It all began as the threat of Armageddon drew near. It was the hubris of man that made him blind to the inevitable. Their world was indeed on the brink of death. When their ingenuity and advanced crafts were defeated by the wrath of nature, only a handful dared to do the unthinkable.

To tamper with the laws of reality? Only the White King was audacious enough to kindle the thought. He knew the secrets of the guardians of the past. Millions were slaughtered to preserve an arcane tome that was not meant to be read by mortal eyes. But it is death itself that brings about desperation in man.

The White King and his followers took upon themselves the mantle of safeguarding mankind. They dived within the great rift and reached the long-forgotten crypt where they would find the arcane tome. The book of creation. The White King looked upon the pages of tome, with time, he understood what he had to do. To restore the unity between man and nature, he had to merge their spirits. But this too would only delay the inevitable. Mankind was bound to perish.

He attempted the impossible, he banished all but a few of his followers from existence with an incantation from the book. To create what was not there he had to remove what was already created.

The White King succeeded. He enabled the awakening within human souls. Every human being would be able to unlock within himself the gift of Gaya, the spirit of the earth.

The laws of birth and being were changed. And thus, the white king and his remaining followers became the very first elementals. Men who could control and create the elements of earth at will. However, the book left the transgressors with a warning. Tampering with fate would not go unpunished. Before closing the book, the White king saw yet a new verse appear:

“Dive not deep to the Dark Divine,

Where fates align and evils combine”

Thereafter, each human being awakened with their own element at an early stage of their lives. Some of them harnessed the strength of the earth. Some were ignited with flames, some mixed with the air, while others bonded with the water. While keeping their physical form intact, they could control the elements at will. This incident was later on named as the awakening. With this newfound power, they were soon able to restore the balance of the world. Hope burned bright once again.

However, It did not take long for mankind to realize that they had indeed become different from one another. With difference, there is division, and with division, there is conflict. As civilization moved forward, with time, humanity acknowledged the necessity of creating realms to avoid warfare. They created borders among themselves.

And thus, the first four realms of fire, water, air, and earth were formed. And at the very center was the ideal state, the crown of human civilization, the city of Euphoria. It stood high and mighty as the symbol of peace, harmony and balance in power between the people of the entire world.

Children born in every realm were brought in Euphoria and raised there. Once they had reached maturity and had awakened their elements, they were taken away to their own respective realms.

The state itself was ruled by scholars who served under the White King. He was given the responsibility to keep the balance of power between the forces of mankind.

Time passed and civilization matured. The fourth White King was Coronated. Within that period of time, in the realm of water, a mother was expecting her new born child. However, this event was nothing but an anomaly. The first human child who found his element at the very moment he became conscious. Before he was even born, he awakened his element and it was the element of fire. Sadly, the woman who bore him did not share his element hence his birth brought about her death. A mere baby with so much elemental intensity that he granted a painless demise to his mother. Instant vaporization, a parting gift from a son to his birth giver.

Soon after that, the child was taken to Euphoria.

The child was unnaturally intelligent and adept in learning. He was rather large in form; his voice was loud and his strength was formidable. But he was no monster, he turned out to be a handsome young boy who was friendly and shared love for all around him. Even though he was mistreated and judged for the incident of his birth, it is often the ones that are treated most cruelly that understand kindness the most. Time revealed that this boy was a vicious fighter, with fast reflexes, unmatched in strength and incomparable in vigor. As for his elemental prowess, he was in a different league entirely. He was sent to the fire realm as he was deemed to be prepared before a decade passed of his birth.

Then began his gradual rise to power. The highest rank a warrior could achieve was known as Arch Elemental. Each realm only had a handful. He became one within the timespan of two years. A teenage warlord… the first of his kind. Apart from all his achievements and all his power, the part about him that captured the hearts of people was that he was humbler than he was mighty, and more kind than he was capable. Soon, he became the favorite of all. Loved and admired by the masses.

With time, he unraveled new possibilities for all in the realm, he proved himself to be one of the greatest scholars the realm had ever known. He studied the element of fire and rigorously trained to discover new capabilities. He established the hierarchy of the flame, and mastered the glorious blue fire. The knowledge of which he shared with all his comrades.

It was difficult to envy him as he had won the hearts of all by helping all around him grow, by serving everyone relentlessly… the quality of a true leader. The king of the realm was well informed of the young man. Recognized as a true treasure of the kingdom, he was brought to the royal palace to be the personal solar guard of the king. Few had the honor, to wear the armor forged with metal of the suns that fell from the sky.

And soon, the inevitable happened he became the leader of the solar guards. This granted him access to the arcane libraries of the palace. Where he unlocked the doors to a new capability. The ‘’Flash of Shadows.’’ A teleportation technique that was linked to the prime properties of fire. Fire created both light and shadow. As all creation is linked to the creator, so was shadow linked to the fire. Each shadow created by the flare of light formed by fire could call upon the very source, the elemental, and transport him or her to any position the shadow has touched. This extremely advanced technique was adversely difficult to master. But he did it and taught the ones who could master it. It was obvious that none but the arch elementals who had a clear understanding of their element could do it. This was one of his combat arts that brought revolutionary changes in the realm.

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Soon, the prince who was chosen beforehand to rule the realm in the future became strong enough to become one of the solar guards. A relationship born from rivalry is often bred towards kinship. The boy’s closest friend was the prince. They spent the prime of their lives as close as brothers.

Life often brings moments that test our mettle. And so, it tested the prince as well. The death of the king, the sun of the realm, demanded a new one. During the coronation ceremony the prince took the crown and said, ‘’ The sun is the source of all light, and everything that was good, and therefore I must be just. Tradition serves to protect what is right, but today it is time to break tradition, as it has become unjust. I reveal to you that I was born of the king, the one who wielded fire amongst his other children. The crown should carry the legacy of the able, and not of the blood. And therefore, my beloved friend I crown you to be the new King! “The King of Light”.

The royal court dived into silence. Novelty and change were always unsettling, yet it had to be welcomed by all with time. And from then on, the fire realm started off in a new journey lead by the King of Light.

The new king devoted his life to the improvement of the fire realm and the wellbeing of mankind as a whole. His contribution and efforts were noticed by the White King before long. They often met and shared their views and they found that they both had the common goal in their hearts, “The prosperity of mankind.” The fire realm flourished and soon became the most powerful and advanced amongst the four. Peace truly did reign supreme and humanity was looking forward to a great and glorious future.

To the King of Light, progress had no limits. He worked and searched tirelessly for new and better ways to improve his nation and people. He tried to find even stronger forms of flame. He had a hunch that the blue flames were not the limit. Looking into the ancient records, he found stories of the long-forgotten religion and tales of the old divine. And with the tales of the divine also came the tales of the first damned. Ignorant of the difference between good and evil, the king delved deeper and deeper into the unknown for the attainment of power. He found two primal forms of flame. One that could not be achieved by mortal souls. But what of the other? The flames that were far away from the circle of the divine?

He was adamant in his resolve to get one step further at any cost. The ones around him could see that slowly he was losing composure. He started to take decisions that were, not suited for the light, rather they served the will of the dark. With the deterioration of his mental state his kingdom started to become more and more… malicious. Perhaps the will of the king truly is the will of the state. The people had so much faith in him and his actions that they did not flinch in upholding his nature as well. Civil war seemed imminent, then something different, something unexpected happened. All the involved parties grew hungry for power and domination and in this common will of ambition, they united as an allied army of conquest. Raids and border battles became a common occurrence.

This went on for years until the conspiracies, acts of oppression and torture brought about rebellion. The other three realms started to build resistance. And then the inevitable happened, after centuries, mankind was once again plunged into war.

The king smiled in his throne. He knew it was far too late to stop him and his forces. He ignored the advice and the commands of the White king as he now believed that the true purpose of mankind cannot be found through peace, but only through war… He was too sure that his armies could not be defeated and he was more than capable of manipulating the actions of the other realms to his own benefit. If kings were the symbols of power, and if power had a corrupting nature, then he truly was the king of kings.

The battles went on for years. Balance became but a distant memory. Peace became the thing of the past and bloodshed became as common as day. The shroud eventually lifted, the other three realms soon realized that if this went on, the fire realm would become unstoppable. After the long-lasting decade of mindless toil, they formed an alliance. They called it the “Triad of Resistance.” The only purpose of this united trio was to annihilate the fire realm and restore balance in the world as they knew it.

Before a full-on united attack, they called the king of light for one last hope of peace in this endless spree of bloodshed. The King of Light Accepted. The conference was called in Euphoria in the castle of the White King. The three rulers along with the White king were waiting for the arrival of the King of Light. Finally, he arrived with his teleportation technique in a flash of fire, standing on the middle round table, naked with a body trained to perfection. They rebuked him and said that he had lost his mind and an insane man had no right to be king.

“Insane, is that what you call me oh my mighty little kings, I have come to show you the honor of truth, naked and uncovered. At the end of the day man is a beast without the pathetic shrouds of deception and formality, he is nothing but a sly little beast. I thought you would be able to understand me, but your accusation of my insanity and failure in the battlefield proves you are weak and incapable. In my dominion you see, weakness is a sin and no sin will go unpunished!” said the king.

The conference roared with anger, the three rulers challenged him in open combat and wanted to save humanity then and there. The king smiled and said,

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, punishment first, redemption later, and what is punishment without pain? And what is pain without a little heartburn?” saying that he disappeared and returned in moments with blood smeared in his mouth, face and body.

He giggled after he uttered, “Disgusting, yet satisfying.”

“What did you do !?!” asked the White King.

‘’Your children, none of them screamed much, I guess they didn’t have the time to… before I gouged on each and every one of their tiny beating hearts’’

The Rulers charged him with their blades as with terrified eyes their children were still falling to the ground not knowing what horror had been brought to them. They attacked him in vain, he evaded them all with ease and disappeared after saying,

“You mistake me of being one of light, but you should understand that I am simply of blood, like all the rest.”

From then on, he was the King of Light no more, he was named the King of Blood.

The final battle began. At first, the fight was on the side of the triad of resistance. The three realms were superior in number. They overwhelmed the fire realm with their sheer mass of forces. It seemed that victory was close at hand. But alas, the King of Blood chose otherwise, the invincible warrior leaped into the battlefield himself… The tides of war shifted within a moment. As this time, his flames were not noble, not even natural… they were as dark as the horrendous thought of death. Water, the counter element of fire evaporated before it could get close to the merciless fires. Air lost its force and earth never could truly affect the flames of such fury. His victims died before they could even get the chance to pray… The battlefield was ravaged by his evil flames, the explosions of unforetold doom ravaged the land.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. The White King understood that his friend was lost and the monster that was born had to be defeated. Regardless of the warnings, desperate to end the bloodshed, he took matters into his own hands. He opened the arcane tome... the forbidden book of creation yet again. He taught the rulers of water the secret to showering the tears of the heavens. Then after a daylong incantation, the spell was cast... The skies screamed with pain and mankind first beheld the miracle of rain… The soldiers of flame became powerless. The flames they summoned were extinguished by the showers of the sky. The water elementals became immensely strong. Their currents were ever faster, and their force seemed inexhaustible. But with rain, came thunder and magnificently deadly lights illuminated the sky. A few children started to spark with the power of lightning. And thus, a new element was born.

Before the King of Blood could be hunted and killed, mankind had a new threat to deal with. The rain did not stop. The sea rose higher and higher. Before long, the great flood came upon man and eventually the old world met its end.