Prologue

Prologue

Birthed from the filament, these beings held a specific purpose: the making and breaking of the cosmos. Each one made and unmade the vastness of space.

The second age, dubbed the age of antiquity, was the time of beings named predecessors.

These magnificent beings traversed the cosmos for millions of millennia, existences of splendor and enormity, birthing and unmaking reality, seeding the universe. As does time flows, so did the age of antiquity. Still, before these resplendent beings of duality departed whence they appeared, they birthed beings of lesser might and splendor, Titans.

Titans in stature and power weren't balanced as their forebearers; they accomplished little without their predecessors' cosmic design. Their time passed much sooner by the hands of their children, born of divinities and the power and abilities of their sires.

The wheels of time moved unabated; years gave way to another age, the archaic age. In an era where the vast cosmos were abundantly populated, mortal races came into being, born of the couplings of gods and their demigod firstborn.

The gods are fickle, not by their design but by nature of their birth; each had an opposing divinity and an anathema to their beliefs.

Tensions led to war. Wars weren't fought on the higher planes. Instead, with mortal-kind, thus the great game was created, mortal pieces moved across the board by the whim of their overlords; wars were fought for nothing but fun and boredom of their parents, during the height of the great game and in the time of untold death the cosmic filaments awakened, gods and mortal alike ceased their squabbling as the filaments thrummed as its presences washed over the cosmos, anger, unbound anger pressed down on the universe as the cosmic filaments assessed the situation.

The presence sighed, sense of sadness replacing its rage at what it witnessed as it retreated, back inside the filament, but not before it bequeathed the grand Dao, the path of power and progression handed to mortal and god alike.

The Dao superimposing itself across time and space rewrote the olden rules of reality, The ancient gods granted more power, but we're tightly bound to specific inexplicable laws, the great game forestalled, gods could grow boundlessly, and mortal-kind could ascend, birthing new divinities from traversing the path of the heavens.

____________

Ruled, enslaved, and conquered, were the fates, the youngest, children of evolution, the only beings born of nature and after the Archaic Age. The youngest, which would one day be known as humankind, endured untold atrocities at the stronger hands: the elders, firstborn of the gods.

Eons they toiled for the ancient races, used for food and blood sport, regulated to mere beast even though they had sentience and was recognized by the Heavens. Humankind revolted against their oppressors, breaking countless Millenia of forced servitude. The moment of the revolt all but lost in the annals of time, but it succeeded.

Unfortunately, the act wouldn't go unpunished. In retribution of humankind's rebellion, the elders, who had warred amongst each other since time immemorial, rallied together.

Humanity made up significantly what they lacked in strength; they had in numbers. Humans were the most prolific and adaptable of all the sentients.

Their armies were vast as the deepest oceans; their Calvary passing terraformed the landscape and flattened mountains. The furious elders consolidated their forces and waged a campaign of slaughter on a magnitude unmatched. All in the name of retaliation.

The ancients slaughtered their way across the settled human continent. In the hundreds of years of humanity's freedom, nations sprouted up like weeds, like their overlords beforehand, human civilization fragmented by ethnicity, creed, and religion, and the distrust of their brothers and sisters, human countries failed alone, cut down like the weeds they were.

As great empires and nations fell by the hundreds, humans used to their stations in life betrayed each other, infighting and assassination plagued the human war front, nations whose leaders helped the elders to become rulers beneath the ancients were enslaved instead and their children castrated, never will their bloodline be spread again, and their kingdoms turned into dust; not one building left standing; this was their message to the humans.

The death of traitors sent ripples across the human continent. The iniquity of the elders was on full display. Unbeknownst to humans, beings of the higher realms understood what humanity could be, giving enough time to grow and chase the Dao. This was genocide brought about by fear of retribution.

Humanity hastily trained troops were annihilated with ease. Their attainments were minor compared to the elder races whose resources and cultivation far outstripped the squabbling humankind who hoarded riches amongst their families and friends leaving the commoners amongst them with almost nothing. Fear and regret reigned supreme amongst the nations remaining. The elders advance undisputed and uncontested. Humanity morale fell day by day, and the end was nigh.

Darkness shrouds the light; light conquers the evening, the only two opposing forces that thrived on the strength of the other. The balance will hold per the world laws unless one attainment in path exceeds the world by a large magnitude.

The man who sparked the revolt was long lost to the annals of time, and his deeds were considered gospel to humanity. What wasn't forgotten was his ideal perverted by men who wanted power, to follow in the footsteps of their enslavers. Disgusted with humankind, he and his wife with their newborn child vanished.

In an unassuming human settlement far removed from the politics and machinations of the world and ravages of war, the man that sparked the flame of rebellion lived whereabouts inexplicably became known to the ancient races.

The elder race's armies awoke something unnatural in this hidden abode located in a mysterious region. In this secret unnamed human settlement, a child unlike any other shed tears of blood as he buried his loving father. This very man once stood at the pinnacle of human might.

Unbeknownst to those seeking the return of the old ways, an existence that was not of this world nor their cosmos was awakened. The churches would declare this was the day of antiquated divinities were given dominion and returned to the universe.

Many thousands of years later, a historian would argue that it was either treachery or hope that the man would aid humanity again.

The law of the jungle superimposed itself. Horrors birthed from agony and hate breached the veil: creatures of nightmares beyond the imagination of Gaia inhabitants were born. These beings would be called demonic beasts.

This youngster was like no other. On the day of his fathers' death, a soul thought to be among the first to breathe, the first to whisper into the void, one older even than the predecessors, released its aura.

In vengeance, the youth with valuable might an untold cultivation realm began his one-person war against the elders. His blade was that of his adversaries. His strength taken from their cold carcasses singlehandedly pushed the lesions of ancients back, freeing humankind continent and upturned the world.

Humankind raised his banners. Thousands of the oppressed and commoners ran to him. Their offspring would one day become pillars of humanity. Their allegiance is sworn to him and him alone, their fate and that of their descendants bound to his banner always. These men and women turned unleashed a ripple across the world; their march led to the unimaginable slaughter of the occupying forces.

For the first time, Gaia and the surrounding pocket dimensions were engulfed in war, war unimaginable, one that the sentients of Gaia haven't witnessed. This was a world at war, and each continent had no choice but to choose aside. How could these people understand such devastation? Their respective gods descended on the mortal plane, attempting to slay the young man and return to old; fate wasn't on their sides, and the fallen gods were felled, and their people put to the blade. For hundreds of years, the flames of war washed over the world.

It was then the nations spared the fate of their counterparts and, on the brink of collapse, saw a ray of hope in the treaties of peace and cease of war from the ancients, brings who once betrayed those that stood with them against their brethren.

The same people and nations who forsaken him, dubbing him a warlord, false Idol, usurper, the same boy they vehemently denied as one of theirs when the elder's dignitaries came to talk of peace and reparation. There would be no peace! Blood begets blood, and his father's death debt must be paid.

The elders never thought their method of destruction would be used on them. He, too, didn't spare women and children. Once again, they sent dignitaries to the humans and begged for the end. This was unprecedented, but their gods were afraid to descend; it was a death sentence to stand against him and his armies.

The eldest of the races, the elvenkind, emerged from their solitude out of nowhere. They were here to bear witness. The world once again was flipped on its head.

Infuriated, the elders unleashed their trump cards: massive towering beast, walking calamities. Giants once again walked the land.

While the world burned, all eyes watched the heir of humankind float above the clouds and battle colossal beasts for three days and three nights. Their battles altered the seasons and raised continents from their depth.

He alone, a young man at the time, lead the entirety of the prolific race of men's war efforts. He sowed destruction and reaped death across the planet, bathing the world in blood.

Upon the final battlefield, on the homeworld of the ancients, with the elder's leaders kneeling before him, he roared to the heavens in defiance, "Humanity is free!" He declared. "Slavery in its entirety is unbecoming of any such individuals, and you do not know the cost of what you have wrought. A soul chained is a soul undone."

The world stilled as he spoke toward the heavens, lecturing it as if it was nothing beneath him.

His blood spilled upon the battlefield with a slice of his hand for the first time. "My blood, human blood. By my power, I request the seven heavens and seven hells to bear witness to my words on this day." He said, blade raised toward the heavens.

"Today, I declare the end of the war! As victor, I have authority. Humanity will never be enslaved again for existing. Humanity shall never be threatened and cowed in their own homes and lands. As a whole, they have refused to be prey to those that claim a higher station because of racial differences."

"If their rights shall be thrown away, then on their behalf, I will have to be their intermediary."

"But, I know the score! I shall pay the price for this bargain. My bloodline I shall seal." He said, slicing his order hand. "This is the price I pay to balance the scale."

"I warn you. I who remain always, and I, who shall always remain will ascend and wage war across the seven heavens and seven hells the likes of which never before been witness. This is my oath!" He roared accompanied by hellish quakes and heavenly thunder and lightning.