"Artisan-King Ixthi of Cycle 1 2E, the first wearer of the Headdress of Omen have died from his first vision. His fingers froze in place, his lungs drowned themselves, and his heart, blasting out from his chest in volcanic beatings. The corpse of his eminence served as canvas for the visions... of the apocalypse..."

-Records of The Eternal Crowns

©

Verses taken from The Eternal Excerpts:

[1:1] At the infancy of time, when mortals were but saplings and sprouts suckling on the morning dew of progress, [1:2] Gods stood as mountains holding the rain in the sky, blocking the sun and sinking the moons. [1:3] Soon, mortals molded their growth in rapport with the Divines, shouting their names in different tongues- opening new interpretations for life, death, and the in-between.

[1:4] The monotonous trickle of time made the earliest races mirror the divinities, dividing them as well into three distinct households:

[1:5] The Holy Household are the Pragmatic Gods boasting a family of seven and claiming the fundamentals of the natural world, balancing its pillars as their whims and will shaped the rules of science. [1:6] And they were worshipped like sun and rain to crops.

[1:7] The Household of Prosperity or the Benevolent Gods cradled each civilization. The "Seven-mostly-Eight" were the gentle rain-shower to the sprouting races of mortals. [1:8] Worshipped by those who wish to rise from the dirt as tall, fruiting trees.

[1:9] And lastly, The Household of the Tempted. With Ten Malevolent personalities orchestrating heavy storms to the sprouting races- for in their eyes- these mortals can only either be improved or removed. [1:10] Yet their worshippers are an intriguing spectrum of demographics wishing to thrive as undying weeds in harsh lands- some even time can't uproot.

[1:11] But balance shifted when Akantanel, the Father of the Holy Household, woke up with quadrupled heads, limbs, and eyes. [1:12] The Gods soon realized that some of them were increasing in strength more so than others, caused by the worship of mortals. And so, they mingled more with mortal affairs; granting gifts and godly favors to the point that some nations named themselves after their Divine Bias.

[1:13] But it didn't take long before some Gods were left behind, subconsciously ranking themselves with unspoken rules- an unseen stratas of discrimination that could brew a Divine War.

[1:14] So to even the scales, the Divinities severed themselves from the mortal world of Viridia to refrain from abusing the race of religion. [1:15] Instead, they agreed that each would provide a single artifact to represent their entity.

[1:16] They forged Crowns jeweled with half their powers and sent them to their mortal champions. 24 of them worn by mortal rulers, age after age...

The Midnight Diadem restarting the day, The Coral Crown calling the tides, the Molten Crown translating anger to nature, the Headdress of Omen translating future to nature, the Silk Circlet weaving realities, Cap of Coin promising riches, Diadem of Dawn promising prophecies, The Swamp Crown calling on hope in the darkest place, and the Red Crown... Calling for forgiveness.

And so on...

But there existed a Divine Being with no crown to give. Deemed as the Orphan-God for no Household accepted him-

Adastrielle, whose beauty inspired the names of each flowers known both poisonous and fragrant, yet left to burn from the embers of his red hair that forges abstract weaponries. Deemed too unnatural for the Holy Household, too perfect for the Prosperities, and too tempting for the Tempters. In turn, he was left by the outskirts of the divine soil with the natural world bending on his beauty to sustain him.

Always seated at the edge of a cloudy, pale cliff each afternoon; feet dangling down the mortal cities, palms flat on divine soil, and his eyes, onwards the setting sun. There he stays too powerless for gods yet too divine for mortals.

Or maybe, from his stare, the gods felt powerless.

His smile formed and the sun was left to die, for above the retreating light forms a dark spot in the clouds. It was a friend; willing to surprise his solitude and dawn happiness from the eyes of the outcast.

But the sharer of his solitude bears a morbid identity, flying a ship made from the bleeding bodies of all unwilling demi-gods that are never to be corpses. With their heads studded on the ledges, their bones and backs as floorboards, teeth as nails, and their skin hair-sewn together as its sails, it birthed a brutal ship with no language could name yet with a face akin to the Gods.

Somehow, it resembles not a ship but a mobile prison.

Its snout sliced through wind like a part of midnight advancing over the afternoon, and Adastrielle could see its builder smiling as a dreadful admiral, guided by a compass that only points towards beauty.

But his genocidal friend is clean of crimes, a doctrine in black and white to reset the influence of all the divine beings. "No Demigod must stir the influence of the Gods." for the Households have numerous mortal offspring which will tip the balance. So, the tears of the parents themselves washed away the blood on his hands.

And soon the shrieks from the ship bled through the clouds, Adastrielle stood up, fingers resting on the basket he was weaving that noon.

From the escaping winds he faced the dreadful lord Diarthe, He who knocks in homes so death could enter. Son of the Malevolent Father- Oserio. His red-stained robes torn down the cummerbund to reveal a finesse that makes all its beholder craven and tempted.

Adastrielle remembered how the robes were still white as cotton earlier that morning, was when the Dread-Lord sneaked through his chambers while he lies asleep, when a cold kiss was stolen from his cheek.

The bodies in the ship found silence as soon as it neared the cliff, for there stands the God of Beauty at its edge, such a face that could numb eternal suffering.

"Missed me?" He greeted as the other God descends from the deck, offering the towering man a humbling fruit from his pocket.

"How can I ever say no to you?" Diarthe's lips followed the smile from his eyes before taking an ample bite. Starting his first meal since he left, not that the gods needs nutrition.

"That's a nice ship you have there." Adastrielle stared back at the brutalized faces squeezed jointly on the ship's keel like thousands of barnacles. The Dread-Lord almost choked on the fruit he was chewing upon hearing his remark.

"Are you... fond of it?"

"What do you think?" The God of Beauty whispered, fingers salted with blood from the cheek of a dying demigoddess.

"No?"

"See, you can say no to me after all."

His blooded fingers reached for the fruit-filled cheek of the dreadful God before him, thumb circling as if painting a red sign of forgiveness.

"Don't empathize." Diarthe pulled him away from the ship and next to the beating in his chest, inserting his hand into Adastrielle's pocket to grab another fruit to eat. "They declined the bountiful mercy of the first purge. Too late regretting torment when they chose to fight back against Gods." he whispered from the other's nape.

Adastrielle severed from his arms, weighing in his heart each word that left Diarthe's lips moments ago.

"Say, Diarthe, would I deserve the same torment if I ever fight against our fellow gods?" he said with his back turned and eyes on his bare feet.

The chewing had stopped. Adastrielle could feel his friend's breaths weighing down on his nape again. Shivers, cold anguish.

"How can you ever say no to me, right?" Adastrielle smiled at his friend jokingly yet daring an answer out of him. But the Brutal God just stood there, with the sun dying behind him and his wrist resting on the hilt of the same blade that had sculpted and grafted the bodies of Demigods. Diarthe stared back at him in a bottomless conflict, deeper than the Oceans of Fonclere herself. His mother.

"Stop playing games with me, Snowberry... I will never win..." 

"Snowberry... I will never win..."

"Snowberry... never win..."

"Snowberry...."

"Snow..."

"Snowberry, wake up!"

The same voice yelled.

Flayed back into another reality, his head cracked awake in cold sweat. The knocking on the door turning into a banging as the croaking of whiteravens called for the sun to be alive.

"Rise with the sun, Snowberry!" he was called again. As he rose with the songs of the morning birds outside, he thought to himself.

"That was just a dream..."

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Author's Note: Hello Zelenesenki here! And thank you for reading this far. If you have noticed I've divided the Prologue's narrative into three parts. The first part is akin to Bible verses because it was from this fictional world's religious text. But you would notice that it would stop at [1:16]. Hence the second part, which is an untold story never shared in this fiction's schools and religious texts. Which you as readers are learning of via reading Adastrielle's story. The third part is the transition to another reality. I believe that everything begins through the end of another, explaining why the "quote" from the start references a vision of a fictional apocalypse.