Chapter 79: Astraeus [one]
Seven years ago in Crystalia. The city of mines.
[Mentioned in chapter 20]
"Vik, are you really going inside the dark forest?"
A man with sparkling stars on his hair asked by standing on the edge of a river. The sky was pretty clear for the adventurers to go on a hunt.
"I will be fine. But I'm worried for you. The mines are dangerous deep inside."
Viktor gave him a small box full of food and said, "Don't overdo it. Take your time and become stronger slowly."
Tsk! This human is really annoying sometimes. But he's not that bad. I guess I can give him a pleasant goodbye.
"Hey Vik, don't worry. I'm a guardian, aren't I?"
"Hah, this twig…"
"Anyway human, see you around. The gates will be closing soon." Viktor bid him farewell to Astraeus and left on his journey inside the dark forest.
"Hah! I've never seen that kind of human who has a blank guardian fragment inside his core. I guess he was a guardian in his past life. Anyway, I have to start my journey to obtain the sun's heart as quickly as possible. Or else, the stars will fall from the sky."
Rae took his new shiny sword and joined a small party to go inside a dungeon on a hunt.
The party was small. And Rae was the front on the line. Because he wields a sword and he was the only person with good items.
I wonder why, but this party smells fishy.
Rae looked at the party member and noticed something. He expanded his hearing sense and understands that the party was a killer party. They were planning to kill the newbie and loot all the valuable gears on him.
So this is what they are planning. I guess I need to plan something too.
A few weeks ago, Rae noticed something unusual with the monsters. He was scared when he noticed some wolves were searching for him. So he took shelter in a tree. But in reality, the monsters were never searching for him.
Then he realised that worldly monsters do not attack guardians. They aren't hostile towards any guardians. Even if they attack, they won't even understand what's going on until their death. So no matter how strong the monster is, it won't attack a guardian. Because they are the protector of nature. If a guardian wishes to kill monsters or any kind of animal, they will be glad to sacrifice their life on their own.
The guardians are the main source of all living and non-living beings.
Rae went deeper inside the dungeon with his party members and collected so many mana stones in secret to feed off its magical power one by one.
Because he desperately needs to become stronger to reclaim his position as a guardian in the realm of guardian no matter what.
Days passed, but there was no end to the dungeon. The guild said that it's the smallest dungeon and the easiest one to clear with tons of crystals and mana stones as bonuses. But Rae knew what exactly was going on.
When he came to Crystalia with Viktor a week ago, he looked for the easiest and the nearest path to the underworld. But it was only easy for him. Not his party members.
"Come on!!! Bring it on!!!!"
"Team leader!!! Cast fire arrows right now!! I need some support here!!!"
"Who are you to order me around haa? Come here and support me!! Oi newbie!! Why are you sitting in the corner? Aren't you supposed to be on the front line?"
The party members were struggling to fight a huge salamander desperately while Rae was digging something in the corner. He looked as if he was on a vacation.
"Hey!!! Come here! Can't you see we're losing here!!"
Wow! What a cute little blue mana stone!
Rae became excited to see the blue mana stone he pulled out from the dirt.
"Hey!! Rae!! Why aren't you listening? Do you want to die? If I die here, we're all dead!"
"Grrrrr!!! Aaarggggg!!"
"Aaahh!! Help! Aah!!!"
Rae washed his blue mana stone with magic while the salamander was feeding off the party members. But it didn't bother him at all.
"Wah! What a powerful little mana stone. But nowhere near my 1% power."
The salamander came closer to him and touched Rae's back with its head.
"Kiyuu."
"Huh? Do you need something?" Rae asked.
The salamander looked playful, so he patted his head and asked, "Do you know where the door to the underworld is? I need to see the core."
The salamander bent his hand and showed his back. It wanted to give the guardian a ride. So, he sat on his back and started to follow an unknown path deeper.
The universe is divided into 4 different realms. The gates to the heavens realm, the guardian realm, the worldly realm and the underworld realm.
Right below the worldly realm, the underworld realm exists where nothing exists. It is near a hidden realm called the blank realm. Here, the manual settings of the world and the surrounding planets settings exist.
Rae lost his powers after he was banished from the guardian realm. After Viktor removed his curse, some of his powers came back. But the worldly mana wasn't enough to fully cultivate his core.
That's why he went on a journey to the underworld to obtain his powers back again and strike back to the guardian realm to reclaim his position.
"Salamander san, how long you're going to follow this path? I can see a lava pool in front of me. Are you planning to swim across that?"
"Kiyu!!"
"I guess I can't stop you from going. Anyway, it's okay as long as you take me to the core."
Rae took out a piece of meat from his box and it immediately became roasted due to the intense heat inside the lava chamber.
"It's really convenient."
The salamander jumped into the pool and started to swim. It was a huge pool and lava bubbles were popping on its surface. In that extreme environment, he saw lava monsters jumping out of the lava like fishes and some flaming red birds were hunting those fishes and feeding on them. It was a whole different world.
"Are they edible?"
The salamander below him nodded his head no. So he turned his attention from those lava fishes and looked forward to see the path clearly. But the underworld realm gate was nowhere near him.
Somewhere in the guardian realm at that moment.
"Khnemu, have you received any orders from the creator?" 𝚏r𝐞𝗲𝚠eb𝚗o𝐯el.com
A powerful guardian asked the guardian of water in the hall of guardians. The hall of guardian was floating above the sky with only 111 golden guardian thrones. In the middle of it, the seats for the four main guardians were placed. And one of them belonged to the guardian of water.
Khnemu, the water guardian looked at the guardian and said, "No, it's been more than a million years. But he hasn't answered my prayers once."
"I see. Have you checked on the world tree recently?"
"No, I am very busy these years. And I don't have time to leave my throne."
The guardian exhaled deeply and said, "The world tree has become dry. Some of the branches are also missing. I don't think we can balance the order of the realms if this continues."
Khnemu looked at the guardian of nature's face and said, "That's, none of my problem."
The guardian of the nature became vexed and said, "It wasn't necessary to kick out Astraeus from his position and curse him you know. For his absence, the world tree looks so imbalanced. It will be better if you lift his curse. This isn't the time for any civil war. We all need to work together."
Even after hearing all of her words, Khnemu stayed silent. So, she left the hall and went straight to the realm library to search for a solution. But what she saw was two empty thrones in the middle of the library premises.
"Just, what happened here!"
She looked around and saw there were no books inside the library. Not even a single page. She was petrified.
"It's rare to see a high-level guardian in this abandoned place."
She turned her head back and saw a small creature moping the floor.
So, she asked who he was.
"I'm a spirit who watches over the twin throne here. It's been thousands of years since I saw another guardian here besides the heaven guardians. What brings you here?"
"I was looking for some records. But it looks like nobody is here in the library."
"Oh, you mean Elesis and Elerous? They died seven hundred thousand years ago. Didn't you know? Everyone from the second generation knows about those twins."
"The second generation? You mean the Iro, the guardian of Ice who's from millions of years ago?"
The spirit stopped mopping the floor and said, "Miss guardian, what generation are you from?"
"I'm from the 9th generation. But what's the especially about the twin brothers?" The guardian of nature asked.
The spirit flew closer to her and said,
"About a million years ago, the guardian of the book and the guardian of truth wanted to create a powerful 3rd generation by combining their fragments. But they ended up creating a dangerous being. When the 3rd generation guardian was created, this library automatically popped out of nowhere with me. And two grown-up guardians came out of the fragment ball and ran away quickly inside the library's secret vault.
The guardians who created them quickly understood what type of guardians they were and created a subspace with time manipulation to keep them safe for thousands of years.
But their plan failed and thirty thousand years already had passed inside the subspace.
The existence of the twin guardian came to light and all the second generation became frightened by their power. By that moment, the creator already declared the heavens guardian to kill all the useless and the most dangerous guardians inside the guardian realm.
The most dangerous criminal was one from the twin guardians."
"What? Weren't they just created by the second generation? And what kind of guardian was he anyway?"
"Elerous, the guardian of the records who holds every record of every living being that existed in every universe created by the creator. He held the absolute power which was capable of erasing the very existence of the creator. It was the birth of a new creator."
The guardian of nature was shocked to hear the origin of Elerous. So she asked if there was any way to save the world tree from getting destroyed.
The spirit smiled and said, "Don't worry. My soul is connected to the twin brothers. My living existence is the burning proof that both of them are alive. So don't worry. They will come back very soon."