The Universe expands faster than the speed of light. Endlessly, and without a comprehensive goal.
670 years ago, based on Earth's time, it reached a point where its rapid expansion turned into its own weakness!
Rips in its fabric occurred, which in turn made the Multiverse accessible by nearly every creature. Accessible, even if undeserved.
Some Historians call that day the God's Tear. They believed that a single tear-drop from God's eye ripped an infinite amount of holes through the 'stacked sheets' of the Multiverse. So as to say his tear caused tears, rips.
The rips behaved like portals to other universes. Within those other universes, other universes were also accessible, giving a grand example of how confusing infinity was.
Humanity was slapped with the side-effects of God's Tear. They had to deal with the horrid Beasts that traveled across the Multiverse, and wreaked havoc the moment they wound up on Earth. Civilization collapsed quickly as the Legendary Beasts tore through its defenses like a knife through butter!
However, some humans, small groups here and there, found the infinite wisdom to hide, just long enough for this apocalyptic event to work to their favor. The vast numbers of Beasts that stormed through Earth, breathed out their wisdom, their energy, to the point where such wisdom mixed with the planet's atmosphere, striking the lungs of a lucky few humans, awakening them, giving them a fighting chance, as those few learned how to tame beasts!
From that point onwards, what was left of the Human race slowly clawed its way up to a dominant spot of sorts, sculpting their place in the new world. They adapted, and the humans that were alive today, usually holed up in hard-stone strongholds, which were also protected by Beast Tamers ranging in rank.
Michael was not a Beast Tamer. He was not one of the Awakened, and with most of his family sharing the same fate, he was at the bottom of society. A rank below slaves, because at least slaves did not have to worry if they were going to eat today or not.
At twenty years old, he found himself working another twelve hour shift in the Quarry. Even in a world where multiversal monsters were a common sight, he was unlucky enough to hold the job of a laborer. He hated every minute of it, but he had no other choice.
Pickaxe in hand, he slaved away all day for twenty iron coins. Coins were his stronghold's base currency, and his current wage was barely enough to help him, and his family survive. If it wasn't for the few critters he killed on his way back home from the Quarry, he would've starved to death a long time ago!
Sharp winds blew on his face. The top of the Rocky Mountains was not for the weak, even if the mountain itself was considered short.
His arms burned, both from the chill of the wind, and the continuous work he put in.
Michael swung his pickaxe a little bit harder every time he thought about his life.
"Some do nothing all day, and still end up eating exotic meats…" he mumbled under his breath, "But my little sister has to eat a spider's ass to keep her stomach full?"
"Unfair…" he kept swinging.
Michael's complaints, which he repeated nearly daily over the past few months, were muffled by the sea of sharp pickaxe strikes produced by the other workers around him. He may not be a lucky man, but plenty of other people shared his fate. There were a total of three-hundred people across the worksite, most of them as dirt poor as him.
Anyway, since he could only swing spitefully for so long before he got tired, Michael took a short break.
He turned around, and locked eyes with one of the Beast Tamers, an alien, tall by figure, calm, handsome and confident. Dressed like a diplomatic mage.
The Tamer's handsome looks served no purpose in the worksite, or across the planet in general, really. He was a horse/humanoid hybrid, who mostly looked like a human, single pair of legs and all, but he had the head of a horse, small enough to complement the size of the rest of his body. His skin was more of a hide, like the hide of a horse.
The Tamer's species were called the Higrus. Alien, no doubt.
Michael smiled at him. The Higrus were usually great company compared to other Beast Tamers who were assigned to protect the workers. The Higrus were great entertainers, and so they kept the workers happy. Human Tamers usually behaved like an entire branch had slipped up their arse. It was hard to like them.
After greeting the alien Tamer with a silent head nod, Michael looked to his right half-mindedly, and this was when he spotted a large rat, at the very edge of the Quarry.
Ignoring the fact that he was tired, he rushed towards the rat, cornered it behind a large boulder, and killed it. He was a strong young man, so one swing of his Pickaxe was all it took.
"Haha!" he celebrated, "Can't hiss at me now, motherfucker!"
As he turned around, he saw the Tamer, along with the Beasts that followed him around. Large, one-eyed humanoids, who towered over the Tamer by a third, standing at 9ft/274cm tall.
"Oh, lucky break!" the Tamer celebrated along with him, "Are you going to eat it or fuck it?"
"Eat it, of course. You need to remember that I'm not a horse-man like you." Michael chuckled, "Besides… roasted rat is a delicacy for my family nowadays."
"Right right," the Tamer nodded, "I do apologize, this is the third Universe I had to visit this week. Apparently, my boss owes your boss some favors."
Michael waved the comic confusion away as if it was nothing. He knew that the Tamer didn't mean any harm, and with a massive, 25kg/55lbs rat on his hands, which could feed his family well for at least a week, it was hard for him to be upset. His mood improved significantly, his smile drawing in the faint sunlight.
Michael dragged the rat across the Quarry, and dropped it close to his corner, where he worked. Plenty of workers eyed his kill, and dreaded the fact that they didn't see the rat first! In the middle of their shift, as their stomachs gurgled for food, even the flesh of a rat seemed delicious to them.
Anyway, Michael was aware that he couldn't take a break for long. The current Tamers who were assigned to protect the workers were generally mellow, and wouldn't belittle anyone who wanted to take a short break, as this was a hard job, after all, but Michael couldn't stand the glares of the other workers.
The workers close to him were not happy. Every second or third swing of theirs, against the hard stone wall in front of them, was followed by short glares directed at him.
"Staring at me as if we're not in this shitty boat together…" he sighed, before he got back to work.
The day was long, and the workers weren't even in the middle of their shift, but they had no other choice but to keep going. Food was a necessity that they could not afford to give up. They needed the coins.
A couple of hours after noon, the workers were given the break they had been looking forward to all morning. An hour-long break, which they could use to either eat the food they brought from home, or relax.
The sad fact was that not everyone could afford to bring food from home, but today, Michael was lucky. He killed a rat, and by now, its carcass had bled out quite well, so he used his pickaxe to rip one of the rat's legs off, and slowly roasted it over the big bonfire that other workers had set ablaze.
The leg itself weighed a couple of kilos, too much for him to finish eating alone, so after he roasted it over the fire for half an hour, he shared the leg with some of the workers, specifically, people who had been staring daggers at him earlier on. He figured they were just hungry.
"Substitude chicken meat…" one of the workers said, "It tastes better than you'd expect that disgusting vermin to taste."
"I think it tastes better than chicken," Michael said, "Chicken meat isn't this thick. It's gonna take me the rest of our break to eat my share."
"Hey, at least we ate something today." the worker added.
At some point, Michael got tired of chewing, so he approached one of the Tamers, and then offered the rest of his meat to one of the humanoid Beasts the Tamer had.
The Beast smiled at him, its lips curling, reaching close to its one eye, and then it swallowed the few ounces of meat in one gulp. That little bit of meat barely even touched its giant teeth, so this was more of a tiny snack for it, really, but the Beast was happy.
The hour-long break did everyone good. They were ready to go back to work now. They had to go back to work, really, but some of the workers were more motivated, and happier than others.
After he made sure that no one touched the rest of the rat carcass he scored, Michael got back to work.
He swung his pickaxe against the hard stone wall in front of him. After a few dozen swings, he noticed that his pickaxe sunk into the rock a bit more than what he expected.
He braced himself for a hard swing, a kickback, specifically, but his pickaxe sunk by a couple of inches.
"Limestone…" he sighed, and then mustered a smirk. "Hell yeah!"
"Lucky streak today, eh?" one of the workers from close by said, "You killed a rat, and now you get to take twenty extra coins home? Leave some luck for the rest of us, rich guy."
"I guess the Gods went easy on me today," he smiled.
Finding Limestone, regardless of the quantity, was always rewarded. Limestone was a key ingredient when it came to making cement and concrete. Paired with hard stone that they mined, those were the three things that helped keep the Legendary Beasts from tearing through the population.
It wasn't always effective, but paired with the help from Beast Tamers, Limestone was the soft skeleton of the common Stronghold, that made their livelihood itself make sense. It helped sustain their defenses.
One of the Foremen approached him minutes later, and poured today's wages in Michael's small, leather bag. Forty iron coins!
It wasn't a lot, it hardly made him wealthy, but it would keep him, and his family well-fed over the rest of the week.
Most of his worries went away as soon as he was handed his wage. He managed to find happiness on top of a mountain, while handling one of the toughest jobs there was nowadays!
Anyway, he got back to mining the limestone, chipping it away one chunk at a time, but minutes later, he noticed an odd pressure in his ear.
At first he ignored it, and figured that he was straining his body too much, which in turn constricted his neck muscles, causing his ears to feel pressure, and even ring a little bit. He was used to this experience, but the more attention he paid to it, the more he realized that something weird was going on.
Suddenly he was on his knees. A stream of adrenaline rammed his heart, as his good mood quickly descended into worry!
"Was it that rat meat I ate?" he grunted, worried about his health.
Michael frantically looked around, and as a wave of commotion struck the crowd of three hundred, drowning the sound of the pickaxes hitting stone, he realized that there was nothing wrong with him, but rather, the worksite.
"Is it a Beast?" he swiftly stood up, and held on to his pickaxe a little bit tighter.
In front of the short wall of stone that everyone had been working on, or specifically, behind the line of workers, Michael spotted the head of a Beast appear.
Its head was as big as a person, and its neck was absurdly long. A dark shade of green covered the Beast's body, and even from a distance, he could tell that this one had scales. He didn't wait for the Beast to show the rest of its body.
At the top of his lungs, he screamed, "Dragon!"
Many of the other workers followed suit. Some even shouted before him, but nevertheless, the warnings they tried to put out, were drowned by the collective shouts of the workers as the worksite sank into a deep stew of panic. They were all aware that something was going on, and so they spotted the Beast quite quickly!
Michael was frozen in place. He wanted to run away, for one thing, as he was sure that he wasn't strong enough to fight what he suspected to be a Dragon, but then he noticed that the Beast Tamers weren't doing anything either.
"Why the fuck are they standing around?" he asked himself, "Are they scared?"
Their cowardice disgusted him, so he had half a mind to rush forward, and fight the Beast himself, as best as he could, but as the rest of the Beast's body materialized, he realized that it was not in fact a Dragon.
It seemed reptilian, but it didn't have wings. It was massive, had two pairs of legs, and it was already going after the workers, trying to stomp the life out of them.
Seconds later, he noticed a large distortion in the air, right where that scale-covered Beast popped into existence just moments ago.
As the distortion assumed the shape of an eye, featuring multiple pale colors, which were at the same time transparent, he realized what was going on.
A wave of Beasts poured out of that distortion in the air, and within the chaos of it all, he saw one of the friendly Beast Tamers being overwhelmed by the wave.
"Another portal?" he repeated, "A Tear?"
Not knowing if he should laugh or cry, he wiped the sweat off of his forehead, and said, "Dear God… we can't fight a horde…"