Modern World Warlock

"Let's see… Where should I start?" Yaga muttered, placing a hand on her chin while momentarily gazing away from the group.

Her story began 14,000 years ago, when the researchers of a massively developed country predicted that the end of the world was near.

The researchers had enough proof to show that the entire planet would have a polar shift, which would make the Earth tilt several degrees and displace all landmasses in the world.

It wasn't like any other shift in tectonic plates. It was a catastrophic event that would produce numerous natural calamities and utterly end life as they knew it.

The witch looked up at the solar system model that hung from her ceiling. "Atlantis, once basking under the sun, would be cast into eternal ice…" she muttered, remembering the words of the researchers.

"Wait, wait!" Megan interrupted.

"Did you just say 'Atlantis'!?" She asked, taken aback by the revelation.

Dante mentioned that he had read about the lost city of Atlantis from one of the books he received from Camille, though he wasn't familiar with the story. All he knew was that the city had supposedly sunk underwater.

Yaga elaborated, explaining that while the idea of the city sinking wasn't completely wrong, it also wasn't completely accurate.

When the people of the ancient nations heard about the incoming apocalypse, many mages decided to find a way to save themselves.

Some of them worked on machines that would try to keep the planet's balance and prevent it from tilting, while others wanted to create vehicles that could take them to space. However, there was one group that thought about making their own world where they could start from scratch.

Arkanos and Discordia were part of the latter, and after more than a decade of work, they had built a massive structure that could open a portal to a "blank" world.

"A blank world… Is that really possible?" Dante asked himself, but the witch still answered his question.

The blank world wasn't a space that existed before the Atlanteans created it. The witch compared it to a programmer making a video game. Of course, the Atlanteans' machine was on a whole other level.

"What!? Does that mean I'm some kind of real-life NPC!?" Dante wondered, only knowing those words from all the gaming he did with Zac.

Still, the witch denied his concern. People born in Terra were still real.

"Reality is subjective, kid. If I said that our entire life was a simulation created by a higher being, would you kill yourself? — No. That's because, even if it was a simulation, all your experiences are real to you," Yaga explained.

When the Atlanteans finished their portal, they began using it to travel back and forth between worlds, bringing supplies and resources with them. However, the polar shift ended up being more chaotic than they ever expected.

On that fateful day, 14,000 years ago, the continent of Atlantis, located in the center of the planet's equator, was displaced to the most southern spot, turning it into the icy landmass known today as Antarctica.

The polar shift brought a chain of natural disasters that utterly wiped the planet of all living beings.

Tsunamis that raised the ocean levels by hundreds of meters, air pressure changes that activated dormant volcanoes, and heavy earthquakes that shattered entire continents.

There was no magic or machine that could protect them from the unrelenting force of nature.

The day Earth was wiped out, Arkanos and Discordia were waiting for their fellow researchers in the barren world, and when they noticed that the portal connecting their worlds had disappeared in an instant, they realized they had run out of time.

Over time, the two Atlanteans utilized their magic to construct cities and settlements. Then, they had children, the four gods of the Pantheon, who also assisted their parents in the development of Terra.

Unfortunately, their daughter Aelara didn't seem to inherit the peaceful traits of the Atlanteans, and as the greed for power took hold of her, she ended up sealing Arkanos and Discordia into a black hole.

"Are you guys following?" Yaga asked, gazing at the trio's stumped expressions.

There was a lot to take in, and they knew that the witch wasn't nearly finished with her story. Besides, they were riddled with questions from the very moment she started talking.

"Lady, how do you know all this?" Dante asked, and although he suspected what her answer would be, he still asked to make sure.

"Because I was there. I'm also an Atlantean…" She replied.

"While everyone else looked for a way to escape our world, I looked for a way to stay…" Yaga continued.

As all other Atlantean researchers worked on their own projects, Yaga worked alone on a machine that required an expensive amount of energy, and the pole shift brought so much radiation that she was able to activate it at the last moment, sending her thousands of years into the future.

'Yeah… Paige would absolutely love this,' Megan thought.

"Don't get me wrong, this is very interesting. But, how does this tie in with those 'Nekxis' guys?" Vesnia spoke up.

Yaga explained that Nekxis was comprised of a group of mages who had figured out the true history of Terra, and in their effort to rise to godhood like Arkanos and Discordia, they did everything they could to travel to Earth.

The people of Nekxis believed that visiting the world where the gods were born would also infuse their bodies with godly power. However, Earth ended up being much different from what they expected, as it wasn't nearly the same world as it was 14,000 years ago.

Since magic was virtually non-existent on Earth, Nekxis plotted on ruling the world from the shadows, influencing key political figures to do their bidding.

Still, Yaga knew that there was more to their plans, mentioning the re-opening of the portal in the ruins of Atlantis, where they would be able to go back and forth between worlds.