Debacle

*Work in progress.*
The **Debacle** was an event that occurred in the HotUE universe at year 2001. While initially seen as a purely destructive and speculatively natural disaster that wiped out many of the living population and destroyed existing civilizations, it eventually paved way for the existence of unnatural creatures such as Slimes as well as the essence of magic.

## Background and Cause of Event

The actual cause of the Debacle remains unknown, as its predominant aftermath involves magic, which wasn't established as real by people prior to the event. Some theorists speculates that the event may be tied to a religious context, due to the presence of demons in the first dew days of the Debacle's aftermath.

The way the event itself occurred also remains unclear, although based on what Gelly had heard outside of his room before getting knocked out unconscious, it consisted of, in addition to screams and destruction, various supernatural sounds such as "magic beams ... blasted at continuous state" and "roars of mythical beasts".

## Aftermath

### Early Days

“*Well, this new phenomenon brought by the destruction is completely otherworldly and difficult to understand yet, so anything may happen without us knowing the exact cause. I myself gained magic all of a sudden while trying to explore around this city few days ago...*”
—En.
The most immediate aftermath of the Debacle was the destruction of the city at which Gelly's orphanage was located, leaving survivors to scavenge and fend off dangers themselves. The event also brought in some magical phenomena, although their presence independent of magic wielders were rare, aside from their main role in the birth of slimes.

Some humans, such as En and even Gelly, have gained magical abilities through unknown means after the event. Each magic wielder appears to have varying capabilities and specialties which are not seemingly tied to anything about the wielder.

As aforementioned, demons from Darkness Underworld also appeared, with them initially hunting down humans who gained magical abilities during the earlier days. According to En, and further reinforced by Deathbane who is a psyche reaper demon himself, demons attack and kill these humans for their magical essence alongside their soul, and feed these to a demonic "core" in the Darkness Underworld that empowers those whose abilities draw strength from it. At least two types of demons, psyche reapers and shapeshifters, were seen in the story; the story mentioned Gelly having spotted what could be hellhound wolves based on their fiery appearance.

Slimes were also present around, with the Slimepanions even accompanying Gelly before their separation within the Hive. Their descriptions being of purely blob shapes without any other distinct qualities imply they were all color slimes back then, given that they needed to consume their required resources to grow, and the present timeline having Leafasquish, Brickaslimcon and Rotsquishing become a leafy slime, pyramid slime and bone stacker slime respectively. In addition, the Higherstrive City Central Park brochure in the present day state that slimes are born through convergence of magical essence alongside the presence of specific materials that determine what color slime will be created, although the case with the Slimepanions as well as the variety of slimes living in the park suggest that this may not always be true.

Aside from demons, other creatures also appeared in the early days. Corpse zombies, being undead humans, were uncommonly encountered around the city ruins, with a large horde of them also mentioned once. Spiders, which became large and overgrown, were also fought by Gelly and En, with the latter commenting that they are easily distracted by inanimate objects. Lastly, a giant worm of unknown species was seen consuming building ruins.