[Mortal Realm, Roane Isambard's residence]
For three days, Jake had been living in this large house with only the old lady and the silent emotionless guards as company.
Jake had asked all the questions he could ask most of which the lady gave an answer, for the rest she said nothing.
He had the time to explore the residence and he realized it was huge and was protected like a fortress.
It was a castle built on a hill, surrounded by high walls and filled with guards who barely said a word and just listened to the orders given by the lady.
The lady who he now knew as Granny Ronae, or as the guards called her 'Matriarch', seemed like a regular old woman aside from the fact that she had a strong aura around her and she could make things disappear and appear with a swipe of her hand when Jake asked how she did it, she pointed at a ring on her finger.
It was all weird but Jake had slowly gotten used to it.
As for home, he didn't miss it at all, he didn't miss his bickering parents and his abusive sister, at least here he could eat whatever he wanted and do whatever he wanted except for going into some rooms, so no, he did not miss home.
This evening, as usual, he was having dinner with Granny Ronae, he was led into the enormous dining room where a huge dining table was covered in numerous dishes even as a boy from a family that could be considered wealthy he still hadn't gotten used to this sight even after seeing it every time they ate.
Sitting down, he picked a random dish and began eating, after a while, he snuck a glance at Granny Ronae who was eating quietly across from him, as if sensing his gaze she looked up at him "After dinner, follow me to the study, I would like to tell you a story" she said after which she fell quiet again.
After dinner, Ronae left the room with Jake behind her as they both went to the study, as they entered the study she sat on one of the chairs by the fireplace and Jake on the other, and she spent a few seconds staring into the crackling fire as if lost in thought.
"You are just a kid, you barely know your left from your right and you've been dragged into this world" she said in a low voice "You don't even come from any of the guardian families which may have eased you slowly into it, you are being thrown in completely oblivious, that is why I have decided to be the one to guide you" she added as she turned and looked at him.
Jake, hearing all this was confused, he didn't understand what Granny Ronae was saying "Dragged into what? Guardian families? Granny Ronae I don't understand" he said.
Ronae sighed "Seems like the few days you have spent here has made you forget what led you here" she said "Seems you have forgotten the old man with wings and the pressure that almost killed you, you forgot about the explosion in the sky and all" turning to look at him she added "Tell me, do you think that what you saw and what happened is normal or are you so complacent that you have pushed it to the back of your mind?" she asked.
Taking a second to think about it, Jake accepted that the incident that happened to him was not normal but he had instinctively avoided confronting the thought "I know it's not normal, but I don't know how to process it so I subconsciously decided to forget about it" he said as he dropped his head in shame.
"It's ok Jake, like I said you are still a kid so I guess it's natural, but the time for hiding is over, you have to accept it and understand it, that is why we are here right now" she said "I will help you, let us start easy, I'll tell you a story that has been lost to time and forgotten by men"
"In age immemorial, all was one, the mortal and the ascended realms did not exist and there was only the myriad realms where all races lived together, but soon humans who were the weakest of all races became the target of discrimination and abuse, even by their close allies ' the ascended ' "
"They were a race that was very similar to humans, the only difference was that the ascended all had insignias on their skin that they could make glow at will and that their latent talent was higher than the humans but this was enough for factions to start saying the humans were a lesser race, these rumors escalated to maltreatment of all humans across the myriad realms but the humans endured because it wasn't serious yet" she paused.
"The real chaos began when one of the rare human geniuses who had attained berserk titan rank discovered the inheritance a berserk god had left behind, the ascended race heard of this and believed that he didn't deserve it and wanted to take it from him when he refused they attacked and he was heavily wounded but survived and escaped, from then on little skirmishes began happening between the human and ascended races, even the humans in places of power were either assassinated or forced to leave their position "
Jake listened quietly as she spoke, her voice reverberating in his ears plus the crackling of the firewood made him sink into the story deeper.
"Soon these two races were in all-out war, empires fell, seas dried, mountain ranges flattened, geniuses fell and rose as blood stained the myriad realms and death became the order of the day"
The look on Granny Ronaes's face was solemn and cold.
"This war continued for thousands of years and sadly the human realm was on the losing side, even if some human geniuses had achieved god hood, the ascended had new gods too"
Ronae sighed as she continued "On the final battle the ascended gods joined forces with the normally neutral beast gods to kill the human gods, it wasn't that the human gods were too powerful but one of the human gods was extremely powerful and was rumored to be approaching the legendary god-king level, ironically this was the same berserk god who found an inheritance in the beginning"
"On the battlefield, the human gods fell one after another under the joint attacks of the beast and ascended gods until only that beserk-god was left standing, he too was soon surrounded and under heavy attack."
"Seeing his comrades had died and that he was the last human god alive, he went mad with rage and sorrow sacrificing his still nascent god-king seed he achieved the power of a pseudo-god-king with which he completely wiped out all the other gods, he even went as far as going to the ascended empires and killing the gods that stayed as a reserve, after making sure that he was the only god in the myriad realms, filled with sadness, wounded and dying slowly, he split the myriad realms, the humans on one side, the ascended and other races on the other"
"This great demarcation happened 10,000 years ago and since then he has succumbed to his injuries and passed on, but not before he organized the remaining humans in this split portion of the myriad realms which they now called the mortal realm, he gathered the few remaining human powerhouses and they were giving the order to protect the realm at all times, this was how the guardian families came to be and my family is one of them"
"For thousands of years, we have watched as the mortal realms get weaker and weaker, the humans who couldn't become powerful fell on science, and soon we had to hide in the shadows as we let the world change into what it is now, we decided not to interfere at all and fulfill our duties of protecting this realm at all times"
She suddenly looked at Jake "The old man you saw was an ascended, you are lucky to be alive after witnessing a fight between ascended"
"Now you know the story do you think it is a good sign that an ascended is in our realm?"
Jake who had been quiet shook his head.
"No" he said
"Good, you understand that times have changed and that you've been dragged into this war" Ronae said as she smiled bitterly "Your childhood ends tonight, that is why I let you enjoy it for the past three days, tomorrow you will go with me to the meeting with the other guardian families and when we return I'll begin shaping you into a warrior" she added as she stood up and walked out of the room leaving a dazed Jake staring into the fire, he knew that his life would change from today onwards.
[The next day, five days after the storm]
A helicopter which had an insignia of a tree with blades for branches landed on a small island as it dropped off two figures and took off again, the pilots of the helicopter had a confused look on their faces as they looked down on the island which was completely bare save for some grasses, trees and a strange stone platform at the center, deciding not to think about it they left.
The two figures were Ronae and Jake, who slowly walked towards the center of the island, she led and he followed quietly as he looked around the small island with curious eyes, half way through their journey Jake saw a sudden whirl of sand and wind gather not so far from them, as it got stronger Ronae stopped to look at it quietly and soon it calmed down but from within it someone stepped out, Jake immediately felt pressured by the aura released by this newcomer that appeared out of nowhere, it didn't last long as soon Ronae released her aura to protect him.
"You always had a flair for the dramatic Aalam" she said as she looked at the man who had appeared "Could you mind retracting your aura?" she added.
"As you command Iron rose" the man said in a playful deep voice and he bowed slightly "May we go, I'm sure they are waiting" the man said as he gestured towards the center of the island" after which he went ahead "After all this is our first meeting in 200 years " he added.