1 Prologue

Prologue - Heaven Eye

Long, long ago in Neraland, the pious humans built a great tower as an epitome of their faith and reverence to their Goddess, Nera.

The Goddess, deeply moved by the human's piety, decided to reward them for their devotion. With her grace, she opened an ethereal door that was connected to another world at the very peak of the tower, it was known as the Heaven Eye.

Soon after, it was from that very door visitors descend from the world beyond, the creatures known as the Feather race. These transcendent beings shared the same physique as humans, yet possessed unworldly beauty with a levitating halo above their heads and a pair of graceful wings attached to their back.

These beings of the Feather race soon opened an alliance with the humans. They had come bearing with them varied stones precious beyond measure, each piece foreign and unique to this world.

They instructed mankind in the ways of the steel-making, forging, and craftsmanship. It was from them the human race learned to make armour for protection, skills in self-defence, weapons for combat, essential tools for daily life, crafting jewellery and ornaments.

Among other things, they also shared their vast knowledge in agriculture improvement, lore, arts, literature, architecture, alchemy, mathematics, science, history, a common alphabet and language. By applying their methods, crops grew in abundance, yielding a bountiful harvest far more than the past and an end to starvation of women and children. Scrolls, books and scriptures became widely spread as every human regardless of age or gender were taught to read and write.

The inhabitants that lived surrounding the great tower soon started to construct magnificent buildings and comfortable homes with the advanced architecture they had learned from the Feather race whose designs they had attempted to mirror. Gone were the days of wooden houses, muddy huts and fragile barns, for in its place the landscape now stood tall concrete buildings that scrape the skies with spires and arch roofs.

Many statues of the Feather race stood erected all across the cities and the streets below were always swarming with life. The vicinity itself never seemed to sleep as every district was illuminated with the light of candles be it day or night.

Thus the human societies and civilizations surrounding the Heaven Eye became a symbol of progress and limitless potential as it thrived and prospered by leaps and bounds, all thanks to the generous guidance of the benevolent Feather race.

To show their love and gratitude to these heavenly beings, the humans gave the Feather race a beautiful name; a unique name that would perfectly embody all that they are.

The Feather race were forevermore known as "Angels".

The glorious future of mankind seemed to be as bright as the light of the sun itself.

However...

In the light of that glory of the alliance between the angels and the humans, drunk on comfort and pleasure, the humans had begun to forget their past hardships and struggles. As time passed, so did their gratitude for the Angels wane as they forgot their debt to the Feather race.

Humanity's greatest weakness was greed, and it never seemed to end.

It is a hole in their hearts, a bottomless pit that no power, wealth, status or knowledge could fill. Regardless of how long they try or how hard they struggle, mankind could not change what was in their nature. Never having enough, they kept asking for more and more, until the day mankind's fall from grace took place...

One day in a land of snow, a man called Guld kidnapped an angel -in order to demand more treasure and power for himself.

Despite being helplessly restrained and bound, the angel did not yield to his demands. And when she had refused every last one of his requests, Guld brutally murdered this innocent angel.

The moment her lifeless hand fell to the ground and her blood stained the white snow a brilliant red, the fate of humanity was sealed.

When word of this atrocity reached the ears of the King of Angels, he was enraged beyond words and swore to cast this ignorant, greedy and ungrateful race into oblivion.

What was once worshiped as Heaven soon became Hell.

In the course of a single night, the world as mankind knew it became a purgatory; in the place of the once kind angels from Heaven Eye to nurture and teach them, mankind received powerful avenging warriors of the feather race, bent on punishing the human race with their annihilation.

With the alliance now broken, the once proud cities that stood at the pinnacle of human civilization were set aflame as they fell to the onslaught of the angels.

The streets that used to be full of laughter and happiness was now replaced with chaos and the screams of confusion, horror, and terror while the burning fires raged on.

Many lives were extinguished that night, and countless more bloodshed followed suit. The air thick with the smell of burned flesh as hot blood ran freely on the cobblestones.

The skies were bolted out with the armies of heaven as angels clad in silver armor swoop down and pierced through the retreating inhabitants with their spears, covered from their wings to their armor in a deep crimson.

Structures crumbled and fell to ruin, the smoke from the burning shops and houses choked the air and painted the night sky with clouds of black, adding depth to the darkness.

As the howls of the city inhabitants died off, the screams of the following city sprouted anew, and repeated so to the next, and the next... the angels did not stop.

Eventually, Neraland was engulfed in dark days and fear as the remaining humans had either attempt to repel the angels, escape from their reach or simply fought among each another for resources to survive. Family, relatives, friends, loved ones, many were slaughtered and untold lives were lost, neither women nor children were spared from the angel's wrath.

The land was nearly drowned in the blood of the fallen, and humanity itself was driven to near-extinction. Those few surviving refugees were forced to seek shelter deep beneath the underground caverns and caves to hides from vigilant eyes of the angels. Without a stable supply of crops and hardly any fuel left for warmth, the demise of the human race seemed imminent and most began to lose the will to live.

This was the darkest age of mankind.

Yet, all was not lost.

It is said that chaos and despair breed the greatest of heroes.

So it was that from that conflict, the hope of mankind was rekindled with the emergence of Ostin, a winged human who was the son of a man and an angel. He called and gathered various warriors around the world, both far or near, to join his great cause and led them to fight back against the angels.

There were many setbacks in the beginning, as the angels still proved too difficult to defeat. Nevertheless, as time passed and more allies joined the battle, they started to turn the tides of the war.

Many brave souls willingly gave their lives for hope of peace, to reclaim their world from the angels once more. Never before had humanity been thus united.

Inspired by the hope of Ostin's charisma, more and more brave human warriors begun to gather under Ostin's banner like moths drawn to a bright flame. With his leadership, mankind was able to rise from depths of despair and defeat, banding together and fighting as one against the angels with renewed tenacity and vigor. Gradually, the human army began to win more battles against the feather race.

Finally, humanity won the war and forced their defeated angelic foes back to their own world through the Heaven Eye.

The long, hard arduous war was at long last laid to rest in human history. The dead were mourned as lives lost to end the war was the price for the future paid in blood.

This historic event was marked as "Adam's Heavenly War".

After their victory, Ostin personally handpicked five hundred of the most powerful human fighters and led them as a special guardian force.

These brave souls who patrol the Heaven Tower are known as the "Templar"; the most renowned and respected people in the world.

200 years passed in peace,

Until...