Chapter 3: The Tomb of Primordials
Yukeli was still lying on the damp and pulsing floor of the cavern, panting, his muscles trembling from the discharge of something he did not understand. The white-haired man watched the dead serpent. As for the girl, she was standing with her hand extended, her eyes glowing as if they were made of silver.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice soft but with tension lurking.
Yukeli nodded vaguely, his mind buzzing. When he looked up and noticed the others... the world seemed to expand absurdly.
They were everywhere.
Scattered among black stones and cracked eggshells, dozens of naked people were rising, confused. Their bodies were strangely beautiful — like his own — but there was panic in their eyes. Some trembled, others cried, and many just stared into the void as if they had woken up inside a nightmare without beginning.
A bronze-skinned young man walked along, groping, his eyes opaque like frosted glass — blind, perhaps — but his movements were graceful, feline. A woman with green hair stared at her own hands between sobs, as if she saw something sacred in them. Her skin glowed in soft tones, as if absorbing the dim light from the surrounding shells.
And in the center of all, those stones.
Hundreds of them. Black as ancestral coal, cracked by pulsing veins of dull red, as if each one housed a feverish and sick heart. A presence exhaled from them — something primitive, suffocating, hungry. Being near the stones made the air thicker, the pulse slower, and the soul… uncomfortable.
"These stones…" Yukeli whispered, his eyes fixed on one near him. "Are they eggs…?"
The white-haired girl approached, kneeling beside him. Her expression was cautious, observant.
"You felt it too. We all felt it." She touched one of the shells on the ground. "One of them hatched... that thing came out of it. A serpent, as if it guarded this place."
"My name is Tania. Nice to meet you." She extended her hand, hesitant.
Yukeli shook her hand, still trying to process everything. "Yukeli... I... I don't know what this is, but it can't be normal. None of us seem surprised to have come out of an egg."
The fact that we were all naked only makes the situation more bizarre; some tried to hide their nakedness, but there was not enough material for that luxury, nor focus, since a few seconds ago they had witnessed things that were only possible in superhero movies.
Tania let out a brief, nervous laugh. "I think our brains are still deciding how to panic."
Gradually, others approached, forming small groups. Some talked to each other, others kept away, but their eyes crossed — everyone wanted answers. No one seemed to have control of the situation, but one thing was certain: everyone there knew who they were. It was the world that no longer made sense.
"Hey there, superman."
One of the first to introduce himself was the white-haired man who had saved Yukeli. He approached slowly, his eyes serious.
"I'm Maeron. I assume you don't know much more than I do about what's going on?"
"We're all in the same boat," said Tania, as if that simple fact brought a faint relief to everyone there. Yukeli felt the weight of those words, as if finally someone recognized the absurdity of the situation out loud.
He nodded, trying to push away the whirlwind of thoughts and the pain that still throbbed in his head. "Thank you for before." He thanked him sincerely, even without knowing exactly why.
"You too. That fire spear... it was impressive." The firm voice of the white-haired man still reverberated in the cavern. Yukeli noticed the respect there, mixed with a hint of admiration.
More people joined the group, slowly approaching. Yukeli turned his gaze to a girl with gray, wavy hair, her fair skin almost seemed to reflect the dim light of the cracked eggs. Her dark blue eyes stared at Yukeli with a disconcerting firmness.
"Hello, my name is Leena," she said, her voice firm, as if she wanted to maintain control in the middle of that chaos. "Do you have any idea what's going on? By the way you faced the monster, it seems you know more than you say." Yukeli felt a slight discomfort in that look — as if she was challenging his courage or perhaps his own disbelief.
Leena looked directly at him and asked, almost as one who expects an answer she herself doesn't believe: "What kind of skills were those? Have I been kidnapped and thrown into some bizarre reality show?"
Before Yukeli could react to the stupidity of that assumption, a tall young man appeared from the side. His black skin was marked by natural patterns, as if his own skin told ancient stories. He crossed his arms, a wide and carefree smile spreading across his face.
"Easy to deduce," he said, his voice loaded with a contagious energy. "The heavens have finally smiled on me Hahaha! Brother, this is our moment — we're in a fucking isekai Hahaha!"
Yukeli arched an eyebrow, trying to catch the joke, but the group's nervousness made even the jokes seem true.
"Tsc— imbecile."
A curse sounded and right behind him, an almost identical boy approached, his expression serious and his eyes attentive. "I'm Tavir. I don't talk much, but if anyone knows what's going on, it would be good to share."
Yukeli felt the tension increase with the entry of Tavir, as if something heavier hung over him.
"We're as lost as you," said Tania, with a look that now carried a shadow of concern.
Between the group, a small young woman caught his attention. Her lilac hair fell in soft waves, and her large eyes revealed a mixture of fear and curiosity. She looked around with caution, almost as if seeking an invisible exit.
"I'm Aris... would anyone have something to cover me?" The voice was low, but the request carried a vulnerability that squeezed Yukeli's chest.
He looked away for a moment, conscious of the awkward silence that hung over the nakedness of everyone there — but, curiously, no one seemed to focus on that. It was as if the urgency of the moment crushed any other concern.
And he wondered: if not even their own bodies seemed to bother everyone, what else kept them trapped in that disconcerting limbo?
"Don't worry about that," said a handsome middle-aged man with a thick beard, who searched the environment as if he expected to find hidden cameras, or some kind of invisible observer. "Although we are all naked for some reason, no one seems to focus on each other's body. It's strange, but I think something is distracting us from that."
Yukeli observed the man with attention. There was something in that suspicious look that revealed fear, and at the same time a desperate attempt to rationalize the absurdity of the situation. He himself couldn't take his eyes off the black stones around — a constant reminder of where they were trapped.
"No wonder no one is drooling over me," a female voice interrupted, soft and firm. A tall woman with violet eyes and a serene expression spoke with an almost supernatural calm. Yukeli noticed how her posture conveyed a natural confidence, even in the face of that chaos. It was a pity that for some reason he couldn't focus on her form, but he could sense she possessed a striking presence.
Tania stepped forward, her face lit by a mixture of pride and authority. "That's because of my ability. I established a rule that prevents anyone from looking that way for the next 30 minutes."
Her voice had the tone of someone who had just solved a complicated problem and was satisfied with herself.
Yukeli felt the weight of that statement. Rules — words that sounded distant, almost abstract, but that here gained form and power. Tania seemed to have something that the others still didn't understand, a spark of control within that chaos.
"Rules? Was that what you were screaming like a crazy woman?" provoked a man, smiling with irony. "And here I was thinking I was in some kind of special madhouse." His laughter had a nervous tone, as if trying to break the tense atmosphere.
A woman with green hair, who until then seemed shy, approached with a contained smile. "How can I use these magic things, like you?" Her question seemed sincere, but it carried a trace of desperation — as if it were the last hope.
Before anyone could answer, a female voice, clear and melodious, reverberated through the cavern. Yukeli couldn't locate its source, but the message was simple: "Just think about accessing the system and you will see them."
Silence took over the group. Everyone seemed to absorb the idea, trying to reach inside themselves for something they didn't yet know, but that could be the key to everything.
Yukeli closed his eyes, feeling the damp air of the cavern in his lungs. He tried to push away the fear and confusion, concentrating on that strange idea. As if it were a game, like in the novels he read once — he tried to access the system.
It was a strange feeling, as if something invisible began to move inside him. Every sound, every beat of his heart seemed sharper, as if the cavern itself pulsed in sync with his will.
For a moment, everything went silent. And then, a dim light shone inside him, like a spark waiting to ignite.
Yukeli opened his eyes slowly, anxious to find out what came next. And that's when it happened.
In a place where neither time nor space existed, lay corpses.
There were bodies of all sizes and shapes. Some were smaller than dust particles. Others were so vast that they could not be measured, defying any notion of scale.
Fragments of dimensions were scattered among them, like ashes after an explosion — remains from the 4th to the 8th dimension. There were so many that, if at least half were still intact, they would be enough to fill all of reality.
But there were ten that were different.
These ten did not obey any rule of that place. Their shape could not be understood. Their size could not be fully perceived. Only a being of the 8th Order could even assimilate their existence, and only one of the 9th Order would be able to see the truth.
They were not dimensions.
They were corpses.
Corpses the size of reality itself.
Corpses of Primordials.
That place had no name. To name it would be to admit what had happened there. And that truth was so corrupting that it would infect all of existence. No cosmic era would be enough to cure it. The beings that were born after that would be monstrosities that not even the Ancients could conceive.
Primordials should not die.
It was an absolute impossibility. A perverse act that could not occur in any reality. Concepts did not affect them… and yet, there they were.
And among the ten corpses, one of them stands out to confirm this absurdity.
The most noble.
The lord of truth and purity.
Death itself.
The Primordial Death was dead.
Before this sin, the last fragment of reality's consciousness acted. With what remained of its will, it expelled that place from its entrails, banishing it out of existence.
Not out of mercy.
But out of shame.
Later, daring beings would find it. Attracted by power, relics, and forbidden knowledge, they would give it a name:
Limbo.
The Tomb of the Primordials.
Then, the fragments began to move.
They joined, attracted by something invisible, forming a humanoid figure. As primordial time and space were dead, there was no "before" or "after". It was as if that figure had always been there.
It observed a huge sphere nearby — a planet created from dimensions forcibly compressed.
An eternal world.
There, the concepts of the Primordials still persisted.
For any being below the 6th Order, that world was infinite. Even a being of the 7th Order could wander for eras without ever reaching its end.
In the center of that world was something strange.
A bed.
A bed the size of a universe, made of pure love and affection.
A man was standing beside it, holding the hand of a woman lying down.
The woman was dead.
But the man's gaze denied that fact.
By refusing to accept it, he created something impossible: a space and a time where she still lived. From this denial an eternal kingdom was born, where the two remained together for countless eras.
Until the power of the Primordial that killed her became too strong.
Even so, under that man's gaze, the primordial laws refused to act. The woman remained beautiful, untouched, as on the day before the war.
The figure approached, keeping its distance.
After what would have been a cosmic era, if time still existed, the man closed his eyes.
The woman disappeared.
All that remained was a fragment of light, which shone once… and went out.
The bed fell apart.
The love and affection spread across the planet.
Then, a sound echoed.
The cry of a baby.
A melody so pure that it could enchant even the most powerful beings in reality.
The planet molded itself, compressing until it took the form of a child. Inside it existed multiple intertwined concepts.
A titan had been born.
A titan of the 9th Order.
As the first of his species, he possessed an understanding that transcended his fellows. This was his birthright.
The baby grew. Became a child.
Looking at the corpses around him, he felt sadness. His body and mind were powerful, but his soul was still young.
When his eyes landed on the corpses of the Primordials… his soul collapsed.
The child howled like a dying animal.
Too much wisdom fell on him all at once. His body exploded — and regenerated the next instant.
This repeated itself.
Once.
Twice.
Incountable times.
Until his consciousness could bear no more.
The child grew. Became an adult.
And went mad.
Before that, however, he left behind words of condemnation:
— HEREGES.
YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR ACTS.
THE PRIMORDIALS WILL RISE.
YOU, THE TEN, AND YOUR MISERABLE ALLIES WILL BE TORTURED AND BANISHED TO NOTHINGNESS.
THERE, YOU WILL BE DEVOURED BY THE UNKNOWN
FOR ALL EXISTENCE.
The creature, now an abomination of pain and madness, continued screaming in pain and confusion.
And that scream would echo…
Until the last breath of its miserable existence.