The sky was grey, the buildings, for as far as one could see were either ablaze or crushed to desolation.
One man stood high in the sky with one hand held above his head. From this, it wasn't hard to guess that he was related to the catastrophe that befell this city.
And if just him floating in the air wasn't enough evidence that he was in fact related to this incident, then one just needed to look over his outstretched hand, at the hundreds of dragon heads floating above him with their mouths charging with dark purple flames.
"More! I need to make more!" He yelled as energy burst out of his palms, instantly hitting his body with a wave of exhaustion. But he didn't stop as he kept on making the dragon heads.
"He made three hundred and ninety six flame heads. And if I can't do that in this world, then I how am I supposed to spread his name even farther?"
BOOM!
A sound that was by no means, an answer to his question boomed in the surrounding as a black figure erupted from the depths of a broken building.
As the figure reached the man in the air, it swung its human like fist at the person's face. But before it could get too close, a line of the dark flames shot at the creature's fist, bursting it apart like it was slime. And like slime, the creature's black hands regenerated.
The man flew back to maintain a safe distance between him and the creature while shooting multiple flames from the dragon heads at the creature.
This creature had the form of a human, but it was completely black in colour and had a slippery, glossy surface. It neither had a face, nor wore any outfit, it just looked like a man made of rubbery liquid.
The multiple shots of fire hit the weird creature, but they all went through it, while it only needed half a second to reform itself.
The creature chased the man through the air, as multiple lines of fire pierced its body with every inch of its movement. It had no intention of slowing its assault on the man.
But, that was what he wanted.
As the creature came right before him, the fire he had been charging around his right arm roared with power. He plunged that arm into the chest of the dark creature, bursting it apart, and before it could reform, shot more lines of fire from the last few dragon heads, down to the small pieces of what remained of the creature.
"Nice one, Sorbo. But I've figured you out now." A giant blue screen suddenly appeared in the sky, showing a pair of names and numbers beside them.
Shadow Phantom: 1002 wins VS Sorbo Slime: 989 wins.
Looking at how many losses he had suffered however, the man's victorious smile regressed. "I bet 'He' wouldn't have even lost once if he was the one who fought you. Tch! I'm still not worthy of being his emissary in this dimension... Not yet."
"Him..."
The man turned his head around, thinking he had heard a whisper.
"Im..." He calmed his body to listen carefully to the calling voice. And when he did, a loud sound suddenly blasted into his eardrums.
"Imran!!!"
"!!!" Imran jumped up from his bed as he heard a loud knock at his bedroom door. Removing the Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) gear from his head, he ran to quickly open the door.
"Hey! What the heck were you doing? Do you know how long I've knocked for?" His visitor bombarded him with questions.
"I– I'm sorry Aisha. I was busy with something, so I kind of spaced out." He answered apologetically, rubbing the back of his head.
"Spaced out?" Aisha stretched her legs till she reached his height.
"Are you sure your brain still works properly?" She knocked on his head, as if trying to confirm her own question.
From her sudden movement and how close her face was to his, Imran took a step back nervously. But he could still smell her body standing this close.
Her perfume smelt like freshly picked wildflowers, giving her a dangerous, yet alluring atmosphere. While her breakfast scented breath made him gulp down, feeling a little hungry.
But this type of hunger shouldn't exist between, 'just friends'. He placed his hands on her shoulder, wanting to push her away from his face when his nose suddenly sniffed a sharp smell coming from her. His eyebrows suddenly tensed and instead, he pulled Aisha into his room and pushed her against the wall.
"I thought I told you to stop drinking." Like he some times did without knowing, Imran's attitude suddenly took a 180 degree turn. It was like he had an alter ego with a fierce demeanor.
Aisha's caramel coloured cheeks first flushed with embarrassment as Imran slammed her against the wall, but as soon as he asked his question, she wanted to push him away.
However, even if she was a lot stronger than the boy, Aisha found herself unable to use her full strength when seeing him look at her the way he was.
"Say something. Didn't I?"
"I– I had a bad day yesterday." She looked away from his face.
"What happened?"
"..." Aisha soon told Imran about how she waited hours the day before, watching over a sword with hopes of getting it, and how the probable owner had just taken it back without even a single thank you for keeping it safe. And if course, the part that affected her the most was the way the woman had embarrassed her in front of the onlookers who worshipped her for her strength.
"Is that it? Is that your excuse?" Imran's voice didn't soften like she had expected.
"Tch. I knew you wouldn't get it." She looked away.
"Yeah..." Imran held her chin, turning her face as his eyes stared deep into hers. "I might not understand what you feel because I've never been in that situation... Where I'm reduced to a joke in front of the people who admire me. And that's because I'm not strong like you in the first place."
"But... W– why do you care? It's not like your parents don't drink too. I don't see you lecturing them about it."
"Those guys?" Imran laughed. "They do it 'cause they actually like it. Whenever there's a celebration, they're the first to bring out the barrels. So Aisha, they're doing it because It's fun for them.
But when you pick up a bottle, It's to run away from one problem or another, to keep yourself in denial. Your problems never go away if you just get intoxicated for a while, do they? Are you any stronger?"
Aisha wanted to avoid eye contact with this man, however, all she could do was look back at his disappointed face with tears welling up in her eyes. "I– I'm sorry." She murmured with her eyes closed, feeling guilty like a child who had just been caught doing something wrong, by her parents.
Imran smiled warmly. "When you've finally learned to solve your problems the right way and respect booze, how 'bout I give you a few chugging tips? I am my parent's son after all."
Aisha chuckled at his words.
Finally noticing her rosy cheeks, the position the two of them were in and even the place they were, Imran was suddenly flooded with uneasiness once again.
"Hik!" He immediately removed his hands from her chin and shoulder while stumbling backwards.
Aisha looked at him weirdly but then at the opened door, thinking, is someone there?
However, Imran's stuttering brought her out of her confusion. "Ah... I'm sorry for being a weirdo earlier, I just uh..."
Aisha laughed. "It's fine Mr 'lame-ass' Imran."
Imran scratched the back of his head as he laughed with his mouth twitching from embarrassment. "By the way... Why'd you come here anyway?"
"Oh right!" Aisha clapped her hands. "You know that woman I was talking about earlier? She's already awake in my sister's house. But they're tending to her injuries right now. Still though, wanna go meet her in person?"
Imran pointed at the door, "Lead the way."
———
"Ugh." Nebula's eyes opened groggily. At first, her vision was dark, but soon she started making clear pictures of what was in front of her.
Lips, plump, pink lips over her face.
"!!!" She suddenly pulled her body down to the bottom of the bed she was lying on, taking a defensive pose and involuntarily shouted,
"I'm in love with my sister's friend!"
Alya turned her head to look at the woman. "Huh?" She snarled, holding a block of ice over the bed.
———
A couple of minutes later and both Nebula and Alya were walking through the streets of Ogmore province.
"Whoo! I've never been this close to this city before. It's so... strange." Nebula turned her head restlessly, as she looked around the city in awe.
Ogmore province's city looked like an old civilization rather than having the typical modern day exterior most cities took; it was unique.
The houses were made of the same rocks in the highlands, they were brown, almost clay–like in colour, but a little paler. The construction of the buildings had sharp edges, making them all resemble either cube or cuboid shapes with square or rectangular doors and windows. The street Nebula and Alya were walking through had a small stream flowing down the center. In fact, it wasn't just this one, but every others.
It was a beautiful place, and it almost looked like there was no technology here at all as even the people's clothes were made of regular clothing materials instead of the high quality fibers that were trendy amongst most humans.
Speaking of clothing, even Alya had on colourful traditional clothing on, that looked just like her battle suit but made with cotton.
The ethnicity and traditional ambience this place had, gave off the ideas that the place was underdeveloped. However, that was far from the truth.
You see, Ogmore had technology that was like every other developed cities on Ansel. It was just that, what they had wasn't powered by practical means.
As Nebula walked through the center of Ogmore, her eyes came across a spectacular specimen, a gem the size of a three storey tall building. That particular gem stuck to the ground at the meeting point of all the streams flowing through Ogmore, was what powered this culture–rich city.
Every building and house in the city acted like ports to deliver that power into every technology operating there. The vehicles, equipment, anything that needed power to work, they all used the gem as one big power source of infinite energy.
"Holy rabbit–snakes!" Nebula's mouth was agape as she and Alya took a second to gaze at the red crystal's splendor.
"How long has this thing been powering your city?" Nebula asked with her eyes still fixed on the gem.
"Since my father's father ripped it out of a damn monster." Alya banged her knuckles together as she grinned with pride.
"Oh, I see..." Nebula clapped with a look of understanding. "... I was asking for an actual date, you muscle for brains."
Scratch that. Nebula clapped her hands with a look of sarcasm.
"50 years ago, you damn witch." Alya answered without a hint of aggression in her voice as she continued to look forward, at the gem.
"Is it endless?" Nebula asked, not blinking.
"It is. Whatever damn monster made this thing had a crazy as hell powerful regenerative ability. So its traits were passed down to its gem even after it was killed.
With how freaking awesome this thing is, I sometimes wonder how my father's father managed to kill it without breaking its gem. He must have been a crazy guy to pull that off."
Nebula finally blinked, turning to look at the woman beside her. "Can't you just say grandpa like a normal person?"
"Do I need to say that word to be a normal person?"
"Ugh, whatever. But..." She turned back to the gem. "...What kind of monster was it that made a gem this big and powerful?"
"I don't know. The records of that thing are written in an unknown language, so no one except my late grandfather knows exactly what it was. But one thing we do know for sure, is its name.
Nebula followed Alya as she wanted to continue their walking.
"We call it, Devourer of the plundered world, The demon, Sorbo."
———
"Hey Imran. I think I see those two up ahead." Aisha whispered, but as soon as she looked behind her, she realized that Imran wasn't even there.
"Sorry Aisha! I just remembered that I forgot to turn off my IVR game back at home." Imran yelled as he ran back home.
Aisha stared at his back as he soon took a curve into another street, moving out of her line of sight. "What the hell? There's no need to worry about the power...
Is there?"