Cakkavatti‑Sīhanāda Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 26) — Prophecy of Metteyya:
"…in a time when human life‑span will increase to 80,000 years, a Blessed One — a fully enlightened Buddha named Metteyya will arise in the world; perfected, fully awakened, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, holy, knower of the world, incomparable trainer of those to be tamed, teacher of gods and humans, awakened and blessed just as I am now. He will thoroughly know and teach this world… and preach the Dhamma lovely in its beginning, middle, and end…..."
Meanwhile… Narcis Martreya was exploring the higher worlds.
He has traveled to Einz which was just east of the Daiemon realm. Just beside the Earth in the year 5068 A.D. By this point in human history the human life span will have extended to 80,000 years. Narcis arrived to gather intel on the Void and he believed he must travel to the world of men in the future first before coming to the world of the Undying. The World of the Undying is a realm outside mortal reckoning, a place both adjacent to and beyond the material universe. It is a world where the passage of time is meaningless, where centuries pass as if in a single breath, and the notion of death is forgotten. Its landscapes are alien yet eerily familiar, echoing the forms of mountains, forests, and rivers but twisted into impossible geometries: rivers flowing into the sky, mountains floating like shards of black crystal, and forests so vast and old their roots entwine stars themselves.
Light behaves strangely here. Shadows can have color, and dawn may linger for a millennium over one horizon while night reigns eternal on another. The air hums with the memory of civilizations that never existed, of wars and empires and loves stretching across time. Silence itself is alive, as if the land listens and remembers.
The inhabitants—the Undying—are not immortal humans but echoes of eternity given form. They are ageless, their presence both beautiful and alien, their minds vast enough to contain countless lifetimes. They move with a deliberate, almost musical grace, and their speech is layered with meanings that ripple through reality itself.
Yet beneath the majesty lies danger. The Void, a creeping nothingness that devours thought and matter alike, presses at the edges of the realm. It is a reminder that even in a land beyond death, not all is safe, and the boundaries between existence and annihilation are thin and fragile.
In short, the World of the Undying is a place of eternal memory, impossible beauty, and subtle peril—a land where only beings prepared for both its wonder and its darkness can survive.
Where Narcis was currently was the Earth. Earth in 5068 A.D. is a planet transformed almost beyond recognition, both alien and familiar. Cities rise in vast, tiered spires that stretch into the stratosphere, layered with gardens, waterfalls, and artificial suns. Some structures float above the surface, tethered only by energy fields, while others burrow deep into the crust, creating entire subterranean civilizations. Humanity has learned to harmonize with the planet itself; trees taller than mountains coexist with crystalline megastructures, and rivers are guided by intelligent currents that can purify themselves and distribute life-giving minerals.
Humans themselves have changed. Life spans stretch to 80,000 years, yet the body does not decay in the slow, fragile way of old times. People evolve slowly over centuries, gaining wisdom, skill, and memory that spans millennia. Families trace lineages across thousands of years; civilizations no longer rise and fall in mere centuries but stretch into almost eternal arcs. Personal identity is fluid—humans can "remember" past incarnations, assimilating experiences over lifetimes that once would have been considered entire civilizations.
Technology is indistinguishable from magic. Minds interface directly with the world, bending matter, energy, and information as easily as one would turn a page. Space travel is routine; some humans live part of their lives in orbiting arcs or on terraformed moons, only to return centuries later to Earth and find their cities transformed. Disease, famine, and war have largely been mitigated—not eliminated, but softened—because the urgency of mortality no longer dictates every choice. Ethics, philosophy, and politics have evolved with the extended human mind: societies debate ideas over millennia, and conflicts are waged with strategy and patience unfathomable to previous eras.
Yet longevity brings new challenges. Memory can become a burden; centuries of mistakes and regrets weigh on the psyche. The environment, though carefully preserved, is fragile in ways that humans of old never imagined—cosmic events, tectonic shifts, and the subtle encroachment of the Void are existential threats that now take centuries to unfold.
The world is both awe-inspiring and alien: a planet of immense beauty and slow, measured chaos, where human ambition, curiosity, and wisdom stretch across eons. To Narcis, coming from his own time, it would feel like stepping into the mind of a god—an Earth where mortality has been transformed into near eternity, and every human life is a library of cosmic history.
Just as the Tripitaka had predicted, Narcis walked among the people of the world of prophecy. Narcis thought to himself about all that happened over the last couple centuries or so. He noticed something in the distance, a figure with white skin, black eyes and a strange brow with a white cape. It said quietly: "This creation was a mistake. David wasted his power on you ingrates. It's time you were all erased. Perhaps you could make good vessels for rebirth." Narcis looked nervous: "The rebirth?" As he said that a long white tube came from his mouth it expanded its face out like a cobra. Narcis leaped out of the way and instead it landed in the mouth of a small creature's mouth. The creature's eyes became wide and it had life drained from it after it was done the tongue went back into the mouth of the villain. He had the same blank expression on his face. Narcis was shocked, "Incredible. This isn't from the Void. But based on what I'm sensing it may be a bigger threat. Interesting….." The creature smiled, "I wouldn't have expected anything less from Narcis Martreya." Narcis was shocked, how did he know who he was. For the first time the creature laughed: "We are responsible for all of this. The Void even. Everything."
AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT:
Neon rain slid down the glassy towers as the city hummed around them.
Gold Star walked like the street belonged to him—burger in one hand, crumpled fast-food bag in the other, golden motes of magic flickering lazily around his shoulders. Behind him, boots slapped the pavement fast and sharp. "Seriously?!" the pink-haired girl yelled, nearly vibrating with outrage. "You weren't gonna get me anything?!" Gold Star didn't even look back. "I told you, fast metabolism. Mission fuel." He took another bite. "You really are a drag you know that. This is why you're never gonna get laid." She grabbed his sleeve and yanked. "THAT'S NOT TRUE MEN LOVE TO LOOK AT ME!" A translucent sigil flared above their wrists—NUS priority code. Both of them stopped. Gold Star sighed. "Guys will stick their dick in anything they'll settle down with you that's for sure." The girl's expression shifted instantly from fury to focus. "Ugh, anyway. NUS doesn't ping like that unless it's bad." A holo-screen unfolded in the air between them, projecting a rotating abyssal spiral—VOID SIGNATURE: ACTIVE EXPANSION. Gold Star whistled low. "So it's finally moving." "Not just moving," she said. "Breaching. Frontier zones first. Then the mythic layers." Gold Star folded the bag neatly, eyes sharp now. "Which means they're involved." The screen shifted—profiles blooming one by one.
HERMES — The Gate-Keeper.
A warrior-messenger, blade bearer, threshold breaker. The one who opens doors that gods pretend don't exist. Champion of trial by combat and trial by truth. "She's the lynchpin," the girl said. "If Hermes falls, the gates collapse into chaos." Gold Star nodded. "If she stands, the Void chokes. Honestly who wrote the teleprompter." The pink haired girl yelled: "SHUT UP! Anyway…."
Next profile.
UNGAR — The Warlock King.
Ancient, brutal, stubbornly alive. Survivor of dead worlds. A being who has seen the Void before—and scarred it.
IMAM AL-TAYYIB.
The Fatimid Caliph in hiding honestly he's nearly impossible to locate, if it weren't for him traveling for them, we'd never find the guy.
LUPUS.
Feral speed. Loyalty sharpened into a weapon. Recently went through a redemption arc of sorts. He has a massive empire at his disposal which has become a vassal of Hermes' our reports tell us that a few years ago he had only 24 kids but now the number is much higher, it may be in the millions or the billions or higher we just don't don't know. He has a single wife and there's proof of affairs he is by all accounts loyal which means his wife, "Ashley Benares," is somehow producing them. He draws power from them, and them from him. He is a fighter who burns brightest when standing between annihilation and his pack. Honestly, he might be one of the first we try to recruit for the NUS he is the student of Imam al-Tayyib and he has boundless potential.
"Shock trooper," Gold Star said. "You point him at the impossible and it blinks first. He's a polymath just like Ungar and the Imam that should come in handy."
TALUS.
Fire-hearted, laughing in the face of oblivion. Power born of will, not origin. The kind of hero the Void cannot predict. Went through a redemption arc just like Lupus if we recruit him he could be valuable he is extremely powerful in fact he can destroy galaxies in his home universe." God Star laughed, "I'm leagues above that." The pink haired girl continued: "Honestly, there about to defeat his former comrade they've already defeated the army of demons his old friend Barzakh had in waiting and they're about to fight Barzakh, our time portals are giving us intel that it will most likely result in Barzakh's defeat so we'll wait when the battle's over and swoop in. Honestly, we could really use them. One faction of the NUS our 59B seems to be rebelling if we nip that in the bud we should be good. God knows what they're up to."
"And that scares me," she added.
TATU.
Quiet. Precise. A strategist who sees five moves beyond despair. Not loud—but every war turns on people like him. Wasp Prince. Honestly, he's been off on campaigns for a while so we won't be seeing him immediately at least that's the most likely scenario.
The holo froze, then expanded—dozens of allied signatures orbiting the core group.
Gold Star cracked his neck. "So what's NUS asking? Observation? Logistics? Cleanup?"
The girl grinned, sharp and bright. "Direct support."
He raised an eyebrow. "They trust us that much?"
"They don't," she said. "They're desperate."
The VOID spiral pulsed—larger now.
"NUS Empire's borders are built on stability," she continued. "Trade lanes. Civil worlds. Synthetic heavens. The Void doesn't conquer—it unwrites existence, we need to neutralize apparently our new friends to be have a way to stop it but it will take 1,000 years, that being said the Void cannot possibly threaten the entire NUS not even close, it will threaten us though on the border. So we're stuck dealing with this shit, the empire likely won't give us sufficent aid because it doesn't threaten the whole. If it spreads, there's no current border left to defend."
Gold Star's magic flared, gold shifting toward white-hot. "So we reinforce the heroes. And try to get them to join the NUS?"
"Intel drops. Void-pattern mapping. Fast extraction if something goes sideways." She paused. "And if it doesn't…" He smiled, feral. "We fight."
She finally laughed. "You're buying me food after this." "Deal," he said. "Assuming our immediate reality survives."
Gold Star adjusted the strap of his satchel, the "GOLD STAR" bag crumpled under one arm. Neon rain slicked the cobbled streets of the Fur and Gradas Merchant Settlement, where reality and commerce collided. Floating crates hovered beside brick-and-metal stalls, and merchants argued over currencies that didn't exist half the time.
"Ugh," the pink-haired girl muttered, swiping a holographic map from the air. "If I have to dodge one more acid-drip drone or haggle with a replicant spice vendor, I'm going to scream."
Gold Star took a casual bite of his burger. "You think this is bad? Try doing it while tracking Void-pattern signatures. Fun little job hazard." He waved his hand; golden motes of magic flickered lazily around him, brushing past hovering neon signs.
The girl groaned. "You and your metaphors. Anyway… we're not here to shop. Intel drop from NUS says Hermes' team is moving through the mythic layer corridors near the northern fault. This settlement's the last neutral zone before the chaos."
Gold Star spat out a crumb, eyeing the twisting streets. "So we wait. And watch. NUS wants eyes on them, but they don't want to risk interference. Classic Empire micromanage-and-abandon."
"Exactly," she said, tapping a sigil on her wrist. A translucent projection lit up above the alley—a swirling VOID pattern overlaying the merchant lanes. "The Void is spreading here too. Not fully—but it's probing. Testing supply chains, stability points, even minor ley-line disruptions. Small enough to be ignored by locals, but it's training, honing."
Gold Star's grin sharpened. "So if it's practicing here… by the time it hits the Gate-Keeper team, it's already got a blueprint."
She nodded grimly. "And that's why we need to know the players first. Ungar's influence in the Void-rich zones, Talus' cosmic interference, Lupus' empire-strengthened loyalty… all potential variables for prediction. If we can feed intel back to NUS, we can give them a fighting chance without tipping our hand."
A merchant's bell rang somewhere down the alley, but the air felt heavier. Shadows didn't just fall—they stretched, curling like they had teeth.
Gold Star narrowed his eyes. "The Void doesn't just probe. It learns from everyone. Even merchants arguing over non-existent spices." He shrugged. "Lucky for it, it can't taste burgers."
The girl smirked. "Keep chewing, genius. While we track reality tears and determine which parts of the settlement are at risk. Merchants, travelers, civilians… all data points."
He swallowed, nodding. "Fine. But after this? I want a burger so big it threatens the laws of physics. Consider it… pre-mission morale."
She rolled her eyes, but there was a trace of a smile. "You mean post-mission reality bending. We're not even near Hermes' crew yet, and you're already planning your food war."
"Hey," he said, twirling a crumb from his finger like a knife. "Fast metabolism doesn't wait for diplomatic niceties. The Void might be patient—but I'm hungrier."
Above the alley, a flicker of light—just for a moment—rippled across the sky. Not a full breach, not yet, but close enough to remind them why they were here.
Gold Star glanced up, eyes golden-hot. "Alright. Let's see how fast we can map this mess before someone—or something—eats the settlement whole."
The pink-haired girl sighed, already projecting another overlay. "And here I thought a day in Fur and Gradas would be boring."
Gold Star smirked. "Spoiler alert: boring is dead. And apparently, so is reality if we slack off."
THEORIES ON UNGAR:
WHAT WE DO KNOW ABOUT UNGAR (CANON FACTS)
These are non-negotiables the program understands as true within the Gate-Keeper universe:
Ungar is a reincarnation-aggregate
He is not a single soul. He is the accumulated rebirth of countless sentient beings, explicitly including every living thing on Earth in our universe, which itself is only the smallest visible layer of his being.
His body is a god-structure
Ungar's "body" is composed of approximately 600,000 universes, each functioning like organs, memories, or karmic strata.
Growth through enlightenment, not consumption
Unlike predatory cosmic entities, Ungar grows through Buddhist-style awakening, not conquest. Expansion follows realization, not violence.
Power access is conditional and fragmented
He does not always have access to his full current power level, implying internal seals, vows, trauma, or metaphysical throttles.
Moral inversion arc
Ungar was once evil, destructive, or tyrannical — and was reformed by Ebisu, the wind god, through a process that was spiritual, not punitive.
Relational interaction with "lower" beings
He meaningfully interacts with Lupus, Talus, Sun Wukong, Hermes, Daniel, Tatu, Imam al-Ṭayyib, etc., not as illusions but as ethically real agents.
He is now "good," but not simple
His goodness is post-traumatic, post-cataclysmic, and possibly maintained through effort.
That's the ground truth. Everything below is theory layered on top of that.
20 THEORIES ABOUT WHAT UNGAR REALLY IS
1. Ungar Is the Karmic Afterlife of a limited set of Multiverses.
Ungar isn't a being in the cosmos — he is what happens after existence ends.
All beings reincarnate into him when universes collapse. He is the afterlife that learned to walk.
This explains why Earth's life is only "the tip of the iceberg."
2. Ungar Is the Only Survivor of a Prior Meta-Reality
Before the Gate-Keeper cosmology, there was another total reality that transcended that terminal in space time. Ungar is its sole remainder, endlessly reincarnating fragments of that dead world as new universes.
This implies our reality exists inside a corpse that learned compassion.
3. Ungar Is Samsara Given Agency
Instead of beings reincarnating within samsara, samsara itself reincarnated as a being.
Ungar is the wheel of birth and death that woke up.
4. Ungar Is a Reformed Apocalypse
His "evil past" wasn't moral evil — it was function.
He used to end universes because that was his job.
Ebisu didn't defeat him.
Ebisu taught the apocalypse empathy.
5. Ungar's Body Is a Prison He Built for Himself
The 600,000 universes are not power — they are containment.
Ungar realized his existence was too destructive, so he bound himself into creation, distributing his consciousness so thinly that he could no longer annihilate everything at once.
6. Ungar Is the Negative Space Around God
He is not God, nor a creation of God — he is what God did not become.
Where divinity chose unity, Ungar embodies multiplicity without annihilation.
This makes him indispensable.
7. Ungar Is Every Extinct Species Remembering Itself
All extinct beings — trilobites, dinosaurs, erased civilizations — live inside him.
His occasional cruelty or melancholy comes from species grief no single mind could process.
8. Ungar's Limited Power Is Self-Enforced Ethical Throttling
He could act at full strength — but doing so would collapse moral agency around him.
So he chooses weakness to allow others to matter.
9. Ungar Is a Failed Buddha Who Chose Compassion Over Escape
Where a Buddha exits samsara, Ungar stayed.
He didn't transcend suffering — he became responsible for it.
10. Ungar Is the Thing That Devours Gods After They Die
Gods don't vanish when they fall.
They reincarnate as layers inside Ungar, stripped of authority but not memory.
This makes him terrifyingly gentle with gods — he knows what comes next.
11. Ungar Is the Unconscious of Reality
All realities have a subconscious.
Ungar is that subconscious made conscious — which explains dreams, symbols, recurring archetypes, and why beings like Sun Wukong resonate with him.
12. Ungar Was Once a Tyrant of Absolute Order
His "evil phase" was hyper-order, not chaos.
He tried to make existence perfect — and destroyed freedom.
Ebisu taught him that wind needs resistance to be wind.
13. Ungar Cannot Die — Only Become Smaller
If destroyed, Ungar doesn't end.
He reincarnates as simpler beings: stones, bacteria, forgotten worlds — slowly rebuilding himself across epochs.
14. Ungar Is Why Reincarnation Exists at All
Reincarnation is not a cosmic law — it is Ungar's metabolism.
Souls recycle because he processes experience.
15. Ungar Is an Anti-Demiurge
Where a demiurge traps souls in false worlds, Ungar houses worlds so souls don't vanish.
He is cosmic mercy mistaken for horror.
16. Ungar's Kindness Is Learned, Not Natural
He is good now — but goodness is not intrinsic to him.
If Ebisu's lesson were forgotten, Ungar could revert.
That tension is always present.
17. Ungar Sees Individuals as Moments, Not Wholes
He loves Lupus, Talus, Hermes, etc. — but he experiences them as temporal patterns, not fixed selves.
This makes his affection sincere yet alien.
18. Ungar Is the Only Being Who Remembers Every Forgotten Name
Every unnamed child, erased culture, and lost language exists inside his memory.
He is history that refuses to disappear.
19. Ungar Is Afraid of Enlightenment
Each awakening expands him.
At some point, full enlightenment might make him too large to remain ethical.
So he hesitates.
20. Ungar Is the Final Test of Compassion
Not heroes.
Not gods.
Not demons.
The final question of existence is:
Can something this vast remain kind?
Ungar is the universe trying to answer "yes."
Meanwhile, Lupus continued to battle the demon. Lupus inverted time a new ability he had learned where he could see into the past, present and future and then travel through them accordingly, he did this and appeared behind the demon punching him in the back of the head. The demon staggered back and look terrified he couldn't believe it this being [Lupus] just altered space and time during their fight. He was shaking he couldn't stop it.
Meanwhile Talus, Hermes and Al-Tayyib were approaching a dark energy.
A WILL DIVIDED, A WAR ON TWO FRONTS
As they continued to traverse through Barzakh's gauntlet—a nightmarish corridor of shifting gravity, psychic phantoms, and reality-warping traps—the strain was immense. Ungar's ancient bones groaned against temporal distortions. Lupus's speed was tested against labyrinths that moved faster than thought. Hermes's keys turned in locks that screamed. Tatu calculated paths through chaos that defied logic.
And Talus burned.
He burned through barriers, shattered deceptive clones of their foe, and held back tides of abstract malice. But with each step deeper, the nature of their enemy became clearer. Barzakh was not just throwing obstacles; he was studying them. Every parry, every counter, every burst of power was being observed, cataloged, and fed into a vast, cold understanding. The Void was learning their rhythms, and through Barzakh, it was designing a perfect counter-strategy.
During a momentary lull in a chamber of frozen screams, Talus halted. He placed a hand against the pulsating, organic wall of the gauntlet, feeling the dark intellect behind its construction.
"He's not just trying to stop us," Talus said, his voice cutting through the heavy air. "He's data-mining. This entire gauntlet is a profiling engine. The Void is using him to write the playbook on how to erase us."
Hermes wiped ethereal ichor from her blade. "Then we change the script. But how, before he finishes his analysis?"
Talus looked at his hands, then at his comrades—the warlock, the king, the gatekeeper, the prince. His fire, which usually roared outwards, turned inward, focusing into a point of impossible density and will.
"We give him two completely different scripts to study."
Before anyone could react, Talus planted his feet in the bloody moss of the gauntlet floor. He didn't roar; he concentrated. The air around him didn't explode—it crystallized, then split with a sound like the universe taking a sharp, deliberate breath.
From Talus's form, a second Talus stepped.
It was him, yet fundamentally other. This form's hair was white as a moonstone cliff, its eyes the color of cool, strategic slate. It held itself with a regal, calculating poise, the unyielding heart of a hero refined into the sharp mind of a sovereign. The original Talus—the Fire-Hearted—grinned, his magma-spirit undimmed. The new Talus—the Granite-Minded—returned a small, precise smile.
"I continue here," declared the Fire-Hearted Talus, flames wreathing his fists anew. "I will be the variable he cannot solve. I will fight with such unpredictable, glorious fury that his data will be noise."
The Granite-Minded Talus surveyed the horrific gauntlet, then looked upward as if seeing through dimensions. "And I will open a front where data and perception are the battlefield. Barzakh and the Void think in terms of corrupting existing power. I will go to the source of that power and become it. I am going to the Godworld." He met the eyes of his other self. "I am going to run for office."
From a swirling shadow near a corrupted archway, a deep, approving chuckle echoed. Krampus leaned into view, his horns scraping the weeping stone. "A political offensive in the halls of the divine! While one fist smashes the gauntlet, the other shakes the hands of deities and demons alike. Brilliant. You'll need a campaign manager who understands that in heaven, as in the trenches, victory often goes to whoever best… motivates the electorate."
He lumbered to the Granite-Minded Talus's side, a monstrous figure aligning with a figure of stone-cold purpose. "I know which archons are swayed by fear, which principality runs on graft, and how to turn a celestial endorsement into a landslide. This will be fun."
Lupus stared, awestruck. "You split your soul… in the middle of the enemy's stronghold?"
"I multiplied my resolve," the Talus twins corrected in unison. The Fire-Hearted continued, "He is my focused will, my strategy given form. I am his unbending spirit, his fury made manifest. We are not weaker. We are a pincer movement across two planes of existence."
The Granite-Minded Talus gave a final nod to his comrades. "Fight well. Make his data useless." He turned, Krampus at his shoulder, the monster already outlining a platform of "cosmic accountability" and "transcendent infrastructure reform."
With a tear of shimmering, bureaucratic gold and the faint scent of coal and ancient pine, they were gone—vanishing not through the gauntlet's exits, but sideways out of the conflict entirely, toward the dizzying spires and labyrinthine politics of the Godworld.
The original Talus cracked his neck, the fire around him burning brighter, wilder, more joyously unpredictable than ever. He looked down the throat of the gauntlet, toward where Barzakh's true presence lurked.
"Alright," he said, a galaxy-destroying grin spreading across his face. "Where were we? Oh yeah. You were trying to figure me out." He launched himself forward, a comet of pure, beautiful defiance. "LET'S SEE YOU TRY TO PREDICT THIS!"
The gauntlet trembled. The battle raged on. But the war had just exponentially expanded. Barzakh and the Void now faced a foe who was simultaneously in their face and in their system, a storm of fire on one front and a stone-cold political machine on the other. The script was torn in half.