Page 291 of Interion

With the first part of the mission complete, the gods finally donated their eyes. When removed, the organs petrified, transforming into luminous stones. These were then strategically scattered across the protected continent, placed far apart from one another and hidden in sacred nurseries that masked their power. They were camouflaged because if they were ever reunited, a breach could open in the barrier. And if any voracious were lying in wait, the contamination would return.

Once in place, divine power emanated from the petrified organs and spread over the continent. The energy formed a spiritual barrier over a vast expanse of lands and islands, isolating them from the rest of the world—which was left at the mercy of the voracious and their insatiable hunger.

The protected continent became the gods' only source of worship and, being so important and well-cared-for, was named Jupiter—“the most illuminated of gardens” in the divine tongue.

At the end of the mission, they returned to the Divine exhausted and weakened. The Apocalypse War had lasted for millennia, and this final battle had drained their gifts almost completely. Now they needed to recover their strength so they could one day build new universes, since this one was nearly extinct.

However, Anabel was the exception and was not as weak as the others. The voracious worshipped their mother with fervor, dedicating every life they took to her. Though obscure and distorted, the adoration of her children was so great that the goddess of Death grew ever stronger.

Anabel knew the gods would try to punish her for the betrayal that had given rise to the voracious. So upon returning to the Divine, she deceived the largest and fastest of War's wyverns, promising her a ride through the stars. With that, she fled to the most distant region, hiding in the coldest and darkest corner of the universe, far enough that no god could find her.

When Calistra and Amarwen discovered what had happened, they erupted in fury. Seijhe and Nuadros, however, argued that exile was the best solution—after all, Anabel was not worthy of trust. A few days later, they decreed eternal banishment upon Death and locked the gates of the Divine.

Even in exile, Anabel feared that if found, she would face direct confrontation with Calistra—and however unlikely it seemed, even Death feared War. But fear did not prevent the goddess of Death from spending time with the stolen wyvern. Without realizing it, she learned to love the strange creature, and even her shadows became friends with it, never letting the wyvern feel alone. By the time she realized what had happened, she already treated the creature as her greatest treasure. However, despite her love, the goddess knew she would have to return her, for Calistra had been enraged by the theft.

Time passed, and Calistra's lightning and thunder became a threat that drew closer with each passing day. The dreaded confrontation soon arrived. Anabel and the wyvern were found and cornered by War and her archangels.

To avoid destruction, the divinity bid farewell to her beloved wyvern with a promise: whenever the creature missed her, she should look to the stars; when she needed help, they would guide her back to her old friend. Then the goddess of Death fled to the Abyss and took refuge in the darkness of her domains, where no living soul could enter. As for the wyvern, she was taken to the Divine, where she was cruelly punished for her betrayal.

On the terrestrial plane, over time, the continents outside the gods' barrier succumbed to the voracious, who destroyed and consumed everything in their path. Meanwhile, the wounds of the earth began to heal in Jupiter, and the fae, children of light, rose once more in praise of their creators. Throughout the ages, the power emanating from the petrified eyes steadily diminished as it infused itself into nature, shaping everything from the atoms of the ocean to the peaks of the highest mountains. Gradually, it mingled with the children of the gods. Once, they had resembled only Nuadros and Amarwen, but the stones altered their genetics, and with each generation, the beings of that continent grew more similar to the divinities.

Not only were their bodies altered, but their personalities as well, and the gifts they developed were shaped by the deep-seated power of each petrified eye. The gods observed these changes and grew attached to their children, drawing closer to them with greater affection.

For ages, the world lived in harmony, until food grew scarce on the side dominated by the voracious. The ghouls entered an even more violent era, with the strongest devouring the weakest. At the same time, the voracious turned their attention to the barrier created by the gods, searching for any breach that might allow them to cross it.

To survive, the children of Death were forced to evolve, giving rise to the first hierarchical structure of a brutal and primitive civilization. With few inhabitants remaining, breeding pens were established, where fae, gorgons, and humans were raised like cattle, forced to reproduce to feed the insatiable hunger of the voracious and their ghouls.

The power of the eyes constantly waned due to their separation from their original bodies, which in turn gradually weakened the continent's protective barrier. Thus, the breach the voracious had been waiting for finally appeared. During the Lúmiran, when the world was covered by a greenish veil, the barrier became temporarily visible, allowing the voracious to find a weak point in its structure. Seizing the opportunity, the most powerful of the three children of Death managed to project his consciousness into the lands protected by the gods and made contact with a king of the far west, a man already consumed by hatred and envy.

Though his influence was weak, the voracious whispered promises of conquest and glory and guided the king to the resting place of Calistra's eye, hidden beneath the castle. With the stone removed, the power of the voracious intensified, as did his whispers in the sovereign's mind. Now the son of Death sang of wars, dominion, and the rise of powerful children who would transform the city into an empire.

Alarmed, the gods sent Oriel and Angel to the world to protect the sacred eyes. However, upon crossing the barrier, the two discovered that their celestial bodies could not survive the passage. The protection rejected both the children of Death and the children of War. Only their consciousnesses could cross, but this required a mortal receptacle—an immense challenge. The problem was that fae bodies could not withstand fusion with divine essence, disintegrating under the weight of the celestial aura.

After killing countless terrestrials in his attempts to possess their bodies, Angel finally found compatibility in a forest healer whose healing ability sustained his presence. Even so, the body was fragile, and all of the healer's gift was consumed containing the aura of the divinity trapped in flesh, leaving the receptacle incapable of healing from wounds.

Oriel, meanwhile, took the body of a respected elmedic from Interion. The archangel knew his presence would kill the man's soul and mourned for him, but this was a mission that could not fail.

Before long, the promises the voracious had made to the greedy king erupted into war between nations. When this happened, Angel took on the mission of protecting three of the five eyes, working from the shadows. Meanwhile, Oriel fought bravely—though without access to arcane powers—and kept Interion safe until the end. His receptacle perished when struck by a rain of arrows, but not before closing the nation's main gate and temporarily halting the advance of chaos, bringing the war to an end.

Without a strong receptacle, Oriel's soul returned to the Divine, and despite having taken the elmedic's life, he honored the man's name by making him known as a hero.

For now, the world was saved once more. Wounded and corrupted, but intact. The voracious, however, continued to whisper in the king's ear. And without adequate bodies to use as receptacles, the archangels could not stop him. They knew it was only a matter of time before the barrier weakened enough for the creature to cross.

Seeking a strategy to contain the advance of the voracious, Seijhe proposed creating receptacles powerful enough to house the archangels in future battles. However, the only goddess capable of bearing descendants with healing gifts was Calistra, and she considered the idea of lying with mortals degrading. Thus, it fell to the archangels to sire heirs with the potential to become perfect receptacles.

Powerless to refuse an order, Angel and Oriel descended to the breeding fields established in Drutes, where healers were more plentiful. There, for years, they attempted to create a bloodline strong enough to fulfill the divine purpose. During one of these incursions into the breeding fields, the archangels found evidence of Anabel's presence—the goddess of Death—a brief apparition with no indication of why she was there or what she sought. Her trail soon vanished.

Meanwhile, the voracious continued whispering in the king's ears, hatching increasingly bold schemes. Until finally, the gods' greatest fear came to pass: two stones were united through the sacrifice of a life, creating a temporary fissure in the barrier through which the most powerful voracious managed to cross.

Hungry, exhausted, and consumed by fury, he dragged himself to where the two stones had been united: a cave of brilliant crystals in the depths of a colorful city. There, he found the ideal receptacle: a woman sacrificed upon the stones. The voracious lodged himself in her lifeless body, but when he rose, he did not find the gods' eyes that should have been there. Before departing, he promised his brothers that he would find all the stones, bring down the barrier, and open the way for the absolute dominion of the three.

While the world teetered on the brink of collapse, the children of the archangels’ lineage were born and bred, yet none proved strong enough—and those who were lacked the gift of healing. Of all the bloodlines, only one stood out. Though the descendant of War possessed a body of steel and fury, just as the archangels desired, it wasn’t enough to contain an archangel at full power. Still, it was the best of them all, and the siblings were ready to fight alongside her.

So they descended to her room on a moonlit night. But when Angel drew near, he saw that the woman and her consort lay nestled together, cradling the swollen belly that radiated love and life.

The body carried a child, and the gods thrummed with anticipation at this triumph. When the day of birth arrived, they held their breath, for this was their last chance.

Then a baby girl with red hair and golden eyes came into the world. She was strong, and her cry was a song of hope. Two powers burned within the girl’s chest, and the celestial beings realized that after so many failed attempts, divine power had finally adapted to the material world and created a worthy heir. She was perfect for the archangels’ purpose.