“My colleagues and I flew too close to the sun and got burnt. We should have stayed ignorant and go about our lives.”

  Storm Rider’s was suddenly cold. The girl in front of her was staring at her with the same indifferent look she always wore whenever she was thinking. She wanted to know why the hex kept her people ignorant.

  “The Fire Keepers were a special group of humans who found pleasure in studying the mortal realm,” she began after gathering the little she had of those memories. After so many years, it was getting harder and harder to maintain her sense of self. “… You could describe it as a group of researchers who wanted to make a record-breaking discovery that would change our world forever. My father, the biggest researcher in London then, was a pretty irresponsible man because he let me join the Fire Keepers when I was only seven….

  “You see, when I had just joined the bunch, one of the Fire Keepers learned of a certain Asian tribe that was said to have transcended humankind and gained mystical abilities through martial arts and cultivation. I remember everyone ughing because of how ridiculous it sounded. Well…everyone aside from the main members of the group, including my father.”

  ‘London existed? How old is this woman exactly?’ By the time of the Fall, many great cities had already become irrelevant because of technological evolution. Cities like London lost their privileges when they failed to catch up with the technological evolution of the old world.

  Storm Rider sighed as her gaze traveled to the clothes she was in. “So my father and the determined Fire Keepers set sail for Asia to find this mysterious tribe and learn their secrets if they existed. It was a terrible ride. Weeks on the water….bad weather. And seasickness,” she shivered. “ But then, we reached a certain point of the ocean that humans had never explored. It crawled with leviathans and water creatures you could’ve only seen in fantasy books.”

  “They weren’t hostile?”

  Storm Rider shook her head. “We were protected by someone.”

  “So you had entered the divine realm?”

  Again, Storm Rider shook her head. Though this time she wore a complicated look. “Yes and No,” she answered. “The Divine realm was already leaking into our world at the time, but it was temporary due to the effects of a strange isnd.”

  “A strange Isnd?” Luna stared at Storm Rider with a hint of confusion.

  “Yes. The people there called it 'Zhong Shen Zhi Dao'. Luna’s face paled when she heard Mandarin again. It transted to Isnd of Gods. “We had no wind so we were forced to anchor there and immediately started our research. The Isnd wasn’t in any records at the time, so of course it caught the fire keeper’s interest. Me on the other hand, I used to pretend the isnd was some fancy resort or something like that…”

  The corner of her mouth curved upwards as she remembered the memories of her pying in the white sand. Things were normal at the time until the day she noticed the stars move….

  Then, the next day….

  “We were discovered by the people who occupied the isnd. They were a humble bunch who were so much more than we wanted to believe. They welcomed us and told us about the divine power they commanded. How it works and how we can harness it...

  “This was the breakthrough everyone had been waiting for. You could say it was our nature as researchers that led to our end,” Storm Rider stared at the empty bowl. There was a deep sadness in her eyes as images of her father and the Fire Keepers celebrating this discovery. This was the happiest she had seen her father since her mother passed away. She knew that this research was how he hid the grief of losing the love of his life.

  ‘I was pretty smart for a seven-year-old.’ Storm Rider thought and opened her mouth.

  “My father was the first to open the First Soul Gate after….about…six years of meditation and training. And soon, the others followed and became the first humans from the outside world to ascend. I was one of those people, and by the time I was sixteen I was capable of summoning soul beasts.”

  “Soul beasts? You mean summons?” Luna interrupted.

  Storm Rider nodded. “Yes. They’re summoned from the void which the people of that isnd considered the true soul of the mortal realm.” She did her best to expin what she remembered. “My summon’s name is Storm, a rare storm dragon. I was her Rider before the curse.”

  Luna listened carefully as Storm Rider gave her the details of everything. The entire time, her face was stuck in awe-stricken expression. Storm Rider was a third gate user at sixteen. There was an entire mysterious culture of powerful ascenders! So powerful that they could offer protection and travel between realms.

  As of now, only a handful of humans were capable of traveling to the divine realm. But only few a limited period of time because of the pressure in that world.

  “By the way, were the gods alive at that time?” She asked, staring eagerly at Storm Rider.

  “I can’t tell you that or you’ll forget our whole interaction as soon as we separate. The curse is on the entire mortal realm and its occupants…you’ll never know the truth about your world as long as that curse exists. Oblivion ignored telling you his true name because he wanted you to remember everything he told you. He also hid a lot of information because you’re not immune to the curse.”

  “Really? Then how do I become immune to the curse?” Luna’s curiosity was getting the best of her. This information could change everything she knew about their world.

  Especially that isnd. Did it even still exist?

  “Be careful what you wish for. The Fire Keepers were the first to enter the divine realm. I had grown passed the rank of mage and was slowly turning more divine than human. My father along with everyone else had also achieved transcendence…all fourteen of us had opened our fifth gates and could do more than what our Domains limited us to.”

  ‘There is a fifth gate?’ Luna was surprised by that discovery. So humans could ascend beyond the Fourth Gate. She also made a note that Storm Rider hadn’t mentioned zenshi at all since their conversation started.

  “What lies beyond the Fourth Gate?”

  “Well…for starters, you can gain a second Domain. One that’s more powerful and difficult to control. There is a total of Seven Gates to become a true god. I’m on my sixth, which is why I’m immortal.” She smiled faintly as she spoke. Seeing Luna’s wide eyes was almost humorous.

  “I am as strong as a sovereign in your terms.”

  ‘A sovereign…that seems just about right….hmm.’

  It took a moment for Luna to realize what Storm Rider had just cimed. Ans she she did, her eyes widened even more as she gasped from shock. "As a Sovereign?!” she jumped. “That’s…that’s insane. How is that possible?”

  “Well. When we decided to live in the divine realm permanently, we learned that there are a lot of things to worry about. Things like abominations with ancient powers that rivaled our own and strange weather conditions. We tried to build and live on with our lives, detached from humanity because we believed we had received true enlightenment." There was a wistful look on her face as she continued her narration. " We lived comfortable lives for almost a century while doing research and learning about the beings that lived in it. At the same time, my father was still trying to break through to the sixth gate believing that his power could make the Fire Keepers even stronger.”

  “Did he break through?”

  Storm Rider nodded. “He did make it to the Sixth Gate, right before we discovered The Walled City. I can’t expin what that city looked like or tell you its name.” Her voice shook with fear. “ But that’s where we found a real living deity. We thought of our encounter as something incredible but…

  She squeezed her hands into fists and golden electricity started cackling around her body as she tried to suppress her emotions.

  “It corrupted my father and remaining Fire Keepers to see how humans reacted to something capable of bringing down a god. That thing ughed as it watched the people I had grown up with turn into monsters. Sigh…” she looked up. You could tell she was having a hard time describing the events of what happened. “I only escaped because Storm put up a good fight for me to escape at the cost of her life…”

  “When I opened my eyes, I remember being on the isnd. But everything around me had been reduced to cinders. The corrupted Fire keepers were too powerful…”

  Storm Rider’s face darkened as she continued. “I had no choice but to kill them all. I burnt my father then killed the deity that corrupted them.” The cackling around her body stopped and the powerful pressure resided. “That bastard had been a servant of the god of seas, so as a penalty for killing him, the universe cursed me. Hence why I’m powerless underwater.”

  ‘She has killed two deities…!’ Luna paled upon this discovery.

  “Only ter, when I left the isnd, I discovered that the FireKeepers never existed. Two hundred years had passed and my father’s fortune and the family had been erased. The Fire Keepers who didn’t join us for the voyage to Asia never wrote about us because they never knew us. We never existed….”

  “That’s how I became a Forgotten, at least that’s what I like to call it.”