PART I: BEFORE THE SEALING OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 5: Aeona and Tana

• On Grandis, two girls who wielded light and dark magic were brought to the Radiant Temple, where they underwent a selection to become the Transcendent of Light. The twins began to hear the voice of the Overseers in their head as they fought in a battle to the death, with the girl wielding light slaying her sister. Having been selected, this girl was given the title of Aeona, signifying that she had been chosen as the Transcendent of Light, while her fallen sister was given the title of Tana, the one who had not been chosen.

• Upon feeling the chains of the Overseers binding her to their destiny, Aeona refused to be controlled by their fate and left Grandis, eschewing her title as Aeona and adopting the name ‘Tana’ to signify that she rejected the destiny that the Overseers had forced upon her. Tana then continued wandering across Grandis in an attempt to escape the Overseers’ will, causing her endless pain as she attempted to resist their commands.

• Eventually, the Black Mage spoke to her in her dreams and asked her to come to Kritias, claiming that he would combine light and darkness together in order to put an end to her eternal suffering by destroying the world and creating a new world without Transcendents, including her.

• Tana traveled to Kritias, where she pushed a boy named Jean to safety after an anti-magic stone fell and vaporized everyone in the near vicinity. After Tana rematerialized her body, she was arrested and taken to the dungeons, where the mages of Kritias experimented on her in order to bestow her immortality to King Hekaton.

• For two years, the mages of Kritias attempted to learn the secret of Tana’s immortality. Over the course of the experiments, Tana slowly began losing her memories and emotions as the mages continually inflicted wounds on her, forcing her powers to regenerate herself, to the point that she forgot everything except her name and a faint memory of wanting something.

• During this time, Jean visited Tana every night and spent time together with her in order to keep her company, eventually falling in love with her. Though Tana’s memories and emotions had been erased by the experiments, she slowly began regaining faint traces of herself by spending time with Jean.

• After the High Priest from the Temple of Time resigned in protest over the unethical experiments, Arkarium was chosen as the new High Priest and continued leading the mages of Kritias. Though Arkarium made great strides, he realized that Tana’s immense willpower was causing her to reject the power transfer. Soon after, Hekaton grew impatient and ordered for his Ascendancy ritual to take place the next day.

• That night, Tana realized that she was going to die tomorrow, causing her to realize that the faint memory of what she had wanted was to die. However, she grew terrified at the thought and lost control of her powers until Jean calmed her down and promised to keep her safe. In the shadows, Arkarium watched the exchange and realized that Jean was the key to ensuring that the ritual succeeded.

• The next day, Jean brought an anti-magic stone necklace to Tana and attempted to free her. However, Arkarium called the guards and ordered Jean to be killed in front of Tana, which successfully eroded her willpower and allowed the Ascendancy ritual to begin. However, Tana refused to die and allow Hekaton to succeed, and so she shattered the anti-magic stone and disrupted the ritual.

• As a result of this, Hekaton was fused with the castle and became an immortal golem, while many of the soldiers became disembodied monsters possessing their weapons. Tana was also caught in an endless, painful cycle of vaporization and rematerialization. From the future, the Black Mage traveled into the past and froze Kritias in time, thereby sparing her from eternal torment and hiding her existence until the time was right.