prologue

The world of Eden was once free

Humans had been populating the planet since before recorded history and they had believed they would continue to do so until the end.

They were the obvious dominant species of their world and that was perfect for them

Yes, maybe in "their World" they were the higher beings but, in all reality, this was only what they could perceive but destiny had I different course for them than they had expected.

They were not expecting an unknown event to weaken the fabric between worlds and tear tiny holes that left gaps between worlds, and they certainly weren't expecting for the inhabitants of other worlds to come to them

Creatures of myth and creatures never conceived came through the tears that existed between their world and ours

They slaughtered nearly 78% of humanity and overran Eden causing the remnants to look for any form of safety

And safety did arrive, but not in the form any wished for

One of the worlds sharing a tear with Eden housed the Drey, a race of warriors and royalty. They offered salvation in exchange for servitude and having no other option, but death humanity accepted. The Drey pushed back the monsters of other realms and created a nation on the continents of Asia, the Middle East and Europe, reforming it into a new nation named Eshax.

But once a delicate peace had been acquired humanity realized where they sat, bottom of the food chain, prey to the creatures of other realms and subservient to another race

so, they chose to make one more deal with the Drey, a deal that changed humanity form both the better and the worse. You see the reason the Drey were so strong and able save humanity in the first place was due to a discovery they had made in their civilizations fist stages

Eon

An ore they had found within the oceans of their world, this ore when digested raw had a 50% chance of killing the eater but in the event of survival directly reconstructed their genetic makeup and gave a unique adaptation to their body in the form of an ability.

These abilities could vary from flight to a photographic memory to increased strength and so on. And as the Drey spent generation after generation eating this ore eventually Eon became a part of their very DNA and as such newly born Drey would be born with abilities of their own.

As a race that did not age, they became the greatest fighters within their world which was over ten times the size of Eden

This ore, Eon was what humanity asked for

They asked to be given the ore so that they would no longer be powerless to the creatures of the other worlds and the Drey themselves. And in turn the Drey gave their price

Should the Drey provide humans with Eon as payment they wished that each Drey child coming of the age of 15 would be able to decide amongst the humans who had gained abilities that year and choose one to serve them for the rest of their long life

Considering the Dreys extremely low pregnancy rate humanity decided to take the deal and it was sealed with an oath of blood

The blood oath was a technology created by the Drey that created a nonphysical contract between two parties. As referenced by the name the contract resides within the blood. Upon the agreement a shot is taken by each member of both parties.

It inserts a small piece of Eon into the blood that binds itself too the heart of the individual and upon the breaking of the oath a signal is sent out by the piece of Eon before the piece detonates killing the one who breaks the contracts.

As the years past more and more humans gained abilities and as a way to increase the quality of both young humans and Drey, the Drey began to create schools and institutions designed to teach both standard education and combat ability

The schools were also a perfect way for Drey children to learn about humans and find the perfect servants to choose for their own. To increase "motivation the schools were based on the strength of the students with greater individuals being gifted with better circumstances.

Any human who joined these schools were given Eon and free lodging in order to increase the quantity of possible servants for the young Drey who were seen as nearly sacred due to their rarity with only a few hundred born a year despite the Drey population being in the billions

However there was one side effect of this, with only a few students taken on as attendants a year from each school no one knew what to do with the now abundant powered humans

But one invention shocked the world and gave the Drey a new use for powered humans, the Temporal Stabilizer

See there were two types of dimensional gates that Humans and Drey were aware of, one type like the gate to the Dreys world that was a permanent tear and bonded to Eden. Only a few of these existed and the others aside from the Dreys existed outside of the borders of Eshax in what used to be called Africa, America, Iceland, and Australia hence why they were still overflowing with monsters of other dimensions

However, the other kind that existed were the temporary gates known as Rents that could open anywhere at any time over random time spans. They would generally appear and spew forth any number of horrors or just sit there with nothing coming through before disappearing never to be seen again

The Temporal Stabilizer allowed for dimensions that would normally only open for a short time to be held open as long as the Drey wanted and as such could be harvested and conquered

Now the Drey had a use for both human and Drey own soldiers aside from guarding the borders of their cities

This is the world our protagonist was born in

Good luck Eadwulf