"It has been more than a thousand years since then, so this tale has many unknown errors...
The only ones who legend has it, know the full and complete tales of the past, are the fifteen most powerful beings on Earth.
Seven from the humans who are given the title, Seraphs and eight from the Animats who are known as the Cherubs.
But I'm not one of those two groups, so I'll give you the scraps."
———
A thousand years ago, in the thirty second century, humanity had already made countless breakthroughs, unlocked many mysteries and taken advantage of the creative ideas of the past; ideas that were formerly deemed as fictitious because of scientific constraints.
At the peak of that advancement in technology, was the conquering of the 'stellar farm': the conquering of the living parts of the stars and galaxies in the universe.
Humanity had stepped foot in every habitable planet within their range by invading and terraforming them to match their preferences. It wasn't easy, but good things weren't easy to get.
And sometimes, bad things weren't too.
After conquering a satisfiable amount of galaxies, it was obvious that humanity wasn't just going to sit put till they needed more planets. Even if man had enough gold to feed ten generations, they would still try to get more gold. It was an investment, but investments like the ones the 'then' man had was mostly pure greed.
So, along the way, humanity finally met another intelligent race that by chance, was also doing the same thing as them, which was conquering the stellar farm.
At first, things were well between the two intelligent races, they had even achieved some sort of brotherhood and were living mutually, doing their own things.
But, because two kings couldn't co-exist, it was inevitable that a fight would break out. And it did.
A fight that cost a lot, destroyed a lot and killed a lot, happened. And because the two monolith races were equal in power, their idiotic battle ended up with only losses.
Can you believe that the two most intelligent species in the UNIVERSE reduced themselves to the simple laws of the JUNGLE?!
I mean, seriously! Even in the jungle, one competitor comes on top, but that!?"
"Woah, Zeph. Calm down. You said that the stories might not be true right?"
"I just... *Sigh*
Okay. Let's continue.
So... Amongst all the madness, there were two individuals from the humans and Animats who sought to stop the war.
They who had clear vision to see what the fight was doing to the universe, to the countless galaxies destroyed and the potential new lives they were ruining, created something otherworldly.
The two revolutionaries found something at the very core of the home planet of the humans. It was an hexagonal shaped shard that contained the secrets of evolution.
With that shard, those two broke free from the confines of mortality and became the very first super human and Exos Animat in the universe.
Harnessing that power, they were able to stop the stupid war and unite the two species, whether they liked it or not.
But, there were still minor conflicts, so the two, known as the Founders, brought the remaining few of the humans and Animats to the humans' home planet, Earth.
And then, with an unbreakable seal, they locked the Earth from anything that dared try to escape, or come into it.
Until both sides learned to coexist, the Founders would never show themselves again, nor would they take off the Earth's seal."
———
"Well, that's how the universe was saved from utter destruction. Any questions?"
As Zeph finished his story, he looked over the luminesce heater in front of him.
[A/N: Think of the 'luminesce heater' like firewood, but as a glowing orange ball floating in the air instead.]
"You've told this bedtime story a thousand times already Zeph. But you never answer any of our questions." A little girl complained from under her sleeping bag.
"Like, where did the Founders go after sealing Earth, outer space? Or why do people have powers a thousand years after the sealing? And who created these system stuff that super humans have? I've got a lot of questions here Zeph."
"Sorry, I don't know everything, so you're gonna have to ask the Seraphs." Zeph shrugged.
"Then don't ask us if we have any questions." She finally couldn't take it and covered her whole body with the bag.
There were many questions that she wanted answers to, but the little girl had no way of getting them.
And even if she wanted to do as Zeph said and ask one of the most powerful people on Earth, she greatly doubted that she would get any answers, as only the privileged could even spare glances at them.
There were many other important questions, but for some reason, the past was so mysterious, only vague myths were available to the public.
"Hehe." Zeph scratched his head embarrassingly. He really didn't know too.
"Wait a minute." The young man suddenly realized something.
'I can't feel his heart beat..." Zeph bent over to the little girl's bag and yanked it open.
"Ah ha! He's not here!" Zeph yelled out.
There were supposed to be two people in the sleeping bag, yet only the little girl was in now.
"Ah!" The girl pulled the cover back up and gave Zeph a surprisingly hard slap.
"I'm a woman Zeph! Never do that to a woman!" She growled with pink cheeks.
She wasn't embarrassed by what Zeph had just done, but by the fact that he had found out what she was hiding.
"Ow, where is he?" Zeph rubbed his cheeks and asked immediately. Her strength was really developing.
"He... He went back into the house."Yenn covered her flustered face.
"When?" Zeph asked trying to stop the stinging pain in his cheeks by rubbing a cold drink on it.
"Well... Since you said, "I'll give you the scraps."" Yenn answered.
Zeph sighed and turned to look at the bungalow behind them.
The boy had left from the start.
"You can't keep running from life with your abilities boy!
There are things that you have to face head on, with or without them!"
And with the way things were going, Zeph feared that the kid wouldn't be able to do 'without'.
———
Present time...
Somewhere in a forest...
[Error: Your equipment: 'Soul Constrictor Fabric' has been deactivated.
Standby for ability (ies) re-evaluation.]
"Hm." Asher floated centimeters above the ground and looked ahead in silence.
He was taking in the movement and strength of the wind, the sound coming from his environment and paying attention to every rustling leaf for as far as he could, in the forest.
It might look like his vision was only subjected to the front of himself, but it really wasn't.
With his skills, it was like Asher had become one with his surroundings, gaining a sort of compound vision to peer into a distance of a few kilometers all around him.
Boom!
The very second he whispered, a black leopard with two horns and a pointy tail jumped out of the shrubs behind him.
"Roa—"
*Pewt*
Alas, it had not even touched Asher's unmoving body before it dropped dead on the floor.
There was now a tiny hole right in the middle of it's head, dripping out black blood.
[Rank 4: Feli-Noir slain. EXP has been stored in your soul slot.]
"My bullets aren't for you little kitty, just your mom." Asher's whisper graced the silent forest again, while his eyes were still calmly closed.
*Pewt*
A bullet from an unknown source went right into the top of a tree and another beast of the same kind fell dead on the ground.
But that wasn't all.
Soon other creatures started coming out from behind trees or inside them.
However, with a slight twitch from either of Asher's glove covered hands, they all dropped dead, three meters away from him.
Now he was totally surrounded in a circle of beast corpse.
"Yee!" The Old Man exclaimed, viewing the scene from inside Asher's mind.
"I forgot how good your scent works on luring beasts." He laughed.
"But... are you really going to fight a rank 6 with no abilities?" The Old Man knew that Asher's Soul Constrictor Fabric/ face mask had deactivated itself. And without that, the young man would be unable to use his powers.
"Don't worry, I have a plan." Asher answered dryly.
"Of course you do. You always have a plan. But saying it like that just gives me the creeps." The old man begged.
Asher's brain worked as fast as a super computer, maybe even faster. So with that, he could formulate fighting and escaping tactics in a blink.
But the old man knew, whenever Asher announced that he had a plan, then he was thinking of doing something crazy.
Fifteen minutes later...
"Huh? It looks like it's too careful to come out." Asher said to himself, acknowledging that he had been unable to lure out the creature he wanted.
"Should a top grade monster really be that cowardly? Oh well, I guess I'll take back my traps and leave."
Asher took out a small metallic ball from his pouch and threw it in the air.
As soon as the ball reached above his head, it lit up blue and stayed afloat.
Suddenly, objects started to fly out of the forest, heading for the ball.
There were guns, traps and other dangerous things now floating around the ball, encircling it like satellites of tech-murder.
With all that he had set up, it was quite understandable that an intelligent high ranked beast didn't want to approach him.
Soon, all the things he had gathered turned into black smoke and flew into his pouch.
"There, now will you come out alrea—"
*Swoosh*
Asher had barely even finished his sentence when a black line suddenly dashed beside him.
"Woah." As he looked in front, behind and beside him, all Asher could see was that same black line zigzagging around the forest.
Up, down, forward and behind him, it looked as if he was trapped in the center of a massive black web.
Asher stretched his left hand out in front of him.
"Huh? What are you doing?" The old man asked curiously as Asher placed his hand on one of the black lines.
*Zzzt*
What sound does a paper make when dipped into a running shredder?
Asher soon pulled back what was left of his hand.
"Old man, I'm going to lose my sanity for a while, so take care of my body."
Asher pulled down his face mask.
And as soon as he did, the smell of his own blood rushed into his nose.
His blood didn't smell like iron to him at all, it smelt sweet, even tempting, but for some reason, that smell filled him with so much hate and anger.
'I don't know why this happens, but it works.' He shut his eyes.
When he opened them again, his ashen eyes were now colored red instead. And it looked as if black dots were falling into the pupils at the center of his eyes.
For a second, the black lines surrounding Asher got disorientated as it felt the red aura pouring into the atmosphere from Asher's body.
[Your killing aura has reached dangerous levels.
Your consciousness has been overridden.]
"Geez boy." Asher's voice sounded thicker than normal.
"I should be happy that I'm free, but knowing that it's just to do your dirty work sours that feeling a little." He cracked his neck. "Oh well, freedom is freedom.
'Asher' put his left arm forward, and at the same instant, it regenerated in a flash.
Right, Asher had other things than his abilities to rely on; his technology, mysteriously immense murderous intent and most of all, the freeloader living in his mind.
That saying was definitely true for Asher,
Two heads are better than one.