In a dark empty void, a dolphin-like creature can be seen swimming through the void, as if the space the creature is going through is filled with water.
A closer inspection shows that the creature is only shaped like a dolphin, for the creature's main characteristic is the body, it is covered in a sleek lattice of metallic frames, scales glinting like forged steel, and acting as the creature's scales.
With the head of the creature primarily separating it from the body by its boney like texture and is shaped like a pyramid, the head is holding three pairs of pure white eyes.
At its back, is a sail with a shape reminiscent that of a sailfish's sail but mostly different in composition, for it is made up of mostly the same material as its scales with two more smaller complementary sails accompanying the main sail, totaling up to three sails.
The creature then opened its mouth, instead of a jaw it is a tripod-like aperture, and finally showing the inside of the creature's mouth.
Rows and rows of both teeth and eyes, those said teeth is arranged like a grinder with some of them spinning.
*Grooar* A deep and guttural sound came from the creature as it roared.
And another...
And another...
And another .... as if.... it's using its own roar to map its surroundings. Then suddenly it whipped its head sideways before speeding in a certain direction with speed so fast it travelled 10 light-years in a few whips of its tail.
As the creature speeds through the void, another fish-like creature can be seen further away eating a solar system, or what used to be one.
Before the fish like creature could react it was pierced through by the dolphin like creature, and through that force, drags the fish like creature away from the remains of the solar system.
The dolphin-like creature then flipped its body thus flipping the fish-like creature on its back before detaching itself from the fish-like creature.
Right after the dolphin-like creature opens its head and bites the head of the fish-like creature before doing a barrel roll to separate the fish-like creature's head from its body.
Then the dolphin-like creature ate the head in one gulp, the dolphin-like creature now looks at the remaining pierced body of the fish-like creature before eating it whole.
As the dolphin-like creature finished eating, It shooked its body before going back to the remains of a solar system.
With the remains of the solar system now near the dolphin-like creature, the dolphin like creature ate the cosmic dust in one gulp, seemingly satisfied the dolphin-like creature now drifts through the void for an indefinite amount of time.
-======-
An indefinite amount of time has passed in this empty void.
As new stars are born, so do a maw eats it right after, either bit by bit or whole.
The longest a star not getting eaten is when a new solar system is just born, before it is eaten yet again by creatures that drift through the void.
In this void it is eat or be eaten, so rarely, if ever, will there be a pair of those creatures that drift through the void, as most of them are lone creatures.
Some of the creatures can grow as big as three solar system wide, and some as small as one planet wide. There is also some species that can grow bigger than that but most of those are either eel like creatures or appendages longer than the main body.
The dolphin-like creature appeared again and its battling what seems like a creature with the characteristic of a snake, and is much longer than the dolphin-like a creature.
The dolphin-like creature was using its head to ram into the snake-like creature before detaching and swimming away. This method seems to work as the snake-like creature tries to fight back with multitude of holes on its body.
This goes on and on until the dolphin-like creature got stuck in the thickest part in the mid-section of the snake-like creature's body.
The dolphin-like creature tries to detach its body by shaking side to side, and was able to detach successfully.
But as the dolphin-like creature was about to swim away the snake-like creature took its chance and coil its much longer body on the dolphin-like creature, successfully capturing the dolphin-like creature in its grasp.
With the dolphin-like creature now entangled, the trapped dolphin-like creature tries to escape the snake-like creatures grasp by thrashing, but it seems futile as the resistance makes the grip even tighter.
As each second passed, the tighter the grip of the snake-like creature becomes.
*Grohaaaaar* as the dolphin-like creature open its mouth and roared, the dolphin-like creature's resistance became even stronger.
As the dolphin-like creature thrashed and thrashed.
The snake-like creature bit into the side of the dolphin-like creature, causing the body of the dolphin-like creature to turn purple and started to digitize.
*Grohaaaaar* The dolphin-like creature then thrashed even harder in response to the excruciating pain of flesh being turned inside out.
The purple digitalization begins to spread further and further, making the dolphin-like creature thrash harder and harder.
The digitalization is about to fully encroach the dolphin-like creature but something miraculous happened, the creature instead of resisting instinctively began....
To hunger....
Hunger to live...
Hunger for life...
The hunger giving endless strength and vigor to the dolphin like creature.
With this newfound strength the dolphin-like creature tries even harder to resist, the further the dolphin-like creature thrashed the further the hunger deepens.
A [Glimpse] suddenly descended on the dolphin like creature.
A being of immense size appeared infront of the dolphin like creature.
The being is on top of a huge mouth connected to where the beings legs should be, multple eel like appendages with mouths and no eyes, some of those mouths are big some are small and are connected to the lower body of the being, the upper part of the beings body is like that of a human woman its skin is pale green unlike the rest of the beings body and is covered in green markings much darker than its skin, with multple mouths on the upper body.
The being is decorated in ornaments of gold where the beings genitals should be, multiple bracelets cover the beings arms and hands, golden finger-armor covers all the fingers in each hand, a golden chocker with a blue gem in the mid-section of the choker is on the beings neck, with a back piece that being seems to use as a throne to sit on.
The being has a mask covering the upper parts of the beings head, the being has snakes for hair with a horned crown resting at top of the being's head.
Wisdom suddenly fills the dolphin-like creatures head compressing into knowledge, which in turn gives the name of the being the dolphin-like creature is facing.
[Oroboros] •Aeon of Voracity•.
As soon the name was understood, the glimpse of that being alone transports the now newly formed consciousness of the dolphin-like creature somewhere.
The dolphin-like creature is now in a vastly difference space unlike the void where it presides in, the space the dolphin-like creature is currently in has multitude of stars, with some meteors can be seen flying through space.
In the center of the space is a vertical yellow light, surrounded by a swirling mass of an unknown substance and dark clouds.
Seeing this sight, something tugs the dolphin-like creaturen forward, causing the dolphin-like creature to swim forward following the yellow line towards the center.
From drifting, to swimming vigorously, the dolphin-like ceature seemed to travelled for a very... very long time.
Finally the dolphin like creature is now in the center of the mysterious space.
Orbiting the center is a multitude of asteroids, as well as more swirling dark clouds, in the heart of it all is a swirling unknown substance.
The substance is mostly black with hints of red, and from time to time an eye or a mouth can be seen.
But seeing the gas-like substance the dolphin-like creature didn't hesitate, if this can help the creature survive then it will gladly take it.
The creature opens its head and consumed the substance.
The moment the dolphin-like creature ate the black gas-like substance, the dolphin like creature felt a foreign energy flowing inside the creature's body, The foreign feeling then turns into a familiar one, as if, the energy was the creature's to begin with.
Suddenly an even greater hunger consumed the dolphin-like creature, before being drown out by the pain the creature haven't felt for a long time.
The pain that caused the creature a yearning so strong it became hunger, the pain made creature to snap out of the sudden foreign hunger.
The purple digital parts of the dolphin-like creature's body turned black with red eyes and mouth.
The creature then expelled a black gas-like substance with mouths and eyes swirling outside the dolphin-like creature.
The gas-like substance caused the snake like creature to feel apprehension.
Just as the snake like creature is about to hasten the digitalization of the dolphin like creature, the gas-like substance was faster and completely enveloped both creatures.
The enveloped creatures looked out of place in the empty void with light flickering from time to time.
As there is multiple red eyes and mouths big and small covering the enveloped creatures.
The next second the gas-like substance is suddenly collapsing inward in a fast pace.
Halving each blink of a human eye, until finally, what is left is the dolphin-like creature, with no signs of the snake-like creature.
The dolphin-like creature is vastly different than what is used to be, now where used to be its digital scales are replaced by the black gas-like substance, sometimes there is a mouth, sometimes an eye or two that shows up on those parts.
The biggest change would be the creatures tail, if before it was completely digitalized, now its completely black and the orientation of the tail is different, if before the tail was horizontal now the tail is vertical.
The dolphin-like creature is now no longer dolphin-like, but more of a shark-like creature.
Even though the sudden change of the tail orientation would have caused the creature a form of struggle to swim, but no, it seems to be able to swim like normal as if there was no change to its tail, as if it was born that way.
The shark-like creature now tired from the fight that could have caused its life decides to retreat to somewhere safe.
The shark-like creature begins to swims away from the battle to rest.
*Booom*
Sounds of confetti and explosives was heard, followed by masks of different color and styles raining down from somewhere.
Next multiple sets of circus instruments, and followed by the said confetti and fireworks.
The sudden explosion caused the NOW shark-like creature to flinch.
The startled shark-like creature tries to swim away before being stopped by an orange mask so big, the shark-like creature is nothing more but a speck of dust to it.
The sight of the mask gave wisdom to the shark-like creature, that knowledge compresses into a name.
[Aha] •Aeon of Elation•
"HAHAHAHAHA!, Interesting, this Aha has found something very interesting~." after the words are spoken, the mask then begins to shrink until its size is comparable to the shark like creature.
"A leviathan gaining a speck of consciousness and becomes a Pathstrider right after, so very interesting~~~." Aha said before circling the shark leviathan in wonder.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!, Aha has a very fun idea! this is so~ gonna be such a fun show!" Aha said before materializing a hand made of masks while holding a white orb.
The orange mask smiled before grabbing the shark-like creature with another hand made of masks and turning it into an orb.
This newly formed orb is mostly black with a hint of silver and red, and red eyes and mouth showing from time to time.
Suddenly Aha violently tried to fuse the two orbs but was met by resistance.
But that didn't made Aha frown of course.
"Problems can be fixed with violence, if the problems was not fixed, you just did not use enough violence!" as Aha said that, Aha included THEIR power in the fusion.
With that, the fusion is surprisingly stable as if, it was not violently fused a few moments ago.
"Much better, definitely better than before~" Aha said before inspecting it by pulling it near its eye holes where the eyes should have been if someone wore the mask.
"Now~~ then~, hyup!" said Aha before going in a pitching stance.
"HAH!, and..... HOMERUN WOOHOO!" said Aha before lowering the hand made of masks from on top of the eye holes where THEIR eyes should have been.
The mask turned happily and celebrated.
"A pure soul from the outside, and a leviathan Pathstrider.... HAHAHAHA! no one would believe me if Aha said that to someone~." said Aha before laughing hysterically.
"As Aha is a gentleman Aha has a gift for the child." Aha said before calming down but the mask is still smiling.
"Now how would this put more fun in your oh so rigid scripts~~~" Aha said while looking at something before grinning an even wider grin.
"Let's go back before that block of amber found out Aha is outside the wall again, not especially after Aha brought a leviathan inside, oopsie~~, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!~~~" said Aha while laughing manically.
A jack-in-the-box appeared below Aha, sucking Aha inside along with the smaller masks.
With Aha now inside, the jack-in-the-box collapses into itself before exploding into fireworks.
Suddenly, right after the explosion, multiple leviathans appeared, from deep sea eels to fish to even aquatic mammals.
The leviathans were confused expecting a newly formed nebulae, before suddenly looking at each.
Right infront of them are the food they are looking for isn't it?
The next second, a chaotic brawl happened causing each leviathan to devour eachother.
As this was happening, laughter was heard before muffling out into silence.
-======-
A streak of light was seen passing over a wall spanning multiple light-years.
The streak caused a massive being made of amber to stop hammering for a split second, causing a delay in the Amber Eras.
Any form of delay caused by the massive being is highly inspected by the IPC, and noticing that the current Amber Era has extended by another half of an Amber Era, resulted in immeasurable chaos, but that is a story for another time.
As the streak of light entered the inside of the Universe.
Space-time was frozen as a being made of crystals descended, the being taking a quick glance at the streak of light before leaving as if nothing happened.
The streak of light then continued with all of its momentum preserved.
It continues its journey through the cosmos passing through multiple star systems along the way.
After a long time have passed.(when it's so far time is measured instead of distance.)
A brass yellow planet covered in sand dunes and mountain ranges, with a particular circle spot on the planets lower left side.
The streak of light is about to collide with the brass yellow planet.
The planet looks dead for its color is unlike some planets that was passed by the streak of light before, for the color of the planet is the same color as sand.
When the planet and streak of light collided instead of an explosion, the streak of light went inside the atmosphere before crashing in the middle of nowhere.
The impact caused a crater with a radius of 10 meteres with minimal amount of damage to the surrounding.
In the middle of the crater, there is a child of what seems to be 5-years old clothed in rags seemingly unconscious.
The child has black hair with a hint of red that touches to the child's shoulder, the most distinctive feature of the child is a black shark tail, hinting on what the child used to be, before the rags covered the tail.
*Vrooom* a sound of an engine can be heard from the distance.
As the engine sounds got closer even more engines was heard totaling 4 vehicles, 2 motorcycles, 1 armored car, and 1 gun mounted pick-up.
Each vehicle has a sigil, The sigil shows an image of a head of a jackal with a fire behind it.
The vehicles stopped, followed by opening and closing of doors, then multiple footsteps was heard approaching the crater.
"Is this the crater where the meteor fell?"
The leading man said while fully clad in armor made for the desert.
The most prominent feature of the leading man is a bandana in his right arm with a sigil imprint, the same sigil as the one on the vehicles.
"Ye-yes s-sir thi-is should be where the meteor fall" said by a scrawny man in a sleeveless outlander outfit, while looking at the terminal in his gloved hands.
All the figures have the same bandana on varying parts of their body, then they followed the leading man who went ahead to inspect the crater.
The leader of the six men crew finally went inside the crater and saw what was inside causing him to stop in silence.
The leader stopping caused the crew to stop aswell but the silence after made them stop their chattting.
"So boss what seems to be the issue?" Said by the biggest of the crew.
"A child." the leader deadpan, replied.
"A... what?" One of the shorter ones of the crew asked with a muffled voice but noticably higher pitched than the others.
"A child!" The leader replied frustrated with hands clenched.
As the leader said that, the scrawny one went down the crater to check if what the leader said was true.
"What about the mineral deposit?" A man asked while holding something similar to a barrett M82.
"There is no mineral deposits! the logistics was wrong!" The leader said with obvius strain.
"Calm down Deus." Said by the last person of the group.
"Th-thats right boss! s-so what if there was no minerals a-a child that can survive from falling from such height s-should worth something!" The scrawny man said while checking the child's pulse.
Deus hearing both the last and the scrawny man's words calmed down.
"Hmm..., Right better than nothing to present at all, After we send the child back, the child becomes the logistics problem not ours." Deus said after a few seconds of contemplating.
"Then Evan take the child, the others head back to the main caravan." Deus said before turning around to go back to his own motorcycle.
"H-huh" Evan said with confusion.
"W-wait!... And they're gone..." Even said while reaching out to the other crew members.
"*Sigh*... Well then, its all me I guess." Evan said before he tries to carry the child.
"Huh?" Evan said in shock before gripping what seems to be a fish tail.
"A demi-human..." Evan said with his head low, before sprinting towards his crew with the child in his arms.
"Boss!! A d-demi-human.." Evan said with the child in his arms.
"What?" Deus asked in confusion.
"The child is a demi-human,.. that's like 10 million Shales at minimum!" Evan said excitedly.
"Then what are you waiting for? Get a move on." Deus said before turning his motorcycle on, causing the others to go to their respective vehicles aswell.
Seeing this Evan panicked before heading on the pick-up to drop the child off, right after getting in the car.
"Go! Go! Go!" The biggest one on crew said while slamming the roof of the car.
"I'm trying, I'm trying." Evan replied while fiddling with the keys.
Finally the engine started, the car then followed the other 3 vehicles who drove off first.
After sometime neither too short nor too long, the crew of six saw the main Pack, the Pack is composed of two 18-wheeler trucks and seven other crews guarding one truck respectively.
As the crew of six met with the main caravan a man draped in futuristic armor naking the man completely misplaced in the endless sand dunes walked towards them.
"Reconnaissance squad Alps, state the status of your mission." The man ordred the crew of six.
Deus then moved forward while carrying the demi-human child in his hands.
"There was no meteorite, just a child." Deus said in a calm manner.
"A child?" The man asked confused.
"Yes, A child." Deus said before handling it to a worker who dropped off the truck.
"What?, but the terminal said the meteorite should have a sleek material strong enough that only Pathstriders should be able to damage it." The man replies appalled.
"That's your problem, our mission only entails to retrieve the 'meteorite' in the fall site, if you don't believe me send another squad."
Deus said with folded arms.
The man is speechless at Deus.
Using that as cue to escape.
"The mission objective is done, Squad Alps will now go back to their post." Deus said before scurrying back to his squad.
"Wait." The man said while reaching his arms towards Deus.
"Sir Zander, the goods have been inspected the child seems to come from a demi-human line of the seaborns." A worker in futuristic armor appeared behind the man.
"A seaborn demi-human rarer than a normal demi-human so a minimum of 10 million Shales or 1.6 million in credits." Zander said while contemplating.
"Well that's better than nothing, although we can't use a new material we can still have income." Zander said before deciding on an order.
"Put the seaborn with the other slaves that will be put up in the auction." Zander said to the worker before going back to the front of the caravan.
The worker then bowed after hearing the order.
The worker then carried the seaborn to the second truck which is full of cages with slaves inhabitants.
The opening of the truck caused the other slaves to look upon the newcomer.
As the worker went inside, he threw the seaborn on the vacant cage by the back of the truck.
With the door of the truck closing, each of the eyes look at the vulnerable child in rags, some of them with pity, some with indifference.
As the caravan now moved through the sand dunes. Inside the 2nd truck a monkey demi-human throwed something at the child.
"Hey wake up, Hey can't you hear me??" The monkey demi-human said while throwing something.
The child finally woke up from a very deep slumber.
(POV change: The seaborn)
As the child's eyelids open the first thing the child see is metal bars, trying to take in that information the child stayed still before deciding to look around.
The child look around while laying down on their side.
What the child found is other metal boxes with with some people moving inside.
"yHe waiyke hup, yHe cna't yuh hrae mi??"
The child heard noises before they felt something being thrown on their back.
As the child turned their body sidewards the child felt an uncomfortable feeling on their back as if the child is being flattened, and at the same time the child is pressing on that something.
The uncomfortable feeling caused the child to suddenly rise and straighten up.
"HyuhHyuhHyuhHyuh----"
(HAHAHAHAHA--)
The child heard some noises that seems to be mocking their reaction.
The child looked around trying to find the cause of the sounds, and where finally, The child met with the source of the sound.
What the child saw was an even older child seemingly in his thirteen's, the child has brown hair and clothed in rags.
His most prominent feature is the rounded but big ears on the sides of his head with a thin tail covered in fur.
The older child was pointing at the child seemingly amused at their reactions.
"Hou deid yuh gyit kampchud?"
(How did you get captured?)
As the older child made some noise, the child didn't understand, all the child can do is tilt their head.
"Khan yuh iven andrstund hwat aiym saehying?"
(Can you even understand what Im saying?)
"Kat dat awt, shis dyast a cihld."
(Cut that out, she's just a child)
Seemingly understanding what another voice said the older child bowed his head down.
Seeing the older child's reaction the child followed the source of the voice, what they saw was woman twice as big as the older child.
The woman had golden-yellow hair that flows down to her waist she is also covered in rags but unlike the older boy the woman had triangular ears on her head.
And just like the boy she also has a tail but unlike the boys her tail is fluffier or bigger than the boys.
The woman smiled at the child, the smile was a gentle one making the child feel a sense of ease.
The child did not respond for the child do not know what to say or do and just stared at the woman.
After a few moments have passed the child decide to look around.
All the child can see are metal boxes filled with people inside most of whom are demi-human ranging from foxian, elves to even other Seaborns.
Some are native to this planet while others are not and are just unlucky to be captured in unforeseen circumstances, others were sold by their own families.
As the child tries to stand up the child instinctively know how to walk although the child seem to know their body is not yet accustomed to walking causing them to fall.
While trying to stand up the child heard the mocking sound coming from the older boy which the child attributed to his reaction to them falling again.
The child is on their knees while falling again, while kneeling on the floor, a very familiar sensation is felt on both of the childs hands.
The child instinctively moved the familiar feeling by willing it to go outside their hands, causing a black gas-like substance to form below the child.
A single word is being replayed inside the child's head.....
'Eat.'
The moment the child thought of that word the child fell.
The sands of the dunes cushions the childs fall, the child rolled around a few times before getting up.
As the child try and get up they hear noises, when the child looked at the direction of that noise they saw a bigger metal box than the one where they were previously inside of.
"Dis is Rekonesanse Skwad Hilands, Wan of da Prhodukt feL."
(This is Reconnaissance Squad Highlands, One of the products fell.)
The big hunk of metal then moved towards the child, they then felt a distinctive sense of dread saying that....
They should move...
They should run....
Don't get caught....
Feeling as if they get caught something worse will happen to them.
With that pushing the child forward,p they bolted right there and then, seeing the child's reaction the Metal box got faster causing the child to run even harder.
"Rodjr dat,Skwad Hilands wiL retrive da Prhodukt."
(Roger that, Squad Highlands will retrieve the product.)
"Prhodukt staTus, Da Prhodukt has Blck haRe wit hins of red dat toches da Prhodukt's sholders."
(Product status, The product is about 5 - 6 year-old, and has black hair with hints of red that touches the product's shoulders.)
The giant metal box then become faster causing the child to feel panic, then the child felt the same feeling as before but now it's both in their legs.
But this time instead of 'eat' now its 'boom' the moment they felt that, their lowered left leg burst with the same substance launching the child forward.
The moment the child did that they felt a stinging pain on their legs.
"Retrival Mishon Ripot, da Prhodukt is ae paTstrider rekwesting permishon phor supresive phire."
(Retrieval Mission Report, the product is a Pathstrider requesting permission for suppressive fire.)
"Rager dat, SKWAD HILANDS OPEN SUPRESIVE FIRE!"
(Roger that, Squad Highlands open suppressive fire!)
Suddenly multiple blast sounds happened, the next thing the child knows, they felt multiple stinging pain on their body, the child paid the pain no mind and just continued to run.
The child went right, they jumped, they went left, and they went straight but no matter what they do the child can't shake the giant metal box off them.
"AI Permit da non-letal yus of Snipr rifls, NOW SHOOT!"
(I permit the non-lethal use of sniper rifles, now shoot!)
Something pierced the child's leg...
Then another...
Two in their left leg and one in their right leg.
Before the pain can even register, the child ran desperately to the point they felt the feeling of emptiness inside of them.
"HIT DA PEDAL, DA PRHODUKT IS GETING AWHAY!"
(Hit the pedal the, product is getting away!)
In the distant horizon the child saw multiple metal walls, but this time it's so big that it reached the skies.
Seeing a shred of hope the child ran even faster and faster and the feeling of emptiness is becoming more and more apparent.
With a burst of speed the child was met with a wall so tall it took them two burst to climb over.
"DENG IT!"
(Dang it!)
"Mishion phaild, I ripit Mishion phaild. Evrywan, fal bak to da karavan."
(Mission failed, I repeat Mission failed, Everyone, fall back to the caravan.)
The child looks back and they saw that the metal box is now in a further distance away, turning back the way they came from.
With that the child felt relief and finally let their guard down causing them to fall down, but with the relief so came the pain and tiredness.
(POV Change: 3rd perspective)
The seaborn on top of the wall, now very tired began to scale down the wall.
The seaborn almost fell a few times, but thankfully the seaborn scaled the wall successfully.
Now on the ground, the seaborn looked up and saw the sun about to set behind the walls, they decided to walk around looking for a place to sleep.
The seaborn walked on the dilapidated streets of the city before being lulled to a an alleyway because of a smell.
The seaborn entered the alley and saw a garbage container big enough to have 2 lids.
Luckily one of the lids was open, which is the cause of the smell emanating from the container that attracted the seaborn.
As the seaborn climbs inside the garbage container and looks inside, The contents of the garbage container are leftovers of the restaurants, with some them not even completely eaten.
*Growl* the stomach of the seaborn is now demanding to be filled.
The seaborn ate everything inside the garbage container voraciously.
Both food and trash alike, although the taste caused the seaborn to be uncomfortable but the seaborn ignored that feeling and continued to consume.
For every matter consumed by the seaborn is converted into Imaginary energy giving the seaborn a sense of fullness.
The now empty garbage container and a very satisfied seaborn inside, finally after a very eventful day the seaborn is now tired and wants to sleep.
_________________________
A/N:
Oh wow so much happened in just one day....
Well i'm never writing this much again... Hopefully...
If someone actually stumbles on this novel I do hope for critique on how to make my novel better.
So thank you guys for that I guess.