Episode 0: The Cycle of Life

At the Center of every galaxy is a planet, or string of planets that house life. These planets often see themselves as the only life in existence, but for one such group of planets, for a period of time, the inhabitants of these particular planets were accurate in their assessment.

The Univers was new. These people were indeed the first to discover practically everything life had to offer.

Thus, they also faced every trouble known to life across the Univers. From overpopulation, to pollution, to unrivaled crime and war.

Time passed and though the people grew and learned, they quickly discovered that though they were the first, they were no longer the only life connected to Univers.

They watched civilizations grow and fall around them from lightyears away. As they didn’t want to bring what plagued them to new civilizations, especially those with as much or more promise than their own culture. The more they researched, the more they realized, that what they had tried, had already failed.

The energy of Univers, connected them all, no matter how many lightyears away they were.

Lifeforms in different galaxies, mimicked the creation of tools so exactly that some wondered if there was a being that instructed all life on how to live and understand.

This epiphany led to both the System’s discovery, and the birth of Cultivation in the Univers. From this change to life came Ikarus. Or the people more commonly known as those too close to the original sun.

This company has grown to become so renowned, they now control most of the realm known as Endless. They work in the fields of science, technology, and the arcane, without rival or competitor. Only those they choose to let stand amongst them survive.

This is the story of the child that legacy left behind.

“Is she still asleep,” asked one king to another.

“Yes, but it shouldn’t be much longer,” responded one of the seven kings that stood near the bedside of the woman they’d all adored

“We should probably start soon before she rouses then, gentlemen,” said the only man lucky enough to win her heart. Though their return to the third realm layer of Univers ended what was seen as a union of untold power, the only proof of their relationship left, being the baby boy, yet to be seen by his mother.

She had been asleep since the boy’s birth. Due to both the amount of energy a child naturally drew from their mother’s body during birth, being intensified far beyond what any of the Cultivators there had ever witnessed, and the convergence of rare bloodlines.

His mother held him for centuries within her womb, which was seen as a blessing within the Cultivation community unlike any other. The longer the gestation period, the better.

The babies born from extended pregnancies soared through the challenges of Cultivation with ease. As their abnormally powerful parents produced gene combinations with more than explosive results.

The unnamed boy’s own parents grew up in a time when these births were far more dangerous of, and most children of Cultivators and even Godlings didn’t make it into their teens without the instability of their own bodies becoming… explosive.

“Are you not worried,” asked one of the seven kings summoned. The baby’s father turned to him and wondered if his old friend asked about the potential fragility of his son’s body and overwhelming internal power, or his own bloodline’s curse.

“Of course I am, but now is a day of naming, and honor, not worries,” responded the man with a smile while his son was brought into the large hospital bedroom. The nurse rolled the baby in before she handed him to his father with a smile of her own.

“The first right is yours, sire,” said the woman. The king took his named son and whispered into his left ear.

“May your path be as endless as the skies and stars, my son.” The father passed his son to the next king and the ceremony began.

First came one father’s blessing. Then seven kings. It wasn’t a normal requirement to be a king for this piece of the ceremony, just coincidence.

Then came eleven champions, all with blood relations. These powerful individuals would never gather in one place without great reason, but did in this instance with pleasure.

The ceremony needed to be composed of family, and or close friends. All of which had shown up for the birth days ago and had been in waiting ever since.

All eleven gave a champion’s blessings, and his father smiled as he heard the whispered words of all who dared hold his son. He would kill any who dared whisper curses in his son’s ear, so listened intently as the boy was passed throughout the room.

Then came 13 Arcane masters, 17 martial grandmasters, and finally 21 realm lords.

It wasn’t until the king truly looked around at those gathered that he realized just how much his newest son’s birth meant to their own realm as a whole. The men and women gathered there were blood related to either the father or the mother of the baby, which made the baby’s father worried for his son’s future for the first time in the baby’s seven days of life.

He and his son’s mother weren’t loved by many, maybe not even all those who gathered for their child's birth, which made the back of his neck prickle with fear momentarily as the boy’s grandfather on his mother’s side held the child and whispered,

“May you rule over Omni, may you live beyond Omen, may all know your name, your path shall be endless.”

The boy’s father smiled with the knowledge that none gathered had been able to give anything but the best of intentions in his son’s direction now that the hooded old man handed his grandchild back to the nurse.

The moment had come and all that was left was for the black haired beauty to awaken and take in the sight of her son. Before she could name him, and set their son on a path he hoped would be filled with glory and honor.

Yet nothing he’d done would have ever prepared him to be the father to this boy. Nor what was to unfold next.

“She’s awake, sire,” said the nurse as she brought the boy back to his father. He looked to the woman he loved with his whole heart and missed with every day that passed. Her smile was warm and gave him chills, as he knew of the three people in the room that could kill him, she was one of them.

“Bring him to me Draphen, our son needs a name.” King Draphen, lord of three realm layers, looked into one golden eye, and one crimson eye of Elizabeth Amorra Carter and nodded. His heart skipped a beat as she lifted her arms toward the baby. The near goddess in the flesh still took his breath away.

Draphen slowed when he heard his son make a noise, and was stunned further when the child opened his eyes for the first time and looked up at him. The eyes were far beyond the normal allure of his mother’s.

The king took in the moment that his son looked into his mother’s eyes and his smile grew further as the woman was also stunned into tears.

The baby had two dazzlingly crimson irises, absolutely filled with multi colored flakes. The king couldn’t tell but the flakes looked like the feint stars that could be seen in the sky above during the last moments of a sunset. The exotic energies moved in a hypnotic spiral that kept the man frozen where he stood.

“No no no!”

Draphen’s eyes shot up toward Elizabeth who was yelling and, to his alarm, was attempting to get out of her hospital bed.

“What’s happening…” Then he felt it as all those who’d experienced a Tribulation ever had. The inversion of gravity was instantaneous.

A massive hole was ripped into the sky far above the CityNation of Cloud Lake, so large it give those powerful enough to set their gazes upon the sight a true glimpse into heaven.

The large halo of light framed a portrait filled with luscious landscapes and environments that every realm layer below its majesty tried to emulate in one way or another.

All those who braved a look up at the might of the lightning summoned from heaven’s breath lost both consciousness and days of memory.

The only beings powerful enough to fight the reverse of gravity as heaven’s mouth inhaled, were those gathered around the boy. While those outside of the hospital were sucked into the sky alongside entire buildings and streets amid a storm of chaos; the mightiest of the realms below heaven couldn’t even move.

They were at the direct middle of the storm. A judgment of wrath and vengeance poured from the center of the portal to heaven so focused it no longer looked like lightning.

A pillar of manna threatened to erase the continent as it fell from above.

Draphen screamed as his son was lifted from his arms by pure pressure and mana fluctuations. No Tribulation he’d ever lived through had caused enough pressure to stop his movements entirely, which made him fear the effects. The more powerful the Tribulation, the more intense the divine act was in nature.

Then people begun to disappear in the room, teleported away to different realms, CityNations, or worlds away.

Draphen felt as the force of gravity threatened to rip him apart from the inside out as the pressure around him grew. His body was pulled off the ground slightly and panic set in as he could see people sucked off their feet and yanked into the sky through the windows in the room.

Cars smashed into buildings. Trees spun through the air like twigs caught in a thunderstorm. The destruction rolled out through the entire section of the city and claimed a billion lives in a breath.

In the end, Draphen was the only one who witnessed his son be struck by the Tribulation’s power. All he could do was scream in pain and terror while the city fell apart around him.

It was as if gravity was restored to normal when the gateway to heaven closed. What seemed like an entire city was dropped from thousands of feet in the air the exact instance his son vanished.

Debris rained down like a haphazardly flung toy building set. Which further destroyed the hospital Draphen was still inside, and ended up burying the man completely under rubble.

It was in his darkest moment at the bottom of a collapsed hospital that he remembered Elizabeth had once confessed to him that a violent Tribulation had occurred the day she was born. From what she’d described, only a city block had been effected. Where as the birth of their own son, had changed the landscape for hundreds of miles.

It was then that he was given a quest for the first time. Elizabeth had told them that they were real but he’d never believed it until that very moment.

A red box outlined in a fanciful white gold trim stated the terms of the task reality itself bestowed upon him.

“You have helped give birth to a power that has the potential to bring great ruin, or prosperity. Your direct actions will either form him into what your people want, or what they will need to survive Omen. Be careful son of Omni, as heroes need villains to rise, and are not always strong enough to make the necessary sacrifices to see true ends to the conflicts of the living. Choose carefully.” Draphen looked over the words a hundred times or more. He ignored the thousands of notifications that popped up into his Overlay. People from all over the SunSpire realms were frantic to figure out what had occurred in his home.

Draphen slowly came to his feet and cursed while literal tons of weight slid from his back and shoulders. He had to choose from two options beneath the passage and additional question.

Like Father, Unlike Son, will you be what the world wants or what the world needs?

Draphen thought it was a simple choice. As did all the others across all realms who received a quest and a choice that day.

A mother who would have to live without her son, a son that was pulled through time, made the choice to become the catalyst of change. A grandfather, made the decision to give a blessing, rather than a curse to a boy he’d hadn’t truly met yet, in the far future for his own quest.

While many others made kind choices for their quest, far more did not. Draphen began to wonder what his son’s life would be like, and if he would ever be able to meet his lost child. Then his mind flickered to the quest and he knew that he would.

Draphen cried silently at the thought that his son would go without a name, even as he began to transform. He often fought the rage brought on by his dragon’s blood, but for the first time in a long time Draphen urged on the pressure that came with his curse. A roar escaped his chest and a wave of fire rippled outward in all directions.

If the heavens believed they could take his son without repercussions, Draphen would grow until none could stop him as he made his choice.

He would be, what he wanted to be. After all he’d lived through, the theft of his child to be used as a tool of fate was the last time he would allow powerful beings to control the direction of his life or any that he cared for.

The prompt disappeared from his vision and he balled his fist. He wanted to curl into a ball and sleep, all while his unbridled rage manifested physically. An unmatched heat poured from his skin that emanated from deep green and blue flames.

“May your path be as endless as the skies and stars above, my son,” said Draphen while his internal flames ate away his skin and flesh. He’d never made it through the effects of his curse without pure agony prior to his son being taken, but from that point on no pain could be felt more than what he’d just experienced.

His vision had been taken by his curse, a curse that could one day take his son’s sight, but as the landscape caught fire around Draphen, the fire sight of the cursed dragons allowed him to see his surroundings, more and more while the heat and body of the flames grew.

His body distorted. His bones broke and literal wings grew from his spine. Draphen became hysterical with laughter and rage as he pointed his maw upward the moment his dragon’s lungs formed and his body finished extending.

Rubble slid off his scaled features, and his wings snapped out to his sides. With his every breath his rage grew and so did his body. Heat built in his room sized chest and he opened his mouth.

Flames like liquid sunlight geysered up toward the heavens and the sky itself seemed to catch fire. Draphen’s roar before he took flight pained all nearby survivors who heard the cry. Only to be washed in flames the next moment by a building sized beast with a hundred foot wing span.

Cultivator, became dragon, and the blind king of the CityNation of Aspire began his rampage across the lands,. In search of a boy who had been teleported far, far away, to an orphanage, a single day into the future.

Hidden by the System as his son now was, none would find the boy for many season cycles. And while those who knew what occurred when he’d been born may want to aid him, none who found him for season cycles to come would have the power to bring him home, as only he could rejoin his family.

In fact, the system gave one last quest that day to a now abandoned boy as he lay on the steps of his new home. His eyes took in a sunset and the night’s stars above as he began to fuss and draw in the attention of nearby children.

A red box could be seen in his vision, lined in gold with a single sentence in its center.

Find your family, they need you.

As the boy cried the door was opened and a young girl with brown hair and multi colored eyes rushed out to pick him up. The girl smiled at the boy, and he stopped crying to look up at her.

“Hey you, let’s get you to Momma Almarine, shouldn’t be too hard to find a home for a cutie like you,” said the girl before she pinched the baby boy’s nose and caused him to giggle. The two were off to find the orphan mother of the CityNation of Maelstrom, and the Life of Arson Omni began.

“Hey Momma Almarine, we got another Arson!”