Leo wanted to cry, to shout, to vent at the top of his lungs, but his body refused to obey. Numb, he rose into the sky like the other pillars of light.
When the white pillar of light enveloped him and carried him high into the air, he saw the shattered earth, his mind utterly blank.
He stared blankly at everything, numb, stupefied, witless, vegetative.
Billions of brain cells shut down completely at the moment Earth was destroyed. Everything before his eyes exceeded the bounds of human understanding and imagination; the biological mechanisms of self-preservation stopped his cells from thinking.
As countless pillars of white light rose, everything on the ground was sucked upward toward the black hole in the sky.
Skyscrapers, rivers, oceans, mountains, and layers of earth hundreds or thousands of meters thick buckled upward, all mixing together to form the largest tornado in history, spiraling skyward toward the black hole.
Earth had come into being billions of years ago and had been reshaped by humans for over a million years. It had endured disasters great and small and given birth to such a dazzling civilization.
Now
It was gone!
"Spatial barrier breached. One low-level life-bearing planet captured. Life-forms captured: 8895448454541. Estimated time until planar integration: 3 hours."
After hearing that incomprehensible voice, Leo promptly passed out.
When he woke again, he was in this basement.
At first, there had been nearly thirty people here: men and women, young and old, white, Asian, and Black.
Once everyone woke, got through their initial panic, and overcame the language barrier, they reached a preliminary consensus: survive.
They firmly believed that human intelligence, along with humanity's million-year dominance on Earth, would surely let them overcome their predicament and rekindle the light of humanity.
When that time came, they would be trailblazers, pioneers, saints forever revered by future generations.
Everyone eagerly discussed how to survive in different environments and described their skills, as though they could make history the very next second.
But that utopian ideal was pulverized that very day, without even an atom left.
Because the terrifying being that came down from above blew the strongest men they had elected into minced meat with a mere wave of its hand.
Without any contact or weapons, in a way Leo and the others could not comprehend, several men who would have been considered relatively strong even on Earth died instantly, becoming a multicolored backdrop pasted across the wall.
Fortunately, the terrifying being did not slaughter them all. It merely picked out a few people and left.
It paid no attention whatsoever to their resistance-or rather, resistance like that did not interest this terrifying being at all.
That indifference reminded Leo of his parents picking out fat pigs outside the pigpen at New Year.
Only back then, he had stood outside the pen, drooling over the grunting fat pigs, never considering whether they wanted to be eaten.
Now he had become the fat pig being appraised, and his thoughts would not be considered either.
The good news was that this terrifying being did not simply leave them waiting to die. Food and water were supplied without limit. Though the food was not from Earth and tasted different, it was more than enough to keep them alive and well.
But that behavior frightened Leo even more, because whenever he fed pigs as a child, he had hoped they would eat more and put on a few more pounds of meat by New Year.
Over the following days, some people did resist, but those who resisted were always the first few picked out, and none of those taken away ever appeared again. After several such incidents, no one resisted anymore.
Resist and die immediately; submit and perhaps live a few more days. Everyone knew which to choose.
For Leo, there was even better news: everyone stronger than him had died, leaving him the strongest.
The strongest naturally claimed the best position, where he could live the longest and was least likely to attract attention-the corner.
It was not that no one had considered escape, but the cell door, which looked so flimsy that a kick should have broken it, was harder than steel rebar. Could you imagine that?
When someone hacked at it with a military knife they carried, the knife was what chipped. That made no scientific sense at all!
This was not Earth at all. Though no one said it, everyone knew it deep down. They kept silent only because they still clung to a slim hope.
What if?
What if they were still somewhere on Earth?
Before hope was utterly destroyed, everyone chose to avoid the worst possibility. Only when every hope was completely destroyed would they despair.
The twelve people left in the cell had already abandoned hope of living out their natural lives.
An unknown world, unknown dangers-every extra day alive was a day gained.
There was no shortage of food in the little cell, and they did not even feel a trace of cold, but their circumstances, like a doomsday judgment, brought out every aspect of apocalyptic survival in this little group.
To live even one day longer than someone else, they had long since trampled the morals and laws they had spent decades learning on Earth into the trash.
No human feelings remained, only naked animal urges!!!
Leo could feel every hateful gaze scraping over him, eyes yearning to drive him out and claim his corner. But whenever he followed those gazes, all he saw were heads abruptly lowered, afraid to meet his eyes.
With his hard fists, Leo had become the undisputed alpha of this apocalyptic pack. He claimed the best resources, and until his strong body fell, no one dared challenge his authority.
Some women tried to seduce him with their beauty to gain a few more days of life, only to receive Leo's cold, merciless fists. Without the slightest mercy, he also used the women as shields in front of him.
Leo saw nothing shameful in using women as shields. He was human too. He wanted to live, and even more, he wanted to live to find his family...
He did not know whether his family, still at their rural home when Earth tore apart, had also survived. But he had seen no bodies, so Leo stubbornly brainwashed himself into believing they were all still alive. Unless he saw their bodies with his own eyes, they were alive.
No sunlight from outside reached the basement—or rather, Leo did not even know whether this world had a star like the sun to provide light.
Only when the footsteps that opened the register of life and death sounded did Leo consider himself to have survived another day.
Tap, tap, tap.
The instant he heard footsteps, Leo roughly grabbed the two women in front of him and held them before him as shields, crouching carefully in the corner. He dared not look up, afraid his gaze might draw the attention of the unknown being outside the cell.
All twelve remaining people huddled in the corner, making the cell, large enough to house dozens, seem even emptier.
As the footsteps stopped outside the cell, their breathing became so hushed that they could clearly hear their own hearts beating.
Leo could picture the scene outside the cell through imagination alone.
A god of death holding the register of life and death opened its hideous maw, dripping saliva that melted great pits into the ground. Its crimson eyes surveyed them as though surveying dinner on the table, ready to take a bite.
"の#￥...￥...*￥..."
The language was unfamiliar and unknown, but the contempt in its tone was unmistakable.
Leo was startled. This was the first time he had heard this being speak.
Strange sounds. I can't understand them!
It really isn't a language from Earth!!
Before Leo could wonder why this terrifying being had behaved so unusually today and begun speaking, the women shielding him seemed to lose their gravity. One after another, they flew away and were flung across the cell, until the two women in Leo's grasp flew away as well...
Leo raised his head toward the being outside the cell and saw those eyes watching him like a cat toying with a mouse...
Leo understood. Even after throwing away all dignity like a sewer rat and hiding in the corner behind women, he had not escaped the fate of being chosen...
He had not been chosen before simply because it had not wanted to choose him, not because he had hidden well.
The corner they thought safe had only ever been safe in their own minds.
Today, he had been chosen!!
Two women were chosen as well.
The terrifying being outside the cell merely moved its fingers, and all three suddenly felt as though hemp ropes bound them from head to toe. Their bodies were stretched rigid as they floated behind the being and out of the basement.
Resistance? There was none.
They could not move so much as a single fine hair, let alone resist.
Gentle sunlight, soothing greenery, sweet air... and before them, an altar covered in mysterious patterns, its crimson blood not yet dry!
The unknown, terrifying being that controlled the lives of their few dozen Earth humans wore a loose robe and held a dark brown wooden staff half a person's height. Its appearance involuntarily reminded Leo of depictions of mages on Earth.
Since they could not communicate, he would call him a mage for now.
The mage moved a finger, and a woman flew onto the altar. She was a beautiful foreign woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. Back at the beginning, when someone had translated so they could communicate, Leo remembered that this beauty had been a reporter.
When Earth tore apart, she had been out conducting interviews, which had let her escape the most dangerous destruction in the cities and survive.
On Earth, a beauty like her, with perfect nine-head proportions, would undoubtedly have been a successful woman—fair-skinned, rich, and beautiful—someone from high society Leo would never have had contact with in his entire life.
But here...
Ignoring the beauty's sobbing pleas for mercy, the mage rapidly recited spells only he could understand.