It’s true that there was once only one world, Fabula, but it was far from a paradise. Filled with monsters of all sorts of shapes and sizes, humans worked hard every day just to survive. As for us gods, we weren’t really much help. Most of us were too busy fighting with each other to even think about humans, though there were exceptions.
These gods were recorded in human history and their tales, no, their legacies live on today. Through the hard work of these gods and the humans that followed them they constructed nations and empires, which dotted Fabula’s landscape. Though they often fought with each other, things were relatively peaceful.
As for the seven of us, we were young gods back then. Too young to have our own nation or fight with the other gods. Even so, we spent our time with humans helping to the best of our ability. Together we looked after a large village called Pompa. Eilos was a different person back then. He was a bright and kind older brother, who truly lived up to his title of the sun god. Out of all of us, he cared for humans the most. When monsters appeared, he was the first one to jump into action, putting his life on the line alongside the human warriors.
There were seven warriors to who he was extremely close, I’d even go as far as to call them friends. No matter how strong the monster they faced it together. If he took to the battlefield they wouldn’t be too far behind. Honestly, he was closer to them than he was with us. They ate together, laughed together, cried together, and shared more scares than anyone could count. So, it was no surprise when he fell in love with one of them and they planned to start a family together.
Even though things were hard, everyone was happy. Eilos was starting a family, we were growing as gods, and the village was flourishing better than we could have imagined. It seemed that as long as we worked together, we could overcome any hardship, and because of that our days seemed peaceful. However, those happy days didn’t last.
A giant piler of black and purple light erupted from the mountains engulfing them. The skies turned dark, and demons poured out of the piler. Before we knew it, the village had burned to the ground, and we were fighting for our lives. Only us and the seven warriors had survived. We were forced to wonder, finding demons wherever we went. The world around us slow broke apart, even the forest we once called home had disappeared into the void.
We made our way to the stronghold city of Troia. The last stronghold and the only glimmer of hope for our world. However, it seemed like anything but. Wounded people littered the streets, some dying and some already dead. Women and children starving and cold.
A little boy, who couldn’t be more than five years old, walked up to us. We could see his ribs, tears, and snot running down his face. Desperately he said,
“Mama, Mama.” As he pointed towards a woman, who was clearly dead and had been for a long time. We thought that after watching our friends and home burn to the ground that we had become numb but seeing this child made our blood run cold. We took him with us and buried the mother the best we could. Sadly, despite our best efforts the child joined his mother a few days later and that was the last straw, we had had enough.
The surviving gods had come together in the castle in the center of the city. It was a meeting to our next move. However, what should have been a strategy meeting was a screaming match. The gods were shouting, blaming each other for the state of things.
“It’s your fault that the north wall was taken, Thor!” Ares shouted.
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“How is it my fault!? I can’t help it if Set fights like a headless goat!” Thor replied as he looked at Set.
“Is that so!? Well, it’s not my fault you and that goat of yours share half a brain cell! I mean who charges at the enemy general with no plan at all!” Set countered and Loki was laughing in the background, which prompted Thor to lung towards him. The next thing we know their fighting on the floor and some of the other gods are egging them on.
Oden, Zeus, and Ra are just shaking their heads in silent disappointment. Eilos was boiling with anger, so much so that he could no longer keep silent.
“EVERYONE SHUT UP!!!!!” Eilos yelled at the top of his lungs.
They looked at him and then straight back to fighting, not ignoring that he was there. It was clear that they were too obsessed with themselves to care about us and humans in the city.
“Let’s go,” Eilos said to us as he left. We saw his face as he walked past us, and it stunned us. Despite all that had happened he always had a kind expression. But the face that we saw was anything but, his kind eyes were dark, and his gentle smile had disappeared. We didn’t realize then that this moment started the change that would come to affect the world and decide our futures as well.
Eilos marched to the platform meant for hangings and faced out into the square. People started to gather around wanting to know what was going on. Eilos cleared his throat and said,
“I’m tired! My home has been burned to the ground. I watched it disappear into the void! My companions and I have fought more demons in the last six months, than monsters in the past sixteen years, and what are the gods doing?” He stops and points towards the meeting place.
“Their fighting among themselves over who to blame for all this. I know whose to blame, and all of you know who's to blame! It’s those damn demons! Instead of fighting each other, we should be fighting them!” As he said that a clocked man stepped forward and laughed.
“Is that so? What are YOU gotta do?” He said as he pulled off his cloak revealing that he was a demon. Before Eilos could reply he charged him with fangs and claws, but Eilos was unphased. Before anyone else could act Eilos took his sword, jumped forward, and sliced the demon apart.
He landed on the ground as the demons turned to ash. He looked towards the people and said,
“I’ll fight. I’m tired of having everything important to be taken away. So, I’ll fight! Who’s with me!”
He raised his sword in the air and the crowd cheered. We rushed to his side, but it took him a moment to react to us. We wanted to ask him what his plan was but couldn’t as he turned to us and gave a hollow smile that left us speechless.
As if the world responded to the people, or maybe out of self-preservation, it created the world system. It gave humans the ability to tap into the boundless potential that was locked away inside them through Classes and Skills, letting them “level up”. For some reason Tear was strongly connected to it, we’ve never really figured out why.
Things moved fast after that. Humans from all over joined our cause and we won battles one after another. Eilos and the seven warriors fought on the front lines like they always did, and our siblings supported them. We reclaimed most of what little land was left, pushing the demons back towards the content that had formed around the plier of light. The other gods had joined in at some point, but most didn’t like that they were led by a “youngster”, often doing as they pleased on the battlefield, but we made it work.
Even though we’d reclaimed land and started to rebuild the demons still outnumbered us and kept growing in population. Eilos was at a loss of what to do, but the seven warriors had a plan. Over the past years, they had grown to be the strongest warriors in the world, surpassing the gods by leaps and bounds. So, when they said they had a plan, we simply followed their lead.
We didn’t know, we couldn’t have known what they were planning. If we had, we would’ve stopped them! By force if necessary!
We made our final stand on the continent of the demons. The warriors had ordered us to retreat to the boats and we did. Once the last of men had boarded, the warriors, who were still on the beach, looked back at us and smiled.
They began to glow, each in a different color, and like beams of light shot into the sky, colliding with each other. Then a rainbow-colored dome comes down trapping the demons inside.
The war was over, we won, but it didn’t feel like a victory.