Chương 1: World Bridge-Prologue

[Author's note: If you don't like Info-dumps/masses on details, skip the first 3 Chapters <3]

Once upon a time a single inhabitable planet, known by the name of Argos, existed in a gigantic stellar system. It revolved around the humongous sun, along with dozens of other gaseous planets occupying the stellar system.

The planet truly began to flourish when an intelligent bipedal race that called themselves humans entered the big picture.

This intelligent race socialized, worked together to survive, and advanced more than any other species found on the planet.

Over the course of hundreds of years, humanity was able to mechanize and automate machines. Thus, slowly and steadily the species along with the planet prospered.

Humanity's history was short when compared to the history of the whole planet. But, the species was greedy and impatient. In their haste to advance further, they used and exhausted more limited natural resources than any other race ever did before.

Argos was a giant planet and the population of the human race surpassed the three-digit billions as if it was nothing. Soon, the once giant planet began to fall short of the billions of humans to comfortably inhabit. The tall skyscrapers and high-rise constructions were now not enough to provide shelter to the ever-increasing population.

Thus, mankind would have to leave the stellar system in search of a new planet and a new home to continue to live in, grow and advance even further.

But it was easier said than done. Humanity needed answers and solutions to overcome the hurdles in traveling through the vast space and exploring new stellar systems.

Many humans prayed to whichever god they wanted to, that something would change and they would make a breakthrough in space traveling.

Years passed as humanity strived to find an answer when a sudden meteor shower shocked humanity to the core. The meteors disintegrated into large chunks of rocks and rained down on the farthest planet of the same stellar system. The force with which this cosmic debris hit the planet was so impactful that it was shattered into millions of pieces.

The meteor shower disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. but the most intriguing part of this event was that the meteor shower came from outside of the stellar system without anyone noticing it beforehand.

In a way, humanity's prayers were answered that day. The human scientists picked up a few remains of the meteorites, which were made of an unknown material that humans had never seen before.

The meteorites radiated a cold yet tranquil energy that seeped into their surroundings radiating a sense of calm in the atmosphere.

This energy was much more powerful than any energy that had ever been discovered by humanity. It even defied the laws of nature, as it made the meteorite levitate from the surface and float in the air.

The scientists were fascinated by the meteorite and conducted in-depth studies that resulted in many discoveries.

One discovery was that the energy that radiated from the meteorites could accelerate the speed of growth of plants and animals.

The scientists studying the meteorite felt more vigorous and became stronger than the average human being. The rate at which their age decelerated made the other humans envious.

For the next several years, the scientists researched the meteorites making path-breaking discoveries in their labs. One fine day, without any prior warning, small cracks began to appear on the meteorite's surface.

An unmeasurable amount of the still unknown energy began to condense into a blue shining liquid-like ball that peeled its outer stone skin and ascended into the sky.

While most humans around the world were still working, a sudden cataclysmic event struck nature like never before and the whole wildlife went silent.

Only humans on the other side of the planet, far away from the laboratory containing the meteorites, didn't sense the horror that was about to be unleashed on the entire planet.

The blue shining ball with the accumulated mysterious energy continued its ascension until it reached a certain height. It floated ominously, without moving a single inch as if it was suspended mid-air.

All humans in and around the laboratory kept looking at the shining ball with a mixture of apprehension and wonder. They were both anxious and horrified to face the unknown situation.

Humanity's mind was a complex puzzle.

On one hand, they wanted to do everything to be the dominant force on their planet but on the other hand, any unexpected incident made them cower in fear.

At that moment, their minds came up with the worst possible scenarios. It gave them goosebumps as they exchanged worried glances, knowing that they were helpless and vulnerable with nothing to defend themselves with!

As they sensed doom crawling towards them, some humans with a weaker will started crying, and a few of them began to hug each other trying to find comfort and solace. While others could only stare into the sky with a blank mind, looking at the ball as if it were a giant time bomb, slowly ticking towards annihilation.

The liquid-ball seemed to get stronger, as a suction force spread around it while it gradually began to shrink in size.

They tried in vain to distance themselves from the suction force that only seemed to grow stronger over time, and looked helplessly at the sky.

The amount of compressed energy inside this blue shining ball, although only the size of a tennis ball, was potent enough to devastate at least half of the continent, if not the whole planet.

Time passed and the scientists noticed a surprising change within the blue shining ball, making them even more nervous than they had already been.

Luckily, the energy was floating in a tranquil and stable state, until the ball shrunk further and reached the size of a ping pong ball.

The compressed energy became more and more unstable after it had reached a certain threshold. The ball began to tremble violently, scaring the living daylights out of all the living beings surrounding the area.

At this moment even the humans on the other side of Argos noticed that something was wrong. The entire planet had tensed up, as if the ball was suffocating it, making it unable to breathe freely.

It seemed that the planet itself was put under a massive threat by the single little energy ball, and nature had gone deathly still, the quietest it had ever been in its history of billions of years.

Space seemed to twist out of nowhere, and blood-red cobweb-like cracks began to appear below the energy ball, giving it a more stable constitution.

The more cracks appeared, the more stable the energy ball seemed, making some humans sigh in relief.

However, their relief barely lasted for a while before similar cracks started to appear all around Argos. These cracks tore through the ocean bed, spread like vines through the jungles, ripped apart the underground, and slashed high in the sky, leaving no space untouched.

Humanity was clueless as to why the sudden cracks had appeared or what they could do, but they could be assured of one thing. There was no way it could have been something good.

Though some were relieved that the blue shining energy ball didn't explode, the others felt that the red cracks didn't seem to be something one wanted to have on the planet either.

The cracks all over the planet grew in size until they reached a certain magnitude. Some were bigger while others were small in size, however, all of them had one particular fact in common.

All the cracks had a blood red lining to them while the inside was pitch-black. Not a single ray of sunlight could pass through the cracks to let humans see what terrors lurked inside if any.

It looked like the way to an endless abyss making the humans' blood run cold.

At the exact same moment, scientists' worst fear came true as the seemingly stable energy ball continued to compress itself causing it to explode.

An astronomical amount of mysterious energy was released into the atmosphere, causing the blood-red cracks to shake violently, twisting the space around them.

Surprisingly the enormous amount of energy didn't devastate the landscape. Instead, it enveloped the whole planet with its blue shining color before it began to invade every living being and the planet itself until it reached the core.

Not a single cell was spared and the whole planet jolted, causing a chain reaction of events. The deathly still nature erupted at once as one disaster after the other occurred in quick succession. Earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic explosions ravaged the planet as it was invaded by unknown energy.

Unbeknownst to humanity, Argos was freed of its shackles from billions of years ago and its core was resurrected.

The former pitch-black abyss inside the blood-red cracks changed into hundreds of different colorful landscapes.

While many of these landscapes looked beautiful with majestic mountains, lively forest, and clean oceans, the sight of other cracks wasn't as joyful and beautiful as mankind had thought a moment before.

Hideous-looking creatures with razor-sharp teeth, thick scales, massive tails, and bloodthirst in their eyes stepped through a certain crack while various other dreadful beings entered Argos through the several other cracks.

Bridges between different worlds had just appeared on Argos and the planet entered a new age of darkness, devastation, and death.