Chapter Three * Grand Calamity *
The ancient drum began sounding again.
Malevolent. Low. Like a heartbeat for something that should not exist.
At the same time, the golden pillar of light began to build.
Fast. Desperate.
As if the will behind its existence knew one thing: if it did not act now, there was no hope left for Pangu.
The pillar rose higher. Faster.
Light compressed until it screamed.
Then it erupted.
A massive pillar of golden light.
A bullet streaking across the sky.
Straight for the massive tear.
It landed.
And spread.
The light became a membrane.
Thin. Shimmering. Alive.
It wrapped around the edges of the tear, sealing them bit by bit.
Healing the wound in the sky.
Trying to close it.
Trying to stop the abomination before it could happen.
But the will behind the golden pillar had misunderstood.
It did not understand the plan of the huge eyeball that made the tear.
The eyeball was never trying to break through.
It was trying to open the door.
---
Right on cue, the terrific sound of the ancient drum finally subsided.
Silence fell.
As if the world was being poked from all sides, thick purple wormholes the size of story buildings tore open across the sky.
One after another.
Until the heavens were stitched with bleeding scars.
Humans stared up in horror.
Some dropped their weapons.
Some fell to their knees.
All of them understood: the world had just changed forever.
Arin felt it first.
A bit traumatized, drowning in the memories of history being told to the former Arin.
It was as if the world had been condemned to eternal destruction.
No hope for survival. None at all.
7
Then the beasts came.
Not the aberrations they'd fought for years.
Those now looked like house pets in comparison.
Both in aura and in size.
These did not look grotesque.
They looked majestic.
Wings carved from storm and bone.
Fur like molten gold.
Scales that caught the light and threw it back.
But majesty did not make it better.
The aura they gave off was oppressing.
A weight that crushed the chest and bent the knees.
It rolled off them like heat off desert stone.
Tigers as huge as elephants, yet they possessed wings.
Gorillas with heights almost reaching skyscrapers.
Serpents that coiled through the clouds.
Birds whose wingspan blotted out the sun.
All of the aberrations humanity had bled for suddenly looked like chickens.
Despair set in.
Cold. Absolute.
It made the humans finally understand why the eyeball had never bothered to kill them.
The cruel reality hit like a blade:
It had connected itself to their world.
Used itself as a link.
A doorway so its kin could open wormholes and invade.
Keeping humans alive.
Not as enemies.
As food for its malevolent kind.
That cruel reality made humanity believe they stood no chance.
But humans would not stop.
Not yet.
Heroes and heroines stood up.
Backs straight. Weapons raised.
They stood against the beasts and aberrations alike.
Fought with all they had.
Because the more they killed, the more that came through.
It was that day everyone understood why Maslow Griffin was termed "Calamity" by the higher ups of the authority.
After gaining more power from the golden pillar of light, he fought like a force of nature.
Mighty golden light flared from Maslow Griffin.
He did not join the fight against the aberrations below.
His eyes stayed locked on the tear in the sky.
He knew something grander was coming.
And he was right.
Wormholes poked holes around the world.
Exotic beasts poured through like a flood.
That was his cue.
He moved.
Speed that broke the sound barrier.
A streak of gold against a bruised sky.
His first opponent: an eagle as tall as a skyscraper.
It dove toward the walls of the Central Continent, beak open, ready to feast on the humans cowering behind.
Maslow flared up.
Golden light erupted from him until he looked like a mini sun.
The eagle screeched.
The sound was so shrill the ground vibrated.
Buildings quaked. Glass shattered.
Then one slash of his hand.
No man-made weapon could withstand the channeling of his golden power.
Not even the bones of the toughest aberrations.
Golden light erupted.
Swept across the sky in a perfect arc.
Bisected the gigantic eagle.
And carved through a dozen other unfortunate exotic beasts caught in the path.
Maslow Griffin went around the battlefield decimating beasts and aberrations alike.
His speed made him almost invisible.
A flash. A burst of gold. A corpse falling.
He noticed something:
No exotic beast could withstand his power.
But despite the slaughter, more beasts kept coming.
And the wormholes kept getting bigger.
For days, humanity fought.
Tooth and nail.
Breath by breath.
Some fought till their last heartbeat.
The lucky ones fought till their qi ran dry and their traits flickered out. And had to wait for their qi to be replenished.
Qi were replenished quicker than it would normally. It was as if the world was fighting side by side with them.
Maslow Griffin became their light.
Their hope.
The rest of their high tech, even though not working as desired, was still usable.
Teetering on eternal silence, but functional enough.
They used every means of communication left to broadcast messages and videos of his deeds.
Maslow carving through beasts.
Maslow standing unbroken.
They pushed it to every survivor.
To boost morale.
To give hope to the hopeless.
And it worked.
His strength and brave battle style rekindled something in humanity.
Until the seventh day. All electronics around the world stopped working all together. Becoming scraped metals. The end of the electronic age.
The wormholes around the world reached a certain size.
Then they changed.
They stopped belching beasts.
Instead, thick purple smoke poured out.
Everyone froze.
Shock rippled through the battlefields all around the world.
Then humanoid beasts stepped out.
They walked like humans.
But they kept their beastly features.
Claws in their hands, sharp enough to slice through the toughest steel with ease.
Two from each wormhole.
Twenty-one wormholes.
Forty-two in total.
Purple glyphs covered their bodies.
Glowing. Breathing. Alive.
The two that appeared in the Central Continent wormhole:
One a tiger-like humanoid creature. Malevolent. Predatory.
The other a turtle-like humanoid creature. Delicate. Graceful.
The turtle's glyphs were like tattoos.
Decorating its skin with beauty and grace.
Once they emerged, the wormhole seemed to be sucked dry of energy.
It started closing, little by little.
But the damage was done.
Because behind the closing portal, more exotic beasts surged through.
A few times stronger than the millions that had come before.
---
In these times, with humanity tethering on the brink of extinction, they had no real classification system for the power of exotic beasts or the chosen sons and daughters of the gods.
Just three ranks, born from desperation:
"Awakened" rank — for the newly awakened chosen.
"Ascender" rank — for elites cleansed by their awakened power for years.
"Golden" rank — for those standing at the peak of what humans believed possible, named in respect to their gods and the golden qi that granted them power.
But this ranking did not apply to one man.
Maslow Griffin stood above it.
Above the precipice of power.
Way beyond Golden rank.
They named that level "Legend" rank.
He was believed to be the only one who wielded it.
Until humanity was blessed again by the gods during the encounter with the eyeball.
That blessing made every chosen ascend one rank.
Awakened became Ascender.
Ascender became Golden.
Golden became Legendary.
And the only Legendary rank broke through again.
To a rank people did not understand.
A limit no one could measure.
Only the wielder could understand its power.
The only person: Maslow Griffin.
---
Maslow Griffin moved toward the two humanoid beasts.
Steps steady. Eyes calm. Filled with conviction.
Then, to his surprise, the humanoid turtle spoke.
Human tongue. Clear. Measured.
"I am Kirin," she said.
Maslow went still.
Shock flashed through him.
Because that changed everything.
Beasts could fight to kill. To sate endless hunger. That he understood.
But to think? To speak? To be diplomatic?
He suspected it from the entity behind the eyeball.
An ancient thing with that much might should have grown wise. It is acceptable.
But not to this level. Not humanoid. Not speaking.
7
Or so he thought.
Until the two beasts released their auras.
The tiger's aura crashed into him like a tidal wave.
As strong as his own.
The turtle's aura went deeper.
Deeper than his.
Dense, ancient, suffocating.
Shock turned to realization.
There were forty two of such beings on Pangu.
Forty two beings at this level.
And that didn't count the countless beasts still forcing their way through the closing wormholes.
Which he was certain was happening at every wormhole around the world.
---