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Time passed since the first sky formed and primordial spawn became beasts, now most are not even that. Most reduced to animals. It was kind of boring? At least when the Primordial beasts were around, I’d get to see them fight and rearrange large portions of my terrain around every thousand or so years.
So let me tell you, it isn’t hard for me to be distracted. You can only see a regular wolf take down a regular deer so many times before it gets boring. And that’s without having seen a wolf made of living shadow battle it out with a deer a magnitude bigger whose antlers are made of crystalline light.
So I get distracted. I feel a crack form not in the earth, but the air and it leads Elsewhere.
Before time can even move forward, I’m watching. And then out of this floating crack in the sky, bursts a small group of three people. Two are obviously human, but one might be an elf? A Fae? Spirit maybe? Whatever, they’re all willowy, ethereal, and have pointed ears.
Also, all three are weak sauce! Which is unfortunate when said crack is literally in the sky. They don’t even get a chance to speak before they’re falling. Said fall not being survivable for them.
After that, every hundred to a thousand years, another rift would open. Which, being ready for it now, I get a quick peek through.
Let’s just say, I’ve been lucky so far.
These aren’t controlled gates or anything and a healthy dimension doesn’t magically develop rifts. Each rift leads to a different small plane. And yeah, I suspect I formed somewhat based on my own expectations.
There are places with no surface, just endless caves while another was only sky. Though more than enough world type worlds? Not sure how best to describe it, but a sphere and not a flat surface.
Anyway, they all share one thing in common. They’re dead. I’d like to be nice and say they’re just in the process of dying, but no, they’re dead dead. That’s how the rifts formed in the first place.
Though the specifics change with each rift. One was suffering a non-stop earthquake, another where the sky broke and let unfiltered Primordial Qi in. Most worrying? That would be a handful of small planes where the death was obviously not natural.
Giant flying ships sucking the Earth Qi directly out of the ground, another had dragon veins uprooted in such a way that they could tap them directly, and so on. Each of those planes died because an outside force harvested them to death. I’m just glad these rifts are completely one-way, even if it means I don’t get a better look at the safer planes to investigate.
So yeah, I keep an extra close eye on anyone that came through one of those rifts. Thankfully, none of them survive for the first billion years or so!
This gave me more than enough time to study what was coming through. Mostly sapient beings, and of those, mostly humans. Not because the populations out there are mostly human, but rather, humans are the most likely to step into a random rift in the air to escape.
As for what they’re like? Well, let me just say that I don’t have to worry about any out-of-place artifacts being left behind. All rough hide clothing and such. A rare few had anything approaching metal weapons.
But everything changes eventually, and that includes these rifts. Mainly in that they started appearing in places where those coming through can survive. There’s one right now!
Oh, and they’re dead. I’m going to stick with the elf label for those pointy-eared sorts. They have the longest lifespan, even if it’s only five hundred years or so. Blink and you’ll miss them kind of timelines.
Wait, another rift. Who’s coming through this time? Not that someone Always comes through, but at this point I suspect there is something with sapients trying to escape a dying world that helps the rifts to open.
Oh, no. Six people walking through calmly? That is not cool. And it’s an invasion world? Yeah, they’re probably natives, but of the quisling variety.
They’re scoping out the area, but I’ve pulled back my spirit veins.
Something is wrong. I can feel it.
They’re searching for Me. To nail me down and bring in their masters.
No!
NO!
CracKaBoom
The ground rumbles and where the group of six people had stood moments before, there was now a crater. Everything about them reduced to ash, a bolt of lightning out of a clear sky, the culprit and a wave of weakness flows over me.
Hmm. Guess that’s heavenly tribulation. It certainly wasn’t a normal bolt of lightning. I’ve experienced enough of those.
I won’t ask what caused that. It was me. The bolt itself seemed to be woven out of my own Earthly Qi, thus the weakness. No, what I want to know is what allowed me to cause that. Oh, and can I reduce how much Earthly Qi I put into it? That crater is a little silly big. Going to make a great lake once it fills.
Now I’ll just watch for the next group like that. They should show up soon enough. Oh, hey! That squirrel seems to have awakened their bloodline a little!
Crack
Oh! Another crack. It’s only been a couple hundred since that group I smited. Looks like this is another small plane being sucked dry by outside forces, so there’s a chance.
Let’s see who steps through. Oh, they’re actually stepping through like that last group. Only four and they’re all dog people? Clothes are pretty rough as well, but that one guy is carrying something sleek. Looks like a slab of mineral as long as his arm and thick as his thumb. Something tells me it is jade?
Focus! Speed up my perception. Let’s pry out the secrets of that jade before they do anything.
Okay, it has carvings on it. Don’t understand what they’re supposed to do, but they certainly are for something. The Qi in the air is slowly being absorbed.
Oh.
As it absorbs my Qi, it seems to be aligning with the Qi, with me. Wild guess? It works as a signal repeater. They’re charging up the jade with my Qi to get a location lock and then some central device will reach out and grab that so they can invade me.
Now, why can I strike it?
Oh. Well, that’s a simple reason. It uses Qi. Directly.
Which is apparently too much for my world. Welp, I’m not complaining. Let’s see if I can strike it without going all out.
Crack
Errr, okay, technically that worked. That used well less than a percent of my Earthly Qi. Still blasted a crater of significant size. Maybe less next time?
Zap
Good! Third time’s the charm.
When you cheat.
Well, it wasn’t cheating, so much as not being so focused. Once I let myself relax, I realized that as a realm? I have an innate sense of how much power to use. Oh, except I needed to juice it a little, because it’s clearly meant more as a test than a bug zapper.
I think the jade slab is so big, partly to handle the tribulation it is supposed to cause.
Anyway, something is changing with these cracks in space. They’re lasting longer? Not stabilizing, but rather, I think my realm is more capable of handling them. Which means more people.
So far, no one has survived. Err, I guess better to say that no one has left a legacy. Some manage to come through and live out the rest of their lives, but without a decent population? That’s a generation or two at most and the beasts get aggressive if they try to expand too much.
Except, the last spatial crack had ten people come through. Which still isn’t much, but it is enough that civilization starts doing its thing. Oh sure, they all ended up dying when an ornery tiger decided they seemed like good prey, but they left behind things that might survive till the next crack opens in the area.
Whether it was the rocks they stacked to start making a home or the bronze tools they strapped to wood poles to try and fend off said tiger. The next group of people to be dropped off in the area will have something to work with. That’s sort of just how civilization works. It builds on itself.
Besides, sapients are more interesting to watch. Even if I only get a handful of them every hundred years or so.
CRACK
Oh, hey, that sounds large! Now, where is it?
Hmm, somewhat central, though none of the cracks ever get too close to the actual center. I think the world tree avatar thing stabilizes the space around it.
Anyway, yeah, this crack in space is certainly bigger! It could fit five people, shoulder to shoulder.
I wonder how long it will be before someone over there finds it? Sometimes the cracks last for decades before they destabilize on their own.
Now, let’s take a look at what kind of place we are dealing with. Might have to add to my massive collection of crater lakes if the world is being invaded.
Hmm, not seeing anything right away. Wait, no, I see, it’s the Sun. Or rather, SunS. There are like ten of them in the sky, baking the realm.
That’s not good.