=== ACTUAL TIME ELAPSED: 1799 YEARS ===
One might ask, why is The Groove Canopy named as such? To the normal weak mortal inhabitants of Gaia, none knew the exact details and only attributed it to being a name passed down from ages past.
But to those in the higher hierarchy of the planet itself, namely the demigods, they knew exactly why said forest was named as such. And the reason was because an entire race of gentle yet fearsome and territorial beasts spawned eons ago, back when the first demigods appeared.
Said beasts were a race called the Groove Guardians. Simplistic in name yet completely deadly. The beasts were creatures of the forest and, in general, wood elemental beings, with of course some variations here and there in elemental affinities. But one thing that the residents of Gaia with some modicum of strength knew was that fighting a Groove Guardian inside a forested area or an area with plant life was suicide.
An insane level of life force, regeneration, control of other life forces, as well as abilities geared towards absolute defense with their life force at stake, and soul manipulation techniques. All of these 'goodies' in the form of abilities, skills, and techniques were part of the Groove Guardian's lives and bloodlines. The most fearsome of their kind, the elder and ancient Groove Guardians, were more powerful and even more fierce in defense of their own kind and their territory.
Let's not even mention the alpha ancestral Groove Guardians who were only two, a male and female, the progenitors of the race itself. They were the very deterrent to any and all demigods on Gaia who had thoughts of either conquering the canopy or trying to enslave or capture a Groove Guardian of any kind.
The question then is, why a particular focus on this species? And that was simple. After around 500 real-time years passed from when I had begun learning the way of sword and magic separately, I, Ryan Vorigan, awoke to see before me what would seem as a young Groove Guardian cub, panting and, to be honest, injured.
"Umm... Codex, any idea what the hell is going on?" I asked, confused as I spread out my mystical senses to better understand what had happened.
But even before I could get a reply, I sort of understood what had happened, and the reason being my current surroundings were void and null of practically anything.
What had once been a calm yet dangerous and mysterious forested area had suddenly become empty, as if everything on sight was completely deleted out of existence. A perfect circle of absolute devastation surrounded me, extending outward for about a kilometer in all directions. Where massive trees had stood, nothing remained—not stumps, not splinters, not even dust. The ground itself had been scoured clean, the rich soil reduced to a glassy, sand-like substance that gleamed faintly in the light that now reached this previously shadowed realm.
The border between this zone of destruction and the untouched forest beyond was shockingly abrupt—a perfect circular line where vibrant life met absolute emptiness. It wasn't a gradual transition but an impossibly precise delineation, as if someone had used a cosmic cookie cutter to remove a piece of reality itself.
The sky above, usually hidden by the canopy, was now visible in a perfect circular window, the three moons of Gaia faintly visible despite the daylight. The air was completely still, lacking the usual forest scents of growth, decay, and life. Instead, it carried a faint ozone smell, the aftermath of immense energy discharge.
The ground beneath my feet had been transformed as well, compacted and hardened into a substance that resembled neither stone nor metal but something in between. Small geometric patterns had formed in this material, perfect circles and spirals that radiated outward from where I stood, recording the release of power that had caused this devastation like ripples frozen in time.
And at the center of this perfect circle of destruction was a small crater where I stood, and the one thing that was or had survived was the little cub before me.
"Before I even answer you properly, my lord, I'd recommend you first work on saving the cub before you. She has quite the strong bloodline for a Groove Guardian, and it won't bode well if she dies from the rebound of your gradual awakening..." Codex replied in my head.
"And that's what's shocking me even more, how the hell is... Wait... it's a she?... Huh... Who'd have thought," I said as I stood up immediately inside the small crater that had formed and approached the trembling and now foaming cub. "That doesn't matter now, I need to expel the primordial mana in her body... it's not actively devouring her since I'm in control of it, but nonetheless, it's poison to anyone who's not me or a nova..." I muttered as I gently turned over the cub from its almost lifeless body.
And it was then I got to have a proper look at a Groove Guardian, especially one so young. The beasts themselves surprisingly resembled a mutation of the polar bears I knew of back on Earth, but with extraordinary differences that marked them as creatures of another world entirely.
Where a polar bear would have pristine white fur, this creature possessed a coat of light golden-brown that shimmered with an inner luminescence, each hair appearing to contain a tiny spark of sunlight. The texture was beyond anything I'd encountered—softer than the finest silk, yet possessing a resilience that suggested it could turn aside blades if necessary. This base coat was overlaid with intricate patterns that ran from the crown of the cub's head down to the base of its tail—stripes and whorls in deeper amber and rich mahogany that pulsed faintly with the creature's labored breathing.
These markings weren't random but formed precise geometric patterns that reminded me of the ancient runic systems I'd studied during my magical training—living sigils of power engraved into the creature's very being. The most prominent was a circular pattern at the center of its forehead that resembled a stylized sun with twelve rays extending outward.
The cub's tail was nothing like the stubby appendage of an Earth bear, instead extending nearly the length of its body. Covered in the same golden-brown fur at its base, the tail gradually transformed along its length, the fur becoming more specialized until it ended in a tuft that resembled the most exquisite flowering blossom, complete with what appeared to be actual petals in shades of amber, copper, and deep russet.
Most remarkable were the growths emerging from the crown of its head—not mere protrusions but elegant, branch-like antlers that seemed to be composed of living wood rather than bone or horn. Though small on this young creature, they already displayed the complex branching pattern that would eventually form a crown-like structure. Each tip ended in a tiny, glowing bud that pulsed with the same rhythm as the creature's heartbeat.
Its paws were massive even for its small body, each one bearing six digits ending in retractable claws that appeared to be made not of keratin but of a crystalline substance that caught and refracted light. The pads underneath were marked with the same runic patterns that decorated its fur, suggesting that even its touch upon the earth was significant and powerful.
The cub's face combined ursine features with something more intelligent and aware. Its snout was shorter than a bear's, its jaw more precisely articulated. Most striking were its eyes—large, expressive orbs the color of amber honey, with pupils that contracted not into circles or slits but into six-pointed stars. Even in its current distressed state, those eyes held a depth and awareness that transcended animal intelligence, suggesting a consciousness that understood far more than survival and instinct.
"What the hell was even a young one like doing in a random place like this? I thought 'that' person would isolate my surroundings from intelligent life?" I asked as my hands were working in auto, my left on the top of their head and my right at the center of the cub, just above the stomach area where I promptly found the core, and my oh my...
"Codex.... Why is a cub having an S rank core?!!!!" I asked in abject shock. And despite my actual shock, I still proceeded with gathering the inactive primordial mana in her body and began gathering it towards my arms.
To be honest, with the amount that had seeped in from the rebound of me awakening by dispelling the barriers around me gradually, I was even more impressed they were not pulverized on the spot.
The primordial mana flowed reluctantly toward my hands, visible to my mystical sight as threads of luminous energy in colors that should not exist in the natural spectrum. These threads had woven themselves throughout the cub's body, tangling with its life force, disrupting its natural energy flows. As I carefully extracted each strand, the creature's breathing became less labored, the foam at its mouth beginning to recede.
"That's because the 'young cub' before us is not an actual cub... she's what we would term as a young adult. Based on the size and quality of the core, she should be more than 130 years old..." Codex replied as he analyzed and visually guided me to the more detailed and minute parts of the Groove Guardian's body that still had primordial mana.
"Damn.... She looks no larger than 5 feet almost and this is considered young? Damn, I wonder how large her parents are... and speaking of parents..." I murmured as I thought about the territorial parents of the beast before me. I knew for a fact that they would be pissed at finding their kid like this.
And as if I had jinxed it... right then, an earth-shaking and shattering roar resounded across the forest for a full minute.
And immediately after... total and absolute silence.
The forest, which even had the minute and occasional ruffling of leaves or branches from the wind crossing here and there, went absolutely still. Everything and anything that was in my surroundings went absolutely still, evidence of the majesty of the roar that had just resounded.
That roar wasn't merely sound—it was power given voice, a declaration of rage and intent that physically impacted the world. The glassy ground beneath me vibrated at frequencies that created momentary patterns before settling. The air seemed to compress and expand with each note of the extended roar, creating visible ripples that spread outward from some distant point. At the precise border where devastation met untouched forest, the trees bent away as if trying to escape what was coming.
"Aaah shit, why's my luck so fucking bad, man.... Way to go for me to jinx it..." I said as I completed the last of the extraction and was about to focus on the young Groove Guardian's core, but suddenly, the roar that I had begun to ignore was followed by tremors.
"Codex, please, please tell me that's an earthquake," I prayed.
Not that I was afraid of the creature; I simply did not want to antagonize the creatures who were the guardians of the person who graciously provided me space to complete my evolution.
In short, the fun and single fact that not a single person or other living being of Gaia even had an idea of why Groove Guardians were so powerful and tanky was because they were literal guardians of The Groove Canopy, the abode of a very important being residing on the very planet.
"Quite unfortunate, my lord... brace for a confrontation in 30... 25... 10... seconds..." Codex replied, and even before I could process that I had seconds, the tremors which had increased violently, increased in pace, and before I knew it, a monstrously huge shadow towered over me.
And not wanting to cause a complete misunderstanding, I slowly raised my arms and backed away from the kid, not even wanting to continue with the inspection of her core. Even though primordial mana had seeped into the body and had spread all over, the core might have been damaged to some extent.
But from the visual indicators of stable breathing and no more foam or change in color of the kid's coat (sometimes the color stripes running down their backs change color as a form of a visual indicator of their current conditions or even feelings), I had a hunch that there was nothing else too serious.
And as I backed away from the young Groove Guardian, I could feel the wrathful and dangerous gaze of what I assumed to be the protector of the hurt kid.
It was then I raised my head to meet the large beast, and large was an understatement.
The creature that stood at the edge of the devastated circle was an apotheosis of primal power—a being that seemed as much a force of nature as a living entity. Where the young Groove Guardian had been impressive, this was awe-inspiring to the point of terrifying.
Standing over sixty feet tall, the massive Groove Guardian's presence dominated the landscape completely. Its size alone would have been intimidating, but it was the quality of its presence that truly stunned—an aura of ancient power that pressed against reality itself, making the air thick and difficult to breathe.
Its fur was not the golden-brown of the younger Guardian but a deeper, richer copper that seemed to have captured and internalized sunlight over centuries. This base coat was overlaid with markings in shades of burnished gold, deep amber, and a red so dark it approached black. Unlike the simpler patterns of the younger Guardian, these markings formed complete runic sentences, ancient spells and wards written into the very being of the creature. As it moved, these patterns shifted and flowed, some glowing brighter while others dimmed, a constant dance of power across its massive form.
The antlers that crowned its head were nothing short of magnificent—a vast, branching structure that rose fifteen feet above its skull, forming not just a crown but what appeared to be a living representation of The Groove Canopy itself in miniature. Each branch was thick as a human torso at its base, tapering to finer points that terminated in glowing buds similar to those on the younger Guardian but far more developed. Some branches curved upward toward the sky, while others formed a circular pattern around the creature's head. The entire structure pulsed with life and power, occasionally emitting showers of golden particles that dissipated into the air.
Its face combined majesty with ferocity—a muzzle lined with teeth the size of daggers, a jaw that could crush stone, and eyes that burned with intelligence and fury. Those eyes were not the honey amber of the younger Guardian but a deep, burning red that seemed to contain actual flames, pupils contracted to star-shaped points of such darkness they seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
Each massive paw bore claws that extended nearly two feet, composed of the same crystalline substance as the younger's but fully matured, gleaming with an inner light that shifted between gold and crimson depending on the creature's movements. The pads beneath were marked with elaborate sigils that briefly illuminated the ground where they touched, leaving momentary imprints of power with each step.
Its tail was proportionally massive, ending in what was not merely a tuft but a fully bloomed flower larger than a human torso, petals spread wide and radiating heat like a small sun. As the creature moved, this tail-bloom swept in arcs behind it, leaving trails of golden light that lingered for seconds before fading.
If the younger Grove Guardian had been merely beautiful and interesting, this was sublime and terrible—a perfect fusion of animal, plant, and something more, a being that embodied the wild power of nature refined through eons of development into something approaching divinity.
If the kid before me had minimal unique features, the one before me had them in a more exaggerated and pronounced manner. And to be exact, on their head, what I had assumed to be antler horns were larger and many in number, where some raised towards the sky and others surrounded the head, forming a sort of crown.
The larger Groove Guardian was towering over me by more than 60 feet, considering my current 6-something feet. The eyes of the beast were completely red in rage, and I could even sense the intent to kill me on the spot wafting from it due to my soul sense. Were it not for me not moving and doing any more dangerous actions such as manipulating my mana, which it would mistake as a more detailed form of aggression, I'm pretty sure a battle would have occurred.
The creature itself, an epitome of fear and danger, continued glaring at me before shifting towards its child, and from what I could assume as its facial features relaxing as it released its aura and senses to check up on its child.
With a low and absolutely dangerous growl, the creature suddenly spoke in an oddly feminine voice:
"Human.... What have you done to my child..." it growled, its gaze lingering from its child to focusing on me, still wrathful and with what I understood as an intent of not taking anything less than the truth; otherwise, I'd be ripped apart.
The voice was surprisingly melodious despite its threatening tone, resonating not just through the air but seeming to vibrate directly within my mind. Each syllable carried undertones that conveyed meanings beyond the words themselves—currents of emotion, intent, and power that no human language could fully capture.
It was then that, with the help of Codex, I came to study the mature, elder Groove Guardian before me. This one in particular, based on the energy levels my soul senses were picking up from it, was a demigod.
And going by the data that Codex had fed into my mind on these creatures, I could bet a lot that this was one of the ancient rank Groove Guardians, if not the alpha female.
Welp, things got much, much more difficult, I daresay.