MrLux

Welcome to the revisited prologue. I changed a lot of what was here, basically everything, really. If the next chapters have [Pending Rewrite] on the title, be warned that I still haven't changed them as I did with this one, so basically expect the quality of the writing to drop immensely after this chapter.

Anyway, if by any change you would like to see how the original chapter was, it was awful, maybe to see how much it changed or I don't know why, you can see it by clicking Here

Thousands of years ago was the age of gods. Gods rose and fell one after the other as they fought for power and personal desires. Even the Greater Gods themselves descended in the mortal realm frequently to intervene or to help those who prayed to them as the only thing that could stop a god from using his divine power to alter reality as he sees fit is another god with equal level of power or higher, and no one can be higher than the Greater Gods, as they are the embodiment of the universe itself given shape.

There are various ways for one to achieve godhood, but many preferred the way of the slaughter and fear, becoming gods with powers that focused on battle and slaughtering of everything on its path. Because of this, the entire world was in a constant state of war. Continents were erased, oceans boiled and the skies were blown away to space. Many species that could have achieved great things in an alternate future were driven to extinction by the gods who only focused on themselves and how they could achieve even more power.

During this period of time, the churches to the Greater Gods come into being as the only ones who would care for the mortals living in that chaotic world that could exterminate an entire species in a blink of an eye, if not a god, it would be a dragon, if not a dragon then it would be one of the countless monsters that come to life when the magical energy, called magicules, in an area becomes so dense a living creature manifest from it.

Those churches were the only things that helped those species to survive and form a society. By offering faith to the Greater Gods, one could become a paladin from said God. A paladin from one of the Greater Gods could channel a spark of a fragment of the divine power of the God the paladin followed and achieve great feats of strength and magic. The usage of magic together with one’s own strength was so important to the survival of themselves that magic became inseparable from even the most basic task.

One day, the being whose existence is just below the Greater Gods, the Dragon King Athorisnamor, was fed up with the constant war between the gods that had already lasted billions of years, since the second and third gods, as the first god to ever ascend was the Dragon King himself just as the universe had been born, had risen and began fighting over who was above the other. He had given them an ultimatum, they would stop the fights between themselves for good, or he would stop them himself. Of course, the gods quickly accepted it without a sound, as even the strongest god was nothing compared to the existence that was the Dragon King, but even if they feared him above everything, they couldn’t just stop something they have been doing for countless years. It took five years of forced peace until a god lost its temper with another god and slayed him, and after that the fight restarted.

The Dragon King thought about just winking all of them out of existence and was going to do just that, but the God of Time himself descended in front of him and offered an alternative to his plan. He and all of the other Gods would alter reality down to the very fabric of existence everything resided. Athorisnamor didn’t see any reason to refuse so he agreed to the plan of the God of Time.

That day reality was changed and a System was introduced into the world. A System that would make mortals grow stronger easier than before and develop a new type of magic that couldn’t be replicated by normal methods known as skills. The System also changed all of the gods that had ascended after Athorisnamor and cut their source of power, making them lose their access to an infinite amount of divine energy and become just batteries for the divine energy they once produced. 

Athorisnamor used his power to speak to all of the world's inhabitants at the same time. He had declared that a new age was starting, the age of the mortals, and because of that, a new calendar was created. That day was marked as the day 0 of the common calendar, and known to the gods as “The day of the fall”, as it was that very day many of the gods who lost their unlimited energy supply simply died as a result of using all of their energy and not having a way to replenish it.

[ Holy Grounds of Dracius, Year 12.036 of the Common Calendar ]

“How are we?” Avorá, the High Priestess of the Church of Theo, the God of Space, asked the man with a cloak that covered his face next to her.

She was a human woman in her sixties with long dark-blue robes adorned with white dots and golden lines that ran from her neck all the way to the end of the robes. She had long white hair and brown eyes that didn’t match her age as they appeared much younger than she really was.

“Unfortunately the situation is worse than we thought. The paladin army of the Church of Luminos is approaching quicker than we estimated” The man said.

“How long?” She asked.

“Approximately three hours until they arrive at the gates. All of the citizens are already being evacuated as we speak” He answered.

“Goblin feces” She cursed. “The ritual is not ready yet, we need more time”

“The soldiers sent by the king will intercept them before they arrive. But as the Church of Luminous already declared the Church of Theo as their only target, the total of manpower we have to fight the paladins isn’t enough. They will be massacrated, and then we will need to answer why we send them to their deaths to the king” The man said.

“Let me worry about that later. Right now we need to finish the summoning ritual” Avorá said as she casted away the warnings of the man.

A bishop arrived with a golden chalice the size of himself adorned with multiple magical gems and inscriptions filled to the brim with a red substance. The only reason the substance wasn’t falling from the chalice as the man walked with it was because the chalice had a magic circuit that prevented any liquid inside of it from accidentally spill. Of course, that same magic circuit wouldn’t prevent the liquid from being poured from the chalice, but to actually pour the liquid, one would need to turn it more than one would normally turn anything that holds liquid.

“High Priestess, here is the blood of a dimensional dragon” The bishop said.

“Excellent. Everyone, step away from the ritual” She said to the other twenty-seven clergy that had all finished drawing the circuits necessary for the ritual with various types of powder. “Begin pouring the blood in those circles in this specific order”

She then started pointing to various circles around the complex magical diagram that was drawn on the floor of the main building of the Church of Theo.

As the bishop poured the blood, it spread in the ground and stopped almost on top of the powder lines. After he finished pouring all the blood, the High Priestess picked up a deep-blue crystal from her necklace that was hidden inside her robes and threw it right in the middle of the ritual.

The crystal shattered and the shards flew through the air, stopping in specific points above the ritual and formed the base of another magical circuit.

“Now, start pouring magicules on your assigned spots. If you start running out of magicules, drink a potion. Whatever you do, don’t stop pouring magicules into the ritual” Avorá said as she knelt down onto the ground and began pushing all her magicules into a magical circuit that would then put the magical energy in the ritual to fuel it.

Every person that had a designated spot knelt down as well and began pouring their magicules in the ritual. Every time someone was beginning to feel dizzy because of the loss of magicule, a priest would offer a mana potion to the person, who would drink without stopping from pouring their magicules. This would get their bodies wrecked and possibly cause some manaburns, but they couldn’t worry about this now, their only hope was to summon a strong person that they could bind using [Summoner’s Chain] and fend off the Church of Luminous.

Soon enough, the blood began to flow on top of specific lines towards an empty circle in the middle of the ritual. The blood then formed another magical circuit in the circle. The shards that were floating on top of the ritual began rotating and blue lines began forming between them, creating another magic circuit. The shards themselves formed two magic circuits, one inside the other, and began rotating in different directions and speeding up. As the magical circuits were spinning so fast one needed a skill that increased the speed that they could perceive the world, space above the ritual began folding on itself creating a rift towards the Void. After the rift in the membrane of the universe was formed, the ritual shot a pillar of light into the nothingness that is the Void.

“I just hope the ritual is successful” Avorá whispered so low no one but the man with the cloak heard her.