Ancient Civilisation(2)

Kingdom of Alares. Historically speaking, this place has great significance. It's because it's the origin of humanity. Every human being in the world originated from there and all historians agree on that point. It's also the place where the first written language was found.

At that time we were still wearing clothes made out of leaves and using stones as weapons, so it's understandable that historians find it quite baffling on what exactly happened. Many evidences of different tribes possessing the same written language were found.

And what's baffling is that supposedly these tribes were so far away they couldn't possibly contact each other. How can 219 different tribes located at different regions create the exact same language? This question has been debated upon and there are a lot of theories.

There are boring theories that sounds reasonable but no one listens to and there's exciting ones but sound totally ridiculous. The ridiculous theories are wide ranging. Some actually believe some aliens taught the ignorant humans language in attempt to make us civilised. Some others believe some ancient instant communication mediums was present at the time.

So among these ridiculous theories, the myths of Old Faith have much more credibility as these existed before historians started asking these pointless questions. But only conspiracy theorists believe in them and hence believers of Old Faith are often labelled tin-foil hats and loonies.

What is Old Faith you ask? Old Faith is actually collectively referred to the beliefs of the tribal people of that time. More specifically, what we believe that our old ancestors believed at that time of beginning of civilisation. Not many people in present times believe in this religion, only the most traditional of families in Alares are the the exceptions.

Different tribes of that time believed in different gods and these gods had different roles. For example, they have sun god, moon goddess, river goddess, mountain god etc. as their tribe deities. Some tribes had single deities while others had multiple.

And these deities are collectively known as old gods, but believers of Old Faith only worship the gods their ancestors worshipped. They are stubborn and don't consider themselves as religious, but consider it as honouring their ancestors by worshipping their gods. These bunch of people have internal conflicts all the time so isn't surprising that they were taken over by New Faith.

The myths and legends of Old Faith were actually collected from what has been spread around millions of years later by these traditional families. They often exaggerate the stories and most of these stories even contradict each other. Only pathetically few written records were found of that era regarding these myths.

But after some jobless people compiled and collected these tall stories and comparing it with the written records, the general gist of what transpired at that time was formed which was then considered the 'official' myths.

So.. Here it goes. Ahem! Once upon a time there used to be many kingdoms in the world we live in. These kingdoms were run by gods and these gods were ruled by kings who also happen to be gods. At the time, with a wave of their hands, they could create miracles. Food? Clothing? Shelter? Normal people didn't need to worry about it as gods can provide it easily. But are these gods really so charitable to do so?

The gods had one condition for normal humans- to serve them. Serve the gods, obtain riches. If you don't serve the gods, then you had to live like savages in the wild, as no one would provide for them. So people served gods and tried to make them happy, beautiful women were made to dance all day long. Strong men were made to fight each other to entertain the gods.

As for ugly women and weak men? Hehe... They had their own uses. There were some sadistic gods and goddesses as well that could use them- be it torture or something else that requires hip thrusting movements. If gods were pleased with, then chances are you would even be bestowed the chance to gain gods power.

But all good times come to an end. Sadly, gods and their kingdoms- everything was destroyed.

Everything was ruined, by a monster called Devourer. Ancient people had no creativity so as the name implies, Devourer devours things- it swallows up everything it sees including people, animals, trees, stones.

But what it really liked to devour is people and.... gods. Each time it devours something, it gets stronger... so the gods were like delicious energy bars- very enticing to it.

It started off by devouring the abandoned people in the wild as it was very weak initially. Then it targeted smaller and weaker kingdoms- where the gods were pathetically weak. Each time it did so, it got stronger. It swallowed up so many kingdoms that it practically became invincible. This greedy bastard didn't even leave a single stone off these palaces.

It's action infuriated the gods but as they were used to life of luxury, they were like bunch of senile old fools waiting for other people to do the job.

Only until it swallowed all the kingdoms did the monster target the final and strongest kingdom of all- Alares. This kingdom was so strong that even Devourer didn't have the confidence to devour it until the last possible moment.

Only at this final moment did the gods panic. They organised an army of gods with king at the lead, they marched off to kill this atrocity of a monster. Wah! It was awe-inspiring. It was time for the huge war between good and evil. So on this part, every traditional family bragged about their own gods and their weapons, and their armours, and their war chariot. It goes on and on and on.

But seriously, who needs that. So let me summarise it quickly.

Good prevailed.

Well.. It kinda did, as these gods did some mumbo jumbo secret arts and managed to seal off the monster at the core of the Earth.

Oh yeah... and they conveniently died during the process.

So what have left here? Yes! The normal humans from the palaces. They didn't die! But without their gods, they couldn't survive long and had to become what they hated most- they became savages. But these guys split up into different tribes at some point apparently and still worship the gods who used to take care of them.

And they spread across the world and made lots and lots of babies to fill up the whole world.

As for why these tribes worshipped the dead gods, maybe they hoped they would return and they could go back to life of servitude? Clearly that didn't happen. So that's the... myth. But here's the kicker, according to legends, the reason gods could be strong was due to the fact that they could practise magic.

For obvious reason of greed they kept the secret of magic to themselves and only taught their descendants and the servants that they trusted. So the hierarchy of gods, servants and savages was born.

Now that I think about it, many things in myths made sense and could possibly be true since magic was true as well. Just thinking about it, since Devourer swallowed everything up where would be historical evidence of these ancient kingdoms? Plus the written language was probably the language of the Alares and the split up natives would naturally speak in that language.

The other minor languages could have been originated from the savages who fled to area Alares. Since they are from different kingdoms, naturally they would speak different languages. The incantations could probably be the deepest secret of these 'gods'. If it was found out, who could they lord over? But the powers of these 'gods' were probably exaggerated with passing of time as they were simply magicians with tricks.

So back to my original question. The key word in the myth is that the Devourer was SEALED. So clearly its alive and kicking but trapped at the core of the Earth. What if it escaped? Wouldn't that be disastrous. I was feeling kinda freaked out about the time ticking bomb below my feet.

I scoffed at myself after considering for a moment. 10 minutes ago I didn't believe in magic and now I am considering the potential dangers of some mythical creature? I felt relieved after considering the fact that if I could think of the legends, then so could the leaders of the world.

It was sealed for millions of years and it haven't caused a peep. It would escape the seal just when I happen to be alive? Laughable. Besides, who knew with how exaggerated the monster was made out in legends. Probably some missiles would be enough to kill it off.

If worse came to worst, we have huge arsenals of weapons right now, so even if it freaking survived, it would die by the hydrogen bomb or nuke.

Besides are the myths about the beast even real? How could such monster appear out of nowhere, did it drop from the sky? I reassured myself and then considered the real issue at hand.

"Look- I want to be go to this magical school but I fear that this school would not be held in this small city, I would probably need to go to the capital city. And you know I can't leave my dad as he couldn't possibly take care of himself. And he wouldn't agree to moving off to capital. So...." I gritted my teeth as I rejected him again.

But I found him looking at me with weird expression, his eyes even had traces of- guilt? He said after some hesitation,"Um... There's something about your dad you don't know about. I didn't want to tell you this before, but since it's come to this... I can't stay silent anymore."