The marble...

Lutini bounced down from the tray and crawled through the door gap like a puddle of water.

The door to Mitch's office was in plain sight; just a few meters away. Like a chameleon, Lutini camouflaged professionally against the floorings and walls, professionally avoiding the workers. With its stealth and camouflage ability, it had successfully reached the door. As Lutini slide beneath the door, an excruciating pain strained through its body. Lutini toughened it out and squeezed through the gap with a small "pop" and left behind a tiny blue marble like egg behind.

Lutini thought it was just a bad case of stomachache and was glad that it ended with a fart. Unbeknownst to Lutini, it had actually given birth to an egg.

Lutini sneaked across the room and up onto the file cabinets with intense focus and a relieved womb. It spread its body, covering the whole cabinet and scoured through the list of information by transforming one side of his body into small tentacles with tiny eyes, memorising every minute details of the documents while not forgetting to camouflage itself.

As the tentacles brushed through the cabinet, the eyes of a tentacle was drawn to a red and amber marble tucked snugly in the corner of a drawer. The marble glowed intermittently, bringing Lutini's tentacle to a hypnotic state. Like moth to fire, the tentacle slowly reached out to it.

The intensely focused Lutini suddenly froze! Its consciousness was captured and dove into the memory orb. The eyes on the tentacles became clouded with projected imageries when the memory orb established a link with the entity.

Absorbed and immersed, Lutini felt and breath the same air as the actors in the simulation.

The title "History of Nibiru- year of apocalypse" flashed in Lutini's mind.

Lutini observed its surrounding, like an audience trapped in an immersive cinema. The landscape spread out beyond Lutini. Nubiru looked vaguely familiar, similar to that of middle earth except machineries and tall high rise buildings and floating castles fill the vast land. There were animals but no monsters unlike the present world. It was a world of machines and magic, where manna was extracted and commonly used. Children from the age of one were able to wield basic illusion. Everyone was happy and things were peaceful.

The scenery was shortly switched, focusing on an expedition team in a deep cavern. The air was musky and humid, but crystals were abundant. A drop of water dripped from the crystal and lush green grass grew from the ground where the droplet landed. The moment, the water stop dripping, life was sapped from the grass.

The expedition team finally reached the wall of the core. Using earth magic and machineries, the group finally penetrated the shell.

A platinum hair goddess on a deer appeared in front of the group and looked at the little boy in anger. The boy grabbed onto the pants of his dad and hide behind him. Saddened by the betrayal, "You will regret this! Leave! Before misfortune befall!"

"No!" A man from the expedition shouted. "For the sake of humanity, we need this!"

"You fool! You have no idea what will happen once Nibiru's core is exposed to common folks! Any core but Nibiru's!"

"Yes we do!" A girl with a meek voice and ponytail shouted. "I have seen the future, without Nibiru's core, the world will ceased to exist! Signs had been appearing!"

The goddess exploded, "You dare to go against your own god! You heretic, I shall banish you and lock you in the depths of netherworld!" The goddess reared the majestic deer and caused it to stomp in mid air. The air pressure grew dense and reverberated through the space. But the expedition team held fast onto a staff with blue golden crystal ball. The staff protected the team with a magical barrier and reflected the attack back to the deer.

The deer cried in pain, throwing the goddess to the ground. Writhing in pain and dripping in blood, the deer give a loud long grunt before charging towards the expedition team.

"Nooooo!" The goddess screamed.

The man with the child drew a symbol in the air and clenched his fist. The neck of the divine deer was choked by a mysterious force.

"You're an esper!" The goddess gasped in horror, eye twitching in anger and disgust. "You whore! Damn you child, the spawn of the demons. I shouldn't have trusted you."

The small boy in red started to sob, hugging the legs of his dad. A woman in purple hair hugged the child from behind and carried him with one arm, "Don't worry Mitch, you're not the child of a demon. You're our son and we will love you and protect you!"

Lutini was stunned, so the shop-owner and his mum is from another planet!

"Enough talk! The first to die will be you!" The goddess shouted and brandished her twin swords. The goddess of humanity danced through the air, striking the barrier created by the sacred artefact. The barrier stood sturdily against the barrage of physical and spiritual attacks and even managed to fend off swords will and swords intent. However, the barrier was not able to ward off the twin swords offensive aura and the goddess' aura, causing status ailments to them. Their manna supply immediately decreased by half, with each passing moment, the magic wielders felt weaker and weaker. The shrine maiden was the first to feel the effect, followed by the family of three, the summoner, the healer and alchemist. The swordsman and phantom were not affected.

"The deer blood... " the witch said breathlessly. Her husband used his psychic powers and drained the blood from the deer and brought it into the barrier.

"You think that will help!" The goddess cried in mockery.

"Yes it will!" The alchemist splashed the blood of the deer onto the swordsman longsword and phantom's twin dagger. A white flame immediately engulfed both weapons. The summoner summoned dragon breath and phoenix fire to temper the swords and daggers. The weapons immediately reacted and a crisp metallic echoed through the air and immediately give out a suppressing aura. The weapons had both materialised into sword spirit and twin dagger spirit! The witch immediately threw a charm and a tarot card in the air - "Break!"

The aura broke and all the damage accumulated by the shield was absorbed by the card. The charm disintegrated and blessed the group with restored manna and increase their stats exponentially.

The esper tried to slam the card against the forehead of the goddess, but she manage to stop the card in time with a glare.

"Bind!" The witch shouted. Chains flew out of the card and bound the goddess and started to drag her into the card. The chains' core, held steady against the struggling goddess, while the outer layer started to break. Electrical attack travelled along the chains and electrocuted the goddess.

"You're making a mistake! You're making a grave mistake!" The goddess struggled despite the electric attacks.

A black lightning struck the goddess out of nowhere and burnt the goddess to ashes. All that was left was the twin swords stuck to the ground.

"Why did you do that?" The phantom yelled at the shrine maiden, "Our plan was to capture her, not kill her!"

The shrine maiden innocently replied with watery eyes, "She was going to kill us and the chains looked like they were about to break.."

"There is nothing we can do now, just let her go." The swordsman replied.

"That was the protector of humanity we are talking about here! One of the trump card we can use if things go awry!"

"She's still alive... Just that she is no longer a god." The witch said.

"Yes, I can feel her aura in the twin swords. If we are able to turn them into divine sword spirit, there will be a chance she will resurrect." The shrine maiden interjected.

The esper sensed his wife's instruction and discreetly transferred the jadeite into its infinity bag.

The esper sent a telepathic message to the phantom to let the matter go, and that they will find a way to bring her back. With that, no one in the group pursued the matter any further.

The shrine maiden ran to the twin swords and plucking them from the ground. Walking with a slight limp towards the swordsman, she thrust the swords into the swordsman's chest, head bowed face flushed.

The swordsman blushed, "Are you sure I can have it?"

The shrine maiden nodded.

The swordsman kept his longsword and brandished the twin swords from their sheaths.

"Shwang Shwang!" The twin blades cut through the air effortlessly as the swordsman swung them in the air.

"Tch" someone said but no one was paying attention to him. The rest of them marvelled at the skilful swordplay, glad that they had enough preparation to clear the hurdle.

"Enough playing." The swordsman cautioned himself wearing a satisfied smile.

The protective layer of the core vibrated, resonating with the swords.

"Try hitting the protective core with the divine twin swords." The witch instructed.

The swordsman obliged. The swordsman dashed and jumped high into the air and dive towards the core; attempting to drill into the core with the swords.

The elastic protective layer could no longer withstand the overbearing pressure of the swords and popped. Dense manna energy begun to furiously devour the space. Sensing imminent danger, the shrine maiden ran towards the energy and prayed. A protective wall formed behind her, preventing the mana from leaking and consuming.

"Dad.. this manna is different." The boy said, pointing at the swordsman.

While the divine twin swords were able to protect the swordsman in the nick of time. A trickle of the manna managed to penetrate the shield. After the swordsman landed before the shrine maiden, the swordsman had difficulty breathing. Veins begun to bulge and his eyes reddened.

The man was mutating under the glare of its companions. It was horrifying, the eyes of the man merge into one, his dark hair slowly became silver as his build became larger and more muscular.

"No.." the phantom gasped. "You have to leave! I will hold onto the barrier!" The shrine maiden yelled, as the barrier behind her flickered.

The rest of the team had to abandon the project due to the danger. The cyclops collapsed onto the floor.

"Don't touch him! We do not know if it is dangerous. Shrine maiden, take care of Rango!" The alchemist yelled.

The shrine maiden nodded with droplets of sweat forming on its face. The witch threw a healing talisman towards Rango, but it useless, the talisman burnt to crisp before even touching his body.

"There's residue on the body..." the witch frowned.

"Run!" The shrine maiden shouted with urgency.

After the exploration team left, the shrine maiden summoned the twin blades, planting the blades on the left wall and right wall. An additional protective membrane formed, stretching from one end to the other.

The shrine maiden opened her third eye and casted several hand signs. She summoned her gold staff, and each time she performed the purification dance, the manna became purer and condensed further. She continued and persevered till all that was left was a gemstone the size of an eyeball. She swapped out the dulled gem from her third eye and implanted the new gem.

The next moment, white flames burst forth, engulfing everything in sight. Even Rango was not spared. The shrine maiden had anointed herself as goddess of Nibiru and now she could control all the mana on the planet at will.

Lutini was shocked and horrified. It wanted to leave the memory orb but it could not.