Red: Swordsman in the Apocalypse

Chapter 2: Mankind's Fall

The year 2094.

All was chaos. The apocalypse. The Fall.

The end of the world. 

That was what the history books called it.

The earths' fomer azure-blue sky was tainted a stagnant grey with dark venomous fumes forming massive patches of black clouds. In this 'futuristic' world, the sun was but a memory. A thin grey fog surrounded the atmosphere, the air tainted and veiled.

The flourishing landmass were scourged, gouged and withered. The iconic greenery of the planet became vast patches of toxic fuming membranes filling the earth with pestilence. Cities fell, continents burned.

Civilization collapsed. Humanity erased to dwindling numbers. Savage creatures of grotesque proportion proweld the ancient ruins of a civilization that was.

On the first day of "The End", they said the sky and it's firmaments 'fell' first, bridging the boundary between the day and night. The second day, the ground withered. The third day, the oceans boiled and drained. The fourth, the earth shook. By the fifth, half of humanity was wiped out.

It all began several years ago. In the year 2034, humanity made a remarkable discovery when its first "extraterrestrial" was found washed up on a beach shore. 

This creature defied all known descriptions. Its physique appeared as a mass of flesh, with a thickness akin to the toughest animal hide, and covered in strange and peculiar scales. 

Its bones, although soft and cartilaginous, possessed an exceptional density and durability, reminiscent of the strongest metals, yet retained the flexibility of rubber or heated plastic. 

This surreal being exhibited a biology so bizarre that it captivated the imagination of scientists worldwide.

A single cell, a single cell held enough power and secret to boost human evolution two hundred years forward, and raise the standards of the human race.

The corpse, however dead, held vast amount of peerless energy to fuel hundreds of civilizations. A discovery that rocked the world. The single corpse of a creature was like heavens eternal gift to humanity. And also their greatest curse.

For the first few years, humanity thrived. Earth evolved. Civilization grew. They believed they were at their prime.

By managing to genetically and synthetically re-create those cells with a method to 'breed' them, the human races' possibilities never became endless. 

The biological making of a cell held secrets, a remedy believed to cure all disease and prolong life, furthermore, to forever erase the physical capabilities and limits of man.

Eventually, Godhood didn't feel so distant and vague for the human race.

Mankind Scientist continued to further their researches into this mysterious creature and endless secrets held by each and everyone of its cells for many years to come. Then they began to dabble in the 'creation'.

This was the trigger to the fall of mankind.

The new genetically engineered cells initially, however, slightly inferior to their predecessors, evolved and acquired a distinct sentience and awareness. Humanity merely ignored this and treated it as just another breakthrough discovery. They celebrated, jubilated and cheered, none of them failing to realize and acknowledge the subtle signs of mutations that underwent the absurd speed of the evolution.

Until it was too late.

The cells grew, then multiplied. They clustered, forming tissues, the tissues in returne, fused forming organs and a dense structural frame.

And the 'first' living Elder Gods on earth were birthed from human labs. And then one day, dimensional rifts 'broke' the sky, tearing apart reality and bathing the earth in spontaneous radioactivity that forced a massive mutation in the earths' fauna.

The Radioactive energy was merely the first disaster to come from the Dimensional Rifts. 

Beings of a different realm, a distant plain far beyond the Earth, their armies marched across to ours droves.

July 23rd of the year 2043, humanity faced their 'first' invasion from the Elder Gods.

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(Present Time)

Civilization fell and mankind were forced behind walls, abandoning the rest of their vast territories and resources. Those who couldn't however, were left 'outside' to survive...to 'die'. The earth was a desolate place, reeking of pestilence and uninhabitable territories. The tainted sky and fuming black clouds had never seemed so low before as it did on this certain day.

That was what Lyra Diego thought as she stared solely at the bleached heavens.

When suddenly a voice called out to her from across.

"Hey, little lady, if you don't wake up we're gonna' leave you behind!" A middle aged looking man with rough edges and grey hair, donning a quasi Advanced-level battlesuit with technological gears and accessories, yelled out with a growl before turning around to march forward. He was a tall man of 184 cm, and a big build with his figure accentuated by the slim fit Battlesuit he wore.

Lyra awoke from her stupor and ran after her party already leaving for the 'Den' without her. She had to rake in enough profit today.

Lyra, the middle aged man, and a few other members of the hunting party, donning similar accessories arrived at the 'Island' southwestern gate, pensive.

The atmosphere among the group was tense and heavy. The members of the party suppressed their trembling and swallowed down saliva. Thier expressions stern, some determined.

Lyra was among those in-between the latter and the former. Her fine azure eyes glinted with a steady light, her fingers clenched tightly in her gloves.

"Move." The middle-aged man from earlier nudged his way through the small group and reached the front. To one side of the gate was a small guard post manned by a few Gatekeepers.

"We've got a hunt on the outside. Scout team discovered a new 'Den', and I've been put in charge to lead a small troupe to clear it out and retrieve resources. You're gonna' have to open the gates." The man explained.

Lyra hadn't paid attention to this. Her gaze lingered on the closed gates of the Wall, her thoughts lingered even further.

Since 'The Fall" humanity and civilization had evolved and changed far beyond that which meets the surface. Technologies of half a century lost, millennials of human history discarded in the war of 'The end'.

Literally all that was left...laid beyond the gates of Allan Fort.

Soon the sound of a deep rising hum reached the ears of all those gathered nearbye. The ground underneath their feets shook and trembled, the tremors rising and increasing alongside the mechanical ringing and electrical whirling. It was like the Earth itself roared in defiance.

The world seemed to shake as the heavy collosal gates rose and shifted. Horns resounded, alarms blared seemingly in protest, announcing to all those who listened.

The southwestern gates...were ascending.

Lyra watched with feverish eyes. No matter how many times she observed the scene, the nigh-overwhelming sense of weighing apprehension never ceased.

Gates of over fifty thousand tons and eighty feet high tend to cause a lot of chaos when moving. Lyra watched closely with clear admiration. The process took a full minutes, each second like a passing eternity to those gathered. Those endless eternity brought them so feverishly closer towards what could possibly be their final day.

Many faltered.

Many considered turning back and running away.

Many feverishly fell into prayer...to anything other than 'Gods'.

Then the middle-aged mans heavy voice resonated deeply through the sounds of blaring alarms and horns, garnering forcefully their attention.

"Do not fret!"

They shivered.

"Do not look away!" 

They swallowed.

"Do not look back! For all those who do...!"

The fifty thousand ton gates came to a finite stop mere three meters away from the ground.

"Only death awaits."