On 4th April 2030, on a lukewarm Sunday, the earth itself convulsed in a single quaking so vast that it shook the entire world, tearing open the age of the apocalypse.
On 4th April 2087, after living through the last ten years of the apocalypse, and surviving twelve in the post apocalypse, Zyra Scorpion died.
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Five years of nurturing, and it was all a lie!
Zyra Scorpion gasped softly, her fingers trembling against the small egg cradled in her hands. She had only realized ten minutes ago that she had been reborn, yet her lungs still burned fiercely...as if they were still filled with the suffocating smoke of the execution pyre.
"What a shitty start! Why the hell did I have to come back today?" She muttered softly.
It would have been better if she had come back months before her egg had been swapped but no! Fate had been cruel to her once again. Bringing her back to this horrible moment.
It was the moment Zyra that would never forget, not even if she tried to. The day when she had been plunged from heaven and thrown into hell.
Resonance day: one that decided the lifelong destiny of every twenty-two-year-old in The Jersey Republic. It was the day when their human souls bonded with the souls of their half-life beasts.
"This is the moment you have all been waiting for your entire lives," Mr. Flentstone announced from the top step leading to the pool. Perched atop his shoulder, was his soulmate a sleek, purple-haired fox shifted its weight, its sharp eyes scanning the gathered crowd. "Let us begin."
The young flock eagerly plunged into the resonance pool, each with the half-life beast egg they had nurtured for five years, personally picked when they turned eighteen.
Zyra blinked frantically as if she wanted the whole process to slow down. The metallic tang of burning flesh faded, replaced by the heavy, floral scent of the resonance pool. She was standing waist deep in the simmering liquid, her hands just like those of the others submerged beneath the surface.
And the process began.......
A drop of human blood on the egg, under the pool would awaken the soul of the half-life beast and the soul of the human, allowing them to bond and share abilities.
The bond was spiritual, but at legendary levels it could be physical too, reshaping the human host forever.
Some failed to resonate with their half-life beasts, forming no bond, which meant that they would have to repeat the process in five years with a new egg or they risked remaining ordinary forever.
Some bonded with low ranked half-life beasts, gaining modest abilities.
Some bonded with medium ranked half-life beasts, elevating in status.
A rare few bonded with high ranked beasts, instantly elevating to prestige.
Zyra looked at the egg in her hands again and realized that her egg indeed looked different from the one she had nurtured, her eyes widened in horror as the memories of her last life flashed through her mind.
On this day, her egg had cracked, revealing a low ranked green garden snake!
In this post-apocalyptic world, there were two ways to survive in style. One was to be born a Soul maiden and the other was to bond with a high ranked half-life beast.
For Zyra, the stakes were higher. She had been lucky to be born as a Soul maiden, or at least she was supposed to be. Soul maidens were rare women born with the purest souls and an innate gift of healing, a power woven directly into their bloodlines. For years, this sacred lineage remained dormant until the arrival of Resonance Day, which acted as a catalyst to awaken their dormant ability.
They could also bond with two half-life beasts and level up by leaps and bounds. This made them the most special existences among humans.
All Soul maidens were born with a red blossom mark between their eyebrows. Hers had been the brightest anyone had ever seen! And it was why she had lived like she was in heaven her whole life because she was destined for greatness.
Until this day....
In Zyra’s first life, not only had she bonded with a low ranked snake, but her bloodline had also not awakened. Survival in the post apocalypse had become extremely difficult. Immediately, the families of the four men that had once begged to marry her had demanded she cancel their engagements. Her foster family had also turned against her and kicked her out like they had not formerly worshiped the ground that she walked on.
In front of thousands, Zyra had crumbled like a soft cookie. She had insisted that her egg was swapped, frantically demanding a full-scale investigation into the breach.
When her clan tried to banish her, Zyra had stood her ground, fiercely throwing her years of loyalty and countless contributions back in the faces of the Ophira clan.
Driven by sheer arrogance, she flatly refused to break her engagements or relinquish her coveted position as the Ophira Soul maiden.
Her uncle Job, the clan leader had intervened, requesting that she be given time to awaken her bloodline because it was only fair. The clan elders had been displeased, but they swallowed their protests.
In the end, she had exhausted every method rumored to help but never awakened her bloodline.
During that time, she worked even harder for the clan, doing all the tasks she was given just to prove she was still useful. All menial and filthy tasks fell to her.
Her once clean, soft nails, turned mud brown. Her beauty faded quickly, as if it was being sucked out of her. Her hair started falling out. Her skin cracked.
Within half a year, she was the joke of the clan.
Her past achievements were forgotten. Even servants and commoners who didn’t have half-life beasts could spit on her. Before the year had run its course, her reputation was sealed; she was known far and wide as the infamous false holy maiden.
The fate of a false Soul maiden was worse than that of an outcast thrown in the wild lands. It was death by burning at the stake!
It would have been easy if she had simply been burned. But her forehead had been branded with the mark of a false holy maiden, her tongue was cut, she was paraded through the streets naked, shamed and mocked. When she was finally tied to the stake, her legs had been spread wide for deeper humiliation.
Her relatives had looked away, her friends had laughed, the men who once promised to marry her had clapped.
Thousands of people she had saved by growing energy rich food had watched. The beggars she had fed had sneered.
And her most beloved twin brother, he had not returned once to even glimpse at her. He had left a month after the resonance ceremony to join an academy and never returned. The last news she had heard about him, was that he was in line to be the third husband of a Soul maiden in another city.
While she burned, her snake was hacked to pieces and roasted over the open flames right before her eyes. The clan elders carved up the meat, devouring it greedily as if it were the finest delicacy they had ever tasted.
In the end, she had died so pathetically.
Somehow, she had returned back in time, to a year ago! She couldn’t tell how it happened, but she was glad it had happened. She was being given a chance to start over, and she would grip it firmly with everything she had.
This time, she would not repeat the mistakes of the past. She would not beg; she would not suffer. But others would suffer.
CRACK!
The egg made the first sound. A sound of her destiny! She just needed to survive the unveiling of her half-life beast in one piece.