Midnight Eternity

A low whale-like call reverbed through the endless expansive of a nearly stary-night-like void; the void was practically/functionally empty, save for the massive pale glowing cyan crystalline tree roots that sprawled out from an even larger, planet dwarfing crystalline tree with brightly glowing cyan leaves. A cyan liquid flowed from the tree, through the roots of the tree and off into the endless expanse.

On one of the many tree roots, a tall, slightly dark white-skinned man stood perfectly still as he silently stared at the top of the crystalline tree; his super long puffy flame textured and faintly glowing silver hair with glowing rainbow-changing coloured ends and knee-low cloak made of golden threads flowed as if there were a breeze flowing through them. The man sighed and placed a plain pale gold mask on his face before he brushed off his clothes (a tattered black shirt with long sleeves, baggy explorer trousers, and hiking boots made out of pale gold) and turned in the opposite direction of the crystalline tree.

The shrouded man (Shroud) continued to walk atop the crystalline tree root and avoided stepping on any crystalline flowers that were protruding from the roots of the tree. As Shroud continued to walk, the sound of the reverb became more prominent until it was crystal clear to Shroud as he stood at the foot of the thing that was causing the reverbing sounds.

A strange wobbly cyan dimensional crack-looking portal was partly lodged into the tree root that Shroud was standing on. Shroud shook his head before grabbing the edge of the portal with one of his hands and swiftly yanked the portal free from the tree root. Shroud sighed and turned to walk back towards the crystalline tree; however, he paused and glanced back behind himself when he realized the portal was still there.

Shroud turned back and examined the portal as it began to take on a more circular/stable form. Shroud somehow disappointedly and excitedly exhaled simultaneously as he placed a hand on the frame of the portal. Shroud took a long last glance at the planetary crystalline tree before walking through the dimensional crack and shortly followed by it closing shortly after.

Shroud slowly descended through an ocean of cyan liquid, which was an optical illusion created by the outer casing of the crystalline root that the liquid was in while being surrounded by a large sphere of pale gold. The golden sphere eventually reached the seabed of the cyan ocean before it began to rapidly sink into azure-coloured sand; once the sphere was fully submerged in the sand, Shroud opened the bottom half of the sphere and dropped down into a pitch-black abyss.

Shroud plummeted through the abyss for a mentally immeasurable amount of time before his descent speed rapidly increased as he drew near to a bright azure-coloured light. Shroud tilted his head slightly in the direction of the light and raised one of his hands, with its palm facing upwards; he formed a small ball of golden mana in the palm of his hand before he flicked the mana ball at the light. The mana ball clashed with the light and the two energy sources melded together and exploded into a giant dimensional rift; that displayed a single colour of a sandy pale yellow.

“Starting off in a desert this time; how ironic,” an extremely regal and posh disembodied old male voice remarked seemingly for the sole purpose of spiting Shroud. Shroud remained silent and crossed his arms right before he pierced through the dimensional rift.

Shroud dropped out of the rift and rapidly plummeted through the sky while the disembodied voice mentioned the ground appeared to be further away than he thought. Shroud everso slightly glanced his head towards the ground and confirmed for himself that he was nowhere near the ground. Shroud sighed and surveyed the land; surveying the land and noting a few things of interest: a spot of light from a campfire surrounded by caravans and a large slightly large cage covered by a drab cloth, various ruins scattered about the desert, and the small oasis.

"Now that's not something you see every day; the sky that is," the disembodied voice mentioned. Shroud peered his head up at the night sky, which could only be described as if a god had compressed an entire galaxy and wrapped it around the planet. Shroud continued to stare at the galaxy-filled sky as he took a notebook out from his hair and started to write in it with a pen, which he also took out from his hair.

The voice commented on how easily Shroud's interest can be peaked; Shroud quietly huffed and put the notepad and pen back in his hair before he prepared himself to land on the ground. Shroud's descent began to rapidly slow until he came to a complete stop about a meter away from the ground. Shroud dropped and made touch-down with sandy ground; peered around the desert around him before the disembodied voice asked if Shroud was planning on checking out the group at the caravans.

"Of course not to socialize just to see what the inhabitants of this world look like; don't want another frost beast situation, do you?" the disembodied voice remarked. Shroud rolled his head, signifying that he had rolled his eyes, and punched the side of his head to make his neck click. Shroud didn't respond, in any fashion to the voice's question, and simply walked in the direction of the caravans, making the voice chuckle.

As the caravans started to come into view, the sounds of drunken laughter flew past Shroud's ears and Shroud let out an agitated groan. He gazed at the human raiders whom he noted were all wearing black leather trench coats and desert-style mercenary clothing and the disembodied voice commented on how strange it was that the raiders were wearing black clothing in the desert; the disembodied voice then let out a confused huh noise when Shroud took a turn and started to walk towards the far off oasis.

"So you're not interested in greeting the locals, how improper," the voice remarked. As he was walking around (about fifteen meters away) the perimeter of the raider's camp, Shroud came to an abrupt stop before a girly-sounding kid started to cry, followed by the sound of metalic objects slamming together and the crying reluctantly stopped, only leaving a few weak sniffles.

Shroud remained motionless for a few seconds before slowly turning his head towards the camp and focusing solely on the bulky guy that was bashing the pummel of a sword against the metal cage, startling the kids inside it. Shroud slowly crouched down onto one knee, while keeping his focus fixed solely on the cage-bashing raider, and dug his hand into the sand; he eventually pulled out a luminescent golden spine, that was roughly the length of a short sword and had spines/spikes all over it, from the sand. Shroud rose to his feet and as he began to walk towards the raider camp his body was covered by a dark golden mist, that completely obscured his body before he and it seeming disappeared.