Creation Online

HAERO'S POV

Growing up was a very nice thing. While normally Mom would have Akasha keep an eye on me, now the security had reduced. I guess it had to do with my improvements and how I could now grow to double my height, size, and weight.

My solar arts were also going well, and while I hadn't found new inspiration on what skill to make, I knew I was close. Shooting off Sol and into the black nothingness that concealed our home wasn't easy. Akasha had once called it a practice in itself.

The nothingness parted around me to let me through but didn't attempt to help me navigate or anything.

It was quite possible to get lost in here. "There you are." One thing I did use as a sort of beacon was the flow of the castle. In an infinitely black expanse, home couldn't be missed.

Yet as I drew closer, something felt wrong. Not in place. Strange. The Lunar Knights, as I personally liked to call them, opened the gate on detecting me. Before, I would have thought it dumb as to why a gate was there when I could just fly through the space above.

Bad mistake.

Flying through the open gate, I came to a stop quickly, the bright golden fire that had rocketed me through reality tapering off. There was no time to admire as my growing muscles flexed and coiled, my skin rolling with my movements.

I didn't mind though this time. I was more interested in the new thing I had noticed. "Nice scenery." Half a mind wanted me to just enter the castle and go to sleep. But remembering that the bed might be crowded with my siblings made me decide to just hang around and check out this scenery.

Home was set in the center of this large chain of mountains. It was larger and taller than even the mountains I had spied in the golden space below me. My feet were already carrying me closer and closer. Past Home and the Lunar Knights. Past the fields and the last portion of the Lunar Castle territory.

The moment I stepped past it, I knew this place was far more than a backdrop. I could just feel it. Sense it. Clashing against mine. An intent, abstract, a pure will so formidable it was unlike anything I'd known. It was barely stifling, yet I could sense the grandeur within it.

"What the..." A roar shook the mountains. A huge wave of wind rushed in my direction from a passage in the mountains that I had not noticed. I took another step forward and the pressure grew. Like a weight on my shoulders, it pushed me to my knees.

"Enough!" I roared in annoyance at the daring act to push me to my knees. I struggled and fought, pushing against the pressure. But I didn't just rise. My body, weight, height, size, and form grew. From 5ft to 10 then 12ft and finally, the growth paused.

A ripple burst from my body with a reddish-gold light that burned the ground and non-existent air with scalding heat.

"BOO!!"

A loud, gravelly voice ripped through the surroundings. It was like the very abstract in the air carried it. It rippled through my bones and pulsed off my skin. I could feel something in the hum of energy resonate with me.

"I'll go out on a limb here and guess." The voice came again. This time low and more gravelly. The sound of rocks rolling down and stones getting crushed followed the sound.

"The One Struck by the Multiverse." Something huge and very not rock-like shifted to my left.

"The one who was born to Rule." A hoarse laugh. I turned slowly to my left, my abstract slowly and surely spreading out to find this thing. A lot of thoughts filled my mind. 'Did Mother know of this? She has to know, she knows all things. So if she did know, then what was this?'

"Who are you?" It was best to ask rather than speculate. I tightened my fists. Something scraped off the floor behind me. Turning my head sharply, I spotted it before it vanished behind a large rock.

'A tail?!'

"What are you?!"

BOOM!!!

A loud rupture blasted in the air. Wind and dust buffeted me. So powerful it would have blown a lesser giant off their feet. 'I'm no lesser giant'.

The wind stopped as something shook the ground I stood on. The shaking must have been done by something creating an impact as a shockwave blew all the dust away.

****

THIRD PERSON POV

It looked like a world. At least it had the shape of one. Yet, it shone white like a faraway moon. From it rose pillars of light, five of them shooting out far into the distance in different directions forming a weird star.

Each light had a different color. One a blazing scarlet red. The other was a deep blue, another was as golden as divinity, one violet, and the other a deep purple.

Each color was as tenebrous as the other. A chill that froze hearts and weighed down wills emanating from it.

Within this, this lookalike world was a city of white. Or it was the environment that made it white. From the walls to the ground. Everything was white. Beyond the city, a world of white stretched. Like a plain bleached off all its colors.

Various dilapidated and torn-down ruins sat around this massive city. A huge wall that towered up several feet into the sky if there was a sky.

A little oddity stood out in this city, the world of white. In the center at a position of the city where a huge torn-down castle once stood. A place that was certainly important or regal to the white city sat a huge stone. Atop this stone platform which was cut from an unknown material, a diagram of a female slowly got etched.

The diagram took its time displaying and drawing out all the features in the said being. Then like whatever was making the drawing felt like the diagram was lacking, it went ablaze. A storm of colorful fire raging only in the depiction.

The picture moved. The diagram melted down like lava even as the fire continued. It flowed off the platform and down to the white floor in a red glow as the fire burned even while surprisingly leaving the stone unharmed.

The puddle accumulated before sizzling like metal soaked in water. Then it rose, first a hand then two before a head, torso, and finally, an entire body were forged out of the smoldering liquid of the stone.

A scream pierced the night as Hildelith opened her eyes. To her, it had been a few minutes or so. But in reality, everything had happened in less than two seconds.

There had been no pain just an instinctive fear of the fire.

Hilde panted and cursed mentally while on her knees, taking in more air than needed.

"This game will be the death of me," she acquiesced, her eyes still locked on the white ground.

"Who even sets a person on fire in a game to... to bring them somewhere?"

Hildelith stayed put, letting the tremble in her legs subside for a minute.

"I keep saying I'm gonna kill the devs. While it feels like complaining, this... this crosses the line." She grumbled while looking herself over. No scorch, not a singe, and no smoke.

She looked at her palm to see that the eye had changed shape. Now it was upside down, with it trying to get out the lower lid instead.

"Goddamned Eye."

Hilde rested from her mental fright for a moment before standing and evaluating her location.

Nothing came to mind. The white ruins, grounds, and far-off walls were as unfamiliar as anything. The system strangely too was silent.

"Now what?"

The place was empty. It was already obvious from the deafening silence ringing in the air, but after a thorough search, she realized just how empty it was.

"Abandoned, destroyed."

These two words were best for the place. There was nothing but ruins. Nothing.

Apart from the stone platform with an image of her on it, there was nothing. Funnily, the game system was the one to respond when she used her intent on it.

[MONOLITH OF PASSAGE]

[MARKED BY CREATOR HILDELITH]

That was all she got from it. No information flowed into her mind, no words or lores from the system. Just silence and a white world.

This was getting annoying fast.

She dashed around the city again. Her speed helped her to complete the journey faster than intended. Arriving back at the stone standing in the center, she could only glare with frustration.

There was nothing here.

She popped open her status panel physically, too annoyed to think. Her stats on display were in, but a few things were different. Akasha, for one, was labeled as one hundred; whatever that meant. There was also a new meter that wasn't there before.

The meter showed 100%, and that was all. Leaving the panel, she brought up the time to see that a new time had been added to the original three. The first was real-life time. The second was her universe time. The third was a new addition after Vaustaris' birth showing a time dilation of 1 to 10. Finally, there was the new time located at the very top of the time group. It was nearly all zeros.

[00:00:30:56]

[Flow - 2, Cycle - 0]

[9:10 PM]

Minus the seconds and minutes counting up.

"I've been here for thirty minutes. What is here and what am I supposed to do here?" The lack of any answer bugged her so much.

"I'll just check outside then." If there was nothing within the city, then maybe searching outside would prove fruitful. Hopefully, this world or wherever I was had a bloody lore.

"So much for creating your tale," she mumbled, marching for the city gates that she had passed during her run.

Her gown swaying in the nonexistent wind and her hair hanging behind her gave her the look of a lost damsel in an apocalyptic white world.

"The gate."

It was gone. The jagged edges of the pillars that once held the massive defense against outside threats were not there. Torn from its hinges by something, something powerful enough to crumple a thick metallic-looking construct into something like what she was seeing.

Her eyes found the ball of material that was once a gate. Standing out as the only black thing in a world of white. It made the stones around her look like copper compared to its iron.

Was the black color why it was torn off, why this city was so savaged by ruins?

It was the only reason she could come up with. The gate lying there like a folded tin can was enough reason for the golden lights of the game system to appear, weaving unto her the gear that kept her safe during the onslaught of the Unknown.

In her hand, gripped tightly was the Bane of Heroes. After all, its description made it more fitting and far better for whatever had done that to such a massive gate.

Hilde exhaled then trudged forth into the white grass that overgrew around the city. Her goal was the forest that stood silently and haunting. Its dark spaces calling to her. Begging for her to find its secrets.

Hilde answered the call. Bow in hand and void chaos dagger in the other fang pointed down, she trudged cautiously into the wild.

[00:02:09:45]

Hilde was impatient now. Frustrated even. Maybe angered.

The girl stomped a white tree harshly, cracking its bark and causing a loud din.

Definitely angered.

Her eyes locked on the crack as she glared. At this point, Hildelith was calling it quits and just leaving this place. Maybe it required more players around for something to happen. Maybe an unfinished server that she got mistakenly dropped in. She'd surely be sending in a bug report.

She was already so deep in the forest that the only way out was via the raised clumps of rocks that pointed back in the direction she had come from.

Staring at the equally white leaves of the trees, she grumbled. She didn't think she'd hate white this much now. Even the white walls of the hospital didn't annoy her this greatly.

Shaking her head, she turned to leave. The moment her body turned, she froze, her eyes locking on something right in front of her. So close her breath could touch it.

Hildelith almost immediately stopped breathing. Or more like it stopped her from breathing since its stench was unheavenly. This something wasn't there before. She was sure since she just basically took a step back and turned. Hildelith felt apprehension, then a nagging feeling to run.

Curiosity won out, though.

She noted she was looking at a torso. A very white, very lean torso. She could make out the shape of bones and an unfamiliar skeletal structure hidden beneath the white skin.

Slowly her eyes trailed up the thing. Hitching as she found the torso unending even after her height. Finally, the torso stopped and there was a thin long neck holding a head.

It was eyeless skin where eyes should have been, but that did nothing to erase the horror of such a maw. Hildelith felt her heart palpitating.

A void wolf was one thing, an Unknown was another, at least it was close enough to dogs and even the dragon was a dragon. This thing was not normal for fantasy stories.

Some dev took the fantasy out of the game description and replaced it with horror.

She stumbled back, her foot crunching onto the ground behind her. The thing's head snapped in her direction. Its widely stretched Cheshire-like maw extending from where its horn-shaped ears were on both sides of its head with various varying fangs of different lengths parted a bit as a rattling sound left was uttered. A salivary liquid that was milky-like in color dropped from its mouth.

Hildelith barely hesitated to snap around with a speed born from the adrenaline of survival. With a sharp backward jump, she created space between her and the thing. Like a blur of colors, she dashed farther into the forest. Hildelith ran as fast as all the points of her mobility stat would let. Her leg muscles acting like springs to push her much further. But it was not enough.

A wail like a deranged bush beast came from behind her. It sent shivers through the girl's body. Instant dread bloomed in her chest. It was at that moment that Hildelith realized one important system fact that she would come to hate if she didn't already hate it.

The game system only chose to share what it wanted to.

Sometimes it gave information late. Just like now or if one managed to analyze things. Which was something that never crossed Hildelith's mind. Unless your intent covered the entirety of what you wished to study then it would never register. Something she had done and could do for a world as large as the one she was in.

Sometimes intent and will worked with a full embrace of one's abstract around a particular matter. Meaning that if her abstract was unable to envelop the world she stood on then she would get nothing. It was how she was able to get quest information on the lost worlds.

This time though she didn't and hadn't thought of it. Which was why she'd landed in this situation. Fortunately, the system deemed this encounter enough to say something.

There was no writing from the game system this time. No information was sent into her head. Just words. Spoken into her mind in the eager voice of a female, almost like the game system wanted her to know how exciting this was for it. It truly mocked the severity of the occurring event.

[WELCOME TO THE CENTER OF WORLDS

You are being hunted

Kill or be killed

Only one shall stand]