In the beginning, there were two: Father Time and The Cosmic Mother…

Combining their Divine Powers, these elder beings brought forth the Multiverse, an interconnecting series of environments, each presided over by a Primary Element.

This established order across the multiverse, and with order came stability to the myriad realms. In their infinite wisdom and power, the elders then created life: 12 Daughters to rule and govern each Macrocosm.

Ignorant to defiance, the 12 Daughters resigned to watch over these worlds without protest for their entire existence.

For years, the Multiverse maintained harmony. Yet it became stagnant.

Something was missing…

Weary of the lack of entropy, the two elders—Space and Time—created a son: an enigma.

His name was Ether.

Ether was granted dominion not only over a 13th Universe but also, command of the 12 Primary Elements of the Multiverse.

Despite the vast reaches of Ether’s power, he spent many centuries focused on building a singular planet: Chao.

However, this fixation came with its penalties. Now established as a lush and flourishing planet, Chao resonated with an emptiness reminiscent of the initial void that came before.

Feeling the same emptiness as his parents before him, Ether longed for the shape of complex life on Chao, and thus he brought forth the Elder Races into being.

Fearing he would be unable to govern the burgeoning population of Chao, Ether enacted the same self-splitting magic as his parents before him, he fragmented his soul into 12 reflections to be known as the Lords of Creation—the watchful eyes of Chao and its citizens.

As the Elder Races turned into their first century, Academia soon exploded as scholars from every race congregated to compile their studies. Secrets of the elements came to light, revealing how one could even come to bend them to their will. Elder Texts were penned, and soon, magic was born.

For a time, peace and prosperity reigned, but this solace was to be short-lived...

Having splintered his vessel before reaching elemental maturity, Ether began to experience madness. He developed multiple personalities, a war waged within his mind.

Unable to bear his torment, Ether reached into his soul to find the source of his insanity. He latched onto two anomalous slivers of his vessel and pulled with all his might to remove them from his core. The beings, freed from their prison, manifested their manas and took solid form.

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A blinding entity shrouded in pure white and a creature steeped in the void of eternal black stepped forth. Towering over their weakened progenitor, they stared down in disdain. Aether and Cyton had been born.

Reeling, Ether collapsed as Aether and Cyton set their sights on Chao. Ether could only look on as his anguish given form descended onto his creation.

Obsessed in her purity, Aether converted the Elder Races into her Aetherians, devoiding them of color, thought, and free will. A totalitarian ruler, Aether commanded her soldiers from inside the pocket dimension that shares her namesake, converting those who could not fight back and killing those who tried.

On the other hand, Cyton consumed anything that stood before him—regardless of its intentions, hostility, or composition. In his endless greed and hunger, the mindless, hive-mind Cytonians were formed. A pitch-black race that moved through the shadows with a singular creed: Consume.

War raged for 100 years, ravaging the land that once prospered in harmony until the last original denizens of Chao succumbed to the destruction.

While locked in a stalemate, Aether and Cyton were separately visited by a mysterious being who bestowed each of them a gift.

"Attune your soul to this stone. Should you one day face destruction, your spirit will still live on within."

Promised as a ward of protection, the Soulstones were given to the two warlords, a White Soulstone fitting of Aether's purity, and a Black Soulstone to match the void of Cyton.

Thinking they now had the upper hand, Aether and Cyton set out to destroy each other once and for all.

With Ether’s creations either destroyed or assimilated and the world he had spent his entire life created in utter disarray, he was consumed by unyielding rage and vowed to destroy the two who undid everything he had worked to create.

Vigor flowing through his veins, Ether set his eyes on his first target, Cyton the Devourer.

Try as he might, Cyton could not escape his pursuer. As he was born from Ether’s mana, the two were inexorably linked, revealing his every move.

With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, the fight between Ether and Cyton was brief and intense.

Unable to devour the source of his creation, Cyton's abilities were completely nullified against a merciless Ether. Blow after blow connected with Cyton’s mass, the resounding shockwaves turned the immediate landscape into ash along with his army.

Aether sensed her brother's death, commanding her subjects to hold down her fortress while she fled into her pocket dimension.

In her panic, she did not account for Ether's ferocity as he tore through the creatures he once loved with ease.

Opening her dimensional gate to step in, Aether stopped abruptly, only to find Ether's power striking her core. Reeling from the pain and soon descending into the vast white, she pulled Ether close and whispered:

"Next Time."

Before she plunged into the nothingness of the Aether.

With their conditions fulfilled, the Black and White Soulstones activated, spawning Tetra and Delphius, both tasked with a singular goal:

Kill Ether...

Battered and on the last of his power, Ether wandered the broken landscape of Chao and he wept over the destruction of all he once held dear.

Sensing Ether's weakness, Tetra and Delphius saw their opportunity to put the wretch out of his misery and struck the deity down before swearing death to one another in the years to come.

As Ether lay dying, he called the Lords to his side and siphoned their power to create a new vessel to carry on in his stead.

Charged with protecting what remained of Chao, this being was given the name Chaos.

Thus began the First Great war...