The Edge of Creation. A vast expanse of darkness where all matter resides. Matter in its purest and most basic form. The building blocks of life, and the energy of all creation. It is found here. The energy and matter that animates life, known as Souls, are created from here. In order to inhabit any form of life, however, they must first be pulled from this place.
To create a soul, one must first have access to the highest form of power: Creation itself. With such power, one would be able to bring about an entire new race of beings, modeled in whichever way the creator of such a race would deem them. Even beings of immense evil.
The stories say that the First Creator had intended that only those worthy of the honor were to receive it. Those exceptional few were to be the only ones to obtain the power of Creation. However, a Great Darkness, called Zeros, sought to take that power for themselves.
The First and Zeros fought each other in a ferocious battle. Zeros for their own ends, and the First to protect order. Those that followed the First, known as Praetorians, sacrificed themselves one after another to protect that Order. Zeros, on the other hand, created shells of terrible beasts, or Monsters, to assist them in causing chaos.
After many eons of fighting, the First had the upper hand over Zeros, and attempted to strike them down personally. The First had been the stronger of the two, but Zeros was very cunning. Legends tell that as the First drew in close to finish off Zeros, they reached out and grabbed a thread of Creation for themselves.
Stolen novel; please report.
Using that thread, the First wavered in their power, and Zeros began to gain the upper hand. Seeing that all they had strove to achieve might end up for naught, the First did the only thing that they could think of: freeing the Power of Creation so that neither would have it. And, as Zeros cried out in sheer rage, the First struck them down.
After the battle was ended, they say that the First vanished, never to be seen again. And those Powers of Creation that they had let loose began to act for themselves. Just as many other races began to populate the realm, Creation also kept on making Monsters.
Most of all, Creation began to shift towards a world of the powerful, and those who fail to obtain power. A system set itself into place after the war had ended. This system was called Empowerment, or rather, the ability for all things to grow more powerful through Power Levels, or just Levels for short.
Over the centuries that passed following the fall of Zeros and the First, tyrants rose up and were cut down by “heroes”. Benevolent rulers rose, built kingdoms and domains, but were overthrown by those who wanted to rule for themselves. And Monsters spread across the realms, only to be pushed back by more “heroes”. And those that perished would only find themselves reborn at a later time.
It wasn’t until Creation brought Dungeons about that some manner of order was finally achieved. Most Monsters would migrate to one such location, making it safer for the races to thrive in this world. And in return, those same races would visit those Dungeons in hopes of growing stronger. And though the world would still overturn in authority and rule, it happened with increasingly less frequency.
And so the cycle continues. It is in this state that we find the world of Tarthia four-thousand years after the war. And it was during that time that a most peculiar creature was born in the depths of a small, low-tiered dungeon: A grey slime…