“All I did was murder a Mortal Star.”

  Luna’s eyes sparkled when she heard the word “Star.”

  ‘All along the stars were mortals! But what makes them so crucial, and how do they connect to Yong Feng and the Fall?’

  These questions burned like fire. But her beautiful face mirrored calmness as she let Razchar go on.

  “You mortals are so unaware of what’s happening to your world. Truth might be cruel, but ignorance is much worse than you think. The demise of both our realms is a result of a Great War that happened a few years after I was stripped of my power and thrown into this prison by my own Master.”

  He ughed coldly as his great memory repyed so many scenes. Sometimes he wished he could forget. But as the Guardian of Truth, he could not forget anything True. He was to share the Truth with this girl, just like he did with her Father when he connected with the domain of truth.

  “The Creator is said to have created the first concept, Life. From Life, eight concepts were born, and these eight concepts were: Bance, Death, Light, Time, Conflict, Fate, Water, and the Void.”

  “These were the Eight Gods or the Heavenly Court, to be more specific,” Razchar continued. “We servants were created from these concepts, becoming the first demigods—this happened soon after the Supreme One and the others betrayed the Creator and locked Him away in an unknown pce."

  Luna frowned a little and looked at Razchar directly. The gods were seven…War, Death, Sun, Moon, Sea, Heart, and Fate. Was the Heart god the Void then? Wait, the Void is a god!

  ‘I remember there were eight stars,’ Luna’s eyes glistened when she recalled her time in the underground temple. She remembered eight bright stars, representing the eight gods who ruled the divine realm. ‘Then the eighth star is the Heavenly Supreme, the god of Bance. I am guessing he never influenced the Mortal realm like the other gods. No wonder he’s so unpopur.’

  Luna finally had a better picture of how the gods were the key to bance and why the divine realm depended on their existence.

  “Were the Servants the True Celestials?”

  Razchar nodded. “That’s what most mortals ter called us. But the people of the divine realm knew us demigods. To them, we were simir to the gods because we fell under their domains….” He paused briefly. Then continued. “But not equal. We were never equal to our masters in any way, and that always bothered me.”

  Luna’s frown grew deeper when she heard this. “So you’re the one who started the war?”

  Razchar slowly shook his head. “Not really. But I was one of its key components.” He let out a weak ugh in between. “….I wanted to find a way that we demigods could be equal to our masters and the Heavenly Supreme. As a Servant who fell under the domain of Truth, I was naturally searching for the hidden meaning behind Life and trying to understand the Creator’s power.”

  His face darkened, and he let out a regretful sigh. All the pride he wore wavered for a moment as he continued to tell his Truth to this mortal.

  “In the end, I did find the meaning of life. I was able to gain insight into the Creator’s power and I was able to create something capable of consuming life….”

  At that moment, Luna’s pupils shrank to a pin size as she realized the magnitude of this Truth.

  This Razchar was the creator of Bck Ether! Naturally, Luna wanted him dead right here and right now. But once again, she was too insignificant while in his presence.

  “You see, Lunaris. The gods were capable of destroying and creating life, while we Demigods were incapable of such. True Creation and Absolute Destruction were concepts that were out of our reach because we were merely shadows, mere servants, and nothing more. So when I created Ether, I thought I had touched on the Concept of Absolute Destruction.”

  He gripped onto the throne’s sides until the stone itself cracked. “With my blood, I created the thing that would py a part in the End of both realms.”

  ‘This bastard.’ Luna suddenly felt enraged by his words. However, she managed to remain calm. Right now, Razchar was the closest thing she had to a clue. If she shed out, he might rethink his choices…

  “I thought I was sent here to decide whether I should free you or not, you’re only giving me reasons not to, Lord Razchar,” she tried to remain humble despite the rage she felt. “But Lord, I do have a few questions that I request you would answer within the little time we have left.”

  Luna could feel this version of herself weakening with each passing moment. The Aura wasn’t hers, so its expenditure was too great for her, even with a stronger soul.

  “I see. You may ask,” Razchar didn’t act rashly in response to her behavior. He understood that she was mortal and time wasn’t on her side.

  Upon his approval, Luna mouthed out the questions that had been on her mind since the subjugation.

  “Who are the Mortal Stars? What is the purpose of zenshi? And how am I connected to all of this?”

  After her questions, Lord Razchar lingered for a while before he spoke in an even tone:

  “The Mortal Stars are countermeasures the gods put in pce to ensure that they do not completely perish from this world. Stars were mortal lineages, powerful humans that could become gods in case the gods themselves perished. I would call them demigods, but none of them showed signs of awakening at the time.”

  ‘Valentine mentioned that Lord Artemis acquired the Moon goddess’s lineage through a god relic.’

  “The Mortal Stars are Lineages? Then how did they connect to the fall?”

  “Hmm…let me ask you a question, Lunaris, do you know the origin of your cn? How was it born and why?"

  Luna nodded. “The Feng cn was created by Jang Feng Ho during the Xia Dynasty when Martial Arts was at its peak. Jang Feng Ho was one of the greatest fighters of time, said to have the strength of a dragon. He wanted to become a unified world by sharing his knowledge with everyone.”

  “Oh, Jang Feng Ho? So that’s what he called himself at the time. Hmm…interesting,” Razchar said thoughtfully. “In this era, those who have 'divine' blood can ascend with zenshi, right?”

  “Yes,” Luna answered, matter-of-factly.

  “Then why didn’t you ascend, Lunaris? In every one hundred million, only three are born with blood as divine as yours. If they're lucky,” he cimed. “You see, Mortal Stars were humans born in the divine realm, and we servants were sent to protect each one of them. We never asked the gods why, of course. By then, we servants only did as we told…as though we had no purpose.”

  He sighed. “I was a servant until the first mortal star, Atemir, suddenly awakened a Soul Gate.” Razchar paused as he remembered that fateful night.

  “Life essence erupted out of her body…it bzed like the sun, giving life to dying things close to her. I saw her give and create life by turning her vilge's barren mountains into green and beautiful fields. Mortals were not supposed to be capable of connecting with divine energy like that. Even my fellow demigods were incapable of using life essence to that level. Sure, humans of the mortal realm were different from humans of the divine realm. But neither of them was supposed to be that special. And when I asked the Heavenly Court for an expnation, they were pleased by the mortal’s development. They were pleased to hear that humans as powerful as Atemir existed.”

  His gaze nded on Luna. His eyes were devoid of all emotion. And yet, his rage could be felt.

  “That’s when I knew that the gods were going to repce us with these so-called special mortals.”

  “So you killed Atemir.” It wasn’t rocket science to figure that out. Razchar wasn’t telling her all this to free him, he was sharing the Truth.

  Freeing her will be her decision.

  Razchar smiled and nodded. “It was either that mortal or us. I chose us. I intended to hunt down the other Stars and kill them too before they ever discover how strong they are. But the gods interfered just before I could find the others. You see, Atemir was a priestess and a blessed daughter of the goddess of the moon. In the end, killing her was an act of treason, and my punishment was quite a severe one since I angered the fiercest goddess in the Heavenly realm.”

  Luna took some time and read the being’s eyes. There was not a shred of regret as he said those words. Razchar was proud of what he did.

  ‘A mortal soul wouldn’t mean anything to him, I guess.’

  While she mpooned, Razchar continued:

  “I was stripped of my connection to my master and my domain by the Heavenly Supreme. My immortality couldn’t be taken away according to the rules imposed by the Heavenly Supreme, so they decided to make me the first prisoner of this world. It took all their nasty sorcery to lock me here forever.”

  “Where is here, though?” Luna asked randomly.

  “ We are in one of the realms that were destroyed during the battle against the creator, the Shadow Realm. If you had swum into the Silent Pond, you would have faced the Shadow creatures that live in the shadow realm first to get to me.”

  Luna stared at the windows. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she saw a massive dark shadow moving in the darkness. It was much rger than the kraken or anything Luna had seen until now.

  ‘Woow, Storm expected me to fight a thing like that? I swear to god she will pay for this.’ She made a mental note to scold her master when she was out of this pce.

  “Before I was imprisoned here, I told the others about the Mortal Stars. Everlight and the rest ughed at me. They thought I held some pathetic grudge over a mortal, and I just killed her because I wanted to. But they were wrong, I had seen Atemir use her first Soul Gate to change the realm. She produced the presence of a real god, and as someone who saw it, I had to do something about it.”

  “Wait, Lord Razchar….when exactly did you make the Ether?”

  “I already had. It was already in the divine realm, infecting the lesser creatures I had experimented on. The Dark energy transformed into a twisted version of life essence because of blood. It ter stopped killing its targets and merged into their souls to continue living, hehe…by then I was already a prisoner. I didn’t know it would become strong enough to weaken the gods and give birth to demons.”

  Luna listened to all this as she added what she knew to this being’s story. Sure, this expined a lot about what happened to the divine realm. Learning that the Stars were mortals was a shock.

  And after fighting a pantheon and listening to his rants, Luna was starting to understand why the Servants would turn against their masters and leading to the fall.

  ‘But if the lineages were mortals, how did lord Artemis get his hands on the Moon’s lineage?’

  After a loud sigh, Razchar finally moved from his seat. There was a loud rattle of chains as he walked out of his seat and slowly approached Luna. He was tall, about seven to eight feet tall. This alone surpassed the tallest person on Earth right now.

  Luna stepped back away from the man, but she bumped into an invisible wall.

  “I don’t know how. But the other servants must’ve found out about the gods passing on their lineages to mortals and waged war on the gods and the Heavenly Supreme. I heard it took seventy servants to kill the Heavenly Supreme and three hundred lesser divine to kill the gods in their weakest states. Hehe…I guess a god is a god after all. Anyway, in the end, only a few servants survived the final war, and most lesser deities were dead.”

  Luna could only imagine how the war must’ve looked. The servants were demigods, and the gods were gods. They weren’t strong enough, so they managed to convince the mortals and lesser deities to help them in this takeover.

  “How many of them remain, the demigods?” she questioned eagerly.

  "Thirty servants survived after the first war. The death of the gods was a victory, but the death of the Heavenly Supreme came with terrible consequences.”

  Razchar suddenly burst into mad ughter. “They really thought it wouldn’t come with consequences, idiots.”

  “What were those consequences?”

  There was a loud rattling noise as Razchar lifted his arm and revealed three fingers to Luna. “The Great Punishments: Madness, Weakness, and Torment. The Heavenly Supreme punished us like that.”

  “As you already know, the Heavenly Supreme was the ruler of the divine realm. He was Bance and ruled everything under the Suns. Upon his end, he cursed every sacred creature in the divine realm, creating the Cursed Creatures. With his second st breath, he ripped away our ability to ascend to true godhood—he crippled us, making us weak. And with his final breath, he destroyed the bodies of the gods we were connected to. I wasn’t affected by the third one because I was already crippled. But being ripped off that connection meant that the servants were no longer connected to the divine fme, meaning that the divine realm was going to colpse unless New gods were born.”

  Luna’s dark eyes glistened. This is exactly what she had been waiting for. The answer to her second question.

  “Hence the creation of the spark of divinity….”

  A/N: The Xia Dynasty used here is absolutely fictional.