(A quick warning: every chapter (except for this one and the next three, and a few more ter on) has a time skip of at least 1 year, so don’t be surprised if new details appear that you didn’t notice earlier, it’s because of the time skip~)
The world was young, its bones still sharp and unpolished, as if the gods had carved it in haste and left it to fend for itself. Jagged cliffs tore at the sky, rivers ran wild with the fury of untamed youth, and the air carried a primal scent—of earth unbroken and promises unmade. In this raw cradle, five kingdoms rose, not from prophecy or divine mandate, but from the stubborn will of humans who refused to be devoured by the dark. Beyond their fragile borders, the Candor beasts roamed—hulking shadows with teeth like splintered oaths, their eyes glowing with a hunger that no fme could sate. These realms, scattered across storm-shed isnds and a cursed mainnd, would one day be known as The Great Realm, their names etched in the annals of a history yet unwritten.
Riresu: The Farmer’s Oath
On a northwestern isnd, where the sea murmured secrets to the shore, the Realm of Riresu took root like a seed in fertile soil. The isnd was a symphony of life: emerald forests stretched toward the horizon, their canopies whispering with the rustle of leaves and the chatter of unseen birds. Meadows bloomed with wildflowers, their colors so vivid they seemed to pulse under the sun. The soil here was dark and loamy, so rich it left a faint hum in the hands of those who worked it, as if the earth itself were alive and singing. The people of Riresu were not warriors; they were dreamers with dirt under their nails, farmers who saw eternity in a single harvest. Their capital, Ichaowa, gleamed like a promise kept, its white stone walls and timbered rooftops rising in harmonious order. The streets were id with cobblestones, each pced with a precision that felt like a quiet rebellion against the world’s chaos—a vow to create beauty where none was owed.
At the heart of Ichaowa stood Ovowyw, a man whose broad shoulders bore the weight of fields tilled and seasons survived. His hands were rough as bark, callused from decades of coaxing life from the earth, and his face was weathered, lined with the furrows of a man who knew both drought and abundance. His eyes, a deep hazel, held a quiet intensity, like the stillness before a storm. Ovowyw was no orator, his words pin and unadorned, nor was he a conqueror, wielding neither sword nor ambition. He was a farmer, nothing more, yet nothing less—a man who understood the cost of a failed crop, the ache of a hungry belly, the fragile hope of a seedling breaking through the soil. When the people of Riresu, their faces earnest and pleading, pressed a crown of woven vines and silver upon his brow, he accepted it with a grimace, as if it were a yoke too heavy for his frame. “Let no one go hungry,” he decred, his voice low but unyielding, carrying the weight of a man who had seen too many winters to make promises lightly.
Under Ovowyw’s steady gaze, granaries swelled with golden wheat and barley, their wooden beams groaning under the bounty. Six souls called Riresu home—few, but resolute, their ughter mingling with the clink of tools and the rhythm of hoes striking earth. They were a patchwork family: a widow with hands as deft as her te husband’s, a young boy who dreamed of pnting orchards, a healer whose herbs scented the air with mint and sage. Each worked alongside Ovowyw, their trust in him as unshakable as the isnd’s ancient oaks. Yet that first night as king, Ovowyw did not sleep. He stood at Ichaowa’s edge, where the cliffs dropped sharply to the sea, the waves below a restless silver under the moon. The salt-den breeze tugged at his cloak, and he gripped the crown in his hands, its weight a reminder of the lives now tethered to his choices. He wondered if he could bear their trust, if his hands, so skilled at nurturing crops, could nurture a kingdom without breaking under the strain.
Paliph: The Schor’s Burden
To the northeast, on a smaller isnd where the wind carried the sharp tang of salt and the faint musk of aging parchment, the Kingdom of Paliph emerged like a thought taking form. The isnd was a study in contrasts: rocky cliffs gave way to sandy coves, and windswept pines stood sentinel over fields of swaying grass. The air here seemed to hum with possibility, as if ideas themselves could take root in the soil. The people of Paliph were meticulous, their minds alight with questions that burned brighter than any torch. Their capital, Aruowo, was a city of crisp angles and open spaces, its buildings carved from pale granite that caught the sunlight like polished mirrors. Pzas sprawled beneath the sky, where schors and dreamers gathered, their debates rising and falling like birdsong, weaving a tapestry of thought that bound the city together.
At the center of Aruowo stood Doch, a schor whose ink-stained fingers and stooped posture belied the fire in his mind. His eyes, a pale gray, seemed to see beyond the horizon, tracing patterns where others saw only chaos—consteltions in the stars, rhythms in the tides, truths hidden in the world’s quiet corners. His hair, once dark, was now streaked with silver, and his robes were perpetually dusted with the faint grit of old scrolls. Doch had spent his life chasing knowledge, not power, yet when the six citizens of Paliph chose him as their king, he could not refuse their pleading gazes. “A kingdom is built on knowledge,” he told them, his voice trembling not with fear but with the weight of their expectations, each word measured as if he were bancing a quill on its tip. He ruled from a tower that seemed to pierce the sky, its shelves groaning under the weight of scrolls and star charts, its windows framing the sea like a canvas of endless questions.
Doch’s days were filled with careful steps—mapping the tides to predict storms, studying the stars to guide their fledgling ships, weighing each decision as if it were a theorem to be proven. His six citizens, a motley crew of thinkers and tinkerers, watched him with a mix of awe and impatience: a cartographer who sketched maps with obsessive care, a poet whose verses captured the wind’s fleeting voice, a smith who forged tools as delicate as ideas. At night, Doch lingered by his tower’s highest window, the sea below a dark mirror reflecting his doubts. The distant waves whispered of tempests and unknowns, and he wondered if wisdom alone could hold a realm together, or if his endless questions would one day drown them all.
Holy Ly: The Fme in the Dark
In the mainnd’s heart, where the nd itself seemed to pulse with malice, the Kingdom of Holy Ly stood defiant, a bastion of light in a world of shadow. The earth here was scarred and unyielding, its pins cracked by drought and its forests twisted into gnarled silhouettes. The Candor—monstrous shadows with hides like bckened iron and eyes like burning coals—stalked beyond the kingdom’s borders, their howls a nightly sermon on mortality, each guttural cry a reminder of the fragility of life. Goirk, the capital, was a fortress of towering stone, its walls hewn from the bones of the earth and bckened by years of watchfires that never dimmed. The air was thick with the scent of ash and iron, and the streets echoed with the ctter of steel and the low murmur of prayers.
Their king, Pewapo, was a man forged in the crucible of loss. Tall and broad, with a face carved by grief, he bore scars that mapped his body like a battlefield: a jagged line across his chest, a burn on his forearm, each a testament to the Candor’s cruelty. His eyes, once warm, were now flint-hard, reflecting the firelight that illuminated Goirk’s walls. The Candor had taken his wife and children, leaving only memories and a resolve harder than the stone he stood upon. When the people of Holy Ly, their faces gaunt but unbowed, offered him the crown, he accepted it without ceremony, his eyes holding no pride, only a vow as unyielding as the fortress itself: “We endure.” Five souls lived in Holy Ly, each a warrior in their own right—a bcksmith whose hammer sang with defiance, a scout whose eyes missed nothing, a mother who wielded a spear as fiercely as she cradled her child. They slept with bdes at their sides, their dreams haunted by the howls beyond the walls. Each dawn they woke was a victory, each night a battle won, their lives a testament to the stubborn fire that burned in Pewapo’s heart.
Holy Iro: The Bloodied Light
Deeper in the Candor’s domain, where the air was thick with the stench of decay and the ground seemed to tremble with the beasts’ hunger, Holy Iro clung to life like a candle flickering in a gale. Yruro, its capital, was a frail beacon, its walls of crumbling stone pitted by cws and weathered by time, each scar a story of survival. The city was small, its streets narrow and winding, lit by torches that cast long, trembling shadows. The people here lived with the constant weight of fear, their eyes darting to the horizon, where the Candor’s glowing gazes pierced the dusk. Once, Yruro had been a pce of hope, its ughter led by King Rukinyna, a man whose broad smile and booming voice had been a shield against despair. His hair had been a wild mane of gold, his hands quick with a sword and quicker with a jest. But hope was a brittle thing in Holy Iro, and when Reb Rek, a Candor beast of nightmare flesh—its body a grotesque fusion of sinew and shadow—tore through Yruro at dusk, Rukinyna met it with a sword and a smile that never faltered. He fell, his blood soaking the stones he’d sworn to protect, his ughter silenced but his courage a spark that lingered in the hearts of those he left behind.
The two survivors, their faces hollow with grief, chose Akutenu as their new king. He was a one-armed hunter, his left sleeve pinned where the Candor had cimed his limb, his dark eyes burning with a fury that needed no words. His silence was louder than any vow, a presence that filled Yruro’s battered halls like the toll of a bell. “We will make them fear us,” he said, his voice low and sharp, a bde honed by pain and tempered by resolve. The two who stood with him—a wiry girl who moved like a shadow and an old man whose hands still remembered the weight of a bow—nodded, their eyes reflecting the same unyielding fire. In Yruro’s flickering light, they lived—not as a kingdom, but as a wound that refused to close, their every breath a defiance of the dark that sought to cim them.
The Wosi: The Sea’s Defiance
On the southeastern peninsu, where cliffs rose like sentinels and the sea roared with the voice of a living god, The Wosi stood unbowed, a kingdom as wild and untamed as the waves that shaped it. The peninsu was a nd of extremes: towering cliffs kissed the clouds, their faces streaked with salt and moss, while below, the sea churned in endless fury, its foam white as bone. The air was sharp with brine and the cry of gulls, and the wind carried a restless energy, as if urging the nd to rise and fight. Ucuka, the capital, perched on the edge of the world, its walls of weathered stone daring the Candor to test their strength. The city was a marvel of defiance, its towers leaning into the wind, its streets alive with the creak of ropes and the rhythm of hammers shaping ships.
King Etaruphu, a sailor weathered by storms, bore the crown like a challenge, its simple band of iron glinting against his sun-darkened skin. His face was a map of the sea—lines etched by salt and wind, eyes as blue and fathomless as the horizon. His hands, callused from years of hauling nets and steering through tempests, moved with a sailor’s grace, and his voice carried the cadence of waves breaking on the shore. “We are free,” he told his four citizens, his words rising over the crash of the sea, each sylble a decration of defiance. “The sea is ours, and the nd will be too.” They were few—a fisherman with a ugh as bold as the tides, a shipwright whose hands crafted vessels like poetry, a widow whose songs tamed the wind, a boy who dreamed of sying Candor with a harpoon—but their spirits were as vast as the ocean they called home. Each night, they watched the dark from Ucuka’s cliffs, their bdes gleaming in the moonlight, their hearts pounding with the rhythm of the waves. They were ready for whatever came, their lives a song of freedom sung against the teeth of the night.
Five kings, five crowns, each a solitary fme against the encroaching dark. They did not yet know each other, nor the wars, betrayals, and alliances that would one day bind their fates like threads in a tapestry. But their stories had begun, etched in the sweat of bor, the ink of dreams, and the blood of sacrifice, on a world that would never forgive their audacity to live.
