Hello, this is the prologue to my first book The Four Worlds: A Beautiful World. This is still a rough draft.
[SPOILER="Prologue"]“Humans coined the name ‘God’ for me in the Christian religion; I am Brahman to the Hindus, Allah to the Israelis, Zeus to the Greeks, and so on and so forth. They say I am immortal, all powerful, but if they see me now, lying on my death bed, they would surely become chaotic, misguided and confused,” Stratorium says, moving his daughter’s cloud-like hair from her weeping eyes. His wrinkled faces smiles. His pupil-less eyes tell her that everything is going to be alright—but everything will not be alright. Her father is about to die and three of the Four Sovereigns stand next to his death bed, with the angels and demons behind them, and other minor beings behind the angels. All creatures, except for the ones in the Overworld ,are attending the soon-to-be funeral.
Stratorium continues: “I will let them continue their religions about me than to let them stray aimlessly in the world without a higher power. Stratorius, my dear daughter, I leave you as the Queen of Heavenly World.”
Stratorius is completely naked. Standing a bit over twenty feet, she possesses the breasts and body perfect for any man. Her skin is the color of the sky when clear and sunny, her hair are stratocumulus cloud that is puffed like an afro and extends in a tail that wraps around her body like clothes, only covering her more arousing parts. “I thought immortals couldn’t die, father.” Tears swell in her eyes. Her scleras are ripple-like pattern of alternating blue and light blue colors with, of course, a small black pupil in the center. “I don’t want you die!”
“Everyone must die sweetie. Even immortals must die sometime.” He strokes his long, white beard, exhales a large amount of clouds that float out of the citadel. A woman who resembles the Lady of Justice wearing backwards a white rosy veil to blindfold impatiently clanks her sword on the ground twice to tell Stratorium to hurry. Stratorium hold his hand out to his sister. “Cantorium, step forward please.”
The Sovereign of the Overworld and the fire of hell itself floats across the floor. The only fire visible is the head attached with brown stones that make up for the absent eyes. The nonvisible neck is draped in a burgundy robe with a golden talisman carved with the word fire in an ancient language. The robe shortens in length as it opens, flowing behind the Sovereign. To everyone’s surprise (except the other three Sovereigns and Stratorius) no there is no body under the cloak, but one extends from the head. The main body starts as a simple column splits apart, making arms and legs that walk awkwardly to the King. When Cantorium reaches Stratorium’s bedside, he kneels. The ground blackens under his limbs.
Stratorium says nothing. He looks at Cantorium with much content in his eyes but still goes on to what he has to say, “My elder brother, Cantorium, Stratorius is not of age to bear the crown. To much of my dismay, I ask of you a favor: to become acting King of the Four Worlds.” If Cantorium had a mouth, he would be smiling.
Stratorium removes the Crown from his head and looks at it. It is made of pure silver and gold. The center is ridged with a rose like shape embedded with a red orb in the middle. The base of the crown has twelve other differently colored orbs surrounding it: blue, green, purple, red, black, white, orange, pink, turquoise, yellow, magenta, gold and silver. It vibrates in its master’s hands.
There are whispers among the funeral attendees:
“Why is Cantorium receiving the crown?”
“Didn’t He give it to Stratorium because Cantorium is tyrannical?”
“Not to mention hot-tempered.”
“And hard-headed.”
“Cryptorium should have been King—despite his creepy appearance.”
“Enough!” The flames on Cantorium’s body erupt violently in irritation, silencing the viewers who do not want to get burned. Cantorium’s voice is incredibly deep and crackles like fire.
“No!” Stratorius jumps up with much authority in her voice. “Father, do you know what’ you’re saying?! Cantorium is not a suitable—”
“Silence child!” Cantorium attacks. He will not let a child like her get in his way of his sacrament to ultimate power.
“You cannot let him become king!” The tears have stopped in Stratorius’s eyes.
“You are right Stratorius, but—”
“How dare you!” Cantorium yells.
“How dare I what? Please hurry, my time is running short.”
“I am supposed to become King you senile wretch! How dare you give second thought to what is rightfully mine!”
“If you had let me finish, brother, I was going to say you would have still become King, but only temporarily. But I see I now cannot do that anymore. This is why He chose me to be King. You are too angry with everyone and yourself.” Stratorium flinches at an unseen pain in his abdomen. “Now that I have made up my mind, no one shall have Crown and acquire the power it holds. I will split the Crown into thirteen pieces and set them randomly into thirteen random humans. The will only last until Stratorius is of age and then she will rule over us all. Cryptorium, step forward please.”
The Middle World’s Sovereign, Cryptorium is a tan creature with a spherical head with black, hairless bat ears pointed upwards on each side. The eyes are extremely small, black and beady, two holes on the face make up for the nose with a small, thin permanent grin playing across his face at all times. Like a bat, Cryptorium’s body is wrapped in his own flesh like a bat which starts from his five-fingered arms. Thick tan skin falls like curtains from his arms ending at the wrist. Cryptorium’s hands rest on his shoulders wrapping himself like a sleeping bat. Spikes made of cartilage protrude from the skin at the neck, circling the head. They get larger as they reach the back of the head, leaving the nape of the neck open. His entire body is a large fall of flesh. No other limbs are visible except his head and arms. The angels, demon and whoever else is present is unsure of how Cryptorium is able to move.
The Crown is split into thirteen pieces after Cryptorium arrives at the bedside. Stratorium hand his younger brother the pieces. “Do as I said, brother: go to the Overworld and scatter the Pieces.”
“Yes, Stratorium,” Cryptorium says, slowly bowing. His voice is high-pitched, sounding unserious. Everyone watches as he heads to the citadel’s exit. He stores the thirteen pieces in a special pouch in his mouth like a squirrel or chipmunk. The Sovereign twirls around with his hands at his out in the air. White smoke envelops the Sovereign’s entire body as he spins around. During the revolution, hidden in the smoke, the loose flesh that falls from his arms separates into several digits, forming bat-like wings. The bottom of his body split into dragon legs and the bat ears lay flat and backwards on his head. His cheeks are puffed with the pieces of the Crown in it. “I’ll be back.” Then the Sovereign takes flight.
When Cryptorium returned, Stratorium has already died. Cantorium, whose fire burns with intensity, makes a space for his brother. They lower Stratorium’s golden casket into the clouds outside the Cathedral Citadel. A gazebo is soon built over it as a memorial to his reign.
After a few hours, Cantorium is the first to leave the funeral.
* * *
The killing began instantly. Creatures of all shapes and sizes have died. Vampires and werewolves fight each other somewhere in the chaos, demons and angels somewhere else. Cantorium is on the frontlines, burning away anything that comes near him. He laughs, fixing the crown that sits in the fire of his head. The orbs pulsate with power. The red gem makes Cantorium’s fire stronger.
Wyverns take to the sky as well as dragons and pirchetts (Pirchetts are birds that are all black like a raven, have the body of a sparrow, head of a vulture, is the size of a condor and they mimic speech like a parrot). The pirchetts descend in swarms, circling many creatures of every kind, ripping, tearing and devouring flesh clean from their bones. Giant spiders with human faces with sunken eyes spin their webs in the surrounding trees, firing lines of webbing at the birds. The birds are forced down to the orb weaved webs and are spun in a web cocoon to save for a later meal.
Gallons of blood are spilled, people losing their lives—what is it all for?
Down in the fray, two particular people try to fend off several ogres at the same time. “Are you ready Maria?” The man with the dark skin and black hair asks his fiancé. His face is covered in blood, but he still holds a smile. He wears a black leather outfit protected with steel clad armor. He holds up a double barrel shotgun to his face to aim. He fires. An ogre falls with its brain matter and blood splattering over some of the other war participants.
“Not yet!” Maria shouts over the roaring and screaming of the war. She sits in the middle of a transmutation circle she draws in the grass and stone with her own blood. She connects the two circles together and red sparks fly and dance around her while lines of electricity travel up her body. Her hair flares wildly. An ogre holds her fiancé down as another smashes its club into his head. The fatal blow never came. “I’m ready now, babe.” Reduéle looks at the ogres who have a nice accessory added to their bodies—large spikes jutting out of their bleeding necks.
“How long is this going to last?” Reduéle’s voice trails off as he looks around at the carnage. He slings the shotgun on his back. Taking Maria’s hand, they run to another part of the battlefield. “We’ve been fighting for days.”
“I don’t know, but I hope it ends soon. We’re supposed to be getting married!” Then Reduéle feels a rough pull on his arm. Maria’s lifted up into the mouth of a 10-meter class Nobody (large, black, humanoid beasts with red eyes and yellow teeth who eat anything in their way. They are covered in black fur with the exception of the soles of feet and palms of their hands. They vary in sizes ranging from 5-meters to 16-meters. No one knows where they came from.) Maria calls out to her ex-fiancé. He turns around to see her dangling from the mouth of the Nobody with a look of fear on her face.
The Grim Reaper knocks on Maria’s door. Maria answers it.
The top half of Maria’s body lands in front of Reduéle’s. His heavy breathing and surprised face slowly fades as he loses all emotions. The love of his life, dead. Why should he express any emotions if the love of his life is gone?
“Very well Nobody,” his voice is emotionless and deeper in tone, “the loss of Maria equals the loss of your life.” Emotions are useless. They get in the way. They block one’s abilities of quick analysis of situations, especially ones like this. A Nobody is has a durable body but it is a dead-minded eating machine. They care not for even their own species. They’ll eat anything that moves. It will not be hard to take down.
You fool! Why did you let go!? Why!? You hand her in your hands! How could you have let go!? Kill it! Kill the Nobody! Take revenge on Maria! Do it! Pull the trigger!
The trigger is pulled. You would think bullets would come out of the firearm like it did with the ogres, but this is different: what seems to be trillions of tiny insect swarming around in the random pattern fires out of the weapon and into the Nobody’s neck. It slowly regenerates and starts moving again. The Nobody smacks Reduéle away, but he quickly recovers. Reduéle is fast, but not fast enough to evade a Nobody’s keen sense of sight. The Nobody grabs Reduéle by his legs. He pulls the shotgun and squeezes the trigger. The tiny insects almost instantaneously eat away at the black flesh and bone. To Reduéle’s luck, Nobody do not experience rigor mortis. Reduéle lands on his feet, the hand touching down behind him, raises the shotgun to his face, closes an eye to aim and fires. He fires multiple times until the Nobody has several holes in its chest. Eventually, the Nobody falls. Reduéle walks to its head, pauses to get a final glimpse at the thing that ate his future wife and pulls the trigger.
The battle is almost over. Cantorium has almost won the war. Amordius, Cryptorium and Stratorius were summoned a few miles away as Cantorium’s voice spreads through everyone’s head telepathically. “With the Crown in my possession after so long, I claim the Four Worlds to be mine! Stratorium, do you see me now? Do you see me!?” Cantorium dissolves into raging wildfire that devours everyone in the vicinity in twisted hunger. With even as few words as that, you can get a hint as to how many people died.
It didn’t take long for the three Sovereigns to reach the war. They immediately advance on Cantorium as the battle still rages around them. Amordius taps her sword on the ground twice. Cantorium’s fire collects back into the head. The Four Sovereigns stare each other down. Although Cantorium can vary his height, he is usually “standing” at 35 feet; Cryptorium at 30 feet; Amordius at 25 feet; and Stratorius at 20 feet.
“Cantorium, stop this unreasonable war at once!” Stratorius bellows with anger in her voice. “Grandmother would not have wanted this from you!”
“Shut your mouth child! Your insolence is not welcome in my presence!” Cantorium retorts.
“You’re being pathetic and unreasonable, brother. Stop this war at once.” Though still cool and collected in his voice, Cryptoirum brings out a deeper, more guttural, tone than usual. The other three Sovereigns know he is furious. “Give me the Crown and this can end now. Your reasoning behind this war is arbitrary and irrational. All you want to do is flaunt the Crown’s power, to which you are not using its fullest extent.”
Cantorium thinks about Cryptorium’s words. Most of it rolls over his head like teaching physics to a preschooler. What Cantorium believes Cryptorium is saying is that he wants the Crown for himself so he can rule over the Four Worlds. And Cantorium just can’t have that.
Cantoirum spreads a raging wildfire around the three Sovereigns, trapping them in a ring of flames.
Cryptorium transforms into his flight form to evade the fire. “I’ll give you another chance Cantorium, give me the Crown and end this war or I swear I will end you here and now!” When Cryptorium becomes enraged, his voice becomes a deep guttural sound.
“Over my extinguished flames!” With that, Amordius’s sword enters Cantorium’s head. It’s the only place Cantorium can feel pain. Amordius pushes her brother to the ground and pins him down, twisting the sword in the soil to lock the Sovereign in place. Many of the people fighting moved out of the way—others were burned or crushed. Cantorium tries to spread out himself out to get away from his sister but her sword’s spell prevents him from doing so.
Armordius twist her sword some more. “Do you want to piss me off!? Do you!?”
“You can’t kill me! If you do, the Heavenly World and the Overworld will fall!” Cantorium laughs. While Cantorium is incapacitated, Stratorius makes an attempt to remove the Crown from his head. It burns her hand. The Crown tries to stay on its master as if it is sentient. Statorius grunts as she steps on Cantorium’s head, willingly burning her foot, still trying to pry the Crown from the flaming head.
POP!
The Crown is in Stratoirus’s hands. It had given up its resistance to Stratorius. It vibrates in her hands but does nothing more.
“NO!” Cantorium cries. Amordius takes her sword out of her brother and kicks the head away. Cantorium has fallen unconscious due to a seal on Amordius’s sword. The fire calms and changes to a blue color and the rock-eyes darken to black.
“You truly were the pathetic one of us all,” Amordius says. “Mother took better care of you because of this.”
Cryptorium lands next to Stratorium and says, “I suggest I switch places with Cantorium, send him into the Underworld as punishment for igniting a petty war. It will be humiliating to be cast off like this, bound into the center of the Earth for the rest of eternity.”
“I agree,” Armodius says.
“Me too,” says Stratorius after quick thinking. “I know a spell that will keep him from moving.”
“I think I know this one,” Cryptorium says before Stratorius starts chanting, “Trau il okuma po mo itue Cantorium cantorus. Jil freh hagga jipke gyn al tred.” Cantorium wakes up and screams. The war fighting gradually comes to a stop as everyone hears Cantorium’s shriek. The Four Sovereigns each say a part of the spell as Cantorium’s fire begins to cool down: “Theu ilkala nderr Utun Softhr Cantorium iool Amordius iert Cryptorium reet yuil ahfe un okiuy adeq sbal aert!” Cantorium’s body grows larger, not as fire, but as a Soul Court, a giant black sphere with a purple tint. The fire implodes and everyone in a ten foot vicinity of Cantorium’s transformation is sucked into the newly forming Soul Court. It emits an uncomfortable atmosphere to those near it. Unlike most Soul Courts, the one Cantorium transformed into produces wisps of what looks like soul deposit that slowly dance like flames. The sovereign’s rock-eyes circle on the surface of the Soul Court, slowly moving across the exterior.
“Here me now!” Cryptorium’s voice roars through the battlefield. “This war is over!” The side that fended off Cantorium’s army from making it to Amordius’s citadel cheers and screams, thankful the all of this is over. “All of Canotrium’s army is banished to the Underworld! Pirchetts, Nobodies, and everything else made my Cantorium will be consumed by the Black Forest!” As the speech goes on, Amordius raises her sword. It flashes a bright white color and groups of beings vanish to wherever Cryptorium banished them.
Amordius and Cryptorium agreed to switch everyone’s places. Stratorius is the only exception because she is young. What was once the Order of the Four Worlds—Stratorius in the Heavenly World, Cantorium in the Overworld, Cryptorium in the Middle World, and Amordius in the Underworld—is now Stratorius staying the Heavenly World, Cryptorium in the Overworld, Amordius in the Middle World and Cantorium, as a Soul Court, in the Underworld.
Stratorius splits the Crown back into thirteen pieces and returns to the Heavenly World to fire the Pieces into thirteen random humans. Amordius returns to her citadel which lies below a lake in the center of the Middle World to repair Cantorium’s damages. Cryptorium drags Cantorium into the Underworld. Cantorium’s body, which is now a Soul Court, will speed up the Judgment Skies in the Underworld.
Cryptorium takes the place of Cantorium in the Overworld and splits himself into many strange beasts: a plesiosaur thrown into the bottom of a lake, an incredibly tall humanoid ape-like creature that wanders the forest of every wilderness, a dragon the size of two story building, hidden in a cave, a weird reptilian creature that drains the blood from animals like goats and many other animals and strange creatures in many different forms. This way, Cryptorium can watch over the Overworld altogether in hope that the Crown will be safe from anyone trying to use its power again.
[/SPOILER]
I would appreciate feedback.