The Murder of the Universe
The Murder of the Universe was a novel and historical record written by Sin the Heretic in 7 AMU. The novel would be the author's most famous work and was initially critically praised, as the events it describes were witnessed by few and written about by fewer. The book's title would then lend its name to the event itself.
Much of the entire world's understanding of the Murder of the Universe is due to this single book, with very few other literary works contesting Sin the Heretic's claims.
Summary
The Prologue
The prologue dedicates itself to life before the Murder of the Universe, making note of the direct influence the Numen had on Etof. Gods would assume physical forms and interact with the world they created, often for their own amusement. One section of the prologue deals with Sin the Heretic's grave encounter with the god Cardines, whom Sin cites as an inspiration for becoming a writer as well as his shift towards misotheism later in life. The prologue ends with speculations upon Nirhel and the Damen that were imprisoned within.The Yawning of the Portal
This section of the book describes the remote Rex Arcanum, its tower, and its guards of Seekers in great detail. The tower itself, explained by Sin, is the tether between Etof and the Numen plane, which gives the gods physical access to the world. The Seekers, a secretive and exclusive group of exceptional wizards and scholars, are employed by the Numen to guard this tower. This eventually proves futile as a group of seven wizards infiltrate the Rex Arcanum and perform a ritual that opens up a portal directly to Nirhel, unleashing the Damen and their demonic hoard upon the world. Sin the Heretic ends this section admitting that even he does not know the identities or motives of these wizards, and speculates that the wizards themselves were components of the rituals as they were never seen again.The Cataclysm
After the portal opens, demons, fiends, and physical manifestations of the Damen themselves are released. The Rex Arcanum toppled over and crumbled, killing the Seekers trapped inside. The rest of the Seekers attempted to repel the demonic horde to no avail; any Seekers that were not killed outright were later captured and consumed by the fiends. The continent of Middus was then overrun with the Damen and their forces in a manner of days. Reda led the army to the nation of Aroklaw to the east, where the Numen were gathering to prepare for a counterattack. The two armies met halfway across Middus, within the borders of Aroklaw, and had a five-month stalemate. Several minor skirmishes between angels and demons ensued, and Sin the Heretic recounts a shouting match between Für and Reda themselves, with Amma the Spared inbetween. The towns surrounding this several-mile-long battlefield were destroyed in this conflict.Mortal Interference
This section is divided in two parts, where Sin the Heretic informs the reader of Ellery Duskbreaker and the Four Heroes, and how their paths intertwined.Sir Ellery Duskbreaker
This section starts off with Duskbreaker's arrival in the small town of Belvot in the nation of Paspia. Here, the fallen knight felt the tremors resulting from the opening of the portal to Nirhel, and chased the storms that followed it. For two weeks, Duskbreaker ventured from town to town, saving commoners from fiends that were pillaging the countryside. One of these commoners was Sin the Heretic himself, who would follow the knight from afar along his journey. Duskbreaker then gathered an assortment of guards from each of the towns, nearly two dozen in strength, and convinced them to accompany him in battle. A handful of these soldiers fell on the way to the Rex Arcanum, and the rest were killed by a devourer at the crumbled tower. Some of these soldiers were turned into undead creatures that Ellery would have to slay himself. Ellery maimed the devourer, but the demon retreated to the Nirhel before the knight could kill it. Duskbreaker then continued on past the tower for two days until he reached a battlefield where the giant figures of the gods were battling. Here he witnessed Für and Reda parlay and agree to terms where they would settle their current stand-off with a duel between two champions. Reda brought forward the demonic lieutenant Asmodeus while Für elected the Baron of Frost, a war angel that had so far led a successful campaign against the Damen forces in Middus. Sin the Heretic only briefly describes the battle between the two figures. The duel lasts a day, and the Baron emerges victorious with Asmodeus's demise. Before Für could bring Reda to surrender, Ellery, enraged by the sight of his father Xenus in the crowd of Numen, charged the battlefield with Deusbane drawn. The knight leapt at the Baron of Frost and plunged his claymore deep into the war angel's back, killing it. Before Für could step in, Xenus himself challenged Ellery to a duel, to which the knight accepted. In a few short moments, Ellery decapited the god, killing him and stunning the rest of the Numen. Reda retreated with the rest of the Damen while the Numen captured the fleeing Ellery. Here, the knight met his demise as the god Für flayed him alive before swallowing his corpse whole.The Four Heroes
Sin the Heretic Prefaces this section with an acknowledgement of some of his sources, as he was not in the presence of the Four Heroes himself. This section of "Mortal Interference" is much shorter compared to the detailed events of Ellery Duskbreaker's journey as a result of this. The Four Heroes were an unlikely group of seasoned adventurers that were present in Aroklaw during the portal's opening. Their adventure began when they narrowly avoided a confrontation with the Numen who had just begun their campaign against the Damen invaders. They were informed of the portal by Amma the Spared, and they started their journey to the Rex Arcanum. Several demon patrols were made aware of the new champions of the Numen and were dispatched to cut the adventurers off, but the party prevailed consistently. A week of travel and avoiding the army of the Damen passed before they reached the ruined tower of the Rex Arcanum. Here, they encountered the devourer who had been wounded by Ellery Duskbreaker just days prior. The devourer had amassed a sizeable force of undead, crafted from the remains of dead seekers and soldiers. The party endured a long battle with the creature, but ultimately killed the beast and its minions, this time for good. The party found the portal to Nirhel and entered without hesitation, preparing to fight whatever evil waited on the other side.Evacuation: and the Closing of the Portal to Nirhel
Sin the Heretic uses this section to talk of his own experiences in the first person. It begins with the death of Ellery Duskbreaker, where Sin the Heretic vacates the ruined battlefield with survivors of the towns surrounding it. They make their way south over the course of two days, with Sin noting that they rarely took breaks. Arriving at a port town occupied by Aroklaw soldiers, Sin the Heretic was then led to a passenger vessel that would sail the southeastern coast towards the Fellspear Gulf, rumored to be safe from the Damen invasion. Several days passed before arriving, and Sin confirms that the Fellspear Gulf was free from any demonic presence. The ship docked at the port town of Abel and was surrounded by several refugee camps. After Sin used a favor with the mayor of Abel and was able to secure lodging in the town away from the refugee camps, he notes that on the second day of his stay, the sky darkened in an unnatural way, to where sunlight could barely shine. On the morning of the third day, earthquakes rattled the town and large structures began to topple over. By that evening, large waves crashed against the port and destroyed it, and a large storm brewed in the Fellspear. Sin retreated from the town into the wilderness, where he found a shallow cave that overlooked the town. For several days, Sin lived in the cave and survived on rations as the storms ravaged the town, leaving nothing but ruins. Some of Abel's inhabitants were able to evacuate, but much of the population and several refugees were killed in the storms. The storms eventually died, but the sky would remain darkened for several months. Sin attributes the natural disasters to the Nirhel portal's closing, instead of assuming that the Damen got an upper-hand against the Numen. In the end, the Heretic was correct, as the portal to Nirhel closed three days after the Four Heroes entered.Aftermath
Sin the Heretic describes the state of Middus as "nothing short of obscene." The supercontinent was now split up into three separate landmasses: Eldaba to the west, Balswanaland to the east, and Arcnuma in the middle. Middus was cleaved in these portions by the closing of the portal, and the islandic landmass of Arcnuma preserves the land surrounding the ruins of the Rex Arcanum. The coasts of Balswanaland and Eldaba that formerly connected to Arcnuma were stripped of all life, and the few expeditions to Arcnuma in the years following have not returned. He also marks this event as the beginning of the fall of the great empires of Aroklaw and Paspia, and these two would crumble before the book's publishing. Sin the Heretic then ends the book with the assertion that in the years since the Murder of the Universe, the Numen and Damen have been quiet, seeming to have disappeared since the portal shook the world. While Sin speculates that the portal's collapse and the Rex Arcanum's destruction expelled the deities from Etof, he notes that some remnants of their influence remain, such as angels and demons scattered across the world, and the rise of some Damen-influenced political factions in Eldaba.Inconsistencies
Sin the Heretic has received criticism from contemporary scholars for historical inconsistencies in his book, such as:- The Four Heroes: several times throughout the book, Sin the Heretic notes that "Four Heroes" was the name of the adventurers that entered the portal, however historical records indicate that there were more than four heroes present. The consensus now is that as many as ten individuals traveled together from the former nation of Aroklaw to the ruins of the Rex Arcanum. Before his death, Sin continued to defend this section of the book, stating that he pulled together stories told by other witnesses and compounded them across common threads. This section of the book is regarded as the weakest, and many scholars call to question the accuracy of the rest of the book.
- Timeline: Despite the book being the foundation for a new calendar, marking the Murder of the Universe as its metric, Sin the Heretic did not give specific dates of the events. Historians can only deduce the Murder of the Universe began late in winter and settled in the summer. There is also questions regarding the specific date of Ellery Dawnbreaker's death and the amount of time the Four Heroes disappeared in the portal to Nirhel, if they ever arrived at all.
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