PART I: BEFORE THE SEALING OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 1: The Ancient War

• In the beginning, the Primordial God made 365 creations - the sun, the moon, the stones, the trees, the wind, the rivers, the seas, and countless others - each adhering to 365 laws that governed the universe. From these 365 creations that made up the world, powerful beings were brought into existence that embodied these natural laws. Over time, these beings were revered as gods by mortals, and ages later, they would be known as the Ancient Gods.

• The Ancient Gods caused immense chaos with their influence, for which the Primordial God created three beings known as the Overseers to restore order. As abstract, conceptual entities, the Overseers were unable to directly interact with the universe. To this end, they chose twelve of the most outstanding Anima on Grandis to defeat the Ancient Gods.

• These twelve Anima became known as the elders of Grandis, who were given nearly infinite lifespans and an army of researchers to aid them. The Overseers also created an immensely powerful relic known as the World Heart, capable of stripping a god of all their power.

• As the gods were higher beings who existed outside the physical plane, only a god or someone wielding a relic containing the power of a god could directly harm them. For this reason, the elders used the World Heart as a template to mass-produce weaker relics called the Godspheres. (A/N: In the original KMS text, the Godsphere is known as the “spear of god”.)

• Unlike the World Heart, the Godspheres did not have the power to strip a god of their power. Instead, they responded to the will and determination of the people in order to grant the single greatest wish of a population. In this way, the immense power of the Godspheres could never be monopolized by the greed of any individual.

• With the Godspheres holding the divine power of the Overseers, the elders hoped to combine the relics with mortals in order to give them the power to challenge the gods. The elders created a large, floating laboratory called Odium, where they began researching how to fuse the Godspheres with Vessels that would hold their divine power.

• After a number of failed experiments, the elders were able to successfully fuse the Godspheres with Vessels in order to create the first Adversaries. However, because of the nature of the experiments, their Adversaries lost everything that made them human - their egos, their identities, their memories, and their emotions - leaving them as empty shells filled only with the desire to fulfill their hardwired purpose as Adversaries of the gods. Though the elders were appalled by what they had done, they nevertheless continued their unethical experiments, believing that it was the only way to stop the Ancient Gods’ tyranny.

• In addition, the Overseers - believing that allowing such powerful beings to remain free would create a new age of chaos - ordained that the destiny of every Adversary was to die after fulfilling their purpose by defeating a god. As a result, the Adversaries began falling one by one, requiring the elders to continue their experiments over the course of the long, protracted Ancient War.

• After the last god fell, the elders cleared away their research and hid the World Heart inside Odium, creating a complex mechanical system to defend it. As the power of the World Heart was too strong for them, they hoped to slowly deplete its energy over the ages by using it as a battery for Odium and its system, thus ensuring that its power could not be misused.

• The elders also realized that the erasure of their Vessels’ humanity, which they called contamination, had slowly infected them over the course of the experiments. In order to stop it from spreading to the outside world, the elders created Shangri-La, a magical, hidden realm that contained the harmonic energy of the four seasons, which counteracted and halted the spread of their contamination.

• Additionally, some of the elders created a magical bell that would ring only in the hands of someone with an exceptionally pure heart. They left the bell with a sheep Anima village and tasked its people with finding someone who could make it ring, as only the ringing of the bell could wash away the elders’ contamination and sins. The elders and the researchers then sequestered themselves away in Shangri-La, rebranding themselves as the Sinners.

• Though the age of the gods had come to an end, the Overseers were not yet satisfied, as there remained a chance that the gods could one day return. For this reason, they reorganized the universe such that only three worlds - Maple World, Grandis, and Tynerum - would be allowed to remain. These worlds, which had once been one, were then separated into different dimensions.

• To enforce order, the original 365 laws were dwindled down to three: light, life, and time. To enforce these laws, the Overseers created three Transcendents for each of the three worlds. The Transcendents served as the Overseers’ interface to physically interact with the universe, allowing them to influence the three worlds by overriding the Transcendents’ free will.

• The presence of the Transcendents also forced the Ancient Gods to fall into an unnatural slumber, ensuring that they would never reawaken. In doing so, the Overseers created a fixed, predictable future, which they deemed had successfully eradicated chaos, leaving the future set in stone.

• Though most of the gods were sealed away, an Ancient God named Shinsoo remained awake, and was tasked with protecting a bloodline which would one day produce a new Transcendent as a failsafe should the need arise.

• Shinsoo used most of her divine power in creating the island of Ereve, which became the seat of power for the Empress of Maple World, whose distant descendant would one day awaken as a new Transcendent. In order to protect the Empress, Shinsoo appointed a Knight of Light as her guardian, infusing her power into the Soul Shield, which was passed down across generations of Knights of Light.