After pushing away the broken shell, the baby raptor crawled out onto the warm cave floor. The baby raptor was pale grey in color with streaks of white on its arms, sides, and legs. The god still watching noticed that this newborn would be the last dinosaur to be born on this planet.
'What a sad existence' he thought, as the weak newborn began to call out for its mother. However, she was no longer with the living. Its calls were meet by a warm floor and silence as it unintentional ringed the dinner bell for the approaching predator.
Being a newborn, the raptor's eyes were sealed with some type of mucus membrane that it tried to the claw off. Following each attempt, it would voice a call for help before clawing at the membrane again. When suddenly, the membrane disappeared, and a clutch of eggs appeared in its vision.
Seeing its struggle, the God named Bados had decided to help by using his power to remove the membrane. Afterwards, he let out a soft chuckle when he saw it looking around the cave with curiosity. Bados continued to watch the Raptor as it experienced many things for the first time. The first time it registered certain smells and noises. Yet those moments would be tainted by the occasional call for its mother. It continued to make the calls, drawing a long sigh from Bados.
'This was a mistake', he thought as he knew from his past actions what he was about to do and the consequences that followed.
Bados then shifted his gaze towards the predator, watching as it moved through the entrance chamber of the cave. This particular cave system was where the female raptor had lived with her pack for generations, leaving a scent imprint on the cave confusing the tired and starved predator. The cave itself was medium in size with a single curve that blocked one's view from the entrance. After that curve were three paths that lead to different parts of the cave. The first path was the shallowest with a length of 20 meters and a slight decline that started from the entrance. This particular cavern was used as a resting place for the pack's hunters and protectors.
4 meters from the first path was the second. The second path was the largest and deep part of the cave, having a max length of a little more than 8 km with various offshoots that lead to dead ends. This was where the raptors held their food storage, when the prey was close enough to drag to the cave. This left an overwhelming smell of blood, covering the female Raptors scent and drawing the predator to this path.
The third path, the one that contained the baby raptor was located on a different side of the chamber. It was slightly longer than the first, but significantly shorter than the second path, being 50 meters in length with a sharp incline that leveled out after the first 10 meters. This was the communal egg chamber that the raptors used as it was facing away from the entrance making it harder to find and easy to defend.
"Luckily, she had travelled through the different paths recently." Bados said, watching as the predator, an albertosarus, made its way down the second path.
The baby raptor had no idea that it was in perilous danger as it was still chirping for its mother. 10 minutes from its birth, fatigue started to set in from the constant calls for it mother and flopping around in an attempt to move.
The albertosaurus made its way down the path before noticing that the lingering blood smell was old, leading to it returning back to the entrance. After reaching the path's entrance, it noticed that there was another path that was hidden from view. Walking towards hidden path, the albertosaurus suddenly heard some soft cries coming from the middle path. Hearing the cries, caused the albertosaurus to speed down path as its hunger spurred it to consume the weak sounding prey.
The albertosaurus had crossed to threshold of the entrance, when it suddenly stopped hearing the cry. It slowed down as it tried to find what made the noise. Walking slowly, it came to the edge of the incline and saw the body of a Velociraptor with a clutch of eggs nearby. Unable to contain itself the Albertosaurus rushed towards the bountiful display in front of it. In its rush to eat, it failed to see the baby raptor in the middle of the cluster. The 'Alberto' soon crashed into the mother raptors body, rapidly consuming the body with unbridled vigor.
Bados sat and watched as the dinosaur consumed the carcass of the raptor, knowing it wouldn't be enough to satiate its hunger. He felt relieved in his decision to put the baby raptor to sleep, saving it from such a traumatic experience.
After eating its mother, the albertosaurus made its way towards the eggs and unknowingly the sleeping hatching. Without knowing, the dinosaur snatched up the hatchling along with the eggs. Finally, satisfied the Albertosaurus left the cave heading back to its territory. It had gained the energy to survive in this chaotic time.
The baby raptor's soul was imprinted by a white light before vanishing from the mortal realm. The hatchlings soul arrived in its new destination, the soul purgatory. It woke up to a world where the souls of every mortal being traveled to before being processed for reincarnation. Though unlike the other souls, it had kept its consciousness. This led to the best mistake it could have made in the afterlife, the baby raptor released a chirp of distress.
'A tragic life such as this one deserves a second chance', thought Bados as he stopped looking at earth and began to put his plan in motion. After a brief moment, roughly comparable to an hour in the mortal realm, Bados began the process for pulling a soul out of the soul purgatory. Soul purgatory was where souls went before being sent to their final destination to be judged by the god of death for reincarnation. Despite being a god of nature, Bados was capable of pulling souls back the realm of the living. Even though he would have to pay a price for such actions.
Though this action didn't have an immediate benefit to him, he was known as an erratic and energetic god that acted without hesitation choosing to rely on his instincts instead. Plus, when something caught his attention, he was capable of great compassion or disdain.
In purgatory, souls came in different shapes and sizes. The soul's shape and size were dictated by the type of being it was and how powerful it was before its death. Soul's closer to their original form were stronger and feed on weaker souls to continue strengthen themselves. This would continue to happen until it returned to its original form and regained its consciousness. Those that regained their consciousness before reincarnation would be reborn with slightly increased physical and mental capabilities.
The weakest souls were the souls of the unborn/newborn beings, which usually were consumed by the bigger souls on arrival. Yet for the first time, one of those souls had retained its consciousness after death. This meant that any soul that assimilated it would regain their consciousness immediately. It was for this reason; all the souls were attacking the raptor's soul after it ringed the dinner bell with its cries for help.
The soul of the raptor was now hovering in the same spot as hundreds of souls swarmed it. The only reason why the soul hadn't been assimilated was for a glowing white imprint that was attached to it. Upon the first attack, it created an orb-shaped shield around the raptor protecting it from the other souls by absorbing the damage and reflecting it back on the attackers. The souls surrounding the raptor were quickly destroyed and turned into particles before a quarter of the particles were dragged into the shield to repair it. The rest of the soul particles were absorbed by the raptor's soul. However, instead of the soul growing in size, it grew in density since it was already in its original form.
Increasing the density of the soul was the second stage of strengthening one's soul after regaining a consciousness. This would add on to the boost to the effects earned by gaining one consciousness. The raptor's soul began to go through a change as its original density increased by 4 times. This increase soon became enough to affect the shield by increasing its power and range. This increase allowed the density of the soul to skyrocket as the souls continued to rush the small soul.
Meanwhile, Bados was focusing on the mark he left on the soul and preparing to draw it back to the physical plane. With a wave of his hand, the Raptors soul was pulled to the edge of the purgatory. At the edge, the imprint on the soul glowed brightly before passing the barrier that surrounded the purgatory. Once on the other side, the soul teleported away and appeared in front of Bados. What appear in front of Bados was a densely packed soul that throbbed with power.
'What have I done!', Thought Bados shaking his head in disbelief. The simple task of merging the body and soul of the raptor had now become quite the conundrum. Bados stood with a blank look on his face before taking a deep breathe. "it's time to finish what I've started." Bados said to himself with a determined look on his face. Bados created a duplicate body of the baby raptor and proceeded to fuse the soul and body together.
" I, Bados, give my blessing to thee as the beast God of nature" said Bados, after finishing combining of the two. and making sure that the baby raptor was alive and well. Having completed the task Bados began to walk back to his personal chambers, lost in thought think of the backlash his actions would cause in the near future.
"What shall I call you little one?", he pondered as stared at the sleeping raptor.
'I suck at naming things where's Teka when you need her', he thought.
"hmmmm I shall call you, Rapt." said Bados.
Having completed the task Bados began to walk back to his personal chambers, lost in thought think of the backlash his actions would cause in the near future. He knew full well that his actions hadn't gone unnoticed.
"Little brother is at it again. Cher-Cher isn't going to be happy about this", a goddess said as she felt the vast amount of power that Bados was using.
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Back in the soul purgatory, a being was seen rushing through its different sections leaving pandemonium in its wake. It flew frantically through the purgatory before coming to the center of the realm, where only a massive throne could be seen. Seated on the throne was an equal massive being that covered in a cloak with only his grayish skeletal face and blazing blackish-green eyes being visible.
"Speak" said the entity seated on the throne.
" Lord Tetanus, there's has been an issue with the souls of earth. A new soul appeared and consumed 250 thousand souls before it was dragged back to the mortal realm."
Tetanus had sat undisturbed for many millenniums leaving the management of the realm to his Hel knight, but now it seemed that his peaceful time was coming to an end.
"How did the soul escape?" He asked.
My Lord there was a god's imprint on the soul. It seemed to be the imprint of the beast god." The Hel knight replied.
Suddenly, a powerful surge of pressure assaulted the entirety soul purgatory destroying everything, only leaving tetanus and his throne. Unperturbed by his action, tetanus reached his hand out in a grabbing motion before pulling out a large scythe.
With his scythe in hand, tetanus stared blankly at the empty space before him and snapped his fingers bringing the entire soul purgatory along its inhabitants back.
'I will find that soul' Tetanus thought as he proceeded to call out to his Hel knight's outside of the purgatory realm.