Chapter 78: The First Calamity

                                    

                                          
                    
                          
Chapter 78: The First Calamity
                          
"Everything is tied to the ocean. 
                          
For every drop of water you drink, for every breath you take, you are reminded of your origin. 
                          
For all are connected to the ocean. 
                          
Whatever comes out of it will hence one day be returned."
                          
At the bottom of a certain sea, in the middle of nowhere in this dark body of water so deep where not even the magnificent sunlight could reach, stood the remnants of a once prosperous civilization. Yet now, all that was left were ruins, a nether memento, a shadow of that glorious past. So what would happen to it now? What other purpose could it serve aside from waiting to crumble to nothingness, subject to the violent onslaught of time? Well, to understand one thing's end, you must understand how it began in the first place.
                          
Once upon a time, a certain deity found himself in a conundrum. He wanted to provide a home for his people. However, all the continents and the lands have already been inhabited by the numerous races God has created, leaving his children stranded. If he had a choice, he would want to keep them with him up in the high heavens. But that was impossible. For the kingdom of God was reserved only for a small number of faithful servants chosen by God himself. And so, the deity searched endlessly for an untaken land that could provide not just shelter but would also become a wonder of which their descendants could be proud even millennia later. Yet, no matter how much he tried, he could not find it. From the northern land covered in snow to the southern forest, nothing could please the deity.
                          
That was until an idea came to him. When the Gods first created this world, they raised the lands from the bottom of the ocean to form the continents we knew today. If that was the case, then the solution was simple: he would only need to rise another piece of land. And so the deity plunged into the ocean and searched for the perfect land, the promised land for his people. And he found it: a hollow volcano that has been inactive for long situated in the deepest level of this bottomless sea. 
                          
Using his godly power, the deity emerged this sleeping volcano to the surface. However, he wasn't satisfied. What he did was merely imitating what has been done by his God. He wanted something else, something no one has ever done before: a flying island that would move constantly without stop. That island was later called Avant-Heim.
                          
But now, this worldly wonder has once again found itself back to where it came from. Such an irony, was it? The deity desired his creation to be the best, the most creative masterpiece so much that he wanted to keep it in the sky. Yet, because of the very same reason, it ended up being maimed when the mechanism keeping it afloat was destroyed. If he has decided to keep it like a normal island, perhaps things might have been different. Alas what was done could never be undone. The devastation it has gone through has left the island in ruins, even losing the shape it once was. Once home of a proud race, now haven for fishes and creatures of the sea, just what has the world gone to?
                          
Perhaps things might not be that bad as it sounded. Instead of considering it as destruction, maybe it could be seen as a rebirth, a transformation. For now, new lives could sprout from this place, lives that have never existed before. One such creature was currently swimming in these old streets of Avant-Heim. A fragile looking thing, it was. Half-man and half-fish, the creature possessed an alluring beauty that may appeal to the men of the surface but such thing would not help it survive in this dark water full of predators. But glamor wasn't the only weapon it had. It was funny how only upon being released in the wild, did the creature find that it was much more powerful than it thought it would be. Did it always have this kind of power and only discovered it now? Or was it because its body was trying to adapt to this dangerous environment? After all, in the world of monsters and animals, it was survival of the fittest: the strong dominating and devouring the weak. Such was the natural order of the world, as simple as that. Much more different than the world of men where betrayal and deceptions were so common they were practically the necessary basics to survive in their world.