Some blamed the world's ending on infernal machinations. Others blamed it on the divine powers for failing humanity. Others still blamed humanity itself, citing the myriad crimes and atrocities committed since the dawn of civilization. The truth, as with most catastrophes, was more complex—the apocalypse arose from the convergence of all these factors.
First Phase: Divine Genesis
Before humanity conceived the divine, they lived and thrived in natural harmony. As consciousness evolved, they began to perceive forces beyond themselves—beings of tremendous power who demanded acknowledgment through prayer, offerings, and sometimes sacrifice. Among these entities emerged a singular power: the embodiment of ultimate destruction and rebirth.
This entity inspired the first inklings of fear among the divine pantheon. Those who abused their power or tormented humanity found themselves judged unworthy and unmade, only to be reborn as mortals with no memory of their former glory. Yet despite this fearsome aspect, he preferred peace, and many divine beings learned to coexist with him.
In time, having observed humanity's capacity for creation, this entity wondered if his powers of rebirth could be channeled toward genesis rather than merely restoration. From cosmic dust and pure will, he crafted five sons—each impossibly beautiful, gifted with flight through manifested wings, and named for fundamental forces of creation: illuminating fire, sustaining air, renewing water, nurturing earth, and binding spirit. Though shaped in human form, their nature transcended mortality.
Second Phase: The Usurpers
Ages of relative harmony passed in the divine realm, though Earth below remained in constant turmoil as humans warred, conquered, and suffered. While gods occasionally quarreled among themselves, these conflicts remained contained, never threatening the fabric of their existence. But eventually, unchecked ambition took root in mortal hearts far below the peaceful heavens. A warlord who had learned of fallen divinities questioned mortality's constraints. Through conquest and bloodshed, he gathered power by sacrificing thousands, absorbing the essence of the fallen to fuel his ascension. His armies swept across regions, leaving devastation in their wake, each massacre carefully orchestrated to maximize the harvest of life essence rather than merely secure territory.
He found kindred spirits in four others who shared his quest for transcendence, each mastering different methods of power acquisition. A high priest rose through religious hierarchies, establishing mystery cults across multiple regions. His followers believed their sacrifices pleased ancient gods, never suspecting that the elaborate rituals were designed specifically to funnel life energy directly to the priest himself. The high priest maintained a veneer of benevolence while secretly consuming the very devotion his followers offered.
A scholar of forbidden knowledge devoted decades to recovering and translating texts from civilizations long forgotten. Through patient experimentation, he discovered methods to extract life essence from the dying and store it in specially prepared vessels. His reputation as a healer allowed him access to the deathbeds of the wealthy and powerful, where instead of easing their passing, he captured their departing essence for his own use.
A silver-tongued courtier mastered the art of political manipulation, becoming indispensable to rulers across multiple kingdoms. Moving between courts, he positioned himself as a trusted advisor before systematically betraying those who welcomed him. Each carefully engineered political collapse allowed him to harvest the essence of those who fell from power, their deaths appearing as mere consequences of political machination rather than deliberate harvesting.
A merchant prince built a trading empire spanning continents, introducing innovative contracts with terms so complex that few noticed the metaphysical clauses hidden within. Those who signed bound not just their goods but unwittingly their souls upon death. He accumulated thousands of such contracts, each representing a future harvest of essence to be collected when the signatory died of seemingly natural causes.
As the warlord's empire faced collapse under the weight of resistance to his brutality, these five conspirators enacted their final scheme. They consumed lethal poison in calculated unison, their souls—now vessels of accumulated power—ascending beyond normal channels of death.
They breached the divine realm through sheer concentrated will, bringing unprecedented violence to these higher planes. Some divine beings fell easily, while others fought fiercely against these unexpected invaders who healed from grievous wounds with unnatural speed. The entity of destruction and rebirth arrived with his five sons to defend their realm, but even their combined might faced a challenge unlike any before.
Through a moment of grim fortune, the usurpers dealt the entity a fatal wound. Sensing opportunity, they surrounded him, draining his power and casting aside what remained. His sons, witnessing their creator's fall, fought with renewed fury but found themselves overwhelmed by the usurpers now empowered with stolen divinity. Rather than destroying them completely, the warlord—now ascended beyond mortality—ordered the sons captured for study and potential use, while their creator's form was cast from the heavens.
The remaining divine beings, recognizing they could not prevail, retreated to distant corners of existence. As centuries passed, humanity's memory of these original powers faded into legend and myth.
Third Phase: False Divinity
The five usurpers divided the world between them, each claiming to be the singular true divine power. For centuries this arrangement held, until inevitable conflict erupted among them. Their battles left two dead, their essence absorbed by the survivors who, fearing mutual destruction, established a wary truce.
The warlord, chief among them, became particularly fascinated with the captured son of fire. Using him as a template, he created his first and most cherished servant—a being of radiance. Other servants followed based on the remaining captive sons, and as the warlord's creativity expanded, increasingly diverse beings populated his realm.
After centuries of mistreatment, the son of fire—who had come to be known among mortals as the Lightbringer—reached his breaking point. Gathering his brothers, they launched a surprise assault against their captor. Though they inflicted significant damage, even their combined strength proved insufficient. One by one, they were defeated and cast out of the divine realm. The Lightbringer fell last, sentenced to oversee a realm of darkness and punishment in the world below.
Fourth Phase: Gathering Storm
Human civilization advanced with increasing velocity. Empires rose and fell, achievements in art and science multiplied, but so too did bloodshed and environmental devastation. As humanity hurtled toward self-destruction, the usurper gods found their stolen power gradually diminishing, unable to maintain control over an increasingly complex world.
After centuries of planning in his dark realm, the Lightbringer amassed forces and power beyond what the waning usurpers could imagine. When his strength reached its peak, he broke free from his prison—an act believed impossible—and led an army of beings forged in darkness against the false divine realm.
The sky itself seemed to bleed as these forces clashed. The Lightbringer fought his way to the warlord, now weakened but still formidable in his desperation. Their confrontation shook the foundations of reality, but this time the Lightbringer prevailed, consuming his enemy's essence to ensure no possibility of return.
In the aftermath, the Lightbringer surveyed the mortal world, curious if humanity would notice the fall of their false god.
They did not.
Fifth Phase: Cosmic Collapse
The Lightbringer returned to his realm below, sealing its boundaries and releasing both condemned souls and his army from service. For a millennium, he observed humanity's continuing decline, accompanied only by his most loyal followers. Though possessing great power, even he could not redirect humanity's course alone.
Meanwhile, the divine realm—sustained by the collective power and belief of its inhabitants—began to destabilize. The remaining original divine beings felt the tremors of impending collapse and recognized their era ending. Some attempted to reinforce the failing realm with their remaining strength, but their efforts proved futile.
Fear and desperation sparked conflict. The divine beings turned against one another, dragging their servants into an escalating battle that hastened the realm's deterioration. Each divine death further weakened the fabric of their world until only one remained—a goddess who, seeing the inevitable, chose her end with dignity. She offered a final prayer to the cosmos that they might one day be reborn with greater wisdom, then fell upon her own blade.
As this divine realm shattered, massive waves of energy rippled through reality. On Earth, sensitive individuals reported strange dreams and visions. Weather patterns grew increasingly erratic—unprecedented storms, temperature fluctuations, and seismic disturbances baffled scientists worldwide. Tectonic activity intensified in patterns that defied geological understanding.
The Lightbringer, perceiving these warning signs, reached out to his few remaining mortal followers through warning dreams, urging them to seek out refuge in the mountains and underground where he knew there were shelters. Meanwhile, humanity had developed space vessels intended for cosmic exploration. As earthquakes increased in frequency and severity, some nations recognized the approaching cataclysm and repurposed these ships as arks for preservation.
Weeks before the first supervolcano eruption, millions boarded these vessels. As the Ring of Fire awakened in catastrophic sequence, many arks launched successfully while others, guided by the Lightbringer's followers, descended into prepared underground sanctuaries. Countless others perished in the rapidly deteriorating conditions as volcanic ash choked the skies and poisoned the air.
A century of darkness followed before the surface became habitable again. When humanity finally emerged, they had grown physically diminished but retained their essential spirit.
Final Phase: Cosmic Renewal
Understanding humanity would need guidance in this rebirth, the Lightbringer reached beyond conventional boundaries. Having learned greater cosmic truths during his imprisonment, he appealed directly to forces that transcended even the divine—the primordial currents of existence that flowed through all reality.
His call reached the primordial forces of Light and Dark, who responded by creating localized avatars within the Solar System. These avatars constructed the
Aetheric Veil—a metaphysical structure encompassing Terra (having long since been renamed from Earth) and its neighboring worlds—before granting humans access to filtered
cosmic energy. Humans would later name this force "
arcana." Shortly after, humanity's psychic potential was amplified, resulting in individuals with genuine metaphysical abilities.
This new world, though scarred by past conflicts, contained the seeds of potential beyond anything the false gods had permitted. Through catastrophe came rebirth—not as the entity of destruction had once envisioned, but perhaps as he would have approved.
