Prologue: The Beginning

(This prologue doesn't completely layout the writing style for the story. But if you enjoy the writing or story so far, you can leave it in the comments. Cheers).

A bright crescent shone on an opaque and deathly still ocean. There were no stars in this night sky, only the bright moon.

Suddenly, a small, colourless orb comes into existence, giving this monochrome world a dim purple glow as it hovers over the water.

The spherical body gradually gained consciousness, with its first thought processing in its mind.

'What is... this?'

The water below began to form a spiralling funnel up to the orb, sending ripples throughout this colourless body of water, almost as if it was attempting to answer the sphere's question.

The liquid quickly enveloped the ball before solidifying around it, forming a chiselled, masculine, and humanoid torso. Then, for a moment, the liquid settles.

After a moment, more limbs form at a phenomenal rate; pairs of muscular arms and legs. Then came the head - an expressionless, indescribable flawless structure, with purple, bright eyes in the sockets, shaping up as a finishing touch.

He glances at his still-forming arms and hands. Then, down to his legs, which were nearing the end of their formation.

'What am I?' He asked inwardly.

It was an unfathomable sight. Several tendrils of water emerged, then would wrap around the previous layer. It was a process that was elegant to the point that it seemed as if a master sculptor were forming him.

'And... What is… This?' he pondered again as he looked past his legs and peered around the empty ocean below.

"The Realm of Fate," answered a slumberous, quiet voice inside his head.

The newly-formed figure then flew down to the water that formed him. Interested in the reflective surface, he found himself reaching towards the water with his hand, jumping back in reflex when the water rippled at his touch.

'Interesting.'

He watched the undulating water slowly flatten.

Then, before the water came to the same forever standstill as before, a blotch of its surface illuminated a faint blue.

Seeing this, the being floated over, intrigued. He discovers the source of the baby blue glow - a footprint. He touched the fading bright prints and then watched as several more illuminated.

"Follow the tracks," instructed the voice in his head with a whisper.

He began to follow the tracks as he continued the same process without hesitation.

…

Eventually, he came to a place where medieval buildings towered over him everywhere.

As he ventured around this city, he found that the footprints illuminated spontaneously without the need of his touch.

Everything, from buildings to fruits to insects, was outlined with sky blue lines, defining and adding depth to this empty world. Without the illuminant lines, only the moon's reflection would be the light of this void realm.

A thought popped inside his head, and he labelled the blue lines as 'mana flow.'

These creatures that he came across were a bit... Odd; they would only retain their form when you get close enough and leave foot trails that lasted for very long durations. But, if not for the distinct mana flowing through them, they were nearly transparent.

The former-orb, now-humanoid, even attempted to touch a ghost-like male similar to himself, only for his arm to pass right through to the other side.

- The encounter -

A crowded marketplace, with energy lingering in the air. Warm lit lanterns spread generously around the market, lighting the selection of fruits and vegetables, to weaponry and everyday items.

A plump middle-aged man shivered as he felt something cold brush against his back.

"Brrrr! What the heck! Is someone speaking ill of my name?? Supposedly, I'm getting chills because of it?!" the man shouted.

Shocked to see that no one was close enough to him or had any signs of any attempt, the man's eyes grew larger from the realization, "GUSTAV!" then stomped off.

Back in the Realm of Fate, the humanoid only saw the creature turn and run off sourly.

'Possibly… Could this be a curse? Could… I… Be the curse to this world?' he thought as he stared at his palm; he floated away, rewinding this thought.

---

This ancient being dwelled in this world for years without any knowledge, if not a conception of the time passing, wandering mindlessly through this intriguing world of his – a great fantasy. His Fantasy.

Unknown years became decades, then centuries.

The world he traversed was made of different terrains that came in many different forms of surfs of water. Mountains appeared as massive tsunamis that had raging currents yet remained unmoved. Uncommon appearances such as stone town or city buildings appeared as oversized, protruding water blocks with tranquil blue outlines.

Water streams in forests interested the man the most; they were covered in distinct lines of flowing mana, producing highly detailed works of art – almost as if a master artist, in super-fine detail, drew illuminated lines on a black piece of paper.

---

He had also "met" many different kinds of species of unalike "creatures" during his travels. Creatures ranging from Scaled Dragons to Barbaric Humans(Vikings) to Dwarfs and Elves, etc. all of them being experts in their own types of magic or combats.

He watched all kinds of beings and civilizations with their erupting conflicts, from nations waging war over small personal affairs, to countries being overthrown or conquered and enslaved.

The innocent emotions he once enjoyed slowly deteriorated as he saw more conflicts front-hand due to the fickleness of the mortal heart. Of course, he still enjoyed watching these creatures, but the feeling wasn't the same as when he was first born into this unknown realm of void with curiosity blooming around every corner.

Soon, the man found himself beginning to enjoy watching the combats/conflicts that appeared, not as much as watching the peaceful lives of some, but the thrill was still there.

Early through his journey, he brought himself to gain the ability to hear what the creatures were saying; later being able to read different languages and understand them; to an extent where he was almost fluent in most of the languages he was exposed to during his travels. However, he never learned to speak.

---

Sometime during his travels, the man heard talk from different species about armies growing and of a prophesied Ragnarok. He ignored this and took it as a tyrannic influence since no spoken conflict occurred for the next decade. After all, with the history of the mortal world written before him, such occurrences were relatively commonplace.

…

At the moment, the man was sitting on a rock made of water, watching a beautiful stream flow. Leaves of blue falling off trees canopies overhead, falling hypnotically around him, fading into the black water. A beautiful scene that calmed his mind and let him rest peacefully, but was only found every few years.

Then suddenly, battle-ready creatures of different races passed his rock, leaving footprints all around him, all heading in the same direction.

He got up and went to investigate, flying along the river quickly.

He was curious… What was about to happen?

He came out of the forest of blue lines and found himself at a clearing.

Large ripples began to form in the water ground below him.

'What is going on?'

The ripples began to increase the height they undulated. He pondered, quickly concluding, 'A disturbance in the flow of mana in the area. It must be very strong.'

As if he was the one who enchanted the land, large amounts of mana began to come together and formed large boulders(large balls of glowing liquid in the humanoid's eye.), then launched towards the distant regions of pooling mana. Each impact made the world of water rumble, making small waves of liquid ripple chaotically.

'Could this be the war they were talking about back then?'

More creatures ran past him in full armour, then quickly vanishing as they got farther from him.

The man tapped the liquid, revealing dozens of different sets of footprints. But, unfortunately, the "naturally" occurring ripples around him disrupted the small waves he was creating, making the number of impressions seen limited.

Angrily, he punched the water.

The water grappled onto his fist and pulled him into the great sea. He surfaced with ease but was paralyzed with shock with what he was seeing.

He saw everything, not quite his usual everything.

Everything.

It was in the usual black and blue contrast, but the familiar haze concealing the brightness of the lights was removed. Instead, he saw millions of soldiers of different peoples fighting with swords, wands, to bare fists, spanning several kilometres.

Never has he seen a scene so clear.

The landscape was a wasteland. It was filled with glowing, mana-rich bodies on the ground, slowly allowing their mana to seep into the world until they disappeared from his vision.

Everything was utter chaos. There was so much mayhem happening, yet, oddly enough, he couldn't hear anything. The creatures were yelling and screaming, but no voice was heard.

Then the humanoid felt himself fall backwards, back into the water.

---

The man regained consciousness moments later, finding himself strolling around a crater when he heard the same slumberous voice he hadn't heard in hundreds of years.

"Follow the crater towards its center."

The man assumed that 'hole' referred to the crater he was circling out of boredom.

He flew down along the crater's near-vertical walls, reaching the bottom in a short period. Looking around, he saw a surprisingly bright blue splotch on the ground of opaque water.

The humanoid flew over to the light, reminding him of when he was first born and discovering his first set of footprints.

The man found that it was a great depression that traversed farther down into the ground. Judging by the amount of blue light he saw, he could only assume that the mana potency in the spot was miraculous. After a quick visualization of what might be below, he jumped in, impatience and curiosity overwhelming him in the end.

...

He flew farther and farther down the hole, with the potency of mana increasing every few dozen meters he flew. It seemed to not have an end.

Then it hit him, his first experience of an opposing force. It felt like gravity, something which he had not experienced before.

He started feeling like he was falling instead of flying, unused to the pressure pushing down on him.

"You're too slow..." the voice in his head with a tinge of annoyance said. The voice suddenly became louder, as if the one who spoke it were sitting in front of him.

The man looked around, confused by the raised volume in the voice inside his head, 'Wha-'

Then everything went black.

He looked around confused, used to seeing the moon in the starless sky and the illuminated blue outlines.

Then, his vision was restored, and he found himself inside a sand brown, dusty court made of cobble. Through being in several before, the man knew that this was a king's chamber.

The thing that took him by surprise wasn't the sheer size of this chamber - although it was by far the largest he had ever seen before by hundreds of times(if not thousands) -instead, it was the colour of that he was seeing which surprised him.

The room was evenly lit by large steel-cage torches that emitted a warm orange that lined both sides of the massive room. The man's eyes followed the torches and focused on a... Massive throne. The throne stood high enough that the darkness at the unknown top was untouched by the light.

"Welcome..." said a familiar voice that reverberated through the endless halls of this assumed castle, "I've been longing for this moment for half a millennia."

The man who was still getting used to the gravity looked around then cocked his head at the empty throne, confused.

"Ah yes... You've probably learned many languages, even ones which have long since been lost to the sands of time, but never learned how to speak them..." loudly whispered the voice. Then the voice instructs, "try to push the air - oxygen - through your throat, imitating the mouth movements of those long gone in the real world."

"Wa... What... What is my purpose?" choked up the man, attempting speech with some struggle.

The mystery voice chuckled, "You learn to speak. Then, You meet the first person that can listen to you. And this... this is your first question, if not words?"

A small gust blows dust at the confused man, causing him to sneeze. Then, when he squinted his eyes, the chambers began to warp and fade – as if he was being pulled away.

The voice grew quieter but more precise. "That is not for me to decide. You. My prized creation... Shall make that decision on your own in this one delicate world."

The chambers became the usual black and blue world. The throne and pillars were distinguished from the cobble wall but quickly faded to black. The man could only watch as a giant robed figure appeared on the throne until wherever he was in total darkness.

Nothing happened for a few seconds that felt like hours, then... A voice that was through mid-sentence. He focused on the voice that was very clear, yet sounded a bit distant. The tone of the voice was that of a middle-aged man; deep and sincere, "-through bounds of this cruel, distant world, consume my fallen brethren and rivalled enemies and create anew… A new peace… A new disease to our world."

Finally, after the last word, a door of light came into existence and opened. And the humanoid walked through the door without hesitation.