Fredozy
patreon
Chapter 1: The first great catastrophe
🕑 Added 2025-09-04 14:22:31 +0000 UTCFull synopsis:
Before the first dawn, there was a silence deeper than time, and from that silence came the pulse that shaped all things. Yet what begins in light always casts a shadow and in that shadow waits the breath of Nothing.
A broken world struggles to endure, scarred by forces no tongue dares name. Corridors split the earth, beasts crawl from forgotten fragments, and the last embers of mankind cling to the stolen fire.
——————————————————————————-
Corridors.
Gate ways that formed in reality without warning. They were not born from the natural phenomenons of the world, but from the silent undoing of existence itself. Tears in space-time, rifts where the very fabric of reality thinned until it parted like flesh beneath a blade. At first, they appeared as little more than faint shimmers upon the air known as shifts, faint distortions that bent light like water. Then came the crack. A single glowing line drawn across the space itself kinda like a fabric being torn, widening, stretching, until it split open into a yawning doorway.
This was the Corridor: the violent threshold between realms.
No one knew where or to which realm it connected to, nor what alien mechanics dictated its alignment. Some theorized they opened when two different realms brushed against each other like grinding tectonic plates. Others theorized that it was caused by celestial convergences and broken laws of causality. But none of that mattered when the first rift split wide enough for the things to come through.
The Deviants.
They poured into our world as if summoned by the promise of ruin. Shapes without consistency, bodies shifting like madness made flesh, some towering as mountains, others crawling on spindly limbs, their forms were grotesque parodies of both beast and abominations of irregular shapes. Their singular drive was destruction. They killed. They devoured and they unmade.
Earth's weapons such as our rockets, tanks, nuclear bombs proved nothing more than fleeting annoyances against the demonic invaders. Bullets lodged uselessly in flesh that dissolved and reformed. Fire only slowed them. For every hundred Deviants that we managed to kill with great effort, entire cities were reduced to ash. In the first days of their incursion, tens of millions died. Cities were swallowed whole in screaming nights of fire and silence. Humanity stood on the edge of annihilation.
And yet, within catastrophe came the faintest ember of salvation.
The Deviants brought with them not only death, but something else. A strange type of energy. It swept across the world like a tide, invisible yet undeniable, an aftershock that saturated the very atmosphere, the waters, the very marrow of the earth. Scientists were fascinated by it and they named it Lumen. At first it was thought to be poison; those who inhaled it, who breathed it deep into their blood, often withered or burned from within. But strange enough among the survivors, some began to change… evolve even.
Humanity had always been fragile our flesh and bone, limited by biology. But Lumen did not abide by such limitations. It threaded itself into bloodstreams, wove into nerve endings, fused with our muscle fiber and bones. Those who adapted found their bodies reforged: strength multiplied many times over, reflexes sharpened beyond imagination, senses heightened until they rivaled predatory beasts. They could leap across rooftops, heal from wounds that would have once been mortal, run for hours without exhaustion. Those who exhibited this positive changes were tested by the scientists and they were the first Archetypes.
But the Lumen's gifts were not uniform. In others, it awakened something stranger. Elemental powers gathered at their fingertips of others, flames that danced to their will, lightning that obeyed their command, ice that spread at a mere gesture. They were called the Arcanum's, the wielders of primal forces of nature itself.
And yet that wasn't all, more discovered the truth that words were indeed power. They were capable of inscribing their bodies, instrument around them, even the air with living symbols known as runes that bent reality, creating wards, curses, and miracles alike. They were the Sigils, feared and revered for the symbols that pulsed like veins of light upon their skin.
Scientists found that Lumen coursed within these people like a secondary circulatory system mimicking a pulse. The internal flow became known as the Lumenflow, and when channeled, it manifested as an external force called the Aura, a radiant field that shielded, empowered, and embodied their very will.
The Deviants killed by the empowered, once slain, left behind crystallized remnants of their energy in form of clear shards that pulsed faintly with an alien resonance. The scientists studied this minerals and found them to be a form of a power source. They were named Lumenis. These crystals became weapons, fuel, and currency for survival. With them, humanity at last found a fighting chance.
The war raged on for years. The Corridors opened, cities fell, and the adapted fought until their hands bled and their lungs filled with ash. Finally, as abruptly as it had begun, the first Corridor sealed shut. No one knew why. But the damage was already carved deep into the bones of the world. Oceans swallowed entire landmasses, tectonic upheavals split continents apart. Billions had perished more than 60% of the population was dead. What remained of Earth was reduced to three great continental bastions lands reshaped and divided by the very power that had both cursed and saved them.
From ruin, the new world rose.
The Archetype Continent, where the physically adapted reigned.
The Arcanum Continent, where elemental sorcery became law.
The Sigil Continent, where runes and wards carved reality itself.
The survivors gathered beneath banners, forming nations and capitals, each bound by necessity to wield their gifts for survival. And though the first Corridor had closed, the scars of that age remained. For in the centuries that followed, new Corridors continued to appear randomly, unpredictable and mercilessly. The world would name that first invasion as The First Great Catastrophe.
It was in the ashes of those centuries of incursions that the nations finally realized that they needed to do more and forged a greater alliance: The Concord of Dominion. An intercontinental pact, a shield of politics and steel, binding all three continents in fragile unity. Its seat of power was established in the Archetype spearhead capital, Eryndor, the fortress city where Corridors most often tore open into our reality.
The nations themselves became defined by their structures.
The Archetype Continent rose around its three capitals: Eryndor, the Spearhead fortress and seat of the Concord, standing eternal against Corridor incursions. To its flanks lay Thalyss, the Right Wing and Vorath, the Left Wing.
The Arcanum Continent thrived under the rule of Magisters, with Oblivara as its Spearhead capital, a citadel of arcane might. Caelith formed the Right Wing, known for its floating spires of scholars, while Dravane was known as the Left Wing.
The Sigil Continent defied even the laws of gravity, with Kaelmir, its Spearhead, a floating city-fortress drifting far above the ground like a judgmental star. Beneath it lay Varros, the Right Wing and Mornveil, the Left Wing.
Three continents. Three powers and the One alliance.
And though centuries had passed, the Corridors had never stopped.
They still opened. They still bled into our realm. They still brought with them the Deviants and the promise of annihilation. But now, humanity no longer cowered. Now, it had claws of its own.
![ルンバ[v] from fanbox](https://patrefans.com/kistorage/29688.jpg)
