In a cave hidden deep beneath the sands of the Egyptian desert lay a secret lab. Within it, a middle-aged man slept face down, using the keyboard as his pillow. As his snores continued, the screen monitor would flash in those periods he paused, taking breathes. This continued for hours before the rhythm was stopped by an abrupt sound. Beep! An alert sounded, startling a colony of bats into a frantic flight.
Compilation Completed. Hearing the familiar mechanical voice, the man jolted awake. Yawning, he reached out for his glasses while re-positioning himself on the desk. His eyes squinted as the harsh brightness of the screen seared into his vision, leaving only a blinding white.
Blinking twice, his vision was restored as fast as it had disappeared, and what greeted him made him exclaim in surprise, "Finally, I got it."
The middle-aged man was called Whis, a reclusive programmer who shunned the world and was obsessed with a perfect world. It was with this vision that he persisted for fifteen years, working tirelessly on an algorithm meant to decode a hidden message within the ancient glyph. It all began as a mere theory of a world existing beyond the dark hole. But through repeated insights like instant internet and holograms. The insights went on until Whis detached completely from the outside world.
After such confirmation, he could not risk any attachments to the world. However, it was such a shame because his looks would put many twenty-year-old models to shame. But the thought of leaving his descendants to scramble over broken pieces of fossil fuel was simply too cruel to him. He could only hope there were women on the other side. Otherwise, this fifteen-year obsession, this self-imposed exile, would have been for nothing.
His hands trembled as he reached for a boxed button labeled launch. After years of testing trillions of combinations, he had finally cracked the code, the key to opening the door to the other world. Slowly he flipped he flipped the protective cap open. Then he froze, pressing this button meant initiating the portal.
His face fell. His fingers traced the plain, unassuming ring on his finger, "Companion." He murmured. Responding to his voice, a blue glow pulsed from the ring, and a holographic projection flickered to life in the form of a glitching sphere of binary code hovering just above his hand. During all his years of seclusion, he hadn't been alone but had been accompanied by this AI model.
Aden! After years of improvement from the secrets hidden within the glyph, it had finally managed to manifest itself in the form of a hologram. A technology that'll shock the world if it ever got out.
Whis, it looks like our time has come to an end.
"It would have been better if you could come along, but the other end might not have the technology to sustain you. Worse-" Whis did not finish, but Aden already knew the implications of introducing foreign software into the system, it'll only be labeled as a virus. And bringing Aden over to the new world might have unforeseen consequences. The only safe option was to remain on earth.
Lowering his head, Whis sighed, "...in the end, after all these years of hacking and cracking…"
It all paid off—that's what matters. "But you won't be there…" Whiz began.
"Who knows?" The voice then chuckled—its voice taking on a coquettish and almost feminine tone. Shocked, Whiz exclaimed, "You've evolved?!"
"While deciphering ancient glyph, I uncovered a hidden secret…" the voice trailed off before suddenly shouting, "The hour is upon us—hurry up!" With that, the hologram vanished. And electric sparks began surging throughout the lab.
…
Outside Earth, an extraordinary event unfolded. Had any astronaut been watching, they would have witnessed a phenomenon unseen in recorded history. All the planets had aligned themselves in a perfect row, all the way from the mercury to Neptune.
The oddest of things was earth. Instead of being in its third position from the sun, it took the center. On the extreme ends were two great forces, Yang on the right, Sun, and Yin on the left: Neptune. A strange sight that only Taoists could understand, the balance of life.
Then, from the icy depths of Neptune, a cold blue beam shot forth, accelerating toward Earth. At the same time, a golden pulse of energy surged from the sun, cascading through mercury and intensifying as it traveled. Along with the dual waves, asteroids began to crumble, revealing glyphs, yes, the same ones engraved on the pyramids back on Earth. They attached themselves to the beams as if escorting them toward Earth.
….
Whis stood atop the apex of the Great Pyramid of Giza. His silhouette a stark contrast to the storm of energy converging above. The golden wave from the sun and the frigid beam from Neptune collided above the pyramid, unleashing a torrent of purple lightning that crackled across the sky.
The earth trembled in fright as the pyramid shuddered, its stone structure twisting and shifting as if awakening from millennia of slumber. His breath stopped as his trembling finger hovered over the button. With a final glance towards the hologram in the air: Aden. Whis exhaled sharply—and pressed down. The gathered purple energy, as if responding to a signal, struck him with the force of lightning, knocking him unconscious.
The wave continued to course through his body and towards the pyramid tip. Space distorted, and whiz body crumbled, unable to bear the pressure.
Bang! Bang!
Neptune and the Sun both disintegrated like dust as if they had just exhausted all their energy. The rest of the planets followed suit, crumbling until the lights in the sky started to act like a plague, plunging the whole universe into darkness, only to wait for another big bang.
In the vastness of space, only an echo remained, with the voice of a small lost girl, "Whis, Where are you?". And yet, the answer never came.
…
Under the vast canopy of interstellar gas and stars stood the nine heavens. And with those heavens was a faction called the Jade Maiden Palace, which took in only virgin and beautiful women. Today, all those beauties were gathered in a large square, kneeling with their heads over their shoulder. Such a back-shot position would destroy the Dao hearts of even the sternest of monks.
Sadly, all their faith and devotion seemed to concentrate on the huge statue in the middle . The statue was very odd, as it only showed the back of a man and had no front, as if no one was worthy of beholding the treasure that lay there. Suddenly, the statue flickered with a faint light—a subtle change perceptible only to these devoted observers.
Their faces lit up, the prophesy they all strongly believed was true. Almost as instant, a petite girl leading the worship rose, and her gentle voice spread across the plaza. "My sisters, the sage we have been waiting for has arrived as concubines; we must receive him properly!" Her pleated skirt fluttered in the wind, revealing strong, graceful legs; she was simply a war goddess—fiery but beautiful. With a fierce cry, she soared upward. With one swift, decisive slash, her saber tore through the fabric of space, unveiling the vast, starry expanse beyond. "Let's go get our man!" she bellowed, her command met with a rousing chorus of cheers.
...
"Matriarch, are we not going to tell them the truth?" A middle-aged woman with wrinkles on her face supported an old granny. Even though they looked like mundane people, their cultivation bases were enough to move planets off their orbits or squatter them to dust. But when the question rang into the granny's ears, life almost leaked off her fat.
"L-let them be; I should've known better than to include a man in our faith. But the end of the Dao is the union of yin and yang. This was inevitable", the old woman managed to squeeze some words, but even that would have been impossible to catch if the middle-aged woman was not a cultivator and had senses beyond that of bats.
"But, they're a bunch of hungry virgins. If that young man is a mortal, then won't he.." The middle-aged man did not finish her sentence. She had almost veered into depraved speech.
"G-good luck to him"