Chapter 190: The Darkness Lurking In Mars
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The desolate red desert-covered surface of Mars was completely dry, with no water and barely any atmosphere at all. The air, if any, was thin. There was no oxygen whatsoever, and the temperatures were incredibly low.
Any human would instantly die, immediately collapsing due to the lack of several different necessities, the primary one being oxygen, and the secondary one being the incredibly low temperatures this planet goes through.
But there was a single man on the surface, walking through it in silence. It has only been a day since he arrived on Earth, but he had instantly come to Mars instead, completely uncaring of what was happening on the surface of Earth.
He was no mere man; however, his skin was dark green, his eyes lacked pupils, being completely red and big, and his body was rather muscular and bigger than any average human size.
He wore clothes composed of red belts wrapped around his body, covering most of the surface of his body; alongside that, there was a black cape.
His sharp eyes squinted as he walked through the desolate desert, ultimately reaching an empty area; a huge crater was left behind.
“…”
He glanced down at the crater, noticing that any vestige of what he was looking for was long gone, destroyed by the winds of Mars over eons.
“So they didn’t survive in here either.”
The man sighed, kneeling and touching the ground of the planet. To any person, this would feel weird, but to him, it felt right at home—the smell of this dirt, the dryness it had, the red skies…
He started crying a couple of tears, covering the dry surface of Mars with water for the first time in millions of years.
“Is there a timeline, a universe where we made it?”
He sighed, feeling completely devastated.
Every timeline.
Every universe.
His people suffered the same fate.
Extinction.
The Martians that once populated Mars, creating a beautiful and prosperous civilization, were no more.
“Could the ruins underground be safe, however?”
He regained some hope, the same way he was the last survivor, someone who had been cryogenically asleep through thousands of years since the Martians Civilization fell underground.
When he woke up back then, he found out nobody else but him was alive, every single Martian was gone, and even the ruins of his civilization were slowly fading away.
He clenched his teeth tightly as he gathered psychic energies within his hand, creating an invisible aura resembling a bubble.
BAAAM!
He hit the crater’s center with it, creating countless cracks, opening the way to what seemed to be the ruined ceiling of an old temple underground.
“There!”
He jumped down without hesitation, reaching the ruins beneath and looking around, hoping to find something, or perhaps someone.
Even another version of himself would make him happy, despite him being unable to ever find that possibility amongst the many universes he had accidentally visited with his companions.
He walked across the ruins, showcasing paintings and writings on the walls, technology merged with the earth and the dirt of the planet, and powered by psychic powers—the ancient relics that the Martians created.
He tried activating the entire ruin as he walked; only flickering lights sometimes appeared, but the entire place was too ruined.
“Ah!”
His eyes widened, however, the moment he saw a large room with several cryogenic capsules, which activated once he released his psychic powers.
He rushed there, infusing his energies into the capsules and opening them to find if there were any survivors from the cataclysm.
“No…”
However, as the capsules opened, he only found dried mummies, skeletons, or nothing.
“No, no, no!”
He started screaming, hitting the ground in frustration; the only thing remaining of them were their corpses, dried and slowly turning into ashes.
“Why… Why!”
He kept screaming and crying as his memories constantly flashed through his mind.
Of her beautiful smile.
Of her lovely voice.
Of her dreams and hopes for the future.
As they struggled to continue living, as the great cataclysm swallowed the world and its life…
“Karel… Let’s go together.”
And the two entered the cryogenic capsules, waiting for the worst to end and for them to wake up in a future where they could rebuild things together.
Yet…
“Misak…! Is there a universe where you’re alive?!”
As he sighed, slowly calming down and sitting, he suddenly…
Heard something, footsteps.
“Huh?!”
He gasped in disbelief, his eyes glaring towards the direction where he heard something.
Someone was moving!
Or something…
“…”
He slowly stood back up, his Psychic Energy manifesting as spheres of transparent light around his body, constantly rotating.
“Could it be Scavengers?” he wondered. “Or… survivors?”
He was afraid of speaking, Scavengers were dangerous interplanetary groups of aliens that wandered from planet to planet, robbing the tombs of ancient, fallen civilizations.
In his original timeline, he had fought quite a few of these groups trying to rob the tombs of his people, and every time they seemed to be a serious threat, their strength and technology couldn’t be easily looked down.
Karel slowly walked through the corridors, following the footsteps he had heard and, through his special eyes, the leftover heat produced by these living beings.
“There…”
He looked the other way through one of the corridors, noticing something—a long, green-scaled tail wagging and then moving forward.
“A tail? They’re not Martians, dammit!”
He felt frustrated but followed them anyway. If they were Scavengers he was going to take care of them to honor his people and protect what remains of them.
As he kept chasing this being, he eventually heard it walking down towards a huge hall, a large area that was once populated by many people.
At the center, there was a dried spring and many pieces of abandoned technology.
“Huh?”
Stealthily and by covering himself with his psychic energies, he became invisible, slowly walking there and hiding behind a huge pilar.
“Gryak! Gryak!”
“Grekiack! Grukah!”
“Greekh? Grrrrhhh!”
His eyes widened as he saw dozens of large, three-meter-tall, and muscular reptilian beings; they were humanoid in appearance, but with the heads of dinosaurs.
They had long tails, some even had gigantic wings, and they possessed monstrously strong golden and green auras, an otherworldly energy Karel had never sensed before within these monsters.
They were talking in their strange dialect, which could be heard like sharp groans and clicks of their tongues; they seemed to be rather civilized; despite looking like they were fighting, they held long conversations without any physical fight.
Karel also noticed the technology they wielded, highly advanced, and one of such designs he had never seen before!
“What is this? Who are these people?! And why are they on Mars…?”
FLUOSH!
And then he heard a loud noise. He glanced deeper into the hall, noticing something that utterly shook him. A gray portal, spiraling around, enormous in size.
And from there, more of these reptilian, dinosaur-headed beings entered, looking around, using their technology to seemingly calculate the trajectory of this portal and where it could lead them.
“T-This is... the same portal that brought us to this timeline?! How… from where these reptiles are coming from?”
Karel slowly stepped back, realizing the enormous quantity of these beings, which now amounted to the hundreds; it was utterly hopeless to remain here.
“I have to escape and go back with my comrades; as long as Galaxy Man is with me, we have a chance to—”
“You, the one hiding. Come out and show yourself.”
“Ugh?!”
Suddenly, Karel vomited blood as he felt an intense and powerful psychic force impact his brain and entire body, almost leaving him paralyzed.
Alongside it came that voice, the voice of a woman.
His invisibility instantly dispelled itself, as he realized he was surrounded by dozens of these reptilian beings.
They pointed their claws and tails at him; they didn’t even need to use weapons; their bodies were tremendously powerful on their own.
“Bring him to me.”
Her voice echoed within his mind and the minds of the reptilians as they quickly attempted to grab him.
“Ngh…! Unhand me!”
Karel screamed furiously as he unleashed his psychic powers against them, throwing the reptilians away with powerful shockwaves.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
However, they slowly stood back up, looking slightly worn down… but fine.
“I used enough power to kill them, yet they’re alive?!”
“Gryaakah!”
The furious reptilians attacked him, and Karel constantly attempted to kill them, using his psychic energies to crush their bodies or attempt to cut through space to crush them.
However, the reptilians survived; they were being wounded though, bleeding here and there; one of them had their arms dislocated.
Eventually, though, they got him.
“Hahh… Uuggh…!”
They dragged him in front of the portal, and he saw as there was someone sitting on a throne right in front of him, a reptilian with the head of a viper, her head adorned with colorful feathers.
Her scales were also different, of white color, differentiating herself from the rest of her crew, who were mostly green scaled. Her eyes, too, were gold.
Her aura was different to them too; like Karel, she possessed Psychic Powers.
She was an Esper.
“Hm, you’re indeed a very strange being,” she smiled. “You’re not like the primitive monkeys… You’re green like my kind; your eyes are… red? And your internal biology! Very different, yes. Your brain has also been incredibly developed to the point you’ve managed to tap into the Esper Dimension as well? And I thought me and my family were the only ones superior enough to achieve Esper Awakening.”
Despite talking like the other reptilians through her mouth, Karel could clearly hear her voice inside of his head.
“You… Who are you?!” screamed Karel. “What are you doing in the ruins of my people?! Leave… LEAVE AT ONCE!”
“Graack!”
One of the reptilians, the largest of them with the head of a triceratops, kicked Karel’s head, making him groan in pain.
“Argh…!”
“That’s enough,” the female reptilian said. She slowly stood up, walking towards the man, as her tail moved around, wrapping around his neck. “You ask who we are and how we got here? I mean, isn’t it quite obvious that we don’t belong in your pitiful timeline, green man? We were able to teleport to this universe through the Gray Portal that appeared inside of our capital, the one we built above this world. That world beneath was simply too wild for us, a civilized race. We left the monkeys to their own barbaric tendencies, and we created a metropolis in this desolate and desertic planet. We gave it life, we gave it a sky, and we gave it an ocean. Through our technology, we made it a paradise… Yet from one time to another, gray portals appeared, several of our kindred had been teleported away, and we entered in great panic.”
“Gray Portals like those?” Martian asked. “This means… So you come from another timeline too, not the same where I… came from… Ugh… What are your intentions?!”
“Shut up and listen,” she said, tightly pressing her tail around his neck, making him slightly asphyxiated. “At first we panicked, but with our great technology, we’ve learned how these portals work, and through the manipulation of Time and Space Particles, we’ve managed to reverse engineer them and control those portals after we built large Quantum Gates around them. Can you guess what’s next? After we found this beautiful new universe, this world full of new energies we’ve never seen before… What do you think comes next? For our glorious race?
“Y-You…!” Martian groaned, gritting his teeth. “Don’t you dare go to Earth! You damn monsters, Galaxy Man is there; he’ll destroy all of you!”
“Galaxy Man, hm?” The woman giggled. “How interesting… For hundreds of years, we’ve been trying to find the perfect vessels for our God; our technology and even my family were not compatible. They required something more. And in this world, we might finally find what we need for his descent. Be honored; the descent of his great Divinity, Feros-Saurus, is coming. And with him, we will reach great prosperity.”
“What kind of bullshit are you talking about?! This is madness; whatever you’re going to do, stop right now or—AARGH!”
However, Martian was instantly stopped, a psychic power taking over his mind completely, as the female reptilian saw through his mind and memories.
“Ah, poor little Martian, you’ve had it rough…” She caressed his chin as he looked in a dazzle. “Worry not; your suffering will end today. Rejoice! My God has chosen you as one of his vessels.”
“Ugh?! UUAAARRGGH!”
The Martian screamed as he saw a massive cloud of gold and green color manifest from within the woman’s body, rapidly wrapping his body and entering through his mouth and nostrils.
FLUOSH!
Slowly, his mind was completely overtaken, and his body possessed. As he stopped convulsing, Martian suddenly grew silent, slowly standing up, his body having changed out of nowhere.
Sharp green scales grew over his arms and legs, long black claws adorned his nail-less fingers now, and a pair of white horns grew from his forehead, at the same time as his eyes, which became reptilian.
“Yes… This body is good. This is what I needed! A body without Primal Power, an empty, completely blank slate for my Divine Soul to inhabit!”
As he spoke with a much more serious and louder voice, the female reptilian kneeled before him, and so did the rest of the reptilians.
“We are rejoiced to finally witness your descent, oh Great Primal God of Dinosaurs.”
“Well done, Bloodclaw, my dear priestess. You’ve done good… But this isn’t near enough. I require more vessels. More otherworldly power.”
“Yes… The group we sent to the blue planet has found just what you’re looking for, oh great lord.”
“Excellent.”
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