The first battle (3)

Frank stared in horror at the wide hole, as his snowmobile inched closer and closer towards it.

"Is this the end!"

Just as his snowmobile reached the edge of the wide canyon and Frank was staring right into its seemingly endless depths. The bike, that was about to fall right off the edge, stopped.

Suddenly all its momentum disappeared.

The bike halted.

Frank's eyes widened as he looked around him. On the back of the bike he saw a black bird, with red eyes, sitting on the boot.

"Did it stop the bike? … no that's ridiculous. There's no way a bird could do that." Frank thought as he scampered off, leaping to safety.

The moment he jumped off, the snowmobile seemed to regain all its lost momentum and suddenly sped off the edge of the cliff and straight into the depths of that large hole.

As Frank watched the bike crash, exploding at the bottom, he saw the black bird flap its wings and fly away into the distance.

"What the hell!?"

…..

On top of a building, nearby the scene where the police officers had crashed their snowmobiles, a black raven landed. It transformed into a little girl with sickly pale white skin, wearing a red dress, and with her black hair tied up in two pigtails.

It was Little Red, the Elder of the Eastern Association of Witches.

"Well that was nice of you to save that officers life." Came a playful voice from behind her, "I didn't think you were the type to help strangers Little Red."

Little Red rolled her eyes at the tall man.

He had amber orange eyes like a summer sunset, his hair was white and he wore a top hat. He would have been perfectly handsome if it weren't for how skinny he was, like a bag of bones.

He was Vincent Clarity, Head of the Clarity clan, one of the largest mage-cultivator clans across the Earth.

"Are you a fool Vincent, I'm sure you're not. That mortal I just saved is an acquaintance of Gatekeeper Lu. I'm sure he noticed me saving that man's life, now there is good karma between us. I'm sure he'll be grateful for my actions and return the favour." Little Red said a bit smugly, "hmmm not many can say a Gatekeeper owes them a favour hehehehe."

"Oh that is so obvious of you Little Red, planting seeds of good karma for favours with the Gatekeeper. But you forget Little Red, that a Gatekeeper is a Gatekeeper. Us lowly practitioners can only bow before him, and only introduce ourselves quickly. We can only bestow him with gifts and hope somehow one day we'll reap some benefits. Both you and I are stuck at the Immortal stage, else we would have left this Realm long ago, we are nothing in the eyes of an all powerful Gatekeeper. I doubt your little seeding of good karma will take you far Little Red." Vincent said with a self pitying smile.

Little Red crossed her small arms and harrumphed, "Vincent you can keep your small views to yourself. You may have given up on progressing past the Immortal stage but I have not. I am willing to risk anything to achieve my ambitions. Even if that means kissing a Gatekeepers ass.

And I spoke to that new Gatekeeper before the Welcoming, to me he seemed very fresh, and he had no darkness in his heart. So I believe saving his little friend will take me very far."

Vincent looked at the determined look on Little Red's face and smiled faintly, "I am glad to see that time hasn't changed you, you are still as fiery as ever."

Little Red smiled at Vincent, "Nothing can douse the flames of my ambitions. I aspire to be a grand witch at the God stage, if I am disheartened whilst I am only at the Immortal stage then I do not have the courage or the right to dream of the God Stage."

Vincent nodded at her, "You are right, then I hope I live long enough to see you achieve your dreams." He said softly as he gazed at the huge beams of light in the distance. The earth shook and loud roars could be heard.

Vincent's gaze hardened, "I wonder what's going on over there?"

"Who knows", Little Red shrugged, "We aren't at the power level to interfere and the Gatekeeper is involved we probably aren't allowed to get close."

Vincent sighed, "You're right."

He watched as a building near Zhongshan Park collapsed, "I hope your Mages are at work" he said.

"Of course" Little Red laughed, "My witches and warlocks have already got the government ordering people to stay inside and we've began bewitching the surroundings. Soon enough none of the citizens will be able to see this battle nor feel the shaking of the Earth.

Also Song Ou has already got all the Eastern cultivators sealing the area. Hopefully we'll contain the shaking and prevent massive tragedies.

News stations have already reported that the large lightning was a mirage of light caused by the extreme weather. Don't worry Vincent, everything is under control."

Vincent stared at the bright lights as he watched the battle going on in the distance.

"Good. In our Realm we protect our mortals and keep the knowledge of the supernatural a secret so as to maintain a healthy balance.

If you have greater power than others it should be used responsibly to protect those that are weaker.

We don't have the power to participate in whatever great battle is going on, but we can do this much."

Little Red laughed, "I can see you're as righteous as ever Vincent, sadly most practitioners don't think the way you do. Most only care about mortals and keep mortals ignorant so that they can use them. And they would be inconvenienced by mortal attention. Especially considering that in our Realm, we Practitioners are outnumbered by Mortals. Among practitioners most have a god-complex when it comes to mortals, you're super rare Vincent."

"I am aware." Vincent replied briskly as he turned and disappeared.

Little Red laughed and pouted a bit, "Did I anger him, he left without saying goodbye hehehe" she said as she turned back into a black Sea Eagle and flew away.

___________________________

XICHENG- ZHAO DETONG'S APARTMENT

The shaking stopped. After a few minutes of waiting; Tanaka, Bei Lao, Fei Bing Bing and Zhao Detong crawled out from under the kitchen counter.

"It seems to have stopped." Tanaka sighed in relief.

Bei Lao looked out the window and saw the clear blue sky, "It looks like the sky has gone back to normal too, but what was that?" he muttered.

Zhao Detong surveyed the disastrous scene in the kitchen, he couldn't imagine what the rest of the apartment looked like. "It's a good thing I've got insurance on this place, or else it would cost a lot to replace and repair all of this." He sighed.

As Zhao Detong began picking things off the ground and went to find a brush to sweep up all the shattered glasses and plates, Fei Bing Bing switched on the kitchen Television.

"Breaking news!!!

An earthquake with the magnitude of 6.7 has hit the city of Beijing, especially around the Tiananmen area. Many buildings have collapsed and one tremor created a large crack in the ground, similar to a canyon, around Zhongshan Park.

For the moment the authorities are on red alert and are doing everything they can to control this emergency situation.

The Government has ordered that everyone should stay inside and do not risk venturing outside, until it is certain the Earthquake has completely stopped.

At the moment there have been many reports of injuries and some have been reported dead, for the moment the number of casualties have yet to be determined."

When Tanaka heard the magnitude of the Earthquake he shook a little. 6.7 could nearly be classified as a major or great earthquake. And Zhao Detong's apartment in Xicheng wasn't too far from the Tiananmen area.

If this building had been a little less sturdy than they might have really gotten hurt.

Tanaka shook as he realised how lucky they were to be alive.

Bei Lao rubbed Tanaka's shoulders as he noticed him shaking like a leaf.

"For further news, many noticed bizarre weather and noises leading up to the earthquake.

The noises and rumblings heard prior to the earthquake have been identified as early tremors.

The bizarre weather, where the sky went black and the strange light was seen in the sky has been determined as a mirage. Due to the extreme cold weather conditions and the sudden rise in temperatures today, a mirage of light and darkness momentarily appeared. This is an extreme and rare case, hardly ever seen before."

Bei Lao was surprised, "A mirage? Was that what it was?" Bei Lao had travelled to the North Pole when he was younger, he'd seen a mirage, the aurora borealis, before.

Compared to the mirage in the North Pole this felt very different. That hadn't seemed like a mirage to him at all. Something felt very weird about this news story.

_________________________

ZHONGSHAN PARK

200ft in the air, huge pillars of light swirled around Chàng Bo and Mao Lu who sat behind him, creating a thick wall.

The vines extending from the huge creature constantly slammed at this wall of light but they couldn't penetrate it.

Chàng Bo gasped, and tried to regain his breath. He was feeling tired now. For several minutes he'd been constantly defending and attacking against this creature.

Each time he used flashier moves which required greater essence, yet no matter how many dents and huge chunks of the creature he incinerated, it still wouldn't die.

In the end Chàng Bo, in an attempt to conserve his energy, had created a wall made of Celestial light to surround both Mao Lu and himself.

Yet each time the vines of the creature slammed against his wall of light, Chàng Bo felt like it was sucking away the star essence that created the wall, and each attack it made became stronger.

This wall wouldn't last long.

"What the hell is this thing?" he thought as he opened up the Sovereign system.

Name: Chàng Bo

Title: Celestial Apprentice

Age: 100

Stage: The Dao

Skills:

Supernova lvl 60/100

Starlight lvl 30/100

Celestial dance 60/100

Angel flight 80/100

Heaven's Grace 22/100

Fate points: 200/10, 000 [Warning! Low points] [+190]

Health: 95/100 [-5]

Strength: 400/1000 [-600]

His strength had decreased by 600, shit, he'd used up too much internal essence.

There is internal essence and external essence. The external essence is what makes up everything, and is inside of everything, the internal essence is specifically what is inside of you.

For example Mao Lu has his own time essences that are within his body which contain his memories and his Time, but there are also time essences that exist outside of him.

Life essences, the ones on the body, are internal essences. Their size and colour represents your lifespan and health.

Chàng Bo has his own internal Celestial/star essences.

When a practitioner trains, their internal essence becomes stronger and more pure and their ability to control external essence also greatly improves.

As Chàng Bo trains on the Celestial path, the star/Celestial essence within him grows.

To cast a spell, enchant an item, use a technique or a martial ability then one has to use their internal essence. Another name for Internal essence is Qi.

On Chàng Bo's Sovereign system his Internal essence was labelled as strength. When he didn't use any internal essence his strength stat was at 1,000.

If a regular mortal had a strength stat of 1, then Chàng Bo had 1,000 times the amount of internal essence compared to a regular mortal. And the amount of his internal essence would only increase as he progressed in stages.

…

Chàng Bo quickly ate a qi pill. It was a medium grade pill that could replenish internal essence. Chàng Bo only had five on him, and due to obvious reasons he hadn't had the chance to get more.

His strength stat went up from 400 to 510.

He only had five qi pills left now. Each pill would only give him around 100 points of internal essence. If this fight continued, and he had to keep consuming using such essence pills, then he would eventually run out of internal essence and be greatly weakened.

Making him basically helpless prey for that monster.

"I need to do something that will drastically change this battle. Damn it I need to think!"

He went to the library on the system. Going to the library spent 5 fate points, but luckily Chàng Bo had more fate points now. Thanks to this battle it seemed that he'd inadvertently changed a lot of fates. His fate points were increasing by the minute.

He went to the Encyclopedia. He clicked on it and a text appeared in front of him.

"WHAT DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?"

"Tell me what the hell that creature is and what it's weaknesses are." Chàng Bo mentally told the system.

The Encyclopedia buzzed a little and then an image of the creature below appeared in front of him. It was titled, "Low Tier Irregularity."

"This is a Low Tier Irregularity. It is created by a disturbance in the Realm. The Creatures sole purpose is to consume everything it comes into contact with. It eats everything.

If allowed to grow it will eventually consume this planet and spread to consuming this entire Realm.

Its weaknesses:

Currently it is only at a low tier and can be affected by high level attacks that use a large concentration of essence.

It has low intelligence and can be easily fooled.

Currently it's appearance is unstable, it is only copying what it has consumed. It ate the park and is currently pretending to be the park.

ERROR!!! MORE INFORMATION ON SUBJECT "IRREGULARITY" IS OUT OF YOUR JURISDICTION. YOU DO NOT HAVE CLEARANCE TO VIEW THE REST OF THIS INFORMATION."

The System told him. Chàng Bo's eyes squinted in suspicion. A creature that could consume planets and possibly devour an entire Realm. How comes he'd never heard of such a thing before?

Something so powerful and dangerous should be well known. The fact that this was a secret was a huge conspiracy in itself.

Why was this information being hidden? Were the Gatekeepers keeping it secret? For what reason?

Chàng Bo's head raced with all kinds of questions but when he felt another vine striking his light wall, and this time with much greater strength compared to before, he realised he didn't have time to be thinking about this.

He needed to fight this thing and somehow defeat it now. Or at least make enough time for Mao Lu to do what he needed to do.