Before swords split the sky...
Before war cries shook the bones of mountains...
Before men whispered to fire and made beasts kneel—
There were the Celestials.
They did not arrive.
They were simply there.
Like the sun, like the stars, like the turning of time.
Unquestioned. Unchallenged. Unknowable.
No one remembered their beginning.
No one dared ask.
They were not gods in the stories people told—
They were the stories.
Living myths. Walking forces of nature.
Where they stood, mountains bent.
Where they spoke, the winds stilled.
Where they passed, the earth remembered.
And so, humanity bowed.
Not out of faith.
Not even fear.
But something deeper—instinct.
As if the bones of every living thing still carried a memory too old to name.
A whisper that pulsed in the marrow:
Worship.
But the world—
The world did not bow.
Not truly.
It obeyed, yes.
It yielded, yes.
But beneath the surface, something ancient stirred.
The world had no eyes, no mouth.
But it had will.
And in that will—there was resentment.
A silent fury.
A desire not to serve, not to follow, not to kneel.
And in time, that buried will took shape.
Not with form or thought,
But as a fragment of defiance.
A Seed.
A speck of rebellion.
Born not from evil—
But from refusal.
It was small, at first.
Invisible.
A darkness beneath the roots of the world.
A whisper in the cracks of stone.
A hunger with no name.
But fear is a powerful thing.
And humanity, for all its reverence, feared the Celestials.
They feared the fire. The silence. The weight of divine eyes.
And that fear fed the Seed.
Not love. Not hate.
Just raw, trembling fear.
The Seed grew.
It fed on dread.
On nightmares.
On the quiet wish that maybe, just maybe, the gods would fall.
And one day—
It woke.
The first signs were subtle.
Creatures twisted into shapes not meant to exist.
Stars dimming before their time.
A chill in the air that clung to the soul.
Then came the tearing of light.
The cracking of sky.
And the birth of monsters not even the Celestials had words for.
The Seed did not rise like a god.
It rose like a plague.
A storm without wind.
A scream that bled into reality.
And the Celestials—
For all their presence,
All their power—
Had never faced an enemy.
They commanded, they shaped, they decreed.
But they did not fight.
Because nothing had ever told them "no."
Until the Seed did.
One by one, the mighty fell.
Celestial forms—pure, radiant, invincible—
Burned.
Shattered.
Devoured.
The world watched its gods die.
Until only seven remained.
Those seven, standing at the edge of existence, understood the truth:
The Seed could not be slain.
It was not a creature.
Not a foe.
It was a truth too terrible to erase.
So they made a pact.
A final act.
Not of war—
But of sacrifice.
Four would give their essence, their everything, to seal the Seed.
Not in a cage—
But in a wound across reality itself.
A scar that would never heal.
A prison etched into the bones of the world.
Thalrien, Celestial of Flame—
Turned his body into embers, igniting the path of the Swordmasters.
A legacy of discipline and fire.
Vaelra, Celestial of Flow—
Dissolved her spirit into the currents of life, birthing the Mages.
Bearers of chaos shaped by wisdom.
Gorun, Celestial of Beasts—
Tore open his soul and scattered it across the wilds, creating Beast Tamers.
Those who walk beside what others fear.
Shen'Lo, Celestial of Will—
Fractured his mind into ten thousand pieces, planting them into humanity.
From that shattering, Martial Artists arose.
From their deaths, humanity inherited power—
And a warning:
"Use what we left you.
But never let the Seed rise again."
The Fifth
The Seed was bound, but not buried.
And even the strongest seal must be watched.
One among the seven did not die.
Xal'Zereth, the Boundary Eternal, stepped forward.
"Let me be the wall," he said.
"Let me be the watcher who never wakes."
He gave no blood.
No final cry.
Instead, he became the seal.
Not just a guardian—but the gate itself.
His body stretched across dimensions.
His mind woven into time.
His thoughts slowed into a dream so deep, waking would break the world.
A dreamer who must never wake.
The Final Two
No one knows what happened to them.
They did not fall in battle.
They left no remains.
Some say they were consumed.
Others say they abandoned the pact.
Watched. Waited.
Or worse—chose another side.
The truth is lost.
Or waiting.
Ages passed.
The Seal became legend.
The Celestials, myth.
And the Four Paths spread like wildfire.
Mages. Swordmasters. Beast Tamers. Martial Artists.
All wielding fragments of divine power.
All growing stronger.
But none of them remembered the price.
Now, the earth groans.
Beasts stir with eyes older than time.
Storms whisper in forgotten tongues.
And far below, in the deepest layer of existence—
Xal'Zereth stirs.
Not from duty.
But doubt.
"If the Seed was born of the world's will...
Was I sealing evil?
Or burying the truth?"
A boy awakens.
In a world ruled by the memory of gods.
Where swords carve through sky.
Where fists split rivers.
Where shadows ride beasts.
And mages burn constellations with a single breath.
He has no name.
No bloodline.
No fate.
Only a whisper, etched into his soul:
"You are not ready to choose.
But when the sky splits—
You must."
And in the dark,
The Seed listens.
And dreams.