Ula perked her head up when she heard a loud noise coming from the floor above. It seemed to have come from Geo's room. She wiped her hands that were wet from washing the dishes, and shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
"Geo? What are you doing up there?"
There was no response.
'What's that kid up to now?'
She quickly walked up the stairs while calling out to her son.
"Geo? Are you okay? I just heard a loud noise coming from here."
There was still no response.
Something was off.
Her son was usually the quiet type but he would always reply when called. Something must have happened!
----------------------
Kimmen Potter had been busy reviewing his documents in his office, when he heard a loud scream from above.
It was his wife!
He rushed out of his office and shouted as he ran upstairs.
"ULA?! ULA?! Are you all right?!"
He ran into his son's room and saw his wife kneeling on the floor. She was hugging and calling out to her son who was sprawled out on the floor, his eyes closed.
Kimmen was shocked! His son had been prefectly fine just a few minutes ago! What had happened between that time?!
He ran to his son and checked his condition. Geo was still breathing but he seemed to be in a deep state of sleep. He was not in a serious situation but it was still very concerning. Kimmen looked at his wife and asked,
"What happened here?"
"I-I-I don't know. H-He was a-already like this! Kim-Kim please do something!"
His wife burst out in tears as she said this.
Kimmen hugged her and said to her calmly,
"It's gonna be alright. S-stay here with our son. I'll go call Doctor Aaron from down the street."
---------------------
Geo opened his eyes and found himself sitting in a very unusual parlour.
It had two sofas and a small metal table between them. The walls were pale blue in color and were decorated with various gears, contraptions and small unusual machines. Other than that, he couldn't see anything else in the room.
His memory was still a bit fuzzy but he clearly remembered seeing bright glowing balls of light before passing out.
He was about to stand up, when he suddenly noticed a huge figure from the corner of his eye.
An absurdly fat and bald man was sitting on the sofa opposite him!
Geo jerked back in surprise and fell back on the sofa. That person was definitely not there a few moments ago!
The fat man wore a white shirt and silver-gray pants along with a matching waistcoat which were all giant sized to fit his stature! He had a giant yet friendly and round face with a short mustache above his lips and he was occupying the whole sofa that seemed to fit more that three people at a time!
Although he had a giant face, the fat man had small eyes that were twinkling as he stared at Geo. He seemed to be waiting for something to happen.
After a few seconds of awkward silence, the fat man finally stood up and spoke with a smile.
"Well, I was expecting you to shout something like 'Who are you?!' or 'What did you do to me?!', but I guess I'll have to answer these myself! Time is precious and we must not dilly-dally!
Also...I already know nearly everything about you so you don't need to introduce yourself.
Anyway!"
Clearing his throat, the fat man then said in an grand and majestic voice.
"Ahem.....
Introducing! 'Gragas the Messiah'! or some even call me 'Aegis of Mankind'! or 'Gragas the Heretic'! The man closest to God, yet furthest from him! A Demi-God of some sorts! The man who sacrificed himself for humanity!
And today you have been chosen by this esteemed 'Messiah' to inherit his unique order!"
After saying these words, the fat man bowed deeply in all four directions.
Geo was shocked by the sudden introduction and took a moment to process what he had said.
'Messiah? What is an 'order'? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Who is this person? He said that he sacrificed himself for humanity, so isn't he a hero?'
Geo had many questions in his head but the fat man sat cut him off before he could ask any.
"I will answer all your questions, but I'll have to ask you a question of my own....."
The fat man, Gragas, sat down back on the sofa and made himself comfortable before continuing.
"You see, I said before, that I know 'nearly' everything about you.
When you touched my sealed artifact, the book, I was able to get a glimpse of your entire life through your soul body.Your lifetime till now, your relationships, your thoughts, blah, blah, blah.....but there seems to be something else! A powerful force!
No.....wait.....not powerful....but an abstract and complex force that hides a large part of your thoughts! It seems to have sealed away at the time of your birth! There are also huge gaps in your daily thoughts, so you must think about that particular sealed...something... a lot! But whatever you thought about has been sealed tightly by that complex force and even my strongest spells could not decipher and unlock it!
So, my question is....what is this sealed object?"
Gragas still maintained his smile but spoke in a very serious tone as he asked this question.
Geo's whole body went stiff when he heard this question. He knew what Gragas was talking about and was trying to find a loop hole to bypass the question. Transmigration and reincarnation was a touchy subject in the webnovels that he had read in his past life and Geo was not sure what the fat man would do after he revealed this information. For all he knew, Gragas could just kill him or make him his experiment to find out more about transmigration.
As Geo's mind raced on what to do, Gragas suddenly laughed and said,
"Oh don't be so nervous. Even if I wanted, I couldn't do anything with that information! This sealed book has just stored my power with a bit of my consciousness! I've been dead for centuries!"
Geo couldn't validate what the fat man said but decided to reveal himself anyway. He sighed and said,
"I'm a transmig-"
But before he could even complete his sentence, bright streaks of blue and red light appeared around him and the whole room suddenly started to shake violently!
Gragas' face instantly squirmed with pain. He clutched his head and shouted,
"STOP! STOP!"
Geo was confused but he had a small guess. Maybe the force that he was talking about protected itself and harmed whoever tried to pry into it's mysteries!
Gragas let out deep, ragged breaths as he tried to recover himself. He seemed to have become more ethereal and Geo could clearly see small balls for grey light emanating out of him.
Geo's face turned a bit concerned. If something bad happened to the fat man, he would also be dragged along with it!
The balls of grey light slowly merged back into his body and Gragas regained his former self. Geo was expecting him to be serious but Gragas just laughed and said in an excited manner.
"Hahaha! Excellent! Magnificent! Marvellous! This is even better!"
Geo was a little confused and surprised at the fat man's words but he was also glad that nothing bad happened to him.
The giant fellow coughed a little and continued.
"uhm.....I'll answer all your questions later but now, it's time for a history lesson!
Figure out the details yourself as I'll only be telling this to you in brief. My calculations about this visit were a bit off and it seems to have cost me some time.
Just remember this, If everything goes as I think, in about a century and half, God is going to bring about a calamity. A calamity that will wipe out everything in this world."
Geo was hoping for something like a 'Hero vs Demon Lord' scenario but this was completely unexpected! He put on a serious expression on his face as many questions appeared in his mind,
'God, the one who everyone worships, will kill all of humanity? Why? What's going on in God's home? And there are three gods in this world, right? Are they just gonna grab some popcorn and enjoy our peril?'
"Hehe...I like your way of thinking but it is way more complicated than just that."
Geo was a bit shocked and thought that he had spoken out loud but he immediately figured out that Gragas could read his mind.
Gragas laughed in a sad manner and continued after a deep breath,
"And also, there is only one God, 'The One'. The others that common people worship are just fragments of her."
Geo was extremely confused but he didn't ask anything. He patiently waited for the fat man to continue.
"This is also the reason why the supernatural exists.
In brief, a long time ago, God perished and broke into many fragments. Don't ask me how, there are only unproven theories, even among the higher ups.
These fragments had a part of God's powers and spread out onto the world, ingraining themselves into many things. They merged with people, plants, animals, objects, etc; and whoever was affected by these fragments suddenly had supernatural power and effects!
The people who gained these powers were able to run faster than any athlete, heal fatal wounds, command others against their will, and many other things!
But at that time, we didn't know that God had perished! We believed that it was just his gift to us! A gift to make the world a better place!
But not everyone are the same....
Since many people gained these 'gifts', not all of them had pure thoughts.
An equal portion of people wanted to exploit these powers for their own good.
Soon, there was havoc and chaos everywhere!
The good people fighting the selfish and evil ones, and vice versa.
This problem was solved only after the 'War of Order', 300 years ago. It is also known as the 'Northern and Southern Collapse' among normal people. It is the also largest war in history, with over 10 million deaths and 2 million injured!
Sigh....I was also a part of the war back then.
Saw many of my.....close friends and family die."
The fat man paused after saying this.
His awfully friendly aura was replaced my a depressingly sad one.
Geo could also understand his loss, as his father had also died in his previous world while serving the military.
The fat man looked at Geo when he thought about his father. He sighed and continued,
"Well.....The war was ultimately won by the good guys and three governments were formed soon after,
'The Court of New Beginnings', 'The Court of Doves', and 'The Court of Life'.
These governments named the powers as 'Orders', believing that the powers represented God's order to them....
The people with impressive physical abilities were to protect the weak...
Intelligent ones were to find out solutions to make the world better...
Weird ones were to do weird things in a good way, etc...
They thought that these were the orders of God and they were 'agents' who carried these out.
The governments recruited all these agents and they now maintain the secrecy of the orders.
Any questions so far?"
Geo was hoping for the fat man to ask this and quickly answered,
"Yes. Are the governments only made up of.....um...agents?"
"Nope. 10 million people died! Secrecy also died along with them. The number of agents are vast, yes, but not as vast as to wipe the entire continent's minds!
There are many ordinary people who have sworn to not reveal the existence of orders.
And they even helped with the mind cleansing after the war.
We call them 'Assistants'.
They still help us with various odd jobs."
"Has anyone tried to expose this power then?"
"Yes, but they are dealt with by an artifact. I don't know about the current day but we used to have a very powerful artifact that every agent and assistant had to touch. It extracted a bit of your soul when your touched it and cursed you if you dared to expose the order.
Instant death usually. Worst case, you turned into an artifact."
Geo felt a little terrified at the consequence of these powers. He didn't know what turning into an artifact meant but it was the 'worst' case so it was probably something very bad.
Geo still had many questions but the fat man cut him off before he could ask.
"This is probably all that I can explain right now. I still haven't explained my order to you and we don't have much time.
Search for a place in the northern side, named 'Teral Forest'. There is a small cave there where I used to research and it should have all the detailed information.
Now...
Let's talk my unique order.
I've personally made it so it doesn't follow the regular convention.
I've also thought about it for quite a while and have finally come up with it's name that fits it perfectly!
I call it...The Machine!"
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