Alex was standing in front of the great stone gate on the campus of the local church of the hegemon.
"What is this? And what do I own exactly?" he asked
"You used the core of hegemony. You are the relic core itself in an organic form. The relic core of each category or concept owns all the warped space that has its roots in that concept. For example, this," he points to the stone door.
"The warped space behind that door has its roots in the concept of hegemony. You gain special attributes in that space, and the beast thing of all is you get two chances at life in there." Ketovan said
"What do you mean by two chances?" Alex asked
"You can die 2 times there before you idiotically try again and die this time for real or be a sensible person and return." Renald said, drawing a ritual circle front of the stone door.
"I become immortal?" Alex asked
"For two times. The third time you die, and the core vanishes, never to be seen in the world for many years." Ketovan said, cutting his left thumb and dripping few drops of blood into the ritual circle.
"Follow him," Renald said.
Alex followed Ketovan and did as he did.
"By the will of the hegemon, I seal this warped space to these individuals until they return." Renald said as white threads flowed out of his body and into the ritual circle.
The stone door burst open, not damaged but open until it could be damaged. Inside was a thin layer of purple and gold liquid that nobles here and there.
"Your territory, sire," Renald said, bowing a little.
"Why are you bowing to me?' Alex retorted
"Its tradition, every priest of a church must bow to the relic core user once they provided the user with their service." Ketovan said, stepping into the liquid. Seconds later, he was nowhere to be seen.
Alex trailed off behind Ketovan, an uneasy feeling tugged at his mind seeing his much older and powerful friend bowing to him. Alex entered the portal, or whatever it called, and it surprisingly felt like home.
***************
Pouce Ector Calman Dior was standing on the balcony of his cloud ship his butler conjured. Once he himself reached noble rank, he could conjure a ship similar to this too. Along with him on the ship were two royal rankers, one his sword instructor Divalina Raket and another his butler Rickert Rotswald.
Divalina, or Madam Diva for short, was a user of the core of emerald and is a world-renowned swords woman. She was in the middle tier of the royal rank, but her swords skills were on par with the likes of Berklin Stroma Vest and Micheal Motsari.
His butler, Rickert Rotswald, was a user of a more common version of his core — the core of clouds. He was one of the most famous adventures in his time and was older than the founder of his lineage, who was dead 2000 years ago.
He gripped the railing hard, but the soft clouds applied no return pressure on his hands. His butler appeared behind him.
"Your highness, care to have some tea?" he asked
"No thanks, Rick." Ector was always free with Rickert, calling him Rick. He was his butler from his childhood. He was like an uncle but more dutiful than a regular one.
"Madam diva wants you to meet her this afternoon," the butler said
"a spar or a lesson?" he asked.
"Spar I fear so, your majesty," he answered
Ector let out a sigh.
"Is she is going hard on you, Your Highness?" he asked, his muscles tensing in anger or protection. The entire ship turned black. Thundering and growling.
"No Rick, not at all. In fact, I want her to go hard, show me how weak I am, improve me not by soft methods but harsh truth." Ector said, looking at his arms, which were filled with bruises and cuts.
"Very well, sire," the butler said and eased down. The cloud followed its master and returned to its peaceful state.
***************
Alex opened his eyes and found himself on an island in the middle of a never-ending ocean, the island had no hills or forest it was an open plain. It reminded him of the nation geography's documentary on the open forests of Africa. Ketovan was Infront of him looking around, he was holding his long sword in his hands.
"You brought any weapons?" he asked
"Where are we?" Alex asked, pulling the cutlass Emperor's Will out of his inventory.
"In the warped space." Ketovan said as a transparent light blue sphere surrounded them and lifted both of them into the sky.
"Where is the entrance?' Alex asked, looking down on the island, they were at least 100 feet in air but still could not see the entire island.
"We get randomly teleported when we enter a warped space unless-"
"We are divine rank?" Alex asked
"Yes," Ketovan said.
"Fine. Tell me more about this warped space." Alex said, standing up and dusting his training gear.
"This is a noble ranked warped space. Its real name is 'coffin's verdict.'. It would be helpful if Renald joined us, but he has some important work to do." Ketovan said.
They were now flying past underground caves, ravines, lush plains filled with various types of wild animals – lions with their fur replaced with obsidian, deer with fiery horns, tigers with golden fur and gemstone tusks, elephants with wings as big as the wings of Boeing 747's, so on and so forth.
"What kind of place is this?" Alex wondered in shock.
"a noble rank warped space usually had an area of 4000 sq kilometers. But this is a big one, roughly 10,000 sq kilometers. Now where do we drop?" Ketovan thought, his hands folding.
"Anywhere high or safe." Alex said in a tone less than a voice and more than a whisper.
"Here that place is good," Ketovan pointed out towards a tree, it looked big and strong.
"Exactly down or near the tree?" Alex asked
"Who is talking about landing down the tree? We are going to land in the tree. It hard to see from here, but each of its leaves is at least as big as two storied building and much stronger than cement and bricks." Ketovan said as they approached the tree.
Once they approached it, it its size got clear it was gargantuan. It leaves were pure green, and when seen carefully, Alex saw few animals walking on it. Human sized insects with some kind of elemental powers or a significant evolution. Lava centipedes, steel caterpillars, water butterflies. He could see numerous soulless being over, under and inside the dense canopy the single majestic tree offered.
"What is this thing's height?" Alex asked as Ketovan did a soft landing on one of the highest leaves of the tree.
"Roughly 2000 meters, its shades cover an area of 700 sq kilometers. This tree acts as a dungeon, top leaves host weaker insects, each leaf has one Great insect, which is the Hardest One on that leaf. There are millions of ways we can reach down, but this one I planned is the best route." Ketovan said. His eyes fell on few bugs, and most of them imploded and were just flesh and goo by the time Ketovan looked back towards Alex.
"What did you just do?" Alex asked, looking at the corpses of the insects.
"Kill them." Ketovan said, turning towards a new set of unfortunate bugs.
"How?" Alex asked, his grip on his sword tightening.
"Vision ability." Ketovan said as he led another group of insects to their demise with his stare
Alex was surrounded by insects, Ketovan saw it, did not react, looking at a fresh set of insects, killing them. He killed almost all the insects around them but except the dozen or so insects that surrounded Alex.
"Kill these too!" Alex screamed
"They are just normal rank; you can kill them with ease." Ketovan said, spotting a pair of soldier rank insects and moving towards them with a menacing grin.
Alex was thrown into a situation he felt impossible, insects as big as humans is chilling even as a thought but being surrounded by them is at another level.
The cutlass formed a bound with his hand, silver threads wrapping along his hand and the cutlass handle. A sudden pull occurred on his hand and in swift option he sliced through half of the insects, with another black slash, the rest were dead. The cutlass glowed a little, it was like it spoke to him, asking him permission to feast.
"You want to consume them?" Alex asked the cutlass
It glowed two times.
Probably a yes. He thought.
"Go on," he said, and in an instant silver threads came out of the cutlass and took the insects in whole.
Ketovan returned with two gigantic dead insects. One a caterpillar and another a silkworm, his dress was covered in silk and goo. He shook his body with such intensity that the filth came out of his clothes along with dust. Alex looked at him in shock.
"What? Never heard of law of inertia?" Ketovan asked
"newton's first law?" Alex returned with a question.
"Who is Newton?" Ketovan asked
"Not important. What happened?" Alex said
"Silly bastards had some good teamwork for soldier rank, caught me by surprise and tried to wrap me in silk and goo, probably to preserve for future use. One of My racial abilities awakened, and my sword moved on its own, cutting the silk and these two insects in one go. Where are those that surrounded you?"
"This ate them," Alex said, showing him the cutlass
"That ate them?" Ketovan asked in surprised, but a memory came out and screamed
"No surprise, it ate a divine rank skill and did not shatter. Common, let's loot them. As you own this warped space, your loot will be much better." Ketovan said.
Alex's eyes turned towards the squashed insects, their main, beautiful and useful parts all gone in air.
"How do we loot them exactly?"
***************