The Protectors of Genesis

The Protectors of Genesis

They say in the beginning there was nothing but an endless eternal sea of darkness. A vast void, empty, barren, and silent.

There was no life, there was no existence, and there was no light.

Then it happened.

A single speck of light tore through the vail of darkness.

Small and frail, the tiny white dot was the only thing that was the first to ever be. At first it seemed insignificant. After all, what was a single dot in endless sea of darkness?

But then it began to grow and grow and grow before finally erupting, casting its light everywhere and causing the darkness to vanish.

And for the first time in all of eternity, there was no darkness, only light. An all-encompassing light that filled the space the darkness once held.

But the light did not last like this for long. Overtime it faded, and as it did, the darkness slowly returned to regain its domain.

The light and darkness clashed with each other, and as they did, they brought forth chaos.

Then after an eternity of clashing, light and darkness mixed to form shadow. Darkness, hollow and black but could contain light within it.

And then, from shadow he emerged, Yaseki Tonju, the one who came after the light.

His breath was the first to break the silence of eternity, and his eyes the first gaze upon shadow, and the light that laid within.

For an era they existed only Yaseki, floating alone in the void of shadow and light. But then Yaseki decided to stretch his hand through the fabric of light and darkness and then began to mold it, give it shape and form.

Then before long, a star ignite. It was sun. The first of Yaseki’s creations.

He watched it flick and burn, and smile formed on his face.

He then stretched his hands once, reached in to the veil of shadow and light, and began to create.

Creating order stars, sun than the sun and putting them to rest on a blanket of shadow. Then he began making entire worlds.

With the first being Haidas. And then created the very first living beings with malleable that shifted and changed depended what they felt within their hearts.

He then watched them, with pride in his heart. The very same pride he felt after he forged the sun.

He watched switch from form to form, first simple but over time they grew more complex and beautiful. In his eyes, they were his most marvelous creations and spent eons watching them grow and develop.

They grew feelings and emotion like love and compassion, and these feeling influence the forms they took, making them even more beautiful in his eyes but then desire came and with it selfishness, envy, hatred, cruelty and…sin.

They forms then shifted to match what laid in their hearts, beauty vanished and what remained was vile and disgusting.

Yaseki look on horror in heart, watching his very one creations grow twisted before his eyes. He watched them ugly vile creature with darkness hearts that harbored only twisted thoughts of hollow passion and dark desires. He watched them become demons.

He then stretched out his hands to the world he created and for a moment contemplated unraveling the threads of shadow and light that made up this words but then, from up above the world he created he saw it.

Birth, the coming to a being not of his creation. Life pure and true uncorrupted and beautiful.

He then put down hand and watched it. To grew and eventually like the rest of his creation became corrupted.

Didn’t know why but after seeing such a sight, the horror he felt in his heart faded and instead of wanting to wipe it away, he put down his hand, letting be as it is.

This world spawned horrors of all like, monstrous abomination no words could ever do justice to describe. Their form matching the corruption and pain in their hearts.

This world has been call many names, hell, the realm of the damn, the abomination of creation but its most common name is Haidas the world of demons.

Yaseki, unsatisfied by the creation of just one world created another. This time, instead of filling the world with beings that whose form shifted and changed with their hearts, he gave them the ability to manipulate the world around them.

Magic as it is call in present day, a power that allowed Yaseki’s creation to, just like him manipulate to the threads of shadow and light that made up the world around them but to a less degree, they were not gods but beings born of threads of shadow and light woven together by Yaseki like the rest of his creation.

Once his creation was down, Yaseki once again stood above the world he just created and just watched.

The beings, much like their creator, used the power given to them to create and give form, shape and life to the world around them. It was beautiful seeing them do as he had done.

Magic was an immensely powerful tool, limitless in its possibilities and with they could almost anything their hearts desired and for a time they did. They created and gave shape to the most beautiful creations to ever come to be, beings that Yaseki could have never contemplated created.

Then they recreated something Yaseki truly could have never formulated in his mind.

Destruction, the undoing of what already was.

Seeing this, Yaseki an ache in his heart. He had never seen something like destruction and could have never contemplated such a thing coming to be and yet it was.

He took his time to watch his creation further. Watching them grow and create. Then, much like the first they became corrupted by desires, wants, and greed. And then war came to be.

Yaseki watched death come alongside destruction. His eyes falling with sadness and once again he raised his hand and contemplated undoing his creation.

But then came peace.

Looking down Yaseki’s eyes widened in shocked to see this creation unlike the previous, not be entirely consumed by their desires and greed were able to put an end to their conflict all on their own.

So Yaseki brought down his hands and decided to just watch on for a little bit longer.

He watched them continue on to create, to grow, to develop, and much to his astonishment change before his very eyes.

Taking forms different from how he created them as over time they learned to alter and change the magic they wielded as they did so to did their forms.

Watching that, the beings he created, change in to something he never intended them to be was shocking and beautiful. An outcome he never foresaw.

The world was Mystika, the realm of magic and near limitless possibilities.

Yaseki then left to create another world.

But this time, instead of creating one being, he created a plethora of being, each one different and distinct from the rest. But he designed his most favorite out of all of them in the image of the very first forms the being of Mystika took all on their own.

Two legs for working.

Two hands for crafting.

A head and a mind that could perceive the world around him.

He then bestowed upon it, the power of speed and ability to traverse the world. Exploring all its corners and everything it had to offer. He wanted them to see the beauty of their world, to appreciate and cherished it as he did as its creator.

They moved fast, faster than any other thing in the world and were capable of pushing themselves to move in faster to point that only thing capable of perceiving them as they ran at full speed was Yaseki as the only being that stood above the motion of time itself.

But the being had one fatal flaw. Its body was far too frail to hold and contain the power they generated as they ran and pushed themselves. Meaning if they were to push themselves too far and run too far their bodies burn off and perish.

This was a flaw Yaseki never intended, a flaw birth by the containment of so much power and boundless potential in a body restricted by a set form. Yaseki seeing this flaw and restriction it placed upon his newly formed creations contemplated about removing it, not wanting to leave such a fatal flaw on his creation but then he saw something the way they lived.

Even with the restriction placed upon them, his creations didn’t seem to mind in fact, it seemed, in a sense, to drive and push them all in a way he’d never thought possible. He watched them move through their world, zooming past the forests and fields, oceans, and mountains. Traveling across vast continents within mere minutes. Not minding the restrictions their bodies placed on them and seemingly made some sort of a game out pushing their bodies to its absolute limit and seeing just how far they could go, to what distance they could cross, and just how fast they push their bodies before reaching their limit.

Seeing them take what originally meant to be a fatal flaw and us it to motivate and drive them, made the made their creator smile down at them as he looked down at them.

But alas…

A tired sigh left Yaseki’s lips. To god with life that reached out to eternity, a blink in time was like an entire century passing and that was all it for yet another one of his creations to fall in to corruption.

He looked down at his creation once more and saw one kneeling before another. Looked at down as being weaker, as being less just because they couldn’t push their bodies to move as fast as them before reaching their limit. He looked at them with pain and sadness in his eyes, for underneath his gaze they were equal and yet now those deemed lesser forced to bow their heads.

Looking at down at them, Yaseki’s smile fade and his eyes fall.

Yet another failure but at the very least, this time things weren’t quite as bloody as his last two attempts at creation.

After this, Yaseki left the world who, due to the immense speed of their people, be called Kinerik.

Yaseki then tried again. This time learning from his past mistakes giving the inhabitants for his world a definite form and repeated the same design he gave to those in Kinerik to the creation that would dominate the entire world but this time made he gave them bodies durable enough to contain the power he would place upon them. And then gave them strength that far surpassed every creature within their world.

He then watched, his eyes seemingly losing their light as he blinked and yet again…

He saw the sight of another one of his creations forced to bow their heads over those they deeded weaker.

…another failure.

Yaseki then, with a heavy sigh left the world called Eretika for the strength of its people.

Then, yet again, with a flick of his wrist he weaved both shadow and light to create another world. This time instead of giving them power of strength, he gave the people of that world power of the mind. To next to those connect with themselves and the world around them through their thoughts, with the hopes that this would bring them all close together and prevent them from falling to corruption just like the other but…

Once again he found himself hovering over the world he created, watching as one of his creation is yet again forced to bend a knee to another one of his creation, his mind penetrated forced open by the one he kneeled on to.

It was the same old tale. A twisted cycle of creation and birth, the corruption and pain.

At that moment the god, the creator of everything that was in the cosmos looked down at all five of his world and wondered to himself.

“Is this all I do. Create and sculpt worlds of such elegance and beauty to watch them fight, fall, and be corrupted”

The god then looked at his hands, that hands that reached to the threads of shadow and light and brought forth from them all that was.

“This truly all I can achieve with my power,”

He asked himself as he casted his gaze far beyond and looked upon all five of his world. Watching the demons suffered and inflict suffering amongst themselves, seeing the mystics build entire nations and then fall in ruins with yet another pointless war. He watched the Kinerikans race amongst them, pushing their bodies to its absolute limit, watching them burn up, their bodies tear themselves, and all to prove that were faster enough not to be trampled.

The same went for the Eretikans, testing their might against one another in a show of strength that usually ended in either one of them bending a knee down in submission or death.

Then was Cognis. The world he had hoped would not fall to trap of corruption, only for them to somehow to find a way to weaponized his originally intended to be used to connect them all.

He looked at each world, each failure to create something truly perfect and eternally beautiful. Contemplating about just wiping them all away and starting anew as he stretched out his hand.

All it would take was a thought and thin thread of shadow and light would unravel completely erasing them all.

That was all it would take, a simple thought but…

He shut his eyes, took a breath and then breathe down his hands.

…he could because, as flawed as they all were, they were still his creations. Forged by him from the cosmic vale of shadow and light, and he couldn’t bring himself to undo them all with his own hands.

So let them be.

Moving to an empty space, Yaseki stared out to the vast void of shadow and light. Yaseki watched just stared endless at the abyss that laid bare before him.

Seeing the empty of the void, he just couldn’t help him.

“One last time,” he spoke silence, with a voice only the bare cosmos around heard.

He then, yet again, for the finally, reached out in to thin threads of light and shadow and began weaving. Seaming together the delicate fabric of reality and birthing another world, filled with creatures of all kinds just like others. And like the others, he replicated the design of the first set form the mystics took for the creation he wanted to dominate over the world. But this time he gave them no power, no strength, speed, or magic. Their forms were set and compared to the many other creature their worlds outwardly, there was nothing truly different or unique from them.

Looking at his brand new creature, Yaseki pondered to himself weirder or not it was truly wise to leave them as they were. So frail, weak, and helpless, vulnerable to the entire world around them. So Yaseki decided to do something he had never done for any of his other creations.

His blessed their world with abundance and made sure their world had everything they would ever need to grow and live.

Then watched. He stared at the world, waiting for it to eventually fall like the other.

He blinked. His eyes then lit up as he saw the world still stood, the people still stood. There was no blood, they was corruption, the people remained, as did their world. Untainted by blood or war, this world stood as the first out of all his creations that did not.

His first success.

He looked down at the world, saw the way the people lived their lives with kind and fairness.

Normally, he would have been satisfied to watching them go about living their lives as he, after creating had never directly or indirectly interacted, intervened or influenced them in way. He simply let them be but this time…

He took in a gentle breath.

…he would by doing something that, to a mere mortal may seem insignificant but for the creator of all that way in the cosmos was a gesture so grand had never done it for any of his other creatures.

“Genesis” he spoke softly but his words echoed through the vale of light and shadow and resonated with the fabric of the cosmos itself.

Naming the world Genesis, for in his eyes it was the first world he created that made him smile as smile that never faltered or failed. Genesis, the pride of Yaseki, and because it was uttered by his mouth, all those who see, all those who live within it, everything within the cosmos itself will know it by name. The name Genesis, the beginning.

…if only that was where this tale end. With Yaseki finally sculpting a jewel that would seemingly never fade but, though it sometime, but eventually Yaseki found himself standing above the world he once consider the gem of his creation with filled with the very same pain as the others.

And Yaseki found himself staring at his creation, with a heart filled with regret.

Book

1

Race

Life and everything there is always in constant motion. Even the stillest of objects, at their very core is constantly moving. The problem is we just tend to want to move fast than everything around us when given the chance.

Kinerik, the world of speed. The simplest of all six worlds. Its people blessed with the power of speed had traversed through their entire world. Lands, mountain, seas, and oceans, their feet had struck and moved through them all.

To them speed, the ability of motion itself, wasn’t just a power. It was a way of life. There was nothing a Kinerikan loved more than the rush of the flowing racing past them, the boom from their feet as pushed themselves further beyond.

It was freedom.

It was liberty.

It was life.

But this power, this gift from the divine, didn’t come without a cost. Their bodies, fixed in form, were far too frail to hold the power they produced while they ran at immense speed.

If they pushed them too far and moved to fast, their bodies would radiate and glow from the excess power and eventually, when they reached their limit would eventually erupt and explode in power, ended them in an instant.

One would think that the risk of ones very life would be enough to persuade anyone to resist the urge of the doing the one thing that may very well end their lives. But the Kinerikan were anything but normal, not in mind or spirit.

They say, even before single child was birth to life in Kinerik, he was running in the land before birth. Speed, motion, movement, was baked in to their soul, and ask a Kinerikan already in motion to stop was akin to asking them to stop breathing.

This, as one can imagine, was major problem from the Kinerikans who just couldn’t bring themselves to stop running.

And so, the most common form of death for them were those brought by themselves as they choose of life over living.

Thankfully, as though by divine intervention, before the entire race had a chance to be snuffed out completely, a solution was found in the Slotula. A massive beast with a hard almost impenetrable shell, feet that shook the ground with simple stump, and beaked mouth capable to crushing skulls.

The Slotula was a savage predator with insatiable hunger for flesh and blood that could be found in almost every continent across the Kinerik. Wherever there was land on Kinerik, it was said a Slotula stumped could felt as shook the earth.

It often lays waiting, hidden in caves, underwater, or in thick bushes for its prey. Usually hiding within its hard shell before ambushing it prey when it drew too close.

The Slotula was an apex predator in Kinerik, there was almost not creature alive that could escape its maw. But, compare to the Kinerikan, they slow, moving no fast than snail pace in their eyes. They would have easily been able to outrun if it wasn’t simple fact that a Slotula had the ability to halt the motion of its prey all thanks to the crystal embedded in their shells.

When the crystal, the motion every living thing within their vicinity halts or slows down in motion allowing them to strike at their prey without them having a chance to run. This ability of theirs served as a counter to the Kinerikans great speed as it stripped them of bare away from their speed, making it the perfect predators for the Kinerikan.

You’d think such a beast would be the undoing for the Kinerikan as it had the ability to negate the one thing that set them apart from every other creature in Kinerik. However this would be far from the truth as the kinerikan eagerly went out of their way to hunt the Slotula.

One my think it mad to challenge the one beast in all the lands that had the power to strip you away of all your power was something akin to madness but to the Kinerikan, it wasn’t madness.

For you see, they discovered that the crystals from the Slotula didn’t just strip them of their power but, when refrained, to created limiters to help them regulate their speed avoid them overloading with too much power when they ran.

And to get a single crystal they had to fight against the massive hard beaked jaws of death itself in the form of the Slotula.

Was it easy?

No

Did many of them lose their lives trying to get their hands on a single crystal?

Yes.

Was retrieving just a single crystal was worth the risk?

To run, unbound were the chains of your limited body, without fear of pushing yourselves too far and burning to ash by your own power.

To be truly free.

Yes, it was worth it at least to the Kinerikans.

So the Kinerikan fought and challenged the Slotula. Not many survived but those that did were hailed and revived amongst other Kinerikan as though that knew what true freedom felt like.

But as time passed, the one indomitable and free spirit and will of the Kinerikan grew weary. Facing the Slotula to attempt to retrieve one of their crystals was a gamble between life and death. And fewer and fewer of those that choose to take that risk never returned alive.

And eventually, it became far too great of a risk to bare.

And as for those that did managed to get one of the crystals, they became so revered that they were treated as nobility and before long they became the dominant and ruling class in of Kinerik. They were seen as superior to the other Kinerik, freer and unbound by any all chains holding them back.

And as time passed, those who managed to retrieve those crystals cemented their hold and power over Kinerikan society. They ran and the others followed. And that how it was for generation after generation. Not matter how many ages passed, even after they passed, their descendants just took over, inheriting their limiters and all the power that came with them.

Leading of the birth of social were those with those with limiters ruled and those without no longer had the freedom to run and must instead follow.

This was how things were for many years until...

…the great war of the six.

The records on how the war began were sparse. All that was known about was that at some time in the far distant past, all six worlds became aware of each other’s existence and then before long a great war broke out.

No one knows for sure what was the spark that ignited the flames of war between all six worlds but most believe was, alike most of all evil, driven by envy and greed.

What happened during the war was not important, at least not from Kinerik. It was what happened after that greatly affected them.

For you see, Genesis, the land of the plentiful, right after the war, in an attempt to usher in a new era of peace between all six worlds decide to extend an olive branch to the other five worlds. To ensure peace between all worlds they began trading with the other worlds.

Though, the people of Genesis were frail and seen as weak by the other five worlds. They made up for their lack of power and strength with their ingenuity. Crafting tools, weapons, and machines unlike anything of the other worlds had ever seen. Their machines could revival the speeds of the Kinerikan, weapons the strength of Eretika, with technology so advanced that to some it resembled the magic of Mystika. And for the people of Cognis was it nearly impossible to be able to comprehend their sharp and quick thoughts.

The race across all six worlds the only world it was said that Genesis had any inclination to be weary off was Haidas, the land of demons.

And after the war, Genesis opened up its vast riches to all six world. Sharing their technology with all five worlds, aiding in the advancement and development of all of them.

Thanks to this the Kinerikan were able to have advancements that far exceeded anything they had prior. And one those advancements were the high tech limiters which no need for the special crystals of the Slotula.

With this new innovation, for the first time since ages past in Kinerik history it could be said all Kinerikan stood and ran under the same sun as equals.

At least that is how things should have been.