In the beginning, before the era of great kingdoms and nations, a time preceding the great civilizations, the planet was young and unformed. Plagued by barren rocks and a grey sky that covered the surface with pure greyness where nothing was absolute.

It was a place where nothing could happen, populated by beings of uniform and unchanging nature, the soulless wandered the planet following the crossroads of fate like puppets on a string, with no higher purpose other than to exist, they used force, they moved along, they manipulated magic, and they were immortal.

But they lacked reasoning, and the ability to learn and retain information, they simply lived every day as if it was the first, nothing could change, no conflicts nor peace could be achieved, perpetual stagnation that no one cared or even could change, a place where time didn't pass.

 

But then, there was water.

 

As vast as an ocean, covered by the shroud of the ashen sky, it looked no different than the earth itself to them, all except for one who noticed the last drop of water creating tiny ripples into the water, a disturbance, change, a difference which only it noticed.

And so, without a real reason, it began to drink, open-eyed and in complete shock, it felt relieved? satisfied? in a world where emotions didn't exist it simply indulged in the sensation and continued his action. It drank and drank to satisfy its desires, the memories of how the water tasted, the sense of fulfillment, a sense of possession, and finally, the ability to reason.

Intelligence was born alongside the first being with a soul.

 

With the new memories that he could create, the new form of power of magic provided by the ability to learn, and even more, the emotions that could be felt, he could fight his instincts and manipulate the strings that were attached to his soulless body and manipulate fate. and so he began to change.

His emotion swelled when he experienced new things, he learned and created a way to convey information, a language was created, and he manipulated his environments to accommodate him. Pride was felt when he looked back at his work, Wisdom was acquired when he understood the world around him so on and so forth, he began to simply experience every emotion with great interest.

But emotions and feelings give way to weakness.

Loneliness, the inability to share memories with anything, was too great of a burden to tolerate, and not long after the anguish from the incompetence of the soulless, Sloth came from his immense power and the futility of his acts to guide the soulless, and finally, Hope for change once again surged in his heart, and so he split his soul into two equals and gave it to a soulless to create a new being like him.

His daughter, bestowed upon her half the soul of the lord and the first name in history, Katrina.

 

New emotions were discovered through the course of time, one could compare the state after becoming aware as being reborn, an infant so to speak, Katrina and her father became aware of emotions that could only be shown to other people, and Katrina herself became fascinated by the myriad of knowledge that could be obtained while her father simply decided to no longer change the world, since he was satisfied with the status quo.

But the situation changed, with two beings able to manipulate the crossroads of fate to their whim, it was inevitable that the crossroads that they carved would eventually oppose each other. Conflict and the peace thereafter continued to happen, escalating in intensity, a person who fought for the status quo to be preserved and another who believed that constant change would be better and necessary.

Katrina had yearned to continue changing the world to be a more interesting place, but she was stumped, no matter what she did the world would eventually stagnate, it was as of the universe itself had the will to be balanced. But after an insurmountable amount of time, she thought of a way that could work for her.

To acquire more power.

A necessary thing that would be needed, magic was simply not enough to subdue an opponent of equal strength, so Karina change her tactics and improve upon them, not only did she ambush her father while disguising it as a hug, she also created a trump card that could at the very least reap the soul power out of her father.

A black scythe, the first weapon in history.

A simple slash, a wound was opened and the scythe did the work it was meant to do, but it failed midway through, her father's soul cascaded through his blood and splashed into the surface, her face surged with anger at her father's method to keep his soul away from her, yet he still did not move to hurt her fatally.

She felt mocked.

She did not pay any attention to the events caused by the huge amount of soul that was smeared on the surface and slashed again, and again, and again until she finally got to hit him again. This time her father was denied of his existence, his body got pulverized but his soul remained, and like a rain of blood, it landed on the surface.

Katrina did not overlook the fact, the soulless became aware of their existence by accidentally drinking the bloody rain, she was amazed at the amount of chaos that it brought and the changes that happened that she overlooked what her first slash that caused half of her father blood to be a spill caused.

Someone became aware with that soul, she became an entity that was more powerful than her new bredren, but still significantly weaker than Katrina, she named herself while frightened, as she presenced Katrina commit the first murder in history, Enid became afraid of her own existence simply stopping, she became aware of her surrounding and pledged to try and stop Katrina.

She of course had the naivety of a mere child since her age was but a fraction of Katrina's and yet, she struggled against the stronger opponent in her own ways, disrupting the harmful changes that Katrina so that they instead benefited her brethren.

When Katrina put the sun on the sky to illuminate to see her work, Enid made the planet spin so it could be cooled down.

When Katrina created the oceans, she made airflow to make rain possible on the planet.

When Katrina started to make chaos and despair, Enid made it possible to establish order and hope.

These actions did not go unnoticed by Katrina, who noticed Enid after a long time of her being the most powerful being in existence.

 

With the shadow of the end coming to her, Enid steeled herself to do her specialty, struggling to the bitter end against the force of nature that changed things as she pleased without a care as to the consequences that these actions brought. at the moment of their meeting, the tense atmosphere was felt on the entire planet, a moment where the universe stood still.

Opened-eyed, surprised, confused, and over everything, flustered. That's how Enid felt after the longest seconds of her entire existence. Katrina against all expectations confessed her brimming love for her and her wish to simply bond with her.

Katrina was simply joyful at meeting the existence that simply shared her interest, an existence that even if accidentally made her see what she was doing wrong the whole time. She changed the planet at her whims, but these changes never endured and only became the status quo, becoming stagnate, the bane of her existence.

Yet Enid made everything clear, her own changes made the planet move without input, it became a theatrical interpretation where the actors only had the ' possibility of change ' and they choose it every time, where despair and hope both could be achieved, where change was constant and most of all, it was completely random but manageable by those who truly wielded their fate as a sword.

She couldn't help but fall in love, a fervent passion that was somehow different but similar to how she felt about her father in her childhood, Enid accepted the bond over a single emotion of love, an oath made to simply gave themselves to each other, many first where made there, the first marriage, the first gift in history a lemon tree.

That day, the greyish was cleared completely, the sun made the surface no longer covered in the ambiguity of grey, instead, it was full of the decisiveness of light and dark. The power of the Lovers was expelled, their own will intertwined with it, Their wills complemented each other perfectly.

When the will of Enid gifted the ability to swim, Katrina made the possibility to drown.

The ability to learn in exchange for the possibility to forget.

The ability to love in exchange for the possibility to hate.

The possibility to live with the ability to die.

And so the world flourished...

 

---

"Hey Gabriel don't doze off"

"I'm not dozing off"

"Yeah yeah keep lying to yourself, anyone would if they read that book! just give it up already!"

On the carriage, I was suddenly pulled to reality by my best friend, apparently, he was thinking that I was dozing off while reading, although it is my fault for having that habit it doesn't mean that would sleep in a carriage anyway.

I was reading [The book of Omnia] a simple collection of 'fairytales' in apparently chronological order, so the first chapter of the history talks about the myth of how the world came to be, it is frankly ridiculous and even a bit stupid but it's probably meant to be looked that way, the amount of symbolism engraved in the story itself could be counted to around more than one per paragraph.

"I thought that you would think better of me, I wouldn't doze off while going to the royal capital"

I say while looking at the person in front of me, Michael Kardos, the 19-year-old man and successor of the archduke of Kardos, a person like him who technically speaking had his life realized before he is my best friend, I'm only the simple son a lowly baron who he coincidentally met on an exhibition match.

Michael, as the son of the current Archduke, Agnar Kardos, the house of Kardos itself is renown for their military prowess and swordsmanship, so their successor was of course gifted in his own swordsmanship, being cut above the rest of the people was only natural for someone of his bloodline.

Yet he became my rival simply because I accidentally surprised him in the match and beat him, since then, he is simply attached to me and dueling me constantly. It was a backward friendship at first but now that we are friends his antics became a bit more toned down, but even then.

"Who cares about that? the place where we are going doesn't matter!"

"The king literally called us for our prowess on the sword, and you dare to say ' who cares? ' "

"Yes"

Micheal said with complete confidence. I sighed while thinking about how he can tone down his ego, after a bit of thinking I simply shrugged and left the topic at that, it wasn't a big problem at the moment, Micheal wasn't a little kid anymore so if his ego gets him in problems then he should help himself or at least be able to swallow his pride and call for help.

' Although he still loses to me on training doesn't he? '

I thought, it was something that we didin0t talk about since the pledge of honor was very clear on how we should only acknowledge the strength of our opponents, so we only really said ' good match ' and left it at that.

' I'm I much stronger than him? '

After that, I snorted reflexively at that thought.

' As if the son of the [Sword God] would be that weak '

It seems my own ego was growing, that's not becoming of the [Hero].