The Guardian gods

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Roth walked through the portal expecting to be surrounded by the forest to hide the portal, but contrary to that, after he walked through the portal he found himself in an empty space full of fallen trees.

Wanting to find out the reason for this, huge bat-like wings unfurled from behind Roth as he took to the sky, using the sky view Roth was able to see the destruction around him, with fire rising in some places. The air full of taste he wasn't expecting to feel from the surface world which was "Death"

Skating his head, Roth flapped his wings as he flew from where he was to see if the situation was the same everywhere but to his surprise, death and destruction was everywhere. Halting over a human settlement, Roth watched as they cried over the death of their loved one, soon at one of the crash site a golden sword caught his attention which Roth flew to and picked up before looking at it and the human settlement knowing that none of the humans are capable of creating such exquisite sword such as this. Throwing away the sword after picking it up, Roth began paying attention to the crash site noticing the out worldly things in it, haven seen enough Roth flew back to the place where he came from as the portal was still opened, waiting for him.

Flying through the portal, Roth was met with the distressed expression of his sister as she grabbed his hand and said come with me. Confused, Roth said nothing as he let himself be dragged until his sister pulled him to an area filled with soul before pointing at them.

Looking at where Xerosis was pointing, Roth took notice that the souls being pointed at were the apelings, looking at the souls Roth didn't notice anything different so he looked back at his sister " What exactly is wrong with them"

This time it was Xerosis turn to be confused as she looked at her brother " Can't you see that something is wrong with them"

Roth shook his head before saying " You are more versed in things concerning the soul than me"

Xerosis hearing that nodded as she held onto her brother's shoulder before her eyes started glowing white light as she spoke " See as i see through me" With that Roth eyes started glowing white.

As soon as Roth's view changed with the help of his sister, his expression changed as he saw the abnormality with the souls " what is that?" Roth asked his sister.

" I don't know but it clearly wants them" Xerosis said as she pointed at the apelings.

Roth agreed but he pointed to the other apeling around who was showing no abnormality " Why aren't they also affected, they are of the same race"

Xerosis shook her head to show that she was also confused, from Xerosis point of view the souls of these particular apelings have a weird roots glowing with purple light that is tethered to them and is fighting with the realm to pull out the souls.

Roth spoke out this time as he looked at the purple glowing tree " Don't you feel the trace of divinity from this Purple light, sister"

Hearing that, Xerosis probed deeper with her senses and soon she picked up what a bit of the divinity coming from the roots, feeling and sensing that her tone turned serious as she said " I think we should get the realm to stop resisting and let the roots take them, this clearly is above us"

Roth nodded as he said " I was thinking the same thing too, this is above us. We should just record and report the incident to mother when she wakes up".

Xerosis nodded as he closed her eyes to communicate with the realm, but the realm didn't act to her thought instead the realm established a connection with Roth sending out intentions on whether Roth agrees with Xerosis decision.

Roth didn't immediately respond as he said " Sister, before we let them go, I think you should follow behind to see where they are being taken to and possibly who"

" Don't you think it's dangerous to do that, brother?" Xerosis asked.

" Not really, I believe whoever it was doesn't want our mother as an enemy," Roth said confidently with a smile on his face.

Xerosis thought for a while before agreeing, with that they both gave their confirmation to the realm consciousness, once the realm got the confirmation, purple wooden tendrils seemed to come out from open space before taking hold of the apelings soul and disappearing.

Xerosis followed right behind and soon she got to the place where the soul were being attracted to, if Ikem was here he would notice this was the apelings first settlement, this was where it all started.

First thing Xerosis noticed was how the surrounding was destroyed but what got her attention the most was the purple branches that stretch out to cover a large piece of land and then fall down to the earth to form a cage, Like it was defending something from the sky.

The branch cage has a lot of huge hole showing that whatever fell from the sky broke through and from those huge hole, Xerosis was able to site the souls moving toward a large purple tree, Xerosis watched attentively as the souls got into the tree each time glowing purple, she couldn't get close enough but she felt the faint divinity from the tree. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The tree seemed to notice it was being watched, which Xerosis picked up immediately before descending back to the underworld.

" Was i wrong, for a second i felt like someone was watching me" Osisi said to himself as he watched the last soul getting inside of him.

The huge purple tree Xerosis saw was Osisi, who used to live in the cave in the primate settlement, but after his strength got to a new level, he walked out from the cave with the help of his roots, now he resides at the centre of the settlement.

This place has had a lot of changes since the rise of Ikem and his people, now this place was the most sacred place for the apelings. It was a fact that both apelings and primate bury their loved ones around Osisi in hope of getting closer to their god Ikenga. But this place became more sacred after Osis took his root at the centre of the settlement. A lot of buildings in the settlement were taken down and rebuilt into a shrine, at the cave where Osisi used to reside is where the statue of Ikenga was built by Ikem together with his Kids, Inside the cave was the most beautiful of structure and architect the apelings could achieve at their stage.

Even though the rebuilt building was called a shrine, it would be better to call it a place of learning as after the statue of Ikenga was built, the apeling started worshiping him and in return they got a blessing from him which often comes in a dot of green light.

The apeling noticed that with the blessing, no matter your elemental affinity, nature shows a favourability to you, animals they used to hunt or ran away from, now take its own initiative to approach them. The shrine soon turned into a place where a lot of apeling coexist with different animals, as they interacted more with the animals the less they felt the need to hunt for it and eat it, but that was mostly the case for the apelings in the shrine.

Noticing this, the apeling and Osisi took an interest in such power different from mana and that was how the shrine was formed, to learn and understand this power of grace, the shrine wasn't only a place to learn the power of grace but also a place to study and create spells for the different elements. It can be said that most spells that the apelings in Ikem kingdom know comes from the shrine.

The shrine today was different from how it was supposed to be and the cause of this was the rain of fire that fell from the sky after whatever was above their world left. In hope of saving everyone and animals in the shrine Osisis spread out his branches which covered the whole settlement forming a cage, except the cave which was protected by its own structure.

Using his branches to take whatever fell from the sky was helpful, but it only brought a small time for some apelings who were in their shrine home to run into the cave. Before whatever that was falling from the sky broke through his branches tearing them apart and burning them. This went on for a while before it stopped raining fire Osisi could have retracted the branches by now but for some reason after the destruction stopped he felt the curse power in his body reacting differently, Osisi felt that something he should be doing was being prevented.