the side to observe his surroundings from the corner of his eyes.
But to his disappointment this time he saw nothing, what used to be a place filled with an unlimited amount of unknown creatures was now empty.
to look to the other side he rolled his eyes to the other side but along the way his eyes stopped and looked forward because he saw something.
Just in front of him was a golden robed old man with a white beard falling as far down as his knees. he was holding a golden staff with a blue orb on the top in his left hand and in his right was a blue-colored book.
~Damn it, whats with the jump scare~
Aariv was pretty scared the moment he saw the old man standing in front of him out of nowhere. After looking at the attire of the divine aura radiating old man he said in a confused voice
"Are you GOD?"
the old man looked at Aariv and observed him for a while before speaking.
"That depends on your definition of god.
for some, I am a god, for some an evolved being and for some just normal weak old man" old man's whole body was radiating warmth so Aariv didn't feel any hostility from him instead he felt safe.
Aariv thought a bit and said "well, after all that I went through I don't know what to assume.
Sooo...Where am I old man?" he asked while looking around at the dark space.
"stop calling me 'old man', my name is Genesis and I am not that old"
"Oh.. then how old are you?"
Genesis thought a bit but then got frustrated and said "That, I do not remember"
Aariv looked at Genesis funny face "see, you are old, you don't even remember your age."
"oh then tell me your age young one"
" well I am 25 years old"
"hahaha" Genesis laughed hearing this
"You don't even remember how old you are and calling me old, you were 25 when you died, right now you are 2000000025 years old."
listening to Genesis's response, Aariv was utterly shocked "what the, no... how is this possible?"
Genesis looked at Aariv mockingly " yeah let that sink in, you've been here for the last 2 Billion years."
"But how is this possible man, I don't feel like I spent that much time here"
"Young one, time flows differently here, mortals can not perceive time in this dimension.
Alright enough chatting, let's get serious, this place is called the last dimension, souls of all the dead people who die in the war come here and..."
Aariv interrupted Genesis" wait, do you know what is that war? who started it? "
Genesis felt annoyed being interrupted and said "I am not allowed to tell you anything, if you want to know answers then you'll have to find them yourself and do not interrupt me again just listen till the end.
All the people who died in the last 2 wars came here from all over the universe in their astral form, in this dimension, all of them fight each other by taking over other's mental strength, memories, physical strength. One by one they fight till no one is left except one and you young one, is the last one remaining."
"What!... then you mean all this time, that tug of war was me killing people? and how many were there?"
"No, you weren't killing people, you were devouring their souls and there were about undecillion (1000000000000000000000000000000000000) people. That's the upper limit of souls that this dimension can hold."
"What!, I devoured so many people?" Aariv was feeling inexpressible.
"haha, yeah you can say that, it is like a pyramid, with time souls get lesser and lesser as more souls devour each other"
Aariv understood what he had done, he had killed an unimaginable number of people but he felt nothing, no remorse, no pity. He was also a little happy that he won otherwise he could have ended up being someone else's food.
he relaxed his mind and accepted the reality he was now in and asked: "Alright, what now?"
"Oh, this is where the actual story begins, the beginning of your adventure, for winning this fight and defeating all the people who had died in the last 2 wars, you have been given a chance to right what went wrong," Genesis said in a monotonous voice as if he was reading something
Aariv was confused with this announcement and change in the old man's tone "what!, What do you mean?"
but Genesis did not answer and kept on going " you will be sent to the past to change the present and prepare for the future, use your powers as you see fit and this will probably be the last time we meet."
after the last words, Genesis looked Aariv in the eyes and spoke to him just like before, not in the monotone voice.
"Young one, use this chance with care, you are the only hope for us now, only you can free us from the control of the creator. We all expect great things from you"
Aariv was very confused right now, what the hell was this old man saying and who is 'WE'?
"old ma..."
before Aariv could say anything, Genesis interrupted him " Take care young one, see you on the other side, someday."
"WAIT!.."
Aariv still wanted to ask many things but the old man had vanished, and the whole dark space was collapsing, it looked like mirrors breaking, the whole dimension starting breaking with Aariv at the center, he had nowhere to run, he waited anxiously for the pain to come but to his surprise, nothing came.
He felt like he was being squeezed and floating inside a tunnel, he looked forward and saw light after such a long time, he got excited and started floating towards that light but more he moved more he felt like being squeezed, finally he reached the light but the moment he crossed that light he was once again in darkness.
Aariv felt quite angry now and was cursing the old man, is this what he meant by adventure.
with nothing to do, bored Aariv started talking to himself,
~where the hell am I? it feels different from that dark space, it feels like I am swimming in a dark pool~
he kept waiting for something to happen but nothing changed, he was still floating in the dark, so he decided to start meditating, just like what he did for the past 2 Billion years, after focusing a little he did not feel the presence of any opponent who would try to eat his consciousness/soul, so he relaxed.
he had no sense of time here as well, so he just kept meditating.
...
Unknown to him 2 months had passed but to him it felt like he came to this strange place just some minutes ago. Aariv was deep into meditation and suddenly he felt something getting connected to himself.
Aariv assumed that it was someone trying to eat his soul/consciousness so he retaliated and started devouring the other person's soul but to his surprise he did not feel refreshed and energized like before, instead he started feeling weak and more he devoured more weak he felt.
Aariv understood that whatever that other soul was, it was connected to him in some way, he was indirectly killing himself so he stopped and returned the soul to whoever it belonged to... he waited but even after returning the soul Aariv was still feeling weak and this feeling kept on increasing.
He was scared at this point because he did not know what to do, having no other option he sent a very tiny part of his own soul to the other person, to him this tiny bit of soul was nothing, he could restore it in a matter of minutes and luckily it worked, he started feeling normal again and the other soul was also not trying to devour him, they were in equilibrium.
Although nothing happened, Aariv was still alert all the time he did not trust that the other soul would not attack him, nothing happened for a long time, Aariv still kept himself focused, being bored he decided to explore the place he was in, he tried to move but he couldn't, he felt like he was paralyzed, no matter what he tried he could not move.
~What is going on, why can't I move, oh wait, what is this~
Aariv although could not move, he still felt something very near him, touching him, he could not feel the touch but sense it. he tried to connect to the soul of whatever it was and he was shocked after feeling the soul because it was so small, if he had not focused, he was sure that he would have missed it otherwise.
That new soul was very small and weak and it did not try to attack Aariv either, Aariv felt a sense of familiarity from this tiny soul, he didn't know why but he did.
Having nothing else to do nor being able to move he decided to watch over this tiny soul and make sure it doesn't extinguish.