The world did not split open with a roar of Elemental Fire, nor did it fracture under the crushing weight of Elemental Earth. It began, as all truly catastrophic events do, with a simple choice.
Centuries ago, before the human kingdoms rose to polite, ignorant society, the disparate races of Demon, Fae, Witch, and Vampire lived in segregated, volatile harmony. The individual power was immense; the collective power, chaos.
The one known then only as Valerian was already a legend. Born of the powerful, ancient Demon bloodline, he had spent his youth mastering the unforgiving, raw magic of the Fae. He was a being of unmatched discipline, yet deeply flawed. His power was a weapon constantly pointed at himself—the instability of the Fae/Demon convergence threatened to consume him in a blinding flash of psychic energy.
His ambition was not conquest, but stability.
The convergence ritual was held in the cavern that would one day become the core of Veridia. Valerian gathered the four components: the blood of a powerful, willing Witch, the sustaining life force of a Vampire Elder, the essence of a raw Demon sovereign, and the core magic of a pure Fae sorcerer. These were not his enemies; they were his allies, willing sacrifices in a pact for eternal order.
The ritual was brutal. When the final component—the pure, crystalline magic of the Fae—was introduced, the combined force erupted. Valerian did not merely absorb the energy; he was forged by it.
The pain was not physical; it was existential. His consciousness fractured into four distinct, warring identities—the cold logic of the Witch, the raw hunger of the Vampire, the primal rage of the Demon, and the timeless sorrow of the Fae. For three days, the elemental energies tore through the cavern, destroying everything around him. He emerged, scarred, changed, and possessing a power that made the greatest Kings of the era seem like children playing with sand.
He was no longer Valerian. He was the Abomination, the Lord Valerian—the composite.
But his triumph was brief. The combined power was a paradox: absolute, yet structurally unsound. The energies of the four lines clashed constantly, threatening to unravel his very existence. He realized then that he hadn't achieved eternal order; he had achieved eternal, imminent self-destruction.
He consulted the only authority that surpassed even his newfound power: the Ancient Prophecies.
The scroll was found in a forgotten tomb, brittle and whispering of a single, required correction to his existence.
"...The convergence shall stand, but to maintain the form, the blood of the Creatrix Regium must join. The sovereign Fae-Witch line, purest of the elder seed, shall bind the four, creating the fifth, the stable, eternal force..."
The prophecy explained his flaw: he needed a co-equal soul, a vessel of specific, sovereign lineage that could not only survive his composite energy but could also harmonize it. It was a marriage of ultimate power, sealed by the Binding, where their souls would merge for mutual survival.
Valerian spent the next five centuries building Veridia, not as a fortress, but as a crucible for the moment the Creatrix Regium would appear. He ruled the hidden world, maintained a tenuous, contemptuous peace with the human King, and waited.
He waited through decades of scrying mirrors, failed rituals, and the quiet despair of knowing his immense power had a self-destruct mechanism.
Then, three months ago, the scrying mirror flashed, locking onto the faint, unique energy signature of the required lineage. Not in a royal court, nor an ancient magical family, but in a dull, solicitor's house in Atheria. Ezra Finch, a girl hiding her inheritance behind a black mourning dress and the pathetic lie of being a weak Fae-Lesser Vampire.
Lord Valerian smiled then, a genuine expression of ancient relief. Her fear, her reluctance, her weakness—it was all irrelevant. He had spent centuries achieving absolute power; he would not let a solicitor's daughter stand in the way of absolute stability.
He had caused the elemental disruption on the road to send the message: the waiting was over. The Abomination was ready to finalize his form.