Chapter Text
Hell
That was the first thing he remembered.
Flames spreading everywhere. A cursed hell consuming everything. The desperate cries of people calling for help.
But despite it all, he kept walking. Voices begged and cursed for salvation — yet he continued forward.
To survive, he decided to ignore it all. He threw everything into that accursed fire.
He threw away his sorrow.
His happiness.
His anger.
His hatred.
His despair.
His emotions.
His memories.
...His hope.
In the end, nothing remained.
No-
There is One thing remained — for some reason, he couldn't let it go.
In the end, he fell, surrendering to his fate.
A child with red hair and golden eyes looked up at the sky. His eyes were empty, devoid of life.
In the end I failed, huh. He thought, his gaze hollow looking at the weird black sun in the sky.
He closed his eyes. This was the end. Despite having lost everything, he reached out his hand — as if his will still existed.
He didn't understand why he did it. Was it the instinct to survive? No — he had already given up on that. Hope? No — he had abandoned that too.
He was nothing but an empty shell of what he used to be. In the end, he would fail.
The boy's hand slowly fell — but suddenly, it was caught by the hand of a grown man.
The boy looked up to see a man with black hair and empty black eyes.
Despite that, the man looked at him with a smile full of joy and relief — as if the boy's existence alone had saved him.
"You're alive! You're alive... Thank you. Thank you so much." The man was crying, repeating the words over and over.
The boy looked at him and thought: Can I smile like that?
Then he lost consciousness.
The last thing he saw was a golden light — and for the first time, a feeling of warmth.
Gaia felt a disturbance in her domain.
The sensation was unpleasant and irritating.
After all, Gaia was an extension of the earth itself. Some called her the Mother of Life, the Goddess of the Earth, the Primordial One.
She didn't care for any of that.
Her function was simple: eliminate anything that threatened the planet.
That was why she hated humanity. Humans destroyed everything in her land. They polluted her air. They burned her forests.
In search of knowledge , they stomp on any obstacle they see , be it in the normal side or the mythical side.
That what make them dangerous .
That why she sent natural disasters to reduce their numbers — but it never worked. Humans had something other races lacked: the ability to learn from mistakes, to correct them, and the worst of it — adapt.
They built things to fight nature , with nothing but mind and intelligent.
In the end, she decided to create monsters from her own power to destroy them. She named them Primal Beasts — the beasts of the apocalypse, meant to bring an end to humanity.
Using humanity own sins to create beasts that will destroy them ! the irony in it.
But despite that, she never expected a being of equal power to interfere and save them: humanity's collective consciousness — Alaya.
Gaia despised her. After millennia of conflict, both had developed awareness and mutual hatred.
Gaia hated Alaya and all her pitiful dogs — the Counter Guardians, people Alaya sent to clean up anything that threatened humanity, even humanity itself.
if you gonna kill humans to save humans , why even try to save them in first place ?
she didn't understand.
and that was fine , That what make them different to each other and hate each other.
Gaia decided to investigate the disturbance that was causing a major distortion in reality, within her domain.
She sent her consciousness to the place that had become a battlefield for magus and heroic spirits — Fuyuki.
She didn't like what she saw. It was hell. Flames spreading rapidly. Though she took some pleasure in human suffering, she didn't like the spread of these flames. If they continued, they would destroy a vast area and cause massive damage.
and the soil will suffer greatly and cause problem in the future.
especially when the curse of all evil spread .
why Alaya didn't send her guardian here ? if this grail grow enough it could be disaster for earth.
She decided to contain the flames in one area to prevent their spread. She didn't care about the humans — as long as it didn't cause damage, they could burn in hell.
Gaia hated human magus and their greed for starting a war that could destroy the planet.
And she hated that accursed vampire who created the Grail.
She wanted to destroy the Grail, but the rules imposed on her prevented it.
In another timeline, Gaia would have contained the damage and turned her attention elsewhere.
But in this timeline, she decided to survey the battlefield.
a different choice , a different outcome.
Then she found something — a child walking through this hell. She was surprised a child was still alive, but when she saw him fall, she knew he wouldn't last much longer.
Gaia didn't care about this — but maybe out of curiosity ? or boredom ?. So she decided to examine the child.
First, she examined his body. She didn't understand why she was doing this, but it seemed that years of battle, repair, destruction, and watching humanity had made her bored.
As expected, the child was near death. Surviving would require a miracle — but miracles had become extinct after the Age of Gods.
Only a few things could save this child. His bones were broken in many places, his throat was damaged from inhaling smoke, and his entire body was covered in the curse of the corrupted Grail.
It was truly a miracle that he was still alive.
In the end, she decided to examine his soul. But what she discovered made her tremble slightly. The child had 27 Magic Circuits of average quality — higher than an average magus, but still average. But that wasn't what shocked her.
His soul was empty. Neither good nor evil. It was like the soul of a newborn baby — just seconds old.
This was astonishing. She hadn't expected that this cursed fire would purify a person to the point where their very existence was erased and altered.
Gaia decided to touch the child's soul with her consciousness. Suddenly, she felt part of her consciousness being absorbed — so she quickly withdrew.
This surprised her. His soul was like a sponge, absorbing anything to fill the void. But that was impossible — she knew the human soul couldn't accept her power, since Alaya considered her an enemy.
Gaia examined the soul again to confirm something. When she finished, her theory was confirmed. The child's soul was rejecting its existence as human. It hadn't fully formed due to the fire, but she could tell that the soul was rejecting its very identity as human.
For the first time, the Mother of Life felt the urge to laugh out loud, to mock Alaya.
For the first time in centuries Gaia planned to support a human and give him a blessings.
The child had already absorbed part of her consciousness, so she could easily monitor him.
Gaia was considering what to give the child to benefit her — when her thoughts were interrupted as the child raised his hand. Gaia had forgotten his injuries — and for the first time, she felt panic. This child was the key to helping her, but he was close to death. She had to do something to save him before—
Her thoughts were interrupted again when a large hand caught the child and lifted him. She saw a man crying as he helped the child. She didn't care about him — but she caught the child's thoughts before he lost consciousness.
I want to smile like him.
She was surprised the child still had awareness — but suddenly, she felt a familiar presence enter the boy's body.
She looked at his body to find that the man had placed something inside him — something she never expected to see again.
Avalon.
The sheath wielded by the King of Knights, Arthur Pendragon — or rather, Artoria Pendragon. It was created by the fairies of the lake and the fae themselves to become the perfect sheath and ultimate defense for its wielder. Gaia herself had blessed it when the spirits asked her to — she hadn't been happy when it ended up in human hands, but she decided to overlook it.
She never expected this sheath would be useful today.
The sheath settled inside him — and it seemed to sense her presence. It sent her a happy greeting, then began to heal the child.
Truly, she couldn't hate the sheath. Even after all these years, she could still feel the innocence of its consciousness.
In the end, she watched as the man carried the child somewhere. The child was still alive — though she sensed a strange transformation in his soul.
She used the part of her consciousness that had been absorbed to observe what was happening. She found that Avalon was binding itself to the child — apparently, it had taken a liking to him and decided to stay. But strangely, Avalon seemed like a sulking child, looking at something with frustration.
Then suddenly, Avalon used its blessing and rewrote the soul's Origin and Element.
The events were so swift that her consciousness temporarily froze.
The child's soul suddenly expanded significantly — she was speechless as it transformed into an entire world.
She never expected the child to have the potential to develop something like this. It was a Reality Marble in the process of formation. When completed, it would allow him to project this world onto her planet and reject all its laws. She was speechless, trembling — then she laughed. She laughed with pleasure.
She hadn't expected to win a double, no, a triple prize. She could feel that the child's soul was no longer human — but a sword. Avalon had changed the child's Element and Origin to suit its needs. Avalon stood proudly, glowing as if asking for her praise.
As thanks, Gaia decided to raise the sheath's rank one level — from EX to EX+.
Avalon's healing and defensive abilities increased significantly. It glowed with delight.
Now, Gaia decided to find a way to make her new wielder even stronger.
Despite Gaia's hatred for all of humanity — except for the one who had quickly become her favorite — she knew humans came up with creative ideas.
So she began searching for a method — and found one.
It seemed that humans had created small boxes and made characters to suit their needs, controlling them. These characters had a strange system that gave quests and experience, raising their power quickly.
Gaia decided to fully investigate these "games" using her power.
After gathering all the information, she smiled. A brilliant idea occurred to her — this ability might benefit him greatly.
It might break some of her rules, but that was fine. Sometimes sacrifice was necessary.
Using her power, strange numbers formed from zeros and ones into a sphere. In the end, she decided to merge it with the part of her consciousness residing in the child's soul — settling it within him and the incomplete Reality Marble, binding them together.
Gaia finished her work. She decided to leave the rest to her consciousness. Years later, she would see the results of her experiment.
Yes... this would be interesting.
Gaia thought, then decided to return to her domain.