1 Banished Spark
It was a beautiful, bright summer afternoon. The sky was azure blue, without even sparse white puffs to smear it.
The landscape below was just as incredible. Lush, green forest covered the realm wherever the eye could see. Creatures of odd shapes and sizes ruled their dominion, with no sight of civilization to corrupt this paradisiacal world.
Suddenly, a distorted sound shattered the millennial tranquility. The air began to distort, converging towards a singular point, a tiny, miniature black dot that suddenly appeared without any warning sign.
The black dot greedily sucked in the fresh air, slowly, gradually expanding in size as the seconds kept passing, eventually reaching about the size of an apple.
Like a child that known no control when presented his or her favorite treat, the black dot kept sucking with a power unknown to this primitive-looking world for several long seconds before it finally began to calm down.
A distant rumble, the echo of what seemed like a quake suddenly came from its depth, first faint, but rapidly growing in volume and intensity.
In the next instant, before the primordial creatures of the land below could even react to the discomfort the loud noise caused, an object suddenly escaped from its depths.
Looking like an asteroid, an inanimate object it hurdled towards the lush jungle biome below. As the inertia came to an abrupt stop as the strange object connected with the ground, a violent explosion tore apart the surrounding life, leaving nothing but a large and deep, dead crater behind.
Its purpose seemingly fulfilled, the black apple-sized dot slowly began to lose its shape and size, vanishing into nonexistence in just a few fleeting moments returning the peace and tranquility to the realm, ignorant to the state of the object it expelled.
Traversing through the giant cloud of dust and smoke the meteor-like object's crashing had kicked off, a faint humming sound could be heard. A rhythmic, periodic shockwave of light escaped from its center, its depth covering several miles with each release.
Each pulse scanned the lands around the crater, seemingly in a desperate search for something. Each wave came faster with less and less pause between them as they did their best to find a suitable host, some abundant mass of life.
Yet, the reality was a cruel mistress, each pulse, each request found only meager flora, lush and vibrant but mere plant life nonetheless. No matter the effort that was put in, it couldn't find any signs of evolved life. Flora, and fauna -mostly insects at that-, naught of anything that could serve its purpose.
In the end, the scans were put to a halt, the rhythmic pulses were no longer scanning the surroundings. The energy was deemed to be better kept reserved for the time being, lest all would be wasted with futility.
Meanwhile, the large cloud of dust kept dispersing as a gentle breeze whizzed through the crater, slowly but steadily clearing the haze and finally revealing the source of all the commotion.
At the deepest parts of the crater that was created, trading off all the life that was violently destroyed, a single vermilion-colored crystalline object was hovering just one foot above the ground. The same humming sound could be heard from it, as it rotated in its place, swirling and floating unnaturally in its place.
There was a strange, mystical source of energy radiating from it. An invisible strand of heat, distorting the air itself, leaving naught but a blurry image of the beautiful, but otherworldly mineral.
For some unknown amount of time, there was no change, the crystal didn't seem to react to anything. Meanwhile, the dust settled, leaving the strange mysterious alien object by itself.
Eventually, the tranquil equilibrium returned to this world, the strange events were forgotten. Life was in its very early stages in this world, after all, such strange happenings were beyond its residents' comprehension.
After some time, even the crater and its strange mineral host seemed to lose their importance for the inhabitants of this lush jungle biome. Creaks and distant roars filled the air once again, as the battle for survival resumed once more.
Time passed, whilst the crystal at the center of the crater didn't react to the stimuli of the outside world. Though its energy was limited, it still wasn't in that much of a hurry. It decided to lie in wait, at least for a while, and keep its energy in reserve, only sending out a pulse to scan the changes in its immediate environment every couple of hours.
It refused to believe that there would be no creature with more biomass that would come by.
—
Minutes turned to hours, hours to days as the crystal stubbornly kept on with its course of action, not changing its course at all. Though its tanks kept on declining as time passed, and it was forced to only scan once every quarter of a day, it still refused to believe that it was hurled to such a lifeless rock in the cosmos.
As the darkness replaced the blazing star in the sky, the crystal, or to be more precise, the lingering soul inside the crystal prison was growing more and more desperate. As its reserves were slowly reaching critical levels, it had to come to terms with the fact, that either this region was deserted, or the primitive life forms did not dare to approach for some reason.
In the end, it decided on a desperate last attempt. A last-ditch effort to look for substance, a suitable amount of mass to absorb and use as its foundation. If even this attempt would be proven to be a failure and its last remnants of energy would be used up, it could only enter into stasis for who knows how long.
That was not something the trapped remnant of soul wanted, knowing firsthand how cruel fate could be…
Reduced to such a state, betrayed by his own kin! Anger, wrath, the desire for vengeance fueling him and allowing him to escape in the very last second, it will not give in to the whims of that cruel mistress.
Gathering all of its remaining energy, the crystal suddenly lit up, burning with the fervent desire of all its wants and wishes. The gentle red walls were now glowering with a menacing blood-red luster with a brighter, orange-colored seed appearing at its very center. The faint humming sound it kept emitting distorted, turning several pitches lower, once more alerting the local fauna of its ill-forgotten presence.
Reaching the crescendo of its song the air around it blurred once again, as an impossible amount of energy was gathered to a single point of existence reaching singularity, its point of no return.
In the next instant, all sound in the world seemed to come to a momentary halt. As if time itself listened with great interest, waiting as the crystal's saga entered its last aria.
It didn't need to wait for long, as in the next moment, suddenly all the remaining energy -save for the very last bit for a hopeful last-moment conquest-, was released in the form of a powerful surge of energy. A violent ring sailed the land, the powerful shockwave uprooting several trees and bushes entirely.
Unlike before, this time, the scans reached several dozens of miles searching for a suitable source, a host, or if nothing else, some mass of life to assimilate.
Feeling nothing as the scans progressed, the lonesome prisoner was about to give up hope, when suddenly it was alerted.
Towards the west, at the base of what seemed to be a large, weirdly shaped tree that seemed to have dragon-like scales as bark, his scan located a nest with 4 oversized pale-yellow colored eggs.
Instantly, the crystal trembled, its surface vibrating for only a moment. Losing its original hexagonal ice drop shape and returning to an amorphous blob, it shot towards the direction of its hopeful find.
—
A black, formless, and viscous fluidic substance shot through the air at an unimaginable speed towards the west in the lush primordial jungle biome. Like a high caliber bullet fired from a powerful sniper rifle in the modern ages, it knew no obstruction in its path towards the destination. Whatever it came across, be it some primitive archaic reptilian-looking creature, or any of the flora it was instantly shattered, destroyed, and consequently absorbed everything into the alien, otherworldly fluid's ever-growing mass.
Though the essence it gained from absorbing this amount of flora and fauna was minuscule, at the very least it made this last-ditch effort, free allowing it to barely escape the dreaded hibernation.
In just a few moments, the blob crossed the distance between its original crater and the nest of its last hope. As it arrived, it didn't stop its charge but instead shot towards the closest of the four large, yellowish, dirty-stained eggs.
Its membrane stretched out, reforming its shape similar to a thin drape, and it slowly descended below. The dark, ebony veil of slimy goo engulfed the quartet of reptilian organic zygotes.
Expanding its shape farther and farther, in mere moments the slimy goo, the core essence of the otherworldly crystal swallowed up the entirety of the nest.
Starting up the next phase of the process, the blob used all of its acidic fluids to begin absolving the hardened shells. Slowly, but surely seeping into its depths, assimilating itself with the four small mostly formless reptilian embryos.
There was no mercy in the eternal race of survival; the heartless predatory organism gradually fused the four lifeforms into a singular mass of vibrant life essence. Once the new core of vital seed was formed and began to load in the darkness of the primordial fluids, the blob also began to change shape and began its last push, and initiated the last phase of the process.
Using all of its leftover energy, and every last fiber of its being, it created a thin layer around the formed core.
In what most could have been a minute, the blob completely seeped into the core of the eggs, merging the four life forms as one. Using its own last remnant, leftover energy, it fused together with the formed vital core, altering its DNA, injecting its own sequence into the chain. Minutes passed in silence as the nest was left empty. Slowly, gradually, the dark viscous fluid vanished, leaving behind nothing but a sole egg in place of the previous four.
From its size, shape, and outward appearance, the poor, primitive mother would have no chance in distinguishing it from the old ones, the blob left behind no traces of its presence.
Though from the outside it seemed that all was silent, and peaceful, beneath the hardened shell a chaotic storm was still raging. The very last stages of assimilation were still happening.
The newly created core's surface was still trembling, ripples still distorting its shape. The new seed of life was still evolving, assimilating and processing all the new information.
It was the remnant of a being, once-powerful. In its prime, before the horrid betrayal, it was an overlord of a vast domain. An entity from another world, a ruler of millions of existences.
Yet, all that power, all that arrogance was for naught, for that before it realized the ploy, he was met with the blades of betrayal. Its life was snuffed out by those he trusted the most…
The little spark -now residing inside the depths of the core-, was actually still sentient, albeit barely. It managed to push through and survive through its miraculous willpower. The desire for vengeance, the burning hatred kept the unknown entity alive.
Though through the curse it carried from its previous home, its special immortal existence, -saved and at the saved time-deprived of the eternal slumber-, it survived the trap that his so-called friends and family left for him and was instead somehow banished from its homeworld to this strange, new barbaric realm.
His only hope was that this primitive creature, this… reptilian-looking lifeform, his last hope was truly like he projected: abundant with life. Even if the Spark was unsure of what this creature actually was, and what sort of form, shape it would take, it was good enough for now. He could, after all, use the continuously gathered Enthropic Mass to absolve and assimilate the traits of its prey, and slowly, gradually retake its previous appearance.
He was determined to crawl out from this metaphoric pit he was tossed into. Even though besides his unique existence he had lost all of his skills from his previous life, he still had all of its millennial knowledge, all of its memories.
Being an immortal entity, he could take his time and slowly re-learn everything that was crudely taken from him, and return everything! None shall escape his wrath!
Backstabbing, traitorous filth will once again tremble before the might of the most powerful demon lord: Lord Aziel Vor'thega!
