A world divided with no tears to be shed as thousands fell to desolation yet seen. There were those who partook, and those who obtained from the conflict, but none could truly escape it. The war between the “divine” and the “wicked” had only just begun.
The “world” as it was termed is the collection of 3 spherical shaped realm stacked upon each other like a beaded necklace. The topmost realm was labeled as the Divine (Heavenly) Realm as it housed the gods made from the wishes and beliefs of the realm below it, the Mortal Realm. The bottommost below the mortals was Hell.
The mortals originally lay powerless in their realm; relying on the power of the gods they unknowingly created through faith to supply their fortunes and favors. The gods who were birthed from this blind faith, and initially sought to grant any wishes the mortals had but soon grew slovenly and complacent as they decreased the frequency and power of their miracles. This of course did not escape the notice of the mortals as they devoted their time and wealth for sacrifice in vain. Steadily those who sat nestled firmly in the arms of their faith decreased, and so with it the lazy gods’ power began to ebb.
They panicked. They tried their hardest to produce miracles to regain the faith they had lost through their actions but had moved too late, hardly being able to produce the miracles as impressive they only reaffirmed the belief that the gods were dying and losing their merit. Realizing this they began to plot and scheme.
Lying on the lowest layer was Hell, a land long isolated that ignored the affairs of both mortals and gods in favor of their own depraved internal disputes. They saw little value in faith as they so strongly believed in the power of Sin, the birth source of the Devils and Demons’ power that only relied on their own body and actions instead of fickle short-lived mortals. They remained firmly distanced, though this was soon to change.
The gods harbored the secret of the Soul. A mortal soul was a mysterious source of energy that fueled only mortals alone. It was originally thought to be useless as mortal souls were neutral in nature and unfit to be utilized by any but their own, until the gods discovered that such neutrality was as weak and could be easily influenced. The more a soul was nurtured by the gods the more the balance would shift. They would create a person of blind faith would sustain them incrementally over a long period. The real discovery was that of sacrificial consumption. It wasn’t as simple as yanking out the soul, but rather a mutual agreement or the power would be so weak as to be worthless.
The gods would give the mortals a concrete divine power in exchange for their soul, using the strand of concentrated divinity to give the mortal a power of their own to use free of influence. Once given the soul that had been cultivated to the gods’ special form of divinity it would give them a major concentrated power only once. The downside was that the mortal would no longer be able to provide the god with precious divinity. This downside was offset however by the short lives of the believers, making the one-time consumption more fruitful than their entire lives worth of faith.
This process was a closely guarded secret that was then made valueless after the universal decrease in the number of the faithful, reducing those who would accept the gods’ exchange. There was however a faint light of hope in their gloom, and that was Hell.
Hell had no knowledge of these souls and thus dismissed the upper realms. The gods sought to change this. In this situation it may have seemed disadvantageous to the gods in their weakened state to reveal information that could lead their source of power and vitality to be trampled by a force that would retroactively destroy their existence and those of the mortals, but the gods were not kind.
It was thought by the races of the Mortal Realm that the gods were benevolent and omniscient but distant from mortals, but they were no great force of kindness and joy free of ill thoughts. This could not be further from the truth. In the greater scheme of things, they were far more deceitful and self-serving than any of the mortal races, only topped by the denizens of Hell.
The gods knew that Hell was a brutal and grotesque place, and that the “willful agreement” would be trampled on through forcing them. This would decrease the overall strength of the souls and make it pointless to consume them. They devised a scheme to leak the information about Souls, and let Hell run rampant to cause great fear and unrest throughout the mortal realm. They would offer the terrified and helpless peoples their open hands, increasing their faith and weakly driving out Hell so the threat of their reemergence would chain the mortals to them through necessity. The gods believed it to be foolproof, but fate always enjoys a good laugh.
Word was leaked and Hell came, and with it the power of Sin that permeated the air.
Sin was a simple, yet effective power isolated in Hell that strengthened those that used in by giving in to the desires. There were seven cores: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Envy, Pride, and Sloth. With each core of Sin came distinct powers. Lust could control enemies with only words, suck away the vitality of their enemies, and pollute the minds of others to give them favors without their consent. They often lived for very long period as concubines bouncing between powerful person to powerful person. Gluttony could transfer living and nonliving material into raw energy to be used on self enhancement, increasing their ability to consume. Greed was the broadest as its direct power was influenced by what the demon or devil most desired. For example, one ruled by Greed would exhibit increased stealth if their desire was to sneakily take about gold from the coffers of the wealthy, or the ability to walk through walls. Wrath directly increased the physical damage one could do in direct equivalence to how enraged they are but could only be used when something genuinely made them furious. This often-left users of Wrath to seem docile ordinarily with spontaneous bursts of rage, or in a state of constant anger that left them useless outside of combat. Envy took the abilities of others that they wish they could be, making them unpredictable in combat due to their wide range of abilities. Pride believed themselves superior to all other Sins, which is true to an extent. The more prideful one was the stronger they became as all sins were, meaning the most arrogant and powerful only became more arrogant and powerful. Their powers were the ability to dominate others directly making them permanently subservient, control massive swathes of land through their “Prideful Domain” being an area they’ve claimed that decreases the power of others and increases their power, having extreme combat skills and awareness of the battlefield through their “Prideful Domain”. What made this dangerous is that a domain was mostly centered on them. If a demon/devil governed by Pride moved throughout a battlefield they would weaken their enemies, strengthen themselves and their allies, and overall sway the area to their favor. The downside of Pride was that they were few; being that when they lost their pride would take a massive hit thereby making them significantly weaker in every way. Lastly was Sloth. Sloth does nothing, wants nothing, and consumes nothing. They are nothing. The less one governed by Sloth does the more power they have. Their defense is the strongest in all of Hell, but because the strongest ones are the laziest, they cannot be used for wars or other efforts. They taste so revolting eating them makes gluttons wish for death. Dominating them does nothing as it would be akin to sword fighting a stone making the prideful detest and ignore them, gaining not even a feeling of superiority. The lustful might as well be having intercourse with a tree or trying to entice a river, seeing them as a complete waste of effort. The wrathful cannot feel rage at something so pointless. The envious could envy their defensive powers, but don’t for fear of envying their slothful behavior thereby becoming one of the slothful. These are the powers of Sin.
The tempted the then most powerful Hellish Lord with, saying that he could fuel his greed for physical power by directly eating the souls of mortals. This greatly intrigued him, leading to a gathering of his strongest forces for an assault on the mortals. This was the beginning of the madness, and the rising of mortals.
Divinity hung in the air of the Mortal Realm as it always had, and now with the gate from Hell opening Sin began to seep in with it. Sin and Divinity clashed initially as the gods had expected, but they took no efforts to actively use it until there had been a massacre. This was their greatest mistake. Eventually the heated war between the Sin and Divinity in the air cooled, and it slowly began to meld.
The gods at this moment began to panic, blindly attempting to retract their divinity from the Mortal Realm as quickly as possible but it was too late. From the two powers came the explosion of a new power scattered, seeping into the Mortal Plane.
The newly created power was a Neutral power created from the two extremes; it was Mana. In an instant it happened. Magical creatures were born, the natural order was disturbed as it quickly integrated into the Mortal Realm’s soil, and mortals could feel a power tingling through their whole body as it melded with their pulse. It was the beginning of many races as the bodies of those were morphed and changed in strange ways, but most importantly it gave mortals a power of their own. It was a disaster for the gods.
While many were confused and turned to the gods once more, believing that the new power was a gift from them a new group emerged: the “Heretics”. They were skeptical of this new power as they tried to utilize it independently in their own ways, spreading word that the soon to be termed Mana was a power independent that came without worship.
This permanently damaged the gods power, giving the already disinterested mortals, giving them their own way of defending themselves.
The gods rallied their greatest forces, declaring what would be dubbed “The War of Justice” by Heaven, “The War of Deceit” by Hell, and the “The War of the Heavens” by the faithful believers. The “heretics” that would soon become the majority of mortals simply knew this moment of time as “The Independence”. This was the beginning of the 2nd greatest war in the world’s history, second only to one long forgotten by all but one creature. That creature is Omor, the resident Secretary of Hell.
