Genetic Ascension

Chapter 2198: Efivara

A rumble shook the galaxy.

To say that the Demi-God Plane was sturdier than the Mortal Plane was a severe understatement. If the latter was like a gingerbread house, susceptible to the bite of a child or the twist of their little fingers, the former was a steel-reinforced home built of brick and concrete—rigid and unmovable.

Not only did it take more strength for a person to move earth, shatter stone, or even cause fluctuations in the air, but the fabric of its reality itself was simply on another level entirely.

This was all to say that the trembling of the Demi-God Plane was incredibly rare, and it could be said that every time it happened, it could only be the result of something that would fundamentally change the trajectory of several years to come… At least when it happened on a scale like this one.

And the rumbling of a galaxy was certainly on such a proper scale.

…

The location was that of the Efivara Clan. They were a peculiar people, not only because of their traditions, but their appearances.

On first glance, they were little different than humans. In fact, one might have thought they truly were.

They had skin somewhere between dark and extremely tanned, bodies that seemed lanky on first appearance, but were wired with compact, elastic muscles, and stature that lived somewhere between five and seven feet tall.

If a satellite took an image from above, they would seem like any tribe of people from ancient Earth.

But that was where the similarities stopped.

On their faces were swirling patterns of agitated skin that almost looked like elevated scars. However, these patterns looked far too controlled, far too calm and measured to have been true scars. No enemy would ever be so delicate, especially not on one's face.

But what was even odder about these "scars" was the coloration of some of them.

Some were faded like true scars, but others glowed oddly. For the young this glow almost looked like an infection, as though an infestation of pus and white blood cells were fighting it out beneath their skin.

But on rare occasions amongst these young, and more commonly amongst their old, these swirling scars carried with them a glow that was much more ethereal, eliciting feelings that were less skewed toward discomfort and grossness, and more eliciting feelings that tugged on a sense of awe and curiosity.

Some looked like they had flickering motes of lights dancing beneath their skin, some looked like they had currents of the most gorgeous blue waters, and some looked like they had burning magma churning away beneath.

The eldest of them, the old they called the Ancestors and Elders, looked like they could contain entire worlds, one of them, a man who was still in the prime of his middle-age, and maybe the most respected amongst their current fighting number, looked as though he carried an entire universe within his swirls.

These swirling scars extended down his neck, down the bulbous caps of his shoulders and arched across his back. He stood in a skirt of straw, the transition between his shoulders and triceps bound by a gold band that sparkled with intricate Runes that looked carved from diamond.

Every one of the Efivara Clan had two such bands on their person, their ankles rattling with anklets of jewelry. One would have thought that they made up for their simple clothing of straw and beast skin by pouring their wealth into their jewelry alone… Even right down to the rings that adorned their fingers and the earrings that looped their lobes.

Their Clan Chief, Mosun, was the first to feel the tremble. It was just a small shift in the air at first, a slight altering in the swaying path of their planet, but he had felt it.

And the moment he left the women that littered his bed and stepped out into the dusty dunes of their world, wind currents sending his hair fluttering and his skirt streaming to one side, he realized what was happening.

An Ascent.

He didn't have the time to tell others about this first, though. Everything happened far too fast, and a twisting shift tore a hole in the distance.

Their sun went erratic, flares and looping lines of molten metal ejecting from it in a wild rage that moved so fast it lashed against the magnetic fields of their world almost instantly.

Sparkling lines and sparks filled the sky. Even on the other side of their planet, where it should have been night, it shone as bright as day, illuminating the skies until they were all forced to witness the very same sight at the same time.

A world more beautiful than any Mosun had ever seen. It was so highly blue, and yet so very golden brown and green. Its body was surrounded in currents of rotating water, a formation likewise more complex than any Mosun had ever seen.

So frail, so gorgeous, so beautiful. It touched his heart in ways he couldn't describe, in ways his own world never had.

The path of the Efivara was one of power, but it took of the world too much. They were a nomadic race, not out of choice, but out of necessity. Every world they stood on was bound to die as their bloodline sucked it dry to fuel their progress, leaving them with nothing.

And now, just as their own world had grown desolate, filled with dunes of sand and soil that carried no life or water, such a boon appeared right before them all.

A true boon, indeed.

He was only just assigned the title of Clan Chief, a change that happened naturally every time a world of theirs was close to reaching its end. He was soon to set off on an expedition to find their next target world.

And to think… one would land in their lap just like this.

"The Gods of Efivara have smiled down upon us."