They were the Creator’s most favored beings. Their faces shone with daylight. Their forms were carved-beautiful. Their thoughts rang sacred. Their strength stood unmatched.

They already held every good thing under Heaven. So they would guard this world forever, right? The Creator felt at ease, thinking so.

He forgot one gift He’d tucked into His youngest—dissatisfaction. It was meant to drive the imperfect to self-reflection, to climb higher.

But for those already “perfect,” if mortal “perfection” wasn’t enough, what could they chase next?

So, confused, they listened when the Ocean of Darkness lapped and whispered:

“Kill Him, kill Him!”

“Slay your Father, and you’ll be greater, more holy.”

“Kill Him, kill Him!”

“He took everything. You, the dregs, can seize that light.”

“Kill Him, kill Him!”

“You can only pursue the Creator’s ‘perfection.’ Kill Him, become the sovereign, as He knows good and evil.”

Thus, at the coronation of their Sorcerer Emperor, the Creator offered him a sword as a gift.

He smiled, took it, turned the blade upside down, and then—

…

They were beaten by newborn Divine Beings, forced to sign the Primordial Accord, swearing never again to enter the mortal world.

They fell into the deepest abyss. Darkness thronged them. They raised a new kingdom there and crowned themselves lords of a new era.

We call them the Demonfolk, and we should remember the betrayer.

The “Tyrant” Demon King, Saster.

—Genesis

Genesis, written by the gods, says it outright: my old man killed the Creator. He’s never denied it.

But I keep wondering—how could the Creator be slain by the youngest? Dad never answers.

After the fall into the Demon Realm, the Demonfolk rotted and changed. Most lost their first rank and power. At least the Son of the Demon King should have kept the strength of the Creator’s “most perfect creation.”

Yet think about it. The Creator stood at the level of the Endless Demon King Andreas or the Eternal God Feriel. How could a mere Son of the Demon King kill him?

It’s too strange.

There are more points to argue.

For one, I once ascended as Andreas. I know what the deepest dark is. I know the pure, spotless shape of the Ocean of Darkness.

Lawless, formless, without worth. The opposite of “being.” That was the Golden Era, the first sprout of the Ocean of Darkness.

Even in the Silver Era, the Ocean of Darkness had no will. It needed Andreas’s body to destroy a world.

At the very start, in the Golden Era’s purity, it couldn’t lean toward anything. It wasn’t anything. It had no meaning. It couldn’t even take a name, just a mingling of sheer negation.

Unlike later, it didn’t stain things on its own. The Creator was pure light, so the adverse face was pristine dark.

At most, it stockpiled the concepts of evil, waiting for light and dark, positive and negative, good and evil to buckle under their own weight. Then all would drop into nothing.

So “seduction”… sorry, I don’t see the Ocean of Darkness having thoughts. Seduction is a job for persons—Demonfolk or devils.

And no, I don’t trust Genesis that much. It’s a textbook gods gave to mortals. Plenty of facts are trimmed or bent.

The writing is spare too. The “Seven-Day War,” the key clash of gods and demons, gets brushed past.

From history as it really ran, I found that some Demon Kings—the oldest, the most silent—leaned toward the Divine Beings, or even toward the mortal world.

Maybe they regret?

Funny. They’re of the evil side, yet they waver. What was the point of killing the Creator?

I mocked them in my head, but I still pressed for the outline.

Time in the Demon Realm is boring. Outside of clearing waves of rabid demon beasts, I had nothing to do. So I dug through old books, hunted intel on the mortal world, or had the few mortal cultists of Demonfolk send me their magazines.

Staring into space and digging history—my vices.

Leave the first aside. With the second, I leaned on not dying and pestered the Demon Kings until I had a rough whole:

Day One. Saster assassinated the Creator at his own coronation. The crowd and envoys from other Sorcerer Empires were fired to fury and attacked Saster.

But how could the youngest beat the eldest? They weren’t a match for the Demonfolk, the “most perfect creation.”

After the Creator’s death, every Demonfolk who held betrayal in their hearts was shielded by the Ocean of Darkness, becoming something greater.

No guards needed. Saster alone crushed all attackers, easy as snapping twigs.

The Demonfolk’s souls took on the color of the Ocean of Darkness. Their wish “to be more perfect” got swallowed by a raging hunger to destroy. They hadn’t clawed back the clarity they have now.

When Saster moved to kill everyone and start the world’s ruin from that very place, the Wisdom God Haydon rose from the Creator’s remains.

He was born speaking. Born ready to fight. He held the Demonfolk to stalemate, and he rescued the visiting members of the Nine Races. He sent them back at once to their homelands to tell their Sorcerer Emperors: war had begun.

So, Day One, war opened the book.

Day Two. The Sorcerer Emperors of the Primordial Nine Races marched with their armies. Haydon roused other siblings from the Creator’s remains—the Twin Gods of Strength, Fiz and Bel.

Day Three. The Death God Dis and the Life God Liv took up the Creator’s mantles. They joined the fray. Both sides were even. The fallen were countless.

Day Four. Element descended. He wielded the powers of the world’s essence, annihilating legions of Demonfolk.

Day Five. The God of the Wide Domain, Infinite, and Narrow wielded their authorities and entered battle.

By then the Divine Beings had won immense ground. But mortal civilization was ash in the apocalypse. The flame of culture broke and went dark.

Day Six. The war began to ease. The gods’ side had gained many warriors and much power, but most Sorcerer Emperors were dead. The world teetered on the brink. The Demon Kings, too, sobered from their rage. They saw their enemies only multiplied.

Both sides wanted a halt. That evening they asked for a truce, honored the dead, and set Day Seven for a formal accord.

Day Seven. The gods and the Demonfolk signed the contract called the Primordial Accord. Haydon weighed the world’s cracked foundation after the Creator’s death. He woke more siblings from the Creator’s remains to hold the rules fast—

The Time God Tim, the Contract God Appoint, the Possibility God Paisby, the Balance God Bailes.

The Twelve Primordial Deities of later ages.

At last, the Demon Kings and the gods vowed never again to descend upon mortals. The Demonfolk walked into the “lowest” place on earth—the Demon Realm. The gods built the “highest” abode—the Starry Sky Divine Kingdom.

Just when everyone thought the war was over, when peace could return, the Demon King Saster struck from the shadows. With the sword that killed the Founder, he pierced Haydon’s chest and belly.

“Remember, we are enemies.”

He said that, and led the Demonfolk into the dark world.

—Dad says, that little play ends there.

—Like hell I believe it.

The gods’ history hides things. The Demon Kings who lived that war don’t tell the truth.

The tale sounds passable, but pick it apart and it’s riddled with holes.

I didn’t live then, so I can’t be sure. But one thing is wrong; it clashes with Dad’s story—

The Sorcerer Emperors didn’t die.

Even a Sorcerer Emperor is mortal. A sky-bearing strength still belongs to a mortal. Touching the source doesn’t equal the might of gods and demons.

Heads cut off still die. Hearts pierced still die. Bleeding out still dies. Age kills all.

They were powerful, but that lone edge is far from enough at god-and-demon scale.

Yet none of them died in the war. Not a one.

The opposite happened. Each led a fully armed host and sealed themselves in the seams of time, waiting for the Endless Demon King Andreas to arrive.

I come from the future. I know what Andreas met when he crawled up from the Arctic Tundra into the mortal world. The whole world felt braced for doomsday. Everyone moved with order to flee or to fight.

Why? Why did it seem like everyone knew the end was coming?

Before I reached the Arctic Tundra, I was in the Demon Realm, killing Demon Kings and collecting their domains. I don’t know what happened in the mortal world from mid to late Silver Era.

The Demonfolk lie. The gods aren’t candid. What are they hiding?

Golden Era culture broke in war. In the Silver Era, humans split into the Colonna Empire and six other kingdoms. Elves scattered. Beastkin fell back into tribes.

It looks tragic. Yet there’s a strange off-beat.

In war’s wake, what remains of culture should match the remaining population. But Silver Era headcounts stayed high. The numbers don’t match a full war’s loss. Culture’s regression alone feels too neat.

Like a play staged by a god’s hand.

I’m not that curious. History is my pastime. But some things I have to know.

In my last life, Andreas was enemy to all kinds, the calamity that ended mortals. Yet I think Haydon used me. Everything fell inside His calculation.

This time, I’ve learned from my last life. I’ve taken my small measure of foresight. It still falls far short of Haydon.

He can do little, yet He knows all. I can do much, yet I know little. It’s fair enough as a duel. But I need to know the relics the gods and Demonfolk kept hidden from the last age.

I want to say, “I’m the strongest, the absolute, crushing all.” Last time, Haydon’s trap showed me—strength can’t do everything.

If I don’t understand what Haydon’s planned, I’m afraid even this time…