Before the old man could continue any further, Azra interjected “We get it already, you named us after Azrael and Uriel… Are you trying to convince us that you’re some kind of god and we’re reincarnated deities?”

Yuri shook her head, muttering “Totally illogical… Perhaps it is a metaphor or allegory of some kind?”

Their grandfather facepalmed and grumbled “Okay, just please let me finish the story first before you brats come to a conclusion…”

Then he continued “So where was I? Oh yeah, Sariel arrived on Elysium and decided to make some changes. The first thing that he did was find and seal those two chess pieces. However they ended up on the planet, someone had obviously tried to tinker with them first and thus, caused the cataclysmic situation on Elysium.

“Sariel felt a strong karmic connection to that planet, so he decided to stay a while and try to reset the planet to the way that it used to be. Of course, it’s also really rare to find a totally abandoned and empty universe that was so large… There were plenty of galaxies and nebulas for him to snack on while he played around with the planet.”

Azra complained “Do you even realize how absurd that sounds? The Milky Way Galaxy alone is a hundred light years in diameter! What kind of creature would be big enough to devour entire galaxies?!”

The old man sighed dramatically, “Size is irrelevant when you reach a certain level of power…” Suddenly, there was a nibble and then a fish actually got hooked onto his line, so he had to struggle with all of his might to pull in a large eyeless pink fish. After putting it into a wooden bucket filled with water, he told the rest of the story.

“Once Sariel stripped all the mana from the planet, he created all sorts of life forms to inhabit the world… Most of the magical beasts and races died off without mana to support them, but it was inconsequential to the deity. He simply placed their souls into new bodies of his own design, humanity was reborn. Yet he also decided to make other races as well: Goblins, Orcs, Gnomes, Dwarves, Reptilians, Ogres, Giants, Merfolk, Avians, Ursines, Felines, Canines, Rodents… They each had their own advantages and disadvantages. The purpose was so that one species wouldn’t dominate over all of the others, but like always, it ended in tragedy.

“The Humans worked together with the Gnomes, Dwarves and Giants that weren’t too different from themselves in appearance. Meanwhile, the Orcs ruled over the less intelligent Ogres and the physically weaker Goblins, creating a massive empire. In the ocean, it was far more difficult to develop various types of technology and it was much more dangerous, so the various types of Merfolk couldn’t survive. All of the various Avian races were hunted to extinction by the Beastkin Alliance.

“Then the Humanity Coalition, Orcish Empire and the Beastkin Alliance began their many wars for domination of the world… There was one massive continent, but as their populations grew rampant, they needed more resources in order to thrive. Orcs and Ogres weren’t too bad, but the Goblins were able to reproduce far too quickly. The Rodent races were in a similar situation… It put a huge strain on the balance of power, eventually causing division within the Empire and the Alliance.

“Okay, the moral of the story is that diversity isn’t necessarily a good thing. All of the races within the Beastkin Alliance and the Oricish Empire ended up going extinct, while the Humanity Cohilition fragmented into four separate countries. The Giants had a small population, but their size made it difficult for them to survive on their own. Fortunately, there were always wars to be fought, large objects to be moved or lifted. If a town had a single giant, then they could be considered lucky.

“Anyway, I’m really dragging this out, so I’ll skip to the end… Remember how I said that Sariel had all of the chess pieces and even the board? Well, he spread them out across the continent. Then he created hundreds of avatars, in order to hopefully find Azrael and Uriel one day. His true body left this world long ago, but those mortal avatars still remain even now… I really was just passing through your village when I finally found you two.”

Prologue: Grandpa

Prologue 1: Uriel, Azrael and Sariel
Prologue 2: The Divine Chess Set
Prologue 3: The Mysterious Old Man
Prologue 4: Presents
Prologue 5: Books
Prologue 6: The Truth
Prologue 7: Elysium
Prologue 8: Sariel King