Roar!
A silent, hiss-like, throatful cry separated all the clouds above, revealing the glaring brightness of two stars. Rays of their warm sunlight were now cast upon the ground, illuminating the graceful figure of a bony head. Hundreds of miles worth of grassy plains were underneath this head, acting as a somewhat comfortable cushion.
Yellow scales covered it from head to toe—it's limbless body coiled around the planet, firmly within its grasp. A single powerful undulation of its muscles would crack this place like an egg hitting the edge of a bowl.
And yet, at this moment, it's once lively eyes were not only filled with frustration, but more importantly, despair.
"Master, why? Have I been unfilial? But I did what you told me to! I've been here, waiting for your return for ten thousand years. And for what? For this hen house?"
"Why? Why have you not come as you said you would? This place… this place is no longer living, but completely rotten to its core. I—none of it matters anymore anyway; I can no longer leave…"
The golden serpent spoke not with its voice, but with its mind—no one heard it except itself. It was crippled; massive mountains pressed on its back; searing pains would prop up constantly, draining him of his energy. Unfortunately, today, the pain was the worst it had been in centuries.
Pain and suffering had been its life for a long time now and normally, it wouldn't even bother to open its eyes that could see billions of miles into outer space. But today, it cried golden tears with its soul.
And yet, this story wasn't about him—his story was already on the verge of finishing.
Rather, today was also the day a baby was born; a human.
Within the confines of the grand palace of the Holy City State, this baby's cry could be heard. The Holy King's wife had finally given birth to a boy after a whole decade of miscarriages. The boy was of brown skin like everyone else, except his mother who was as pale as milk.
Of course, due to the location of his upbringing, a literal desert, his molten sugar-like skin was completely normal.
A few minutes later…
"What do you mean you can't read it? Is his name in some other language?"
"Your Holiness, it's not like that. Rather… it would appear that it is written in some kind of runic language."
The midwife spoke to the Holy King softdownly as she bowed heavily, her eyes. However, due to the Holy King's severe reduction of height compared to the midwife, her head was still above the King. She could only look to the side hastily, waiting for his response.
"Runic language? What do you mean, and why do you say 'some kind'? There's only one runic language. Oh who am I kidding, just show me already."
The midwife could only frantically retrieve the baby from the mother, though the mother didn't let go of the baby for at least a whole minute. She held her complex gaze on the baby before eventually giving the baby to the midwife; it was one of relief, worry, and even frustration. What was strange, however, was that her eyes seemed to contain something else… unknown, mysterious. Something unexplained.
By the time the midwife gave the cleaned and wrapped-in-a-blanket baby to his father, the baby had already stopped crying and was curiously looking around. His eyes were unusually sharp and focused, which was weird since most babies can't even completely focus their gaze until a few months later.
Not only that, but when the father held him warmly and reached out to him, the baby's left arm moved a bit. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a blade crawled out from inside the blanket and struck the father's heart! Blood spurted all over the place; on the baby; on the floor; on the midwife and even the mother!
…
Okay… I was just kidding alright, dont get your panties up in a twist. Yes, I pulled a stinker on you all, so what? I will say that it would have been cool if this did happen.
Well fine, to be fair, there was a blade, the baby was holding it, and it did indeed come out from inside the blanket. However, the baby didn't stab his father with it. Rather, this was his fetal organ, the very same one that supposedly carries his name.
You see, here, in this world, it worked differently than others. Usually, the parents would decide the name of their child, but not here. Instead, the very world itself decides that for them, and then they could inherit their surname from their parents. However, this only applied to humans since they were the only ones capable of bringing a fetal organ into existence in this world.
Now, the pink blade came out from under the blanket, along with the baby's chubby hand gripping it; he held it out in front of him. Of course, seeing the actions of his child, he was almost suspicious; how did the baby know what he wanted? Well, maybe he was just stretching, the father thought, completely making excuses.
He examined the blade closely and indeed, there was something there. Except, it was exactly like the midwife stated. Rather than a name inscribed in the human language, like always, it was what appeared to be runes. But, the runes themselves seemed quite different from any of the ones he knew.
Actually, runes can pretty much come in any conceivable dimension—it was, in a practical sense, infinite. But rather, the fact the baby's name came in the form of runes in the first was extremely suspicious to the father… especially to the father.
…
The Holy City State had been waiting patiently for past decade for an heir. The wife's seeming inability to have a child struck a chord to all the hearts of the natives of the city. Obviously, with a name like "Holy", worship was part of the culture here.
Basically it goes like this: a big bad guy appears and wreaks havoc; the people are affected heavily; some people fight back in massive battles; the innocent are eventually saved. So, in reality, the worship was more akin to paying respects to their savior by honoring the family that continued after his death. And even though all of this happened a few millenia ago, they still upheld the practice today. Well, that and the families continued relevancy via undisputed power.
So, when the Holy King's wife can't have a child, someone else starts to sneak into the picture. Enter the Kesh Empire; it was another city state that was intricately, no, intimately tied with the Holy City State. And by intimately, I mean like the Kesh held vast amounts of hatred to the Holy City State—a result of that of the battles I mentioned earlier.
And yet, now, a successor, another savior was born. But the fucker didn't even have a name that was legible!
What, do we just call him da baby—I mean the baby forever!? This baby was merely a weirdo, but if people found out…
"THIS INFORMATION MUST NEVER LEAVE THIS ROOM!"
The father clenched his teeth as he looked at the various servants, maids, and other staff that were conveniently here at this specific time, speaking with absolute authority. Of course, no one thought to leak anything they just heard.
The room fell silent and even the baby protagonist stopped whatever it was doing. The Holy King and his wife looked at each other; their gazes connecting seemed to speak volumes.
The baby looked at both his parents, back and forth, and seemed to realize the significance of their looks. He closed his eyes, seemingly trying to… will himself out of existence. It seems he was trying to use his lack object permanence to his advantage.
But boy oh boy, things will only get weirder for the everyone as time passes by. The baby will inevitably go through strange changes, but so will the previously loving parents.
…
"Ran, please stop running already! Let me catch my breath… at least."
On a stone road, a super-sized human was currently heaving, and his expression made it seem like he would puke out his spleen or the like any minute now. Further ahead, a short, sweaty, human looked back in confusion. Only when he looked at their wretched appearance did he understand the reason for their pleading.
Yes, this person was our main character. The baby—no longer.
And yes, his name was Ran. No, they didn't find the meaning behind his actual name; this was a sort of placeholder. Now the origin of "Ran" was actually quite simple. Basically, the runes inscribed on his sword fetal organ had taken up three entire lines. Each line had a rune that vaguely resembled the letters r, a, and n. Thus, this name was born.
However, a full 17 years had passed since Ran was born and now, it's almost time for his coronation. In other words, his 18th birthday. It was literally just a couple of paragraphs ago that we witnessed him coming out of his mom's flesh pocket.
"Willy, if you dont catch up, I'll tell my dad how weak you are and he will dock your pay until you get back into shape."
Willy, one of the palaces butlers, couldn't believe his eyes. Sure, he was a bit on the hefty side, but golly that was going too far. Not to mention, he wasn't even getting paid in the first place! Rather, he just lives on palace grounds and works for them. Though they make sure he's fed and well taken care of, but it seemed to be too much. Unless… he is one of those big-boned people that is rumored to exist.
His face was flushed red as sweat poured down from every inch of his body. His fat, blubbery flesh stacked on top of each other like pieces of wet, slippery paper as he watched Ran slowly continue pull out of his eyesight.
"Dangit! Brat… I mean his tiny Holiness, please spare me. I am but a humble servant, here at your every whim." Willy couldn't stand it anymore as he tried to keep up. If he kept running, he might just exhaust himself to death, with like his diaphragm exploding or something.
Ran looked at him again for a second and could not help but sigh as he slowly walked back home. He never got good vibes from this man, so he never bothered to pull on his punches with him, but maybe he was now too pitiful to make light of.
Finally, the butler could rest as they walked back calmly. But the difference in stature between the two of them was… enormous. Ran himself wasn't bulky, or fat. He was just slightly toned, so it seemed he was lean but not too lean. He also stood quite a bit on the shorter side, being only 5'5ft, or 165cm. In comparison, the butler, Willy, was about 6ft and… well, you get the rest.
But today was merely the prelude to many events.
Tommorow was Rans eighteenth birthday. A humans eighteenth birthday, for the most part, is arguably the most important day of their life.
It's the day one will awaken their own unique rune; a sigil.
The reason this happens on this specific day is because for the majority of humans, this day is the day their soul fully matures to the point it can withstand the imprinting of their sigil.
A person's soul is supernatural, the source and mechanism of this novels magic. Not only it is supernatural, it is also disnatural. It affects anything around it and turns them into something this universe never intended to allow.
A person's soul also consists of soul juice. The soul is just a catch-all term as it refers to the entirety of what makes a soul in the first place—consisting of three parts. The membrane, which is just structured soul juice; the soul juice, which flows inside the membrane and acts as the energy source; the mind or consciousness.
…
After walking a ways back to the palaces courtyard, Ran looked for his father to speak about his upcoming birthday. He would usually be here, talking or playing strategy games with the other generals and army men that lived nearby, but he was nowhere to be found. But as he was searching for his father, a silhouette suddenly appeared behind him.
"Your Tiny Holiness, his Holiness is currently in the war room. He seemed to be flustered and left in a hurry a couple of minutes ago."
Ran was immediately spooked and his heart raced for a second before he calmed down. In reality, it was just his servant that had snuck up on him, but this was no ordinary servant.
Rather, this was his most trusted friend. And she was so fast and silent, he didn't even hear her when she spooked him.
"Ann, what are you doing here, I thought you would be back home making supper."
Ann seemed shocked for a split second as she didnt expect to hear that question instead of him asking about his father.
"Cough, I was just looking for you for that, It's ready. Get ready for some extra spicy white deer meat today; it'll burn your tongue off! Anyway, weren't you looking for his Holiness? Quickly, go look for him!"
"Ah, yes, war room right? Thanks."
And just like that he took off, failing to notice the hurrying expression on Ann as she sped off with a speed quick enough to make her completely disappear in a second. It appears that a certain someone forgot to make dinner.
…
In a certain room, a murmur of what sounds like human voices could be heard.
"His Holiness."
A servant with all white clothing could be seen in the room bowing to a short, middle-aged man in both reverence and fear.
"Reporting, the Kesh have attacked district 1. They sent their entire infantry, a total of 10,000 rank 10 soldiers. We've stopped their advancement but we don't know why they suddenly attack. I mean, rank 10 soldiers are basically cannon fodder. What was the use of sending that many to their deaths? We only needed to dispatch 1,000 rank 9 to completely rid them."
"Hmm, maybe it was a distraction. Maybe… they wanted to get spies into our state. But what for?"
The Holy king seemed to be quite well versed in the art of war to be able to come to this conclusion, but he failed to catch the crux of the problem.
"Of course! Why else his Holiness? Because his tiny Holiness' coronation is coming is tommorow. They must want to get rid of him in order to cause discord in our beloved state. Then we'll be easy pickings."
The servant, also a general, seemed quite proud of himself to be able to come up with that conclusion, however obvious it was.
"Get rid of them my ass! That's my son! I'll rip them a new one. No, a few new ones!"
The general was shocked when he saw the king glaring at him, as if he was the culprit all along. He wanted to cry, but had no tears as he was severely dehydrated from fighting earlier.
"Call all of our rank 7 fighters. I don't want a single wretched cockroach disturbing our coronation. If I get so much as a whiff of them, I'm going to dock everyones pay!"
Everyone went silent. After all, these are the upper echelon of the state—namely higher ranking officers. Funny thing is, they don't get paid either! Okay, fine, they do get paid.
"Well, what are you standing there for? Go catch me some cockroaches!"
When he was going to send every9ne out so he can catch his thoughts, unbeknownst to him, a single but familiar eye could be seen peeping through the crack in the door.