Alone In The Dead World

A huge grey world spread out as far as anyone could see. The sky was dark, covered in black clouds which forbid the sun's rays from touching the ground.

The grey sand akin to ash was flung upwards by the unnatural winds that ravaged the land. There was no soil, no water, no plants and no animals. No matter where one went they would only find sand and silence.

In this dead world stood a great tower. It was metal in color, and filled with cracks and holes of various sizes. Surrounding the tower is a giant wall, now almost completely destroyed.

The ground around it is littered with rusty weapons and armor, big craters several meters in diameter and a huge amount of skeletons. These skeletons belonged to various races, as there were a multitude of those that were even bigger than houses.

Next to the skeletons were numerous destroyed stone and metal-like creatures, their parts thrown everywhere.

Although the world around the tower was silent, the inside of the tower was anything but. The tower didn't only spread upwards, it also spread underground.

The inside of the tower was filled with magic arrays and magic lines, which shined red like blood and gave off a feeling as if they were a beating heart. The further one went, the more clearly they would hear the sound of a pickaxe hitting and breaking stones.

Deep underground, a colossal mine of unimaginable proportions spread out. Inside, hundreds upon hundreds of golems tirelessly mined the surrounding rock, searching for ores.

If they found metal or gold ores, they would throw them away like garbage. The only ore that was ever mined from these tunnels was a blue shiny mineral.

This mineral would be mined until its last piece, then put into mine carts and moved using magic arrays that pushed the carts forward. Their destination was a huge cauldron, situated in one of the tower's underground rooms.

Once the carts arrived to the cauldron they would automatically throw out their cargo inside the cauldron, where the ore would then be completely disintegrated by an invisible force.

What's leftover is blue energy that the mineral released. This blue energy would then be sucked up by the special set of magic circles above the cauldron, and the magic circles would transfer the energy to the red lines that stretched all the way to the top of the tower.

At the top of the tower stands a single room. It's empty, apart from a wide magic circle in the middle of the room. This magic circle was filled with complicated lines and many smaller magic circles intertwined together.

The blue energy that was lead here by the red lines poured into the circle, which made it shine brighter over time. Now, the magic circle did something new.

Once the newest batch of energy was lead into the circle, it released a powerful red shine alongside small particles that began surrounding the circle like small moons.

Suddenly, with the sound of footsteps, the door burst open, and an elderly man in a mage robe entered the room. He hurried to the magic circle and carefully inspected it. After about a minute, he let out a menacing laugh. "Finally, it finally succeeded!" He yelled out in happiness. "My work didn't go in vain."

After saying that, he immediately began running downstairs and soon returned with five crystal clear balls and a bowl filled with red powder. He then used the red powder to make an arm of the star.

At the end of each of the arm he placed one crystal ball. Soon enough, the result was a red shining pentagon. The crystal balls now also shone, and emitted a different kind of light.

The red light gave off a repulsive feeling, while the new white light gave off a holy feeling, as if the crystal balls were holy objects.

The elderly man couldn't help but shake in excitement and happiness. "And now the hard part is finished. Now, onto the easy part."

He took off his mage robe, and used more red powder to draw strange symbols on his body. Then, he slowly stepped into the magic circle. He sat in the middle of the circle in a meditating position.

Calming his excited heart, he began murmuring weird words while making different hand gestures. The red symbols on the elderly man's body began shining red. An evil smile appeared on his facewhile issuing a command.

"I command thee, as the Sovereign of magic, gather now in my body!" On his command, the energy collected inside the big magic circle on the floor fused with the white energy emitted from the crystal balls and began violently seeping into his body.

The energy now began flowing into his soul, greatly nourishing and enhancing it. His soul, which was before light blue, now began slowly changing color into a golden one.

[Wonderful, it's just as the book described, the ascension is near! Now, my soul will leave this vessel and ascend to a higher plane of existence!] The process continued and the man felt himself growing in strength and power.

Soon, a suction force slowly began pulling at his now golden soul upwards, out of his body and up into the sky.

But something unexpected happened. The energy that was supposed to flow into the elderly man's body was now clashing amongst itself, twisting the surrounding reality. The man was also pulled into this distortion.

[What's happening? This is not described in the book. What went wrong!] The old man was now greatly alarmed.

He tried to stop it, but was unable to. This caused him a great degree of fear, not for his life, but for the potential loss of his energy that he spent hundreds of years collecting.

But no matter how he tried, it was pointless. The ritual could not be stopped, and this distortion now began affecting his body.

His limbs contorted, the skin cracked and fresh blood began pouring out like a small fountain. The bones began cracking due to pressure, and as pressure began growing his bones began breaking.

The elderly man realized it was over. Even if he stopped the ritual now, his body was beyond repair. He would die in a few minutes anyway, so he simply decided to give up, resigning himself to his unavoidable demise.

[So I failed.. tsk.. after all the things I have done to get here..] with those last words, followed by cracking sounds, darkness washed over the man. Silence ensued.

...….

[Hm? Voices?] He wasn't imagining it. In the void he was in, he began hearing voices. A white flash shined at him for a moment, and he now found himself right in front of the face of a middle aged man. "Ah, he is a beautiful baby boy."

The man looked at him affectionately while holding him in his hands. [What is this? Where am I? Why does this man look familiar?] The elderly man tried to speak but he was overcome with intense fatigue and was now slowly falling asleep.

"Congratulations, Lady Emma." The familiar man said while giving the baby to someone else.

He now felt someone else's delicate hands hold him carefully. [Wait...This lady ….. Impossible!....]

"What a beautiful boy you are. I shall name you Blaze. Blaze Valin. Sleep well, my dear sweet child." An elegant voice of a woman carried a small baby to sleep.