Life and everything there is always in constant motion. Even the stillest of objects, at their very core, are constantly moving. The problem is we just tend to want to move faster than everything around us when given the chance.
Kinerik, the world of speed. The simplest of all six worlds. Its people blessed with the power of speed had traversed through their entire world. Lands, mountains, seas, and oceans—their feet had struck and moved through them all.
To them speed, the ability of motion itself, wasn't just a power. It was a way of life. There was nothing a Kinerikan loved more than the rush of the flowing racing past them and the boom from their feet as they pushed themselves further beyond.
It was freedom.
It was liberty.
It was life.
But this power, this gift from the divine, didn't come without a cost. Their bodies, fixed in form, were far too frail to hold the power they produced while they ran at immense speed.
If they pushed them too far and moved too fast, their bodies would radiate and glow from the excess power and eventually, when they reached their limit, would eventually erupt and explode in power, ending them in an instant.
One would think that the risk of one's very life would be enough to persuade anyone to resist the urge of doing the one thing that may very well end their lives. But the Kinerikan were anything but normal, not in mind or spirit.
They say, even before the single child was born to life in Kinerik, he was running in the land before birth. Speed, motion, and movement were baked into their soul, and asking a Kinerikan already in motion to stop was akin to asking them to stop breathing.
This, as one can imagine, was a major problem for the Kinerikans, who just couldn't bring themselves to stop running.
And so, the most common form of death for them was that brought by themselves, as they chose death over living.
Thankfully, as though by divine intervention, before the entire race had a chance to be snuffed out completely, a solution was found in the Slotula. A massive beast with a hard, almost impenetrable shell, feet that shook the ground with a simple stump, and a beaked mouth capable of crushing skulls.
The Slotula was a savage predator with insatiable hunger for flesh and blood that could be found in almost every continent across the Kinerik. Wherever there was land on Kinerik, it was said a Slotula stumped could be felt as if it shook the earth.
It often lies waiting, hidden in caves, underwater, or in thick bushes for its prey. Usually hiding within its hard shell before ambushing its prey when it drew too close.
The Slotula was an apex predator in Kinerik; there was almost no creature alive that could escape its maw. But, compared to the Kinerikan, they are slow-moving, no faster than a snail's pace in their eyes. They would have easily been able to outrun if it wasn't for the simple fact that a Slotula had the ability to halt the motion of its prey, all thanks to the crystal embedded in their shells.
When the crystal is in motion, every living thing within their vicinity halts or slows down in motion, allowing them to strike at their prey without them having a chance to run. This ability of theirs served as a counter to the Kinerikans' great speed, as it stripped them of their speed, making them the perfect predators for the Kinerikan.
You'd think such a beast would be the undoing for the Kinerikan, as it had the ability to negate the one thing that set them apart from every other creature in Kinerik. However, this would be far from the truth, as the Kinerikan eagerly went out of their way to hunt the Slotula.
One might think it mad to challenge the one beast in all the lands that had the power to strip you of all your power, something akin to madness, but to the Kinerikan, it wasn't madness.
For you see, they discovered that the crystals from the Slotula didn't just strip them of their power but, when reframed, created limiters to help them regulate their speed and prevent them from overloading with too much power when they ran.
And to get a single crystal, they had to fight against the massive, hard-beaked jaws of death itself in the form of the Slotula.
Was it easy?
No
Did many of them lose their lives trying to get their hands on a single crystal?
Yes.
Was retrieving just a single crystal worth the risk?
To run, unbound were the chains of your limited body, without fear of pushing yourselves too far and burning to ash by your own power.
To be truly free.
Yes, it was worth it, at least to the Kinerikans.
So the Kinerikan fought and challenged the Slotula. Not many survived, but those that did were hailed and revived amongst other Kinericans as though they knew what true freedom felt like.
But as time passed, the one indomitable and free spirit and will of the Kinerikan grew weary. Facing the Slotula to attempt to retrieve one of their crystals was a gamble between life and death. And fewer and fewer of those that chose to take that risk ever returned alive.
And eventually, it became too great of a risk to bear.
And as for those that did manage to get one of the crystals, they became so revered that they were treated as nobility, and before long they became the dominant and ruling class in Kinerik. They were seen as superior to the other Kinerik, freer and unbound by any and all chains holding them back.
And as time passed, those who managed to retrieve those crystals cemented their hold and power over Kinerikan society. They ran, and the others followed. And that's how it was for generation after generation. No matter how many ages passed, even after they passed, their descendants just took over, inheriting their limiters and all the power that came with them.
Leading the birth of social were those with limiters who ruled, and those without no longer had the freedom to run and had to instead follow.
This was how things were for many years until...
…the great war of the six.
The records on how the war began were sparse. All that was known about was that at some time in the far distant past, all six worlds became aware of each other's existence, and then before long, a great war broke out.
No one knows for sure what was the spark that ignited the flames of war between all six worlds, but most believe it was, like most of all evil, driven by envy and greed.
What happened during the war was not important, at least not from Kinerik. It was what happened after that greatly affected them.
For you see, Genesis, the land of the plentiful, right after the war, in an attempt to usher in a new era of peace between all six worlds, decides to extend an olive branch to the other five worlds. To ensure peace between all worlds, they began trading with the other worlds.
Though the people of Genesis were frail and seen as weak by the other five worlds. They made up for their lack of power and strength with their ingenuity. Crafting tools, weapons, and machines unlike anything the other worlds had ever seen. Their machines could rival the speeds of the Kinerikan weapons and the strength of Eretika, with technology so advanced that to some it resembled the magic of Mystika. And for the people of Cognis, it was nearly impossible to be able to comprehend their sharp and quick thoughts.
The race across all six worlds—the only world it was said that Genesis had any inclination to be wary of was Haidas, the land of demons.
And after the war, Genesis opened up its vast riches to all six worlds. Sharing their technology with all five worlds, aiding in the advancement and development of all of them.
Thanks to this, the Kinerikan were able to have advancements that far exceeded anything they had prior. And one of those advancements was the high-tech limiters, which had no need for the special crystals of the Slotula.
With this new innovation, for the first time since ages past in Kinerik history, it could be said all Kinericans stood and ran under the same sun as equals.
At least that is how things should have been.