Sure is funny.
If we're talking diverse, nothing in the universe comes close to people.
People who calculate every step like they have a blueprint for life, people who sprint into danger to save others without a care for themselves.
People who command, people who fight, people who protect, inspire, cry or laugh, and people who destroy.
Endless differences.
But yet, when faced with death, which no person can escape, everyone desperately searches for a God.
This is my story. A pitiful, stupid story of a world full of idiots trying to become that God, each thinking they were saving it as they tore it apart.
My name's Sword, and at some point in the past it was something else.
Remember that.
***************************************************************
"Starting Project Pharo."
I didn't question the voice in my head. I didn't wonder why it was there. Hard to overthink when you're stuck in a 400-foot-deep hole where there's no apparent difference between having your eyes closed or open.
All I can hear are the skittering of bugs, hiss of snakes and slithering of lizards…
…and the hyperventilating stranger beside me somewhere, sobbing and gasping. Not exactly helpful.
Okay. Rewind.
To before whatever the fuck this is.
***
Hello. My name's Reid Russell. Nineteen years old, orphaned at nine. Fresh graduate of the most prestigious academy in the Northern Continent, having majored in Chrona (short for chronaplasma) Engineering, Biology, chronatechnology and the odd hand-to-hand combat. My life from here on's basically pre-scripted: success, wealth, respect. Nice, clean future. Delicious.
My only family, my younger sister, lived across the ocean in the Western Continent in some boarding school, hadn't seen me in months, and vice versa — not ideal, but she'd be fine. She's tough. I raised her that way.
Everything was going right until a man in black showed up.
He was erected outside my home as I returned from my run, like a creepy statue. He was in the full blackout outfit — black coat, black gloves, black mask — not an inch of visible skin. And tall. By no means do I have a short stature but I go up to his chest. Every survival instinct I possessed should have screamed "RUN."
Spoiler: it fucking didn't.
"I greet you, sir," his voice is smooth and calm, in the creepiest possible way. "Would you be interested in aiding the war effort?"
"The war effort?" I blink, confused like a dumbass. "Against the Skathers?"
"What other war is there, sir?" he asks.
Fair point.
Erisen — my world — is carved into five main continents: North, South, East, West and Central. I'm from the North, home of science nerds and chrona scholars. Convenient, because it's the furthest from the South, which got nuked off the map ten years ago by a giant floating alien mothership.
Billions of these Skather monsters got dumped onto the continent in one night. Boom, fucking gone. The aliens were dubbed as "Unholy Fucking Organisms (UFO)" by the World Church, and I guess that's why the Holy War's raging right now.
In the name of our Goddess, Anastasia. Personally, I'm not a fan of the religious stuff.
The other continents got their act together and formed a coalition using chrona — our planet's natural energy — as our main advantage. Chrona feeds off something called the Prisma Stream, the invisible world-wrapping current of power, harnessed by five ancient reactors.
One reactor per continent. Well, except the Southern one, which was flattened like a soda can.
It runs through every home, building, weapon, living being, natural resource, machine, plant and rock in the world. I'm good at playing with the stuff.
Anyway, long story short, I wasn't going anywhere near alien hell. Sure, the recent heart-throbs for most young guys (including me, guilty) these days are the heroes fighting on the front, like Alexa Solace or Hunter Arison or Kit Wisp.
Not me.
I was heading to Central Continent's Chrona Institute, ready to poke science until it gave me money.
So when the giant chuuni over here said:
"A scientist? Perhaps you'd be interested in something more?"
I should've hightailed it outta there, slammed the door, locked it, welded it shut and called the Guard.
Instead my sub-human-IQ ass said, "More?"
He withdrew a paper from nowhere.
I unrolled it. "Recruiting talented individuals for… Project Pharo? Fair-oh?"
"Correct."
"Researching biogenetics. Central Continent… Lasts one week… pays 300,000 Imperials—"
My brains blue-screened. That amount can buy six mansions, a mini-army and probably a pet dragon if I felt spicy.
"No way is this real," I muttered. "Nice try, bud. Seen scammers like you plenty but try harder next time. Now get outta here before I call the Gua—"
He pointed to the corner.
The royal seal.
My soul left my body.
"R-royal…?"
"Yes."
I thought it through. Nobody in the world would dare fake the Central Royal Seal. And the King of Central wouldn't put some joke-level number on an official contract. A week-long assignment for insane pay? Impossible to resist.
Should I have resisted? Absolutely.
Did I?
Well, take a wild guess.
Next day everything derailed.
I came home to find my door hanging off its hinges, stepped inside poised for a fight and got immediately jumped by forty masked guys in black like they were speedrunning my funeral.
Self-defense training? Hand-to-hand combat graduate? Cute. Completely useless.
And that's how I somehow fell victim to the world's most violent scam. Sign a royal contract, get a complimentary kidnapping. No refunds.
I didn't know it then, but when I put my name on that paper it lost its worth.
Reid Russell died a stupid, quiet, pathetic death.
And something different was born screaming in the dark