The group stared at the now black screen, unsure of what they had just seen. Of course, there was no denying it; they had just witnessed the beginning of this world. Well, not the beginning of the world, but rather the turning point that would turn this geologically active rock into a living hell.
And just when they were going to exclaim about how shocked they are with expletives (you know how teenagers are), the screen lit up again.
It was another cutscene.
"Fuck!" Ran and the others, at this point, couldn't help but use a sentence enhancer to express their frustration. They had just gone through a history lesson when their lives were potentially in danger. And oh god, what about Peppy!? Poor poor Peppy, she must be starving.
But now, there was another one coming.
This one started first with the rush of dusty wind, then with the splashing of mineralized water, followed by the sound of footsteps. Then, the dark screen lit up and showed the crowned figure within a sizable cavern. The walls were clean, yet also a little moldy.
Small stalagmites littered the floor and long stalactites hung from the ceiling, though they were all dry.
At the end of the cavern and against the wall, a delicate pool lay still; its water was as clear as glass.
The crowned figure paid no attention, really, to his surroundings as he just found this place hidden enough for his purpose.
He walked over the pool, as in on top, and stood still in the center. The next second, orange-red soul juice flowed from his arm and coalesced into a ball just above his hand. The ball then floated high above his head before numerous rays shot out from the ball and struck the walls of the cave.
The rays, within a second, danced around and seared strange runes into the walls. In the end, around the pool, about a hundred thousand and one of these runes glowed orangey-red in the darkness of the cave.
He took a second to look at the runes he had left on the wall. Though he remembered them all by memory, he still couldn't figure out their meaning and or mechanism.
It was a miracle he had been able to acquire them in the first place, so he supposed it was just fate for them to not reveal themselves to him. However, he wasn't regretful nor was he jealous that he would never be able to uncover their secrets. Rather, he was instead filled with nothing but gratefulness and admiration. Everyone else saw it too.
With that, he simply nodded with a small smile before leaving.
…
On the top of the golden serpent:
The crowned figure looked at this war-stricken planet, heaving a sigh. He did not know when he would come back, nor if can come back at all. He could only leave his most prized possession behind and hope it wouldn't be lost within the echoes of time.
Yet, when he was preparing to set out onto the next planet on his list, he suddenly stopped as he studied the planet closely. Upon a brief inquiry, he was astounded to find that not a single soulful entity had reached rank-0!
The fuck? This was what his facial expression said. However, after the initial shock set in, he calmed himself down and took out what appeared to be a golden slab (about six inches in height and two-and-a-half inches in length).
It was completely golden throughout, had rounded edges, and had a mirror finish, but it did also have a small pin needle-sized hole at the top center portion. After sending a wisp barely visible to the naked eye into the hole, the slab sparkled brilliantly as complex runes surfaced presumably from the inside.
Immediately, a blue hologram appeared above the slab—a screen. The screen had a wallpaper; it bore the visage of the crowned figures… ahem, how should I say this? It showed… his back side? Naked? Stark naked? As in, completely able to witness the man's plump cheeks naked?
Yep. He was even flexing and clenching, it was… completely and utterly horrifying! I have never seen such—never mind.
Upon sliding his finger across the hologram, a bar showed up and asked to enter the password to unlock itself.
Like a reflex, he typed in "password" as his… password. Yet, the screen denied him and asked to try again; only then did he remember the new two-step verification system had caused him to change his password.
Thus, he typed again, this time being, "Password1". But again, the device denied him entry. By this point, the figure was seething with rage and when he saw a little link pop up in the corner called "forgot password?", he just pressed it with a snort. He wasn't going to waste time on this!
It then took him to a separate screen where it asked him to put in the new password, so he did.
He liked his original password, password, but the new requirements made him pick the second password instead. So he put the password "Password1" as his new password.
Only, it responded with "new password can't be the same as the old password."
Crowned figure: "..."
…
About fifteen minutes later, he finally signed in to his device, albeit, with some effort to get there.
When the device welcomed him with, "welcome milfslayer69", he finally smiled. After some quick search through a database of known caches, he actually could not find this one planet. Thus, there was only one explanation.
This planet was an old cache from before the advent of runes, thus not being cataloged. And now that he thought about it, it made sense. Humans, or any other race on this planet were completely oblivious to the discovery of runes. Not only that, but they were all ancient with their primary forms. Humans were too short and stocky, and every other race still had a majority of their populations untransformed.
And considering how out of the way this planet is compared to any other he had recently visited, it being really faraway, it indeed was a forgotten safe house left behind by not just his, but every single race's ancestors over a million years ago. Though this was the case, he was sure they still had some information about this place in their archive. After all, humans were among the few who kept history close to their hearts.
But looking at this place was like looking back in time—this was a barely preserved zoo of unenlightened savages. He couldn't help but shed a tear, for he had seen himself and his family within this group of primitives. He… he wanted to keep not just the humans, but every other race here safe until he got back and it was okay to bring them back to civilized society as well as their homes.
But how, how would he do that? It had to be known that everyone was facing the two invasions all the time, and this place was no different; this place was full of corpses and death zones from the battles that ensued. There was really only one way to guarantee the safety of these people.
And so, he looked toward his feet, which was also the head of the golden serpent.
He sighed, unsure of the decision he was about to make; he had taken care of this boy ever since he hatched. He was almost like a son to him and he was reluctant to part with him.
He patted and rubbed the bone mask on the serpent's head and attracted his attention.
"Buddy, I… I'm going to need you to stay here for a while, okay? Don't worry, I'll only be gone for a few years at most. These people need protecting, and I don't want them to suffer anymore than they already have."
The figures tone was the softest it could possibly be at the moment as he spoke to the serpent. The serpent quaked a little before his giant tongue came out and smothered the figure's body under its mountainous flesh, covering him in oceans of saliva.
The crowned figure laughed heartily before looking at the serpent's eyes for a while. He left into the warped space right afterward saying goodbye and glancing at the planet one more time.
And so, with the figure gone, the serpent looked at the planet as though it was merely a bed to lay on to rest. Indeed, it was so.
The serpent crept up the planet from the bottom in a spiral, wrapping his body around it as gently as possible; a single contraction of his muscles was probably enough to crack the planet open like an egg.
With his head at the Northern pit, he laid his head on the hole, covering it completely. He then sealed it even more with a layer of golden soul juice that solidified instantly. The strange structure at the bottom seemed to jam as it stopped operating completely, the warped space reorganized itself as a result.
Thereafter, the Southern pit stopped working as well and the warped space disappeared altogether—this place was now isolated.
When the serpent saw this, he wanted to yawn and fall asleep, but refrained from doing so as he would kill everything if he did so. He instead gently closed its eyes and all was quiet. I must say he was quite a gentle being, you can tell just by how many times I said the word gentle. He even used his power to repel any soulful being away from himself as he laid on the planet, though that didn't stop gravity from almost doubling as a result.
...
When this cutscene finished, everyone barely had their eyes open from sleepiness. The information revealed was truly shocking and would probably disrupt the status quo of the planet, but fucking hell if they couldn't just summarize it! They almost felt their life slipping away from them and only when they heard a ding from the screen did they start paying attention to it again.
The screen showed the planet, now wearing an accessory, the golden serpent.
At the top of the screen, a bar appeared.
It said, "congratulations for finally starting the game! Achievement unlocked: The Beginning of Everything! +5 pro gamer points".
When it gave him the achievement and the points, a noise suddenly rang outwards, and they noticed it came from behind them.
They all looked behind them, ready to face whatever could be there, only to find the gate to be glowing.
Well, not quite. You see, the door of the gate was locked, and it had three bar-like locks as well as three circular lights next to them. Two of them were green and one was red. The red lights lock was pulled inward, which would have allowed the gate to open were it not for the other two locks.
And so, with realization flashing everyones, they now kind of looked forward to playing this game… of course it was merely to escape.