Apollo's Chronicle by Seraph Wedd (book club reads TXT) 📖

Prologue

The world is divided into 3 continents, shared by 5 large kingdoms and several smaller ones.

Each continent is separated by masses of water.

At the Northeast, the continent of Neurithe. Being slightly removed from the other continents, it is the one with the lowest development in terms of both military and facilities. The populace here mainly focuses on agriculture and promotes the preservation of nature.

At the Southwest, the continent of Sulletry. Like Neurithe, it is separated from the central continent however, it is much closer compared to the other one. Being near the central continent, its technology, military and facilities are quite developed compared to the one above. Its main produce generally focuses on seafood mainly fishes, shells, seaweeds and the likes.

In between the two is the Central Continent of Curion. Curion has the largest land area compared to the other two. It has the shape of “7” and is divided into the western, main and southern parts. Its military might is second to none. Assisted with their advancement in engineering and logistics, they are unparalleled when it comes to sieges and skirmishes.

Mining is the leading produce of the Central.

Due to the almost never ending wars occurring on the Continent, agriculture and fisheries are low. Therefore, importing goods from Neurithe and Sulletry is required.

Wars continue to break out all over the world.

Wars due to land, wars due to resources, wars due to anxieties, wars due to personal grudges.

However, no matter how many wars break out, the human population never dropped. Rather, it was always on the increase.

Resources continue to diminish as time passes causing an increase in the frequency of wars.

Greed caused the continents to try to invade the other.

That caused the first Great War.

The war lasted for a span of a hundred years.

After the 35th generation king of Gerian Kingdom, the largest kingdom of the central, took the throne, he proposed a truce to all hostile kingdoms.

Since then, he became known as the Hero who united the whole world once again.

However, this didn’t really solve the problem of resources.

All of them tried their best in extending the amount of their resources but still ended in failure.

Even though the amount of food increases in an arithmetic manner, population increases in a geometric one causing it to eventually be depleted.

Due to the efforts of everyone, peace lasted for almost 80 years.

However, another adversity came.

One night, dimensional rifts suddenly appeared across the world.

Along with it, weird beings started pouring down onto the world.

Monsters of all sizes started raiding cities and castles, eliminating any living being that they encounter.

Human population dwindled to less than a fourth of after a year had passed.

Monsters looked for places where they wish to stay. Sometimes even occupying previous lively settlements.

Human race were driven into a corner almost instantly.

They were forced to live in small groups and defend for themselves.

The only Continent to survive the attack with only small losses was the Central Continent with its advanced military might.

However, they lost more than half of their land.

Monsters came to attack in waves, and the humans try to defend themselves desperately.

Losses cannot be ignored.

Decades passed under those conditions.

Humans learned how the monsters behave and succeeded in domesticating some species.

Human race never gave into despair and frantically tried to raise their war potential. Not to wage war to other kingdoms, but to eradicate monsters from this world.

Hundred more years passed and finally, the human race got equal standings with the monsters.

In each encounter, human casualties are quite high and so does the monsters. In a world where you wouldn’t know when you’ll be attacked, they came to a standstill. And that comes to the present.

Chapter 1: Birth of the Prodigy Part 1

Deep in the night, where most houses are already devoid of light and activity, only a single household has visible signs of life.

“AaaaaaAAAAAHHH!!!”

Sudden shouts of a woman in pain can be heard in fixed intervals.

Inside the house is a single bed surrounded by many individuals.

“Just a little more! Breathe… in, in, out… in, in, out… push!!!”

An elderly woman spoke as she peered under the blanket covering the woman.

A man was holding her hand while sitting beside her bed.

Two woman stands nervously behind the man.

This scene has already persisted for more than an hour. Any longer than this may endanger the life of the woman.

Yes, the woman is giving birth.

She was already undergoing labor for exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes. She no longer have enough strength to continue her labor.

Then, as the old woman spoke, she gave all the remaining energy in her body and did it in one go.

“nnngggggh - - - AaaaaaaAAAAAHhhhH!!”

As the end of her loud scream, she almost lost consciousness.

Then, moments after she finished her shout, a cry of a baby can be heard resounding inside the dim room.

“unnyaaaaaa~! Unnyyaaaaaa~!”

The baby crying continuously was quickly determined as a healthy young boy.

The atmosphere inside the room was quickly shifted to a mix of anxiety and joy.

The old woman quickly did her job as a midwife and finally covered the child in a piece of white cloth.

She then carefully handed the baby over to the man beside the mother of the child.

The face of the man as he received the baby boy cannot be clearly explained. It was a mix of joy, relief, anxiety and fear. However, after seeing the face of the baby, all but relief was left in his expressions.

“Look, Dear… It’s a healthy boy…”

He spoke lovingly towards the woman, the mother of the child.

The woman lying on the bed glanced at the baby, gave off a weak smile and finally fainted.

Maybe due to the relief she felt after seeing the baby, the tension in her body quickly faded off together with her consciousness.

She fainted with a trace of smile in her face.

The next day, after hearing about the news of the birth of their child, their neighbors one by one conveyed their greetings and congratulatory remarks to the man.

Since the woman was still weak after the childbirth, she needs to rest for a while.

Since this was their first child, they are constantly being taught how to properly raise the child by the midwife, the old woman who is actually the mother of the man.

There are times where the man frantically ran back and forth after hearing the baby’s cries. Thus earning the both of them some reprimands. The man was mostly the one at fault though.

Weeks passed and they gradually got used to the process of rearing the child.

After their situation became stable, the man then resumed his work.

He works as one of the village’s guard, and is acting as the chief of the guards.

He too was the one that is training his troops.

Since monsters came to attack frequently, they need to focus on their defenses. Slacking off will lead to the demise of the whole village.

Their village has quite some strong fighters, so there is no problem in driving off the monsters.

The chief could even hold off the front line even when alone.

Of the 400 villagers, around a fourth of them knows how to fight. That is about 1 person per household.

So even on the off chance that monsters manage to slip through their defenses, they could surely eliminate them before casualties are produced.

The peace in their village was said to have persisted for almost a hundred years already.

That is to say, around 5 generations of guard chief passed.

They said that this peace can continue for around a hundred years more.

A few weeks more passed and signs of hair started to appear at the baby’s head. It was of brown color, approaching blonde. A mix between the dark brown hair of his father and the blonde hair of his mother.

His eyes, which finally gained its color, is of a deep blue. His skin tone is of porcelain white.

Two months had passed for recovery since then and the mother decided to continue her work too.

The mother is the owner of the only apothecary in the village. During her recovery, she left the store to her assistant to manage.

However, since her assistant hadn’t yet to fully comprehend every sort of diseases and medicines, there are times where the woman’s opinion was required.

Having no one to leave the childcare to, she decided to bring the baby to her workplace.

Concoction of medicine is left to her assistant since the fumes may cause problems for the baby. The mother is the one manning the registers and doing examinations for the patients.

Every time that the baby cried, she apologized to the patients before going to him. The patients just smiled at the scene and waited for her return.

This cycle continues and finally a year has passed.

The baby boy, now knowing how to stand, runs all over the house. Every time he stumbled down, he will cry for a moment, then smile again and continue running.

The caring for the baby is left to the man’s mother, and she did her job to the best of her capabilities.

The mother and father takes days off every other day to take care of their child.

Two years passed and the baby now can walk, run and jump. There are still times where he stumbles down but the number of times he cried lessened.

By the time he reached 3 years old, he was already allowed to play outside the house.

He often comes with his father when he is training the villagers on how to fight. Watching his father with glittering eyes, and sometimes trying to imitate him.

Chpater 1 Part 2

It happened one day, when the boy was watching his father teach the villagers.

“You need to direct the force from inside your body to the point of contact. Then, you need to temporarily explode it causing damage to the enemy.”

His father explained the concept of using the latent energy inside them to attack. It is the most basic form of offence in the village. This is usually taught to those that finished the basic physical training under his command.

When used properly, the force could leave an adult unconscious after a hit.

“Did you get what I say?”

“““Yes!!!”””

The trainees answered energetically and tried practicing it. The basics of this training is letting the force to flow from inside the body to the tip of the fingers.

Some of the trainees easily managed pulling it off after a few minutes. Some that were having difficulty was given tips by