In the shrouded past, one tale is disclosed—How Heroes are Born.
It follows the Four Heavenly Sages in a short novel that details the Rebellion of Heaven and Earth, an era in which humanity fought against divine forces.
In the end, four powerful clans claimed different regions.
Moon, Sun, Winter, and Star.
Each founder of these clans was an Ophanim of a god; someone who has ascended or evolved into a zodiac path.
Named after the ancient angels that chariot God's throne, they reforged the devastating earth back to its former state with the help of their divine powers.
The skies were blue again, no longer tainted black with red clouds.
The grass is green again. The air is breathable, with clean rivers and oceans.
It's almost as if nothing happened.
The mortals not directly involved firsthand in the Rebellion of Heaven and Earth could convince themselves that the horror they just faced was a nightmare, but the history and years' worth of technology did not recover quickly.
Time passed before Earth resembled the modern world again, with advancements in technology and society, and in addition to a few key differences.
Instead of being ruled by presidents and governors, the remaining population are ruled by the Pillars of the Four Holy Clans. Sun Clan spreading influence through the western continent. Moon Clan seizing the eastern continent and Star Clan flocks to the southern continent while Winter Clan dominates the northern continent.
The ancestors made a pact; they would work together for the sake of rebuilding the world, but as unpredictable nature in this era is, emotions are worse.
After thousands of years of friendly negotiations and trade between the Four Holy Clans, mankind once again faces the threat of extinction.
May fate be terminated and destiny radiate guidance.
****
Six years before the Age of Recollection ends.
Year 4078, October 31.
"Do I have to?" Catalina asks once more, sending pleading glances to her parents, the room temperature chilling to a frost bite, yet the Melpomene family are undeterred, gathered in the hall before the iron doors shaped as claws.
"Yes, honey, we've been over this a hundred times," Zolani Inara Melpomene, her mother, replies attentively.
"With your older sister gone, you are the next heir of Winter Clan; you must do this. For the Snow."
'For the snow. Such a flimsy vow of the north,' Catalina thinks, full of bitterness and resentment.
Movement from the sidelines almost drags her attention away, but she forces herself not to get distracted, the strain in her mentality boiling. If she does not speak now, she won't later.
"I can't fight," she presses.
Pillar of Winter Clan, her father, Hael, chuckles. "Yes, you can. The best of the Winter Clan taught you; including me."
"This is bullshit," she grumbles, on the verge of clawing her hair out.
"Language!" Zolani chides.
"This is bubbles."
"I think you mean baloney."
She slid her gaze to her brother, her eyelid twitching.
Catalina's mood continues to plummet, soured to the core. How things turned out like this is beyond her mind to conjure up an explanation that might soothe her nerves.
She figured the next heir would be her sister. It was the most obvious choice no matter how long and hard she pondered, which is for a total of five hours every day for the past three weeks since she'd been told about the devastating decision.
Ten years after the Tragedy of the North, this generation's heir of Winter Clan at the young age of nineteen overdosed on Crystalline Rock—a drug created by a mad genius scientist known as Great Night. Crystalline Rock highly enhances one's physical body to that of a giant strength, along with boosting one's divine power without the need for training. One can become a god with no effort, or so rumors say.
Ziven Melpomene was a promising talent who had the potential to become a true Ophanim like his father. He was as strong as the celestial retainers, the holy clan rulers' defense of power, their three-man army.
He graduated from the Lightless Institute with perfect grades, ranking first in all diversions, and had a flawless record in duels. However, a year before he could take over as Pillar, he was found in his room, drowning in his own mangled limbs with crystallized blood.
After his death, the next heir was his twin sister, Ataraxia Melpomene, but she had run away shortly after, leaving the two youngest.
Catalina and Casimir Melpomene. The latter is approaching fifteen years old and the former sixteen.
A long oppressive silence settles in the atmosphere.
The second youngest displeasure is overwhelmingly evident. She is fond of planning ahead, scattering seeds of thoughts already in her brain, in preparation for how to react and exist.
Like a gardener of her mind, she would plant words that blossom in the correct flow of predictable daily events.
Catalina does not find this to be a talent, just the blessing of a serene lifestyle. She absolutely hates when something is thrown her way and no time will cure what she felt that day three weeks ago and today. What she hates even more is that her parents mean no harm—it's just life. It always is.
An heir must be known or at the very least a candidate of succession known, but if that candidate fails in their duty to convince the clan and population of their standing, then another must be selected.
The sages refuse to have an heir position empty for more than a year because of the weight a holy clan bears for the world.
One of the major reasons her eldest sister, Ataraxia, sometimes loathes her is because of the potential she radiates like a beacon of power itself, so the possibility, the very thought of her leaving such a responsibility where she can shine brightest is unbelievable. It still fails to fully register in her head.
'Unless, of course, she wants to embarrass me. There is no way I will escape this without haunting memories.'
Shaking her head, Catalina scoffs at the notion, hating herself for even doubting her sister. Her ice blue eyes darken in disdain.
'Winter Clan is not Star Clan or the others who hate their own blood. We don't turn on each other. Kill the other. Good grief! Thoughts off. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.'
She threads an irritable hand through her mass of silvery white hair; her eyelashes the same shade as her eyes and her skin appearing golden in the brilliant sunlight shining from the open window above the family's photos.
The physical traits of the holy clans can differ from each other. In the north, for a pure blood who are from the direct line of the ancestor, God of Enlightenment, their hair is silvery white and vertical slit pupil surrounded by dark gray.
For a minor blood, clan members that come from various bloodlines from other worlds, considered to be half-bloods by the publicity, do not have reappear traits within their lineage.
Lifting her head, she sighs for the tenth time in a single minute. The distant sky is red like the crimson moon in the Heavenly Realm, a sign of the Abysmal trial. Her nose wrinkles, inhaling the homey cinnamon fragrance, already missing it.
She was never meant to be involved in clan business. At best, she would be in the army should war arise, but up until last year, she never dreamed of this.
No one did.
Her shoulders tense, a nausea churning in her belly the more her mind wanders. She will always have to prove to the publicity of Elysian Cosmos why she is a leader and a Pillar of a Holy clan.
One mistake will shadow all achievements.
'How fantastic.'
As much as she is upset about the situation, she's more worried about Ataraxia and her well being.
"You seem nervous," a deep voice says to her. "Do you want my wife to give a tarot reading?"
Catalina tilts her head, looking at the formally dressed tall male. "No, thank you, Uncle Kian."
"You sure?"
She nods with an impassive expression.
"If you change your mind just let her know," he says, smiling warmly. "She'll be your professor this year."
'She's teaching at Lightless?' Catalina suppresses a frown.
Kian Sagan is the second Celestial Retainer of Winter Clan after her real uncle Haedon Deimos.
She tries to recall the name of his wife, knowing she met her countless times, but all she can make out in her memory is blurring figures. Her hands tremble, anxiety slithering through her like poison.
'I can't even use my guardian traits right because I'm so….'
Cutting off her thoughts, she focuses on her surroundings, as if her life depends on it.
"Take her belongings there first," Hael says to Kian. Next to him, draped in an elegant pale dark green dress, a white fluffy coat draped over her shoulders, Zolani twirls a golden key.
One of the main ways to travel on earth is through the divine key created by the Sage of Creation known as the Astral Passage. Each four continents have a color scheme, and the different shades of that hue represent the lands within the holy clan domain.
The golden key will lead them to Lightless and when infused with certain divine energy it changes color and design to match the desired location.
For the north, blue is what marks the Winter Clan pavilion. For the west, it is red for Sun Clan. For the east, it is pink for Moon Clan. For the south, it is green for Star Clan.
Zolani extends the key, jabbing it into an unseen lock and twist. In her head, she pictures the island to its greatest detail and in the next second a door manifests, looming six feet tall and narrow in width.
Due to the evermore, the home to the ancient sages, Astral Passage can't reach other worlds, but with the trade work system other realms possess technology from earth.
Hael steps into Catalina roaming sight. His ice blue eyes swirl into a darker shade—another physical evidence of the new age is the blessing from Sage of Emotion on Mankind, where his powers connect and surge within every living being in Elysian Cosmos, deepening or lightning the hue of people's eye color depending on their emotions.
Grateful she hasn't looked in the mirror to see what she is feeling, Catalina avoids looking anyone in the eye and marches to the door, but Hael grabs her arm gently.
She looks back, seeing him shake his head before she fully peers at the ground.
"Not yet," he says. "There is an hour before the trial, I have to show you something." He turns to Casimir. "Son, you can head there with Kian. We'll meet you there."
The short boy's face rattled with nerves shifts to a frowning expression. He glances from Hael to Catalina, then smiles at his sister, burying the idea of hugging her, not wanting to add distress to her endless mind.
"See ya there," he mutters.
Catalina lifts her gaze to watch him leave, then looks briefly at Hael, a question in her eyes.
He stays silent and gestures for her to follow.
The divine key in Zolani hands turn ocean blue and the three walk through the manifested door, a wisp of cold teal fog filling their vision before fading.
The grand mountain they stand on enables a view of the landscape below, the city light sparkling a deep gold, resembling a treasure trove she often reads in manhwa.
She can't recognize which land it is but instinctively knows she is still in the north. Her mind reels to grasp the intentions behind bringing her here. 'Oh, right. Didn't dad take Ziven away before he officially left for the Institute? Is this where he took him?'
Her thoughts stutter when a large explosion echoes, fireworks streaking the eerie sky, as if to erase the haunting heavens with a blessing from the hearts.
"People root for you, so you should too," Zolani says, her voice gentle and welcoming.
She lays a hand on her daughter's back, rubbing it with a motherly look that says she believed in her as much as she believed in the gods.
Catalina hears it then; cheers mingled in the fiery display, traveling across the entire northern continent and overlapping in a beautiful tune of billions of voices, "For the Snow, you are a blizzard meant to never melt. Catalina Boreas Melpomene! Catalina Boreas Melpomene! Catalina Boreas Melpomene!"
'Magic fireworks. Common folks can't use magic. Did he get the dragons to help them craft this? It's not a tradition that any of the previous pillars did with their children. I guess it's new.'
Instead of the warm buzzing feeling one would expect in this thoughtful action, she feels sick, like her insides are wrong, and she is wrong alongside them.
'Did he think the sight would move me? If only I deserved it.'
Refusing to trust her eyes, she closes them, letting happiness sweep her features into a picture of control and confidence. Her mother will notice the oddness if she allows it to show, and the faith she harbors will dissolve to ashes like a corpse.
'People expect greatness from me; I have yet to give anything great. Time, people claim it is enough to cultivate a relic. They are foolish to believe enough time will allow anyone anything. I could have lifetimes and still feel so pathetic inside.'
She is not ready for life, but she is alive, so she has no choice.
"I'm scared," she wishes to say.
"You have to grow up," her mother would reply.
"Can't you save me?"
"You are a holy child—you are the savior."
In another time, she does speak her thoughts. In another time, Zolani can tell her daughter is unwell and not ready for the expectations of the civilizations within Elysian Cosmos. In another time, they are closer and she protects her.
In this timeline, Catalina faces her mother and smiles reassuringly.
She knows better than anyone that you only have a voice when there is meaning for it, otherwise it's just noise and there is an infinite amount of counterattacks to cancel it out.
They love her, she knows they do, but love isn't safety, it is genuine peace.
People can date one another from other clans but can't get married unless they strip themselves of their status and join houses under one clan, so many find it pointless or simply fool around.
Zolani grew up in the borders of Sapphire, unrelated to the direct line of succession of Winter Clan and the minor bloods. Her home was on the outskirts of a village, with a mother from the extended family of Star Clan and a father from outside earth.
No one expected anything from her when she was sixteen years old.
No one even knew her name or cared to remember it.
She went to Lightless to change this, to make herself known with her own strength and get a position that would boost her family standing in the lands, intending to be a healer, but winded up in the path of Hael Melpomene and became his parallel partner.
Catalina admires her parents deeply and because of this she is lost. She fears she will die before she succeeds in anything. She is so terrified of this notion that she settles for nothing.
My dreams are in fact dreams, and my goals are living standards. Once, I did set my sights on being the pillar of Winter Clan, but it was only because Ziven, the prime of a warrior in my eyes, desired it so much I envied the passion of it. That desire faded eventually when I realized you have to be responsible for granting your own prayer and those of your homeland.'
A warm hand lands on her shoulder, squeezing it. "Don't be yourself too much," Hael says, not meeting her gaze when she finally looks at him and when she turns away, he brings it back.
'Coward,' she thinks. 'Being sick as a holy child is like being a tainted star and every single star fell and was never seen again. The risk of going to Lightless far outweighs any future I ever faced and if anyone cares enough to save me, they won't.'
Rage burns in her chest; she masks it behind a firm nod. "Of course, Dad."