The Book of Earth
9. Urdarbrunn
The world was great and the mountains were so high that no human could reach their peaks. The land was so vast that it had yet to be charted, the cities were the finest monuments to humanity and honor, and the oceans were rich with life, but the population grew. The coasts were mapped, the waters were drank, the lands were harvested, the food was eaten, and the population began to mine the earth to find the world below them. They planted their crops on the walls of the wells, but the end of the world could not be found, they soon flew, and swam, and dived into the sea, and could not find the end of life, or a sign of the earth's center. Where the land was cold they burrowed beneath it and harnessed the elements for the light they needed below the earth, and finally one day when mining they found a stone the size of a city. They could not carve it, nor could they blast it, nor could they move it, so they mined around it, and for many years examined it, but one day of disgrace upon them when the inevitable civilized life forms chose to be anything but that, there was a murder at the stone below the surface somewhat close to the center of the earth. For all the blood sweat and tears shed upon the stone, the blood of murder awakened a danger, the stone consumed itself with a collapsing rupture and quake, where the stone was became a fire from the ancient worlds where the gods had once warred, and the fire was hotter than that which could be most hot. Everything close to the rapture died and from the old fire there were terrible lizards on claws and talons and razor tails, by winged beast and terrors keen to feast with fangs of predation, of last came of them beasts combined of the dangers and angers of all other beasts called dragons.
Their life ran from destruction, and the fields would no longer be their home, not one region was safe from tyranny because every terrain was the domain of the tragic beasts, no mountain too high, no valley too low, no river too deep, no ocean too strong. The beasts chased them into the mines, natural caves, and from their tunnels to which they could not hide and fortify defenses fast enough. The pretenses of survival were surely rough and all to eat was beast, for they were predators without civilization, and the people ate only meat for many generations. If not stronger taller, if not faster smarter, if not clever more apt, survival was imperative and for the fittest, and was so claimed by the best as the survivors tunneled downward straight to the center of the earth.
One day a tunnel emerged and found better dragons than were born of fire, hunting and killing, and the traps that fed humanity were further exploited, four tribes eventually found their tunnel exits at the ends of the earth. Fate prepared them to battle and one day a warrior survived a small beast giving pride to those who saw, and soon blinded new in generations to the powerful sunlight they cautiously roamed the earth, this was each the way the other tribes survived, but the beasts were too many for survival. With the courageous lost the evolution of humanity suffered losses in progress, but patience redeemed, among them were born the first of the gods, who could die but after much more damage. After an age the gifted would fight but have children with combined power, after an epoch they would seem invincible to humanity, after an era they would have trouble killing themselves, after an eon they would be truly immortal with powers unlike mortals, but there were still beasts that grew alongside them. Monsters of the deep to hunt for sport and others to train for hunting, yet there were still those who took shelter in the caves and perhaps some who did not escape the mines at all in the ancient past, the tale is that they grew small, divided by species and in form, to hide from the dangers of existence and to seek creatures for a hunt of their own, how small are they that a world just as small could reside beneath them.
Thus so the stones would grow, the mountains gave magma, the sky cried, far and wide the world continued to grow. The only mystery of the universe awaited only the question of its ability to contain life, and the world grew large to venture at endless bounds where the children of the old gods played, as time unfolded so did the earth itself, until the dark wistful shallow spirits grew voids in their souls. Then upon them within the world a dark stone came to existence from deep within the recesses of immortality, and the black diamond grew. It contemplated and spread like poisonous crystal, and it consumed other stones of great power by seeping to the surface and taking them until it became a bright darkness. Pure with thought of evil the dark stone worshipped itself and contaminated its inner shadows until it opened a passage and Jotunn the manifestation of apparition darkness set foot on earth. Divided it spent its time torturing life and growing the dark crystal against the otherworld Vanaheim. The Jotunn did not name the second world and only considered it a priority to expand a dark empire. Long as all of time had been nine times nine times more a red blood stone opened from the innermost implicit infinitesimal essence, and it grew and survived the destructive power of itself until the power tore a portal into the nether existence to release another master of worlds, this time the Asgard. In this trinity, where the lighting was fire and the water was sand, the three worlds battled and the life evolved to manifest destiny, of immortality were insects beneath the gods. A terror between worlds and among dragons and armored beasts, while the wars continued in madness time escaped and it soon began to grow, and by the autumn of the first life of time the three worlds had each become three unto the like and had made war an art as is done. To each they kept styles of battle but so much the same they wielded until their will be done, of types unique to each world they summoned metals as which would surface when called to be thrown at each other, as some would die, others would be born better to stand the test of time, three worlds by three, connected and embattled.
On the day when Midgard was wounded by they who are half demons and they who are half angels, in a great battle bringing revelation a great warrior from Asgard stood, annoyed by feast and blood and mostly battle, disgusted by some of the gods, those from the house of Vanir who could see the future but refused to prevent wars for mortals. In the moments of time longer than mortal existence the warriors from house Aesir took violence until victorious, unto thus a truce beholds the worlds of life as existence murdering all who murder in the name of another.
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