Chapter 67; The Origin of Eplica
"So we are just a mutation of the two species," Ryan mumbled.
"That's right." Madam Su nodded, then continued.
"Back then, magical beasts were the rulers of the world because when they were cultivated to a certain level, they would gain the ability to transform into a human form.
Back then, among magical beasts, it was taboo to marry a human since they were considered to be lesser beings. The magical beasts didn't want their bloodline to be tainted.
That was until the Moon Mother and our ancestor met and fell in love." Madam Su continued.
"When the monarchs of the magical beasts found out that our ancestors were breeding Turakies in secret, the magical beasts decided to wipe us out.
Fortunately, we were not alone in this. When our forefathers discovered the danger, they contacted the shapeshifter from other magical beast families such as dragons, snakes, tigers, and so on.
They all joined hands together to beat the magic beasts back.
That was when it was discovered that there were already a lot of shapeshifter hiding among mortals and they had already outnumbered the magical beasts both in power and number.
Suddenly, the shapeshifter became the most powerful beings in the world and the magical beasts learned to be humble.
After several millennia, cultivation resources became scarce and the first war of the Gods broke out.
It was written that the war was started by the Gods in order to preserve the world's resources.
It would last for two decades and would be followed by natural disasters that would reshape the earth and redistribute the resources.
It was written that just before the disaster started, the Gods would select the most powerful of their descendants and send them into a pocket world just like our Eplica.
Therefore, after that war, The Moon Goddess brought our forefathers into this world.
According to history, our forefathers were brought in five years before the end of the war, meaning, they were supposed to hide away while the last part of the war was being dragged out by the weaker and unlucky beings. This didn't just happen to us, other gods and goddesses did the same thing for their descendants. It was to ensure that the strongest survived and continued living.
The short end of this world was that, unlike the real world, no one can cultivate in this world. And it is governed by the laws the creator has set for it. Everything that is happening in this world is because the goddess wanted it to be like that.
" So we are in a fake world with preset laws of nature?" Ryan asked befuddled.
If it wasn't a ghost telling him this story, he would have taken it as one of those crazy fables the humans called novels. He couldn't help but think of Megan at this moment. This was the kind of crazy thing she liked reading and talking about.
Coming here would do great for her low and dark mood Ryan reasoned.
"Indeed, Eplica is a fake world. It was meant to hide us away while the real world heals." Madam Su continued.
"Since our forefathers were supposed to spend just 3 millennia in this world, they waited patiently for time to pass. But after three millennials, we discovered that this world remained sealed and we could no longer contact the Moon Goddess.
That was when the five strongest families came together and we started trying to use magic to find a way out.
As of when everything went completely bad, we have already spent thirty millennia in this world.
Meaning that another War of the Gods had started and ended in the real world while we still couldn't get out of here.
At this point, we decided that instead of trying to find a way to open this pocket world up, why don't we find a way to cultivate and see if it can help us break the shackles of this world?
But no matter what we did, nothing worked.
Then, one of the elders from our family suggested that we should try becoming mortals and magical beasts again. Maybe if we separate our components, maybe it would work. We all agreed to this and earnestly started trying to do just that.
If only we knew that this would be the beginning of our terrible ending."
Madam Su's eyes darkened with sadness and regret as the memories flooded her mind.
"Was dark magic involved?" Kulan asked.
Every bad thing that ever happened was caused by magic and was always related to dark magic for as long as Kulan had known.
"Of course. As of then, we have already used every means possible except for dark magic. We had no other choice." Madam Su huffed and her proud shoulder dropped.
"So, how did everything become like this?" Kulan gestured to the coffins surrounding them.
"Because our family was the biggest and the most powerful magic family of the five families, it was our ground that was chosen for the experiments.
Apart from this tomb, there are also catacombs with dry bones of the victims of the experiments.
Back then, the younger generations of the house of Viedanise were known as rich and wasteful. We threw parties every day of the week and made friends everywhere.
What the populace didn't know was that this was to cover up what was actually going on on our grounds.
The parties provided us with an endless flow of lab rats too.
After more than fifty years of endless magical experimentation, the first result was achieved. We successfully separated some Turakies into ordinary humans, some into vampires, and some into werewolves.
From then on, the responsibility of the Viedanise in the experimentations was over and it was now the turn of two other houses. The house of Zote and the house of Camel.
Back then, while we were in control of transportation and agriculture, Zote and Camel were in control of Health and industries.
The last family, the house of Iscamon, was in charge of Law and order.
For some time, the experiments were going on fine. We were planning to separate us into two but ended up with three new creatures.
Before the Zotes and Camels took over, we had the continent divided Into three realms to avoid any form of crisis. One for the vampires, one for the werewolves, and one for the humans. Each time a Turakie turned into any of these new creatures, we would send them to the corresponding realm.
The next thing was to figure out how to open the meridians of these new creatures so that they could start cultivating. This was where the medical expertise of the house of Zote and Camel came into use.
Just like when we were separating us into different beings, it took time, effort, and a lot of blood-shedding.
But as the years progressed, instead of success, we got nothing but reports of failure. And just like that, 100 years had passed and the new creatures had populated the world.
While we were all waiting for the House of Zote and Camel to bring us new results, we didn't know that the House of Zote had plans for hegemony and they were using the experiments to weaken the rest of us.
Instead of preying on the weak and vulnerable as we agreed on, they systematically hypnotized the leaders of the house of Camel into surrendering their descendants for experiments. But they were not using them for that.
The house of Zote had figured out a way to become more powerful by harnessing and refining the bloodline essence of others and then absorbing it.
The vicious part of what they were doing was that, even though they could get the heart blood without killing these Turakies, they chose to completely end their lives in a bid to leave no evidence.
Before the house of Camel knew what was going on, their household was reduced to nothing. It was when they made a move into the house of Iscamon that they got exposed.
What remained of the other four households decided to join forces and attack them. That was when we all discovered that over the years, they had been gradually poisoning us through our water sources and medicals.
They activated the poison through magic during the raid. If not for that poison making things difficult for us, we would have successfully wiped them out. But to save our lives, we had to stop the raid midway and return home to treat ourselves.
The poison turned out to be too potent and deadly and the house of Viedanise decided to bleed all the strong descendants that were affected by the poison. We thought that as long as we were in hibernation, the poison wouldn't be able to take effect.
But we were wrong and had no forbearance.
After these descendants were hibernated, the poison continued to work and they all died in their sleep. In our desperation, we cast a spell on the village of Mayel. With this spell, anyone who dies in Mayel, their souls would never leave. It would stay.
This was to keep the Viedanise alive until help comes. After all, once the seal of this world is removed, all these spirits would be able to reincarnate in the real world. Something that can't happen in this world."
"Reincarnation? Reincarnation is real?" Kulan asked in bewilderment. The humans wrote about these strange phenomena and she had always seen it as the wide imagination of the writers.
Hmm, it seems these humans hide the truth within lies. Kulan mumbled to herself.
Her mind also went to Megan who was an avid reader of human frictional novels.
If she was here, she would have known more about these things. I should have brought her with me.
"Once we went into Hibernation, the house of Zote released the rumor that we intentionally weakened the Turakie race and set public opinion against all the five families."
"Including themselves?" Kurt was confused.
"Yes."
"Why? Were they not to take over? Why will they shoot themselves in the foot?"
"I don't know. Maybe it was to drive suspicion away from themselves. I don't know. What I do know is that being the most powerful of the five families, the house of Viedanise was acknowledged as the leader of the five. Therefore, we took the brunt of the blame." Madam Su continued with a heavy voice.
"To avoid an outright war, we left some people behind and the remaining Viedanise also went into Hibernation in this place. The plan was to wait out the outcry. People always forget after some time after all. Once the situation calmed down, our descendants were supposed to raise us from Hibernation and my job was to guard the tombs until then.
But a few years later, things degenerated from just outcry to mob actions. All orchestrated by the house of Zote which has also gone into hiding."
"Since you were always here guarding the tombs, how did you know?" Ryan asked without thinking.
His words annoyed Madam Su but she just glared at him and continued.
"Since back then, it's been millennia and Adolph was the first descendant of the house of Zote that I would be setting my eyes on.
Followed by that girl. Then those who came to bring her back to wherever she came from.
Before we went Into hibernation, we discovered that there were two ways to open this world to the outside world. The first one is to wait for the spell the Moon Goddess used in sealing it off to wear off. While the second is to refine it.
The first one is not reasonable because unless the Moon Goddess dies, the spell might not wear off. She is an immortal, the chances of her dying are slim.
The second is vicious because to refine this world, one would have to also refine the people in it. This was what the Zotes were trying to do."