As heavy rain descends from the blackened sky, a pale young boy with black hair and rugged clothes slums against an obsidian-coloured wall clutching his stomach as blood profusely flows out, in his other hand a slow burning cigarette was emitting a light glow.
Vanier coughs and groans as he says in a barely audible voice,
"what a cruel fate….
The world as humanity knows was never whole, instead it had been fractured into countless realms like broken shards of a forgotten mirror.
The true scale of the countless realms is not known as Humanity had only clawed their way into three, and even that had cost too much
No one really knows when Golden rifts first started appearing, the only thing certain was that they had always been there.
These glittering wounds in the fabric of the world were beautiful, radiant and merciless.
At the beginning they were worshiped and Hailed as divine gifts,
Well of course as anything that promised power always was.
The brave- or more accurately those who were desperate for power, money or status and some out of morbid curiosity had ventured into the rifts.
And those who returned from the trials of the rifts came back enlightened,
their bodies were sharpened, their senses heightened and limits broken…
Then everything changed,
After a particularly brutal expedition, the warriors did not return as expected. Instead, they found something else awaiting them,
A singular gate, one which shined of desire. The gate was covered in a substance similar to gold but shined even brighter than it.
Behind the Golden Gates lied another world(realm)-lush, bright, colourful and untouched
But the Golden Gates were not rewarded easily,
Clearing a rift did not guarantee the presence of a Gate. In truth, rifts which with gates were exceedingly and far more dangerous.
Still, Greed will always triumph over fear
It always did.
As time passed by, Humanity had completely occupied the first two realms, as cities crowded and resources dwindled
They needed a new realm so they hunted.
Rifts were no longer trials given by gods to test humanity, they had instead become a tool for humanity to exploit
After countless deaths, Humanity had finally found another Golden Gate,
But this time the true veil was removed,
The new realm was Vast, fertile and full of beauty,
But it was not safe.
Monsters roamed freely, their presence was immense and suffocating,
Even so, the powerful claimed it and the rich followed, together they filled the land with kingdoms ruled by the families of the strong or rich.
And the weak….. they were left behind in the lower realms to rot.
After the claiming of the third realm, the lower realms started to change,
Factories were built where once homes stood, smoke had covered the sky giving a gloomy look throughout the whole realm and worst of it the waste from the upper realms were dumped on the lower realms.
As ascends up the realms, the difficulty of the rifts increased, due to this a new phenomenon emerged
Rifts started appearing to children, at the age of ten.
These rifts were called as Enlightenment Rifts
Unlike their deadly counterparts, these were simple and predictable almost… merciful
Up to ten people were allowed to enter, with nine seasoned warriors guiding a single child
Victory was almost guaranteed.
Upon clearing these rifts, the child received a blessing,
A Title.
A Title defined everything
It granted a core ability something very unique and powerful, it single handedly shaped ones future.
Other abilities can be gained later but a Title was the essence of how one fights.
But not every child was chosen, In rare cases , a child would reach the age of ten and nothing would happen,
these children who were abandoned by fate, were branded as lesser
They were cast down to the lower realms, forced to live among the smoke and waste,
Vanier was one of them.
Born into a renowned family of warriors, his future should have been glorious
But fate was cruel to him, when his time came , no rift appeared
And so, he fell.
Cursed to toil in the factories, working endless hours for scraps so he could live another day
Returning to Vanier's current predicament,
The fatal wound on his stomach was neither a result of a rift or even a fight worth remembering
No,
In truth he had been unceremoniously mugged and stabbed by a kid, no less.
Vanier sighs as he says,
"Well there goes a months' worth of work, how am I even gonna afford the shitty food I usually eat."
"It's not like it matters anyways…" he say while looking down at his fatal wound
Then he looks up to the sky and cruses,
"Just if I had gotten that fucking Rift, I would being enjoying life relaxing surrounded by so many pretty women, but noooo instead I have to work every single day just to barley survive"
Vanier thinking of his unfortunate fate feels the anger boil up causing throw the cigarette out his hand and lift his middle finger towards the sky, and curse out,
"YOU KNOW WHAT FUCK EVERYONE, HIGH RANKING NOBLES,ENLIGHTEN ONES AND FINALLY THE CRUEL GOD WHO THINKS I DESRVE THIS SHITHOLE"
Vanier lowers his hand knowing no one is listening,
Quickly he placed the other hand on the wound as his screaming had caused the wound to worsen and as painful spikes of pain shoot out to all parts of his body, he groans out
"I maybe should not have done that…."
His eyes begins to falter, it became blurry, the pain in his stomach slowly dissipates with the cold embrace of Lady Death replacing it
Just before the final essence of life leaves his body,
A bright golden glow blinds his eyes, he shunts his eyes and turns his head as a reflex,
As soon as Vanier opens his eyes, A Golden Rift had appeared in front of him,
Vanier could tell it's an Enlightenment Rift as Enlightenment rifts have mysterious runes floating around it as compared to normal Rifts
Vanier stares in disbelief,
"You got to be kidding me, right? Just before I die, I get my Rift"
Groans as he gets up with a new sense of vigour with in him, he slowly stumbles towards the Golden glow of the Golden Rift
but before he could step inside the Rift,
He passes out from blood loss and ungracefully falls into the Rift...