PART I: BEFORE THE SEALING OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 4: Flora Civil War

• Soon after, many Knights of the Einherjar planned to revolt against the God-King before his delayed war of genocide could take place. Under the orders of Darmoor, Veronica - Adelaide’s rival - freed Adelaide from her prison in order to recruit her to their side. However, Adelaide - despite disagreeing with the God-King’s plan - refused to betray her oath to protect him, for which she rallied those loyal to the God-King against the defectors. Eventually, Adelaide’s faction was defeated and Adelaide was sealed away in a prison dimension called the Void.

• At the same time, the Verdant Flora learned about Darmoor’s plan and rushed to the High Flora capital, where they found Darmoor standing over the body of his father. Darmoor then called the guards, claiming that the Verdant Flora had killed the God-King. This incident sparked the Flora Civil War, which lasted for hundreds of years.

• During this time, Darmoor continued his father’s plans of conquest against the other races and recruited many young High Flora to enlist in the Central Army. Two boys named Ark and Albaire both joined military school and were deployed to the moon of Verdel upon graduation, where they served under Brigadier General Limbo.

• Soon after, Ark grew disillusioned by the war upon realizing that it was little more than a massacre, with the native species of Verdel being turned into Specters, creatures from the Abyss which could possess and take over a host body, allowing them to manifest in the world at the cost of the host body losing their body, mind, and identity. Ark also learned that Limbo was a partial Specter, capable of shifting between his Flora form and Specter form at will, rather than being taken over by a Specter completely.

• Unable to carry out his mission as a soldier any longer, Ark chose to betray the High Flora and attempted to aid the enemy, though he was caught by Limbo first. For his treason, Limbo ordered Ark to be turned into a Specter, but Albaire interrupted the ritual in order to keep his promise to protect his best friend. The failed ritual created a large vortex that forced the High Flora to evacuate, leaving Ark unconscious for many years.

• During the war, Darmoor encountered Magnus, an exiled Nova and the former comrade of Kaiser, the legendary hero of the Nova who reincarnated throughout the ages. Conceited as he was, even Magnus felt the immense aura of death radiating from Darmoor, who revealed himself as the Transcendent of Life, and experienced true fear for the first time. He swore allegiance to Darmoor in exchange for gaining the power to become the strongest warrior in Grandis.

• On Darmoor’s orders, Magnus began to corrupt the three Guardians of Heliseum, the capital city of the Nova, preparing to launch his invasion at the same time as the final battle of the Flora Civil War.

• The final battle took place at the Verdant Flora capital of Aboris, causing massive death on an immensely large scale. During this battle, Darmoor finally revealed that he had awakened as the new Transcendent of Life after hiding his abilities for centuries. Because of his deception, it was mistakenly believed by the rest of Grandis that the bloody battle of Aboris had broken the balance of life on Grandis, which had resulted in Darmoor’s awakening.

• With his powers, Darmoor obliterated nearly every living being on the battlefield. He then approached the wounded God of the Verdant Flora, who had managed to survive Darmoor’s attack, and sealed him inside the mytocrystal on the back of his hand. The surviving High Flora then successfully sacked Aboris, ending the war with the capture of the Verdant Flora capital and the near-total destruction of its people.

• At the same time, Magnus led the Specter army and conquered Heliseum, wiping out the Nova royal family. However, the Nova princess was saved by the Nova general, who managed to bring her to the Shadowdealers, a black market trade organization. Severely wounded from Magnus’ attack, the princess was administered a potent medicine that saved her life, though it inadvertently placed her in a coma for many decades.

• In order to buy time for the survivors to escape to the sanctuary city of Pantheon, Kaiser fought Magnus and sacrificed his life to defeat his old comrade, nearly killing Magnus in the process. The Heliseum Council, unable to transport their holy relic - the Outrigger - out of the capital, instead transferred its power into four sacred stones, which were used to create a Protective Shield around Pantheon, blocking Magnus and his Specters from entering.

• After the end of the war, Darmoor traveled to the Chronica Sanctuary and stole the powers of Chronica, the Transcendent of Time, after which he sealed Chronica inside their own sanctuary. As the Overseers had created safeguards to deter Transcendents from robbing each other’s powers, Darmoor was severely weakened from the act. Furthermore, several Interdimensional Portals appeared across Grandis that led to other worlds, including Maple World.

• Having won the war, Darmoor was crowned the new God-King of the High Flora and moved the High Flora capital to the former Verdant Flora capital of Aboris, where he built the new God-King Temple at the Aboris Royal Palace. There, he ruled alongside his twelve Apostles, of which five are known:

  • Havoc, a pure-blood demon from Tynerum, became Darmoor’s First Apostle of Lightning

  • Limbo, the partial Specter who served as Brigadier General in the Central Army

  • Kaling, a former researcher of Odium who was sealed away eons ago after becoming contaminated from the Adversary experiments

  • Ypsilon, a God of the High Flora who served as the Lord of Erimos on continental Grandis

  • Reina, a God of the High Flora who served as the lord of a snowy region on continental Grandis

• (A/N: Currently, Limbo is the only Apostle confirmed to have been recruited at the end of the Flora Civil War. It’s unknown when Havoc and Ypsilon were recruited, but it’s confirmed that both Kaling and Reina were recruited in the present day, centuries after the initial formation of the Apostles. Because of this, we don’t know whether there were twelve Apostles from the start, or if there were twelve by the time that the main story begins.)

• Meanwhile, the surviving Verdant Flora retreated from Aboris. Agate, the disciple of the God of the Verdant Flora, took the Elder Crystal and led the survivors into a pocket dimension called Sanctuary. There, the Verdant Flora lived in secrecy for many decades. Agate became the Headmistress of the Crystal Academy, where she would oversee the training of future generations of Verdant Flora, hoping that one of them would grow up to become the hero that would save their people.