Inside Anareth, a world of a size so immense it's beyond our feeble minds, lies a special place called The Deadzone. The Deadzone is a place where nothing can survive, or at least nothing should.
"Ugh…" A young man no more than 20 years of age has somehow ended up in this place. Waking in an unfamiliar place, the young man was confused. "... Where am I?"
But the young man's question was not answered… or was it? "You're in The Deadzone, child." An unfamiliar, mature, almost motherly female voice resounded in his mind. The Young man had not exclaimed in surprise, nor did he put up his guard; he simply answered. "I see…"
The voice, however, did exclaim in surprise. "Oh? Are you not surprised to hear my voice inside your mind?" The young man, still as calm as a lake, answered without hesitation. "I'm the Chosen; if I got surprised at mere telepathy, I wouldn't deserve my position." The voice, clearly amused, simply asked. "Is that so?"
Without even waiting for the young man to answer, the voice gave him a choice. "So is Mr Chosen going to stay here until the end of time, or do you desire my help?"
The voice was clearly teasing him, yet the young man paid it no mind. "It would be your honour to help me." The young man was lucky that the voice was supposedly benevolent and tolerated his arrogance.
The voice chuckled. "Then let this one be granted this honour, child." Not even letting the young man grasp what was said, a figure of a woman appeared, cloaked in all white.
The figure with a wave of a hand summoned a great storm of ####. Once the storm touched the young man, it was sucked inside of him and disappeared."Wha-" Before the young man could say anything, he disappeared, his words vanished with him.
After a while, the figure spoke."Such a cute child, let's hope fate will let his karma stay unyielding as today." After speaking those words, the figure briefly stared at the spot where the young man had disappeared and then left in a flash of blinding light.
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The young man woke up in an unfamiliar meadow surrounded by grass on all sides as far as the eye can see. He does not know how he got here, as he forgot the conversation with the figure in white.
The grass at his feet is not the familiar green but a deep purple, looking toxic to the touch yet actually being very soothing. The dirt, the familiar brown colour, beneath the grass was paradoxically soft yet hard, seemingly changing based on his intent.
He turned his head upwards, gazing at the sky, which, just like the grass, was not how he remembered it being. The sky, a blinding golden yellow, had no sun, no moon and no stars. It looked as if a giant shining barrier was surrounding whatever this place he was at was.
"Hmph, a fitting start for my journey, I suppose." The young man, as arrogant as during his conversation with he figure in white, exclaimed upon seeing the beautiful landscape.
As the young man started looking around and finding nothing that could point his way forward, his eyes, as dark as the abyss, changed, no longer the deep darkness but a vibrant blue; he was seeing the traces of karma of living beings.
Karma is an omnipresent force that all beings carry; some think karma is about morality with good and bad karma, and while that is not wrong, it's also not correct. Karma is a force like no other. Every action creates karma, and in this world, karma created by oneself can be absorbed to bring power, but not everyone can; only a select few with something called the destiny ranking can.
And so, as he looks at the karma around him, he sees the karma created by the ones forsaken by destiny, also referred to as mortals. With the clear path of karma, he can now trace, he has found his path forward.
Along the way, the young man observed the surrounding karma, studying it. The traces of karma were weak, weaker even than his own. Clearly, whoever walked here before was either here a long time ago or in a bad physical state.
'Boring…' thought the young man. If someone is so weak to leave traces that barely exist, no matter the context, then they could not enter his eyes. It was one thing to not leave traces at all and another to leave traces that make you barely seem like a sapient being.
After hours of walking, during which he unexpectedly felt no hunger nor thirst, he finally saw something other than grass. It was a magnificent wall stretching across the horizon in the distance. The wall was grey with black crystals growing on it; it had numerous cracks spread across its length.
On top of the wall, numerous banners resided with great distances between them. He couldn't make out what exactly the banners looked like from the distance. He could, however, tell that they represented certain groups. How could he tell? Because of the tide in front of his eyes, monsters, numerous amounts of them rushing at the wall, which had beings on top of it. Under each banner was a differently coloured army with clear distinctions in the design of their armour.
Most of the beings were clearly not human. Impossible sizes, tails, wings, the beings had many different features with some, however, it was hard to tell from the distance. The young man contemplated getting closer, but ultimately decided to wait. He observed the karma and came to a conclusion: he truly was special, the Chosen even, this was undisputed. The others couldn't see karma, maybe at most slightly feel it, but they couldn't see it. How did he know? Because many had not been able to avoid attacks he could easily see through the karma.
With his view of himself once again affirmed, he grew even prouder in himself. And thus, with a smirk, the young man waited for the battle to end, silently judging the weaklings before him.
Neither the beings of the wall nor the monsters seemed that strong; the young man didn't know the reason. According to the knowledge he gained upon arriving in this world, there are many beings who can absorb karma to strengthen themselves. And yet, here, he is seeing no one who has even touched upon karma.
Even he who has been in this world for barely a few hours is confident in stepping into the Karmic Child realm in just a few days. And yet here on the battlefield, no one is in that very realm.
The Karmic Child realm is the first realm of the Karmic pathway. It is the very foundation of not only the pure power one receives, but also the foundation for the ability seeds of the second realm.
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A few hours later, the beings of the wall seemed to have won the battle with their superior equipment and strategy. Yet the generals of the various factions seemed displeased; they could have had fewer casualties, and yet, because of their incompetent superiors, the Destined Lords, they lost many good soldiers.
Right as the generals were preparing to go down the wall, to the other side that the young man had not seen yet, a white clad guard with a lizard-like appearance similar to one of the generals had arrived and kneeled. "Sirs, I bring news." The generals looked at one another, and the general with a similar appearance spoke. "Stand, soldier, what news is so troubling that you had to interrupt our descent from the wall?" The soldier stood up but did not look the general in the eyes, choosing to gaze at the ground instead. "... A-a human has arrived from beyond the wall." All the generals' eyes widened. "A human? from beyond the wall? Are you certain?" The soldier trembled. "Yes, sir!"
The generals sighed. This was troubling news indeed, a race everyone thought extinct had returned, from beyond the wall no less. "Bring the human to us and make sure the news doesn't spread." The lizard-like general spoke firmly, clearly an experienced veteran who's led many battles. "Yes, sir!" As the soldier ran out, the generals all seemed to adopt a smile.
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The young ma- scratch that, the young human observed the various beings of different races around him. It was clear to him now that there were no humans here. The young man didn't mind, as the soldiers were clearly showing him respect; it was an honour for them to gaze upon him, for he was the Chosen.
As he was basking in the respectful gazes, a soldier ran up to him. "Hm? Who are you to come up to me so brazenly?" The young human clearly didn't like that. "Forgive me, human, I've come bearing a message from the generals." The soldier didn't like being so respectful to someone not of his own race, but had to swallow his pride, for the one in front of him was a human, a race that has destiny ranking right at birth and therefore always ends up with some degree of progression on the Karmic pathway.
'Generals?' The young human thought. According to his knowledge, a battlefield should only have two and one is the opposing side, so why are there so many here? Not to mention, how is it that he can understand these beings who have a clearly different language? Filled with questions, he simply asked. "Generals? Can a battlefield have more than one general?"
"Ah?" The soldier exclaimed in a puzzled voice, but quickly regained his bearings."Yes, there are many factions and many races here on this battlefield. And so every single faction sends a general so no one can claim that a certain faction is trying to take over the wall."
"Hm, I see." The young human simply exclaimed. It made sense put that way. "Very well, lead me to these generals." And so he did, as they walked, the soldier answered many of the human's questions, such as questions about the various races of the wall and about the factions too. One particularly stood out to the human. "Aerdent Tower, you say? Interesting, how very interesting."
The young human is, as we already know, very arrogant, so at the mention of a faction with a name so close to his, he couldn't help but be interested. Seeing this, the soldier couldn't help but ask. "Sir, I apologise, but may I ask for thy name?" The human looked at the lizard, which he found out are called Aergon, soldier with a cold look. "Very well, I'll grant you the honour of knowing my name. This one's great name is Lan Aerdentsoul. Carve it into your mind, soldier."
The lizard had a particularly strong reaction to the name. How could he not? In the ancient tongue, it meant Divine Swordsoul. The fact that this human had a name in the ancient tongue, not to mention one so powerful and didn't earn the ire of the very world, means the world itself acknowledged it. Realising this, the Aergon soldier started sweating and vowed to himself to never offend this human
In this, the soldier considered himself quite lucky, as not many know of the ancient tongue, and among those few, even fewer know how to speak it. The soldier couldn't speak it, but being in the service of a dragon for a time, he picked up how a few of the words sounded, and it happened to be these very few. That is also the reason Aerdent Tower is considered the foremost sword faction in the entire nation. Naming yourself with the word most representative of a sword, yet being fine and even producing countless sword prodigies, made the Aerdent Tower the most fearsome faction.
The soldier didn't want to think about it anymore, as he feared he might go crazy, and so he simply said. "A worthy name for a being such as you." The human clearly liked the praise, so he decided that he wouldn't give this lizard much trouble.
And so they arrived at the generals' meeting room. The soldier entered first and presented. "Esteemed sirs, please welcome Lan Aerdentsoul, a human who bears a name ancient."