1 The Creation of Destruction

Two everlasting forces collided within an interstellar vacuum; as the initial cause which began the material universe within a natural multi-dimensional plain. As a cause of spacetime, both phenomena were uncaused within the framework of observation, timeless – as they remain unconfined by dimensional constructs, spaceless as they occupy everything and nothing simultaneously. Thus, both immaterial phenomena of unfathomable power personified themselves with consciousness. Neither physical nor material – like the embodiment of numerical equations and additions – abstractions which caused their transcendent and perpetual minds to clash in an equal, yet opposite, battle. Both phenomena consumed dimensions, ended the greatest galactic fires and burned the deepest darkmatter. Their raw antimatter cause an equal, yet opposite, reaction – matter. Their consequential war created the observable galaxy – Aman. Each strike of matter sparked supernovae, dodges spawned blackholes and impacts bled suns. The duel forces battled until their infinite existence came to a rational realization that neither of them would slay the other in eternal combat. Neither force yielded, yet attempted no attack.

During their perpetuity of being entrapped within a stand-off – a pearl grew, spawning a slew of planetary bodies between them. Each planet caught in a trajectory, orbiting a great star which became of the initial pearl. This sun was named Anor. A new singularity was born from their equilibrium.

The Giall was challenged by its rival force to pick a planetary rock and stand upon it. Capable of all, the Giall accepted the challenge. Thus, when the Giall descended upon Terra, it grew untenable life.

The waters receded. Primordial greenery sprouted from dry land and mountains shaped with its Ethereal voice.

It called to the advisory to achieve the same and stand before it. Shamdon descended, creating storms, lightning and chaos in the skies. When it landed – so did death. All unicelled plants withered, water waged war with land and flattened mountains. The Giall had never interacted with an insignificant material rock before, but Terra became special to it. An emblem of its dominance. Proof of its omnipotence. In a test of will, their material war waged millions of years. Sculpting the rock to a sphere, it gained minerals, sediment and magnetism. The ozone layer blocked the sun's rays enough to entrap vaporous gasses. Carbon and oxygen. Plate tectonics and volcanic ash. Fires and tsunamis. Hurricanes and deserts. The turbulent war formed vast sediment in an endless cycle. Both gods were struck by one another, each time their essence spilled into the waters and onto the lands. Merging, forming prebiotic bacterium and self-sustaining nucleotides. The mitochondrial birth of creation formed the first singular strands of RNA. Knowing the process has already begun, the Giall had a plan to win the war.

The Giall challenged Shamdon to create lifeforms. Knowing it can, the Giall conjured the first sucrose deoxyribose DNA strand within all probiotic forms and began the cycle anew.

Plants grew to titanic proportions. Capable of withstanding disasters of any magnitude. The waters filled with primal swimmers, dawning reproduction with an evolutionary leap of chromosomes. Magnificent life bloomed across Terra. Prideful and gloating over its own greatness, the Giall triumphantly marvelled at its creation. Incapable of spontaneous creation, as the Giall claimed, Shamdon hated the Giall's deceitful and boastful self-deifying craft – thus it cursed the lands with entropy. So all things die if reproduction ceases.

To Shamdon's displeasure, the creation adapted and evolved to this new law with rapid success. Knowing it was just as responsible for creating the lifeforms, Shamdon did not accept this as a victory for the Giall, but it was not the one who adjusted their RNA to DNA. Arrogantly, the Giall challenged Shamdon to destroy its acclaimed creation. Floods, plagues, infections, decay, carnivorism, ice ages and solar storms only made the Giall's creatures adapt new ways of strengthening their resolve. Some became predators while the prey became more abundant and crafty. Millions crawled from the waters. All grew fur and scales. All with no input from the Giall who taunted Shamdon's failure – whereby proudly proving its supremacy over its advisory.

No matter what horror Shamdon released – life overcame it.

In an Infernal rage, Shamdon broke the rule to remain in Terra's contained dimension and released essences of self-destruction, war, hatred, wrath, greed, lust and pestilence. Such malicious influence ravaged the Giall's creation to turn on itself. The breath of Shamdon burned into the hearts of all – creating the basis of a soul. To counter the terrible desecration, the Giall breathed its essence into all living beings as well – morality of consequence. All beings were granted its essence, its soul enclosed behind all eyes.

Having lost the war, Shamdon was disgraced from the plain but found delight in knowing the Giall's creation was ruined to fall.

Tough the battle was won by the Giall, still driven by the fury of lost perfection – Shamdon was cast into its own dimensional breach, now known as the Underdark. His fall broke seven layers of reality, creating seven plains equal to the Giall's beloved, yet corrupted, Terra. With each of the layers, Shamdon cast single thoughts – first was a personification of his wrath, thus Helel was born.

Second was the decay he wished upon the world – Ba'al Zebul.

Third was greed for what belonged to him – Moloch.

Fourth was the pride he lost – Zazeel. Fifth was envy to the Giall's victory – Gorphel.

Sixth was rebellion to laws – Leviathan. Seventh was lust for vengeance – Asmodai.

They were its seven sons, whereby it had created spontaneous life after all. The Infernal princes evolved within their own dimensions, millions of years in solitude allowed them to craft their hatred into individuality. Having a piece of Shamdon's existence within, the Demiurge became gods themselves. Crafting creatures of nightmare.

The Giall's displeasure in this new multi-dimensional element to its creation urged him to hand-craft beings into its likeness – whereby the Seraphim were born to counter attacks from the Demiurge's barons and monstrosities. The Seraphim were six-winged creatures of pure Ethereal light, with an eye in the centre to observe all. Within them lay the Giall's need for perfection, purity and eternal righteousness.

Flaunting the fact that it beat Shamdon despite its continuous attempts to ruin the Giall's pure Terra. The angelic clades descended with their knowledge in a hierarchy to forever glorify the Giall. So, the Seraphim began training cognisant beings in how to use the Giall's great magic against the Underdark.

Their ranking was to the Giall's pleasure, below the Seraphim were the Nephilim – eternal beings capable of walking the material plain, within the constraints of time or not. The Dominions – a reactionary revolution of hand-sculpted warriors whom adhere to the Nephilim. Counteracting the horrors which breached for the Underdark. The Custodia – beings born between the Ethereal and Common worlds, consorts to mortals. The Fates are fae who paint nature to the perfection the Giall craves. Lastly, Archangels, immortal messengers who reside within the realm of Terra within their own cloudland of Si.

As ordered, none of the angelic clades may directly interfere with creation. The Giall proclaimed to need no aid. The Demiurge heeded no greater power for Shamdon made them gods in his stead. Shamdon's wrath drives them as they have access to the mortal plain and time constraints apply to them wherever they dwell.

Living eternity one second at a time.

The war still wages in the cosmos, whereby the Giall was challenged again. This time Shamdon attacked its vanity. Proposing that its creation would never consciously decide to serve the Giall without being forced to bow to it as slaves. The challenge came with a clause – the Giall is not to interfere with any being beyond its Seraphim and Shamdon only allowed communion with the Demiurge. The challenge was accepted by both forces.

The Giall was so bold as to claim its creation's instinctive souls would drive them to their knees in servitude to it. Granting the concept of free-will. Shamdon called none to bow to it, but to the Demiurge as when a being submits their mortality to one of his seven sons, they are to have that individual's soul to do with as they please.

Before, the souls (or essence) was imbibed directly back into the Giall to remerge as another being. Not being intimidated by the outrageous challenge, the Giall still accepted – knowing its creation heeded only its divinity.

It was a trap. The Giall now only gained the essence of those who made the conscious decision to submit to it. The bounds were thereby drawn equal between creation and destruction. The Giall instructed its Seraphim to relay to creation its greatness in all traditions and in every walk of mortal life. This became a new constraint on the sentient beings who were made aware of the Demiurge's reaping of souls. Any being who fell from the Giall's grace into the realm of one of the Princes were now Shamdon's eternal property.

The god of destruction became the god of eternal life.

In a final display of power, the Giall granted knowledge to the lands of Ethereal and Infernal magic. The invocation of its divine name and previous victory overruled Shamdon's Infernal might, but forcing any being to submit to it was a breach of the challenge. Not about to be rendered equally as fallible as Shamdon, the Giall held trust in the judgement of its creation that the mere idea of spending an eternity in the claws of the Demiurge was enough of a deterrent. The Giall was wrong. Its dogmatic vanity and forced perfectionism, pressed onto vastly imperfect beings, drove many a stray as the god of creation became the god of silence. The Demiurge kept to their rule of not forcing any being into servitude but rather giving them the option. They are only capable of reaping a soul if the terrestrial being knows of the Giall and its promises, whereby adding insult to the Giall.

So, the Seraphim created the Giallian Order to rule over all judgement and execute evil before saving their souls in the Giall's name. Ethereal magic will always be greater than Infernal, but with its new acquisition of souls, the Demiurge created greater horrors. Most capable of intersecting civilisation and causing individual minds to question why they serve a silent god. Thus the war of the Ethereal and the Infernal still shape the lives of all creation. Mortality will always be stuck in an infinite combat between two phenomena of unlimited power, one determined to enslave, and the other to liberate. To truth or deception. To glory or uniformity. To good or evil.

It is up the individual to figure out which is which.