Part 30: The Forge of Rage
The era we call The Beginning of Time was a fragile period when the cosmic balance was held by a terrifying mix of power and fear. The Celestials—the true, original gods—ruled from on high, their dominance unquestioned. But even they harbored a deep-seated dread of a lesser, more chaotic entity: the Human Spirits. These beings were the consciousness at the absolute peak of humanity, existing for millennia before being tethered to flesh. They were entities of pure, rebellious will, a chaotic force that defied the rigid natural law of the cosmos.
The tipping point came with the birth of Jex. The horrifying, unpredictable chaos unleashed by this single anomaly—the unintended consequence of a Celestial pairing with a Human Spirit—shocked the gods to their core. They realized that the Human Spirits were not just inferiors; they were an infectious agent of freedom.
The gods, in a desperate, cold act of self-preservation, concluded they needed to create a manageable form of humanity, one that would never achieve the raw, epoch-spanning power of the original Human Spirits. This began the genesis of The New Humans and the countdown to an inevitable, imminent war.
The gods, backed by their Celestial legions, began a brutal campaign. They rounded up Human Spirits, subjecting them to unimaginable agony before infusing them in wet clay. This forced merger was designed to drastically inhibit their power and life span. A spirit that could exist for a thousand years before losing its essence was now tethered to a form of clay that could only survive for three hundred years at best. Once the clay died, the spirit died with it, a perfect containment system.
This horrifying, good-looking brutality by the gods forged a new, terrifying power within The New Humans: Rage. The pain of losing their freedom, their original power, and the sheer injustice of their new, abbreviated existence ignited a pitch-black fury—a rage focused entirely on the gods.
Driven by this collective fury, the New Humans began to unconsciously create a weapon capable of destroying the gods and Celestials alongside them. They themselves were mostly unaware of what they were doing; only a select, tortured few knew the full purpose: The God Seekers.
Their leader was a figure of absolute dread known as Primus. His name, Latin for "first man," was a testament to his torture. Always hooded, he moved in a shriveling, hunched manner beneath an oversized robe, giving the impression he could perish at any second. Yet, a palpable, acrid scent of raw agony and unyielding will emanated from him—a scent that could break the spirit of any foe. Primus was the first Human Spirit captured, tortured, and infused into clay. He cried every night, inflicting self-harm to ensure he never forgot the searing, agonizing pain the gods had inflicted upon him.
When the New Humans discovered rage, very few could control its volatile power. Those who perfected rage control, transforming their fury into a focused, deadly discipline, were chosen to be God Seekers. Under the guise of a holy, religious faction—a clever, deceptive veneer—they offered all their love and devotion to the gods. They banned all affection and attachment between themselves, offering their hearts to the heavens in a twisted ritual.
As they prayed, a thick, pitch-black smoke—the manifestation of their channeled, disciplined rage—was released from the very soul of every human. This smoke was captured by a bizarre, cylindrical conduit tube that channeled the essence into a secret weapon chamber, slowly accumulating the fuel for their ultimate vengeance.
One of the most formidable of these God Seekers was Acacia.
Acacia was an embodiment of perfected rage and devastating beauty. Her power was a legend whispered among the ranks. She was envied by men and women alike, a master strategist and a warrior of unparalleled skill. Her beauty was defiant: long, lustrous, curly black hair cascaded down her back, complementing her striking multi-colored eyes—one a piercing blue, the other a vibrant green—which seemed to absorb and reflect the light of her inner fire. Her skin was a rich, dark tone that matched her excellently curved body, a figure both deadly and divine. She was fierce, intelligent, and lethal.
Acacia's defining characteristic was her loyalty to the cause and her absolute, profound hatred. She hated the gods with a pure, focused intensity that matched, and perhaps even surpassed, Primus's own tormented fury. This hatred fueled the highest level of controlled rage within her, making her a genius at manipulating and applying her power. She was, consequently, the favorite of every member of the God Seekers.
Acacia was the leader of the God Seekers' army—the elite dark fighters. They moved with terrifying precision, their swords and weapons covered with the concentrated energy of channeled rage, making them fast, swift, precise, and absolute. Their primary mission was the assassination of Lost Gods—weaker divine entities who had been cut off from the main Celestial power. They collected the god souls, feeding the divine essence directly into the secret weapon chamber. Each soul was a step closer to the inevitable destruction of their oppressors.
Acacia was close to only two souls in that entire cold world: Ogunye and Rama. For centuries, they had been her closest assistants, comrades who had fought, bled, and suffered alongside her. They were a triumvirate bound by rage and a mutual thirst for vengeance.
The doom to this friendship arrived when Ogunye and Rama fell in love and escaped the faction. To Acacia, this was the ultimate betrayal. They had broken the cardinal rule, abandoning the cause for the cheap, temporary affection of two mortal forms. They had tainted the sacred rage with vulgar love.
Acacia's loyalty and hatred, already absolute, coalesced into a singular, burning purpose. The betrayal by the only people she had ever allowed herself to trust made the hunt personal, turning her into a machine of relentless vengeance.
And so, the cold, implacable pursuit of her former friends began....