The World Of The Prophets

"What's wrong?"

"I'm just bracing myself for what's about to happen."

Sighing, Ikky closed his eyes and stepped through the gate. He heard soft crunches as his bare feet touched the grass of the forest, while shifting his leg around to find the remains of his wooden house.

"Ah, there it is. I'll come back to fix you in no ti!— Ah!"

Ikky screamed as he felt something grab his shoulder and lift him into the air.

'Calm down. Calm down. I know what this is. It's a friend. A very dangerous friend that doesn't like to be looked at.' He breathed nervously as he clumsily tried to calmed himself down.

The hands on his shoulders were cold and slender, but human. Rumours say, that it is a guardian spirit that comes to pick up Seers who have just completed their first omen. If one's mind wasn't at the level of certain comprehension, they would just collapse for some reason. Most say, this is because, although this mysterious creature was a guardian, it certainly didn't look as beautiful and as ethereal as one — it was putrid like a vile evil spirit.

Ikky beared the mark of myth, meaning, his level of understanding, assimilation and comprehension should be the best of what others at his level could offer.

But there were different kinds of comprehension. Ikky understood that no matter what happens, his eyes should remain shut.

He had just had a run in with a frightening devil, so he should be more resilient, but this one was a different kind of fear.

Fortunately, his ride was really fast. In no time, it soon begun to descend, dropping Ikky down before letting go of him.

Feeling it was safe to open his eyes, Ikky took a deep breath and then his eyelids flickered open.

A question had made it into Equinox's mind repeatedly when he lived in Sumeru. It was one he expected a lot of people to be asking too. But with nothing else to go with, he had attributed the low numbers of Prophets to regular people, as his answer.

But as his eyes gazed upon the magnificent landscape he met himself, that question popped up one last time:

'Where did all the Prophets stay?'

From the azure ground with winged whales swimming underground beneath his feet, to the sky littered with flying people, Ikky felt that he had just found his answer.

The edifices were even more beautiful than the ones in Sumeru, their crystalline surfaces glimmering under the twilight sky. Humans were walking around like normal, surrounded by spirits that seemed to man their own food stands and shops. The technology here also looked more compact and more crystal-use efficient; this place was clearly ahead current times.

And the smell! Ikky took a whiff of this heavenly-er place before proceeding to gag in disgust. Looking to the side, he caught sight of a man in dirty clothes, covered with mud. With how tall and built his body was, Ikky guessed him to be around his early thirties.

"Dang beast!" The man suddenly roared. Turning to look at Ikky, he murmured with lost insane eyes,

"Huh? What's this? Another victim? Did that thing rough you up this bad too? How about you say we go get revenge on it. We'll find it's master, and then beat 'em up too. Sounds good?"

Ikky said nothing as he continued to back away while the man kept rambling on about revenge.

'From the looks of it, he's also a Seer. But did he try to fricking fight that thing?!'

"You should see a vet, dawg. I don't like the froth coming out of your mouth."While Ikky continued to evade the approaching man, the both of them suddenly heard a call from afar.

"Hm?" The muddy man turned to the direction of the voice. Seeing her face, his muddy own suddenly brightened up as he ran towards this woman.

Ikky watched as he tried to hug her, but was instead kicked in the balls. It was to be expected, considering how dirty he was. But they both ended up walking in the same direction anyway, leaving Ikky on the same circular platform he was dropped on.

Ikky took an unconscious step forward, wanting to go along with them. But recalling his life before the Realm of augury, he surmised that it was probably a bad idea.

"Damn, what now?" He was even more lost here than in Sumeru and Nocturni. This was a whole new environment.

Sighing, Ikky walked down the crystalline stairs. "Aghh! I'll work it out eventually." Humans were made to adapt.

"You're whole now." Yaga suddenly said as she sat on his rough white hair, with the public oblivious to her existence. "Do you think it would be alright to just go back to the way it was? I don't think you've noticed, but there's no filthy trash dumps around for you to pick dinner from."

"Yo!" Ikky chuckled. "You sound pissed."

"I was just stating the obvious. You're the one who calls the shots anyway. I'll do whatever you're doing." She shrugged as she pet his head, trying to smoothen it.

"I'm not planning on just remaining stagnant anyway. I wasn't stagnated to begin with. Not throughout out those times in Sumeru, and not in Nocturni. But there are limits to how much change a homeless guy can bring to himself even in years, you know?"

Ikky hadn't just been sitting around in the forest, wallowing in his misery by the riverside. He had been going around, looking for trouble, poking heads into where he wasn't supposed to. He had grasped tightly at every single lesson, every single fact, moral and knowledge he had access to. If nothing else, it was even that constant stride and brainstorming his way into surviving to the next day that had gotten him his Mark of limitless potential.

The game hadn't changed at all. Ikky would continue striding to the next dawn. He was bound to hit a growth spurt in life one day, where things would get astronomically better. And who knows, maybe the start of that massive development was here and now?

As soon as his bare feet hit the last stair down the platform, he caught sight of that same muddy man walking up to him. Holding a red garment in his hand, the man held it towards Ikky.

"Hm?" Ikky looked at him with confusion.

"Wrap yourself up kid. Your little Sam is practically out in the open."

"Little Sa— oh! You mean, my big Sammy?~" Ikky flexed his fingers at the man.

Ikky's clothes... Ikky had practically no clothes on. It was just his one legged pants and a barely existent shirt. And if he did decide to open his legs wide, the tool attached to his groin would definitely peek out to say hi.

"What the heck man?!" The man laughed as he slapped his knee. "Like hell though. Take this and wrap it around yourself already."

"Eh?" Ikky looked down at the red scarf and then at the man's face. Was this old man actually being genuine? He looked down at his reflection on the blue marble floor, and like he had thought, his hair was still white, long and he was still a creepy looking boy.

'Ah! This dude must not be from Sumeru. Then, I should probably use this to my advantage in the meantime.'

He took the scarf off the man's hand and wrapped it around his waist to cover his legs.

"Thanks for the skirt, I guess." Ikky thanked him as best as he could.

"Meh, that's not enough for you to owe me a favour." The man said. "By the way, you're a Seer, right? So I guess this entire place must be pretty new to you."

Ikky nodded. "Yeah. Wait, aren't you also new here?"

The man turned around and gestured for Ikky to follow along as he answered. "I am new, but my wife lives here, so I've got it easy."

"Ah, that woman, huh?"

The man nodded to Ikky's guess.

"By the way, what's the deal with this place? Do Seers just get dumped here with no warning or even a note on what to do? That's kinda messed up, don't you think?"

"Well, there's usually another spirit that stands near that platform to guide people to temporary residents, but apparently it's been gone for a while now. Lucky for you, I have both knowledge and a generous heart."

"Sure, old man." Ikky nodded.

The man looked at him with surprise and then an angry expression drew across his face. "Hol up. You think I'm old?" He carried his fists in the air.

Ikky, carried his hands up like a caught criminal. "You aged right, at least. Since I'm thirty-five years old, you must be like, seventy or something, yet you still look young."

The muddy man grinned. "Damn right."

Ikky sighed. 'Touchy!'

After a moment of walking in silence, Ikky asked,

"Umm, can I ask you a few questions while we walk to..."

"My wife's place."

"Yeah, there. Can I?"

The man shrugged. "Sure. I can talk. What do you want to know? About the currency? Rampant spirits? Strange technology?"

Ikky would like to know all of those. But first of all,

He looked behind them at a monolithic skeleton in the distance with its head nearing the clouds. Their were many weird spirits around, but the strangest thing about this one was that, although it sat silently with the sun in the browning sky behind it, it wasn't even casting a shadow like the rest. It was like it was there, but again not. Rather than a spirit, it resembled a ghost.

"Oh that." The muddy man also turned around as he answered,

"... That's an evil spirit. A hungry one at that."

Hearing his words as Ikky looked again at the size of that monster, Ikky gave him a flabbergasted look.

"Excuse me?"