The Sofuren Ants (shorthand: Sofuren): The Sofuren are a race of ant-like beings, containing a Life soul core. Often tall, lanky, yet harboring incredible strength in numbers, the Sofuren Ants live in large dirt mounds in social colonies, often led by a Queen. (which is a genderless title, as any Sofuren can be the Queen, it's simply honorary to refer to them as she/her). They display signs of low intelligence, being easily swayed by favors and populism.
The Daun Beetles (shorthand: Dauns): Dauns are a race of beetle-like beings, containing a Death soul core. These brutish creatures are comprised of extremely thick exo-skeleton plating, suiting them for most environments, although typically they stay in the forest, as resources there are much more plentiful. They're not often led by a queen, but rather local tribe leaders. These creatures display a surprising amount of intelligence, but an even higher amount of inherent aggression. Despite this, they typically are friendly.
The Kaleido Dragonflies (shorthand: Kaleidos): Kaleidos are a race of dragonfly-like beings, containing a Dusk soul core. These mysterious creatures live in hidden dens, often choosing darkness as their soul core is one of darkness. Despite this darkness, they are not inherently evil. They do not have a monarch, but rather an entity known as "The Reflection", which they manufactured out of magical energy to be the most neutral, emotionally detached leader, making choices based on the overall embetterment for all Kaleidos, free from conflicts of interest. In theory.
The Salina Fireflies (shorthand: Salinas): Salinas are a race of firefly-like beings, containing a Gleam soul core. These beings reside in marshlands, as those places have a large amount of deceased, and wandering souls. Salinas find death to be gorgeous, as most were apart of an ancient cult known as The Cult Of Demise. They're extremely socialable creatures, almost as much as the Sofuren are. They have a king, which must be male. Any female heir, by procedure, must be changed via an Atychine blessing (Atychine being any creature with a near limitless amount of power, whether by extreme training, or inherited ability from god-like beings.)
The story before the novel starts with an entity, known by its nickname of The Divine Destructor (they despise this nickname though, they prefer to go by Sakaidna). They created an entire world from an empty planet, as they we're a passionate creator, who wished to cultivate life. They called this continent "Calamity", as they found it in ruin. They created the small things first, of course. Plant life, flowing water, things that may not be alive in the way we think, but make the planet seem alive. After which, they created the four main elements of living; Life, Death, Dusk, Gleam. Every creature on their new world, would be a chaotic spread of every soul type, which they watched evolve over millions of years.
Various species arrived, most notably, four elementally pure beings (Sofuren, Dauns, Kaleidos, Salinas). These four beings were much more populous than the rest, but did not feel bigotry nor hate towards species with "impure" souls. For example, moth creatures were a mix of both Life and Dusk.
But alas, TDD could not take care of the elementally pure themselves. They were wise enough to know that despite their magical omnipotence, they were, at best, still an emotional being. They opted instead, to create four demi-gods, which would take care of the elementally pure.
Life was given Sadisu, the Summer elemental
Death was given Aki, the Fall elemental
Dusk was given Mujona, the Winter elemental
Gleam was given Yoake, the Spring elemental
TDD went to a far away location, and set up a resting place called "The City Of Running Fog", which they enshrouded in, as the name suggests, a large blanket of fog. The area around it was turned into an abyss, with large crystalline structures of clean glass, and a large castle in the center, with the city itself as the center, empowered by the resting God
Upon TDD's rest, Calamity entered a grace period, as the demi-gods did their job, and all species continued to live in peace. Notable events during this time are the naming of the tallest peak on Calamity's surface, named after Salina explorer "Casna", which was named "Casen" to allow the mountain to be neutral, instead of having a Salina name. The Cult Of Demise creating The Grand Tower of Mors, where they worshipped. And finally, the Dusk Author creating the Dusk Abyss, accredited as the original Atychine. Their real name is unknown, but they coined the term. The Dusk Abyss was a location where all darkness would lie and rest, to not disturb the light above.. They were extremely unwise to do this, as it set the world into instability.
Sadisu began to taunt Aki, describing how the Dauns they watch over do not worship them like their own Sofuren do. Aki argued that this showed how intelligent Dauns really are compared to the simple minded Sofuren. Sadisu and Aki argued for much longer, before it boiled into a fight, a clash between the Gods of Life and Death. As they fought, the sun began to dim, before compressing into a black hole. It was much darker now, leaving the Gods to realize if they fought each other physically, all life would cease to exist.
Both Gods rallied their species to fight, exploiting their anatomy to develop war strategies. Dauns could be brutish, as they had natural arm "shields" originally for easily breaking through obstructions like rocks or trees, which could be used to both defend and attack. Sofuren could be expendable war fodder and overwhelm them with sheer numbers. Yoake and Mujona stayed out of it originally, but due to Sadisu and Aki being extremely annoying, both demi-gods for their own sake, cruelly allowed the Salinas & Kaleidos to be under the control of Sadisu and Aki respectfully.
Over a thousand years later, the fight still continues. Thankfully, it's only between the four elementally pure, as all other species are hybrids and have stayed out of fighting.
In Palace Hill (a Sofuren Hill that contains the Queen's Palace), Queen Soutsu of the Sofuren is in turmoil. A populist, known as Cinsa was rallying a large crowd of angry Sofuren. They called her war response weak compared to previous leaders, and they wanted her to either become more violent, or abdicate the throne. Soutsu refused to crack down on Sofuren supporting Cinsa, as Soutsu believed that despite the Sofuren having a monarchy, it wasn't wise for a Queen to refuse the voice of the people. Soutsu was unable to respond to the people, as she had to take of her son, Casky.
But as Soutsu prepared to sleep, Casky made an odd request. He wanted to sleep without a guard at his door. Soutsu as a Queen knew this was dangerous, but Soutsu as a mother was overwhelmed with joy seeing her son grow so brave, so quickly.
She would quickly be overwhelmed with grief as she heard her son scream, before it was quickly silenced. She ran into his room as fast as she could, breaking into it to see a tunnel. Her son was kidnapped! She rushed down the tunnel, screaming out for him. But as she broke through the light on the other side of the tunnel, she saw Cinsa, holding her son up like a doll. He was executed on stage, before being thrown to Soutsu. She didn't hear what Cinsa had to say to her before running off with her now deceased son into the deep forest.
As she found an isolated spot, she laid him down, looking for any sign of life, but there was none. The large gash across his chest was fatal, and aside from forbidden magic, there was no bringing him back. Queen Soutsu said it was unfortunate but she must be strong, and go back to stop arrest Cinsa as a criminal. Mother Soutsu said her baby boy was gone too early.
The mother won, once more. She cracked open her personal Atychine spell book, and casted a forbidden resurrection spell, which did revive Casky... but with a horrific, terrible twist. Her son was turned into an almost eldritch beast, with countless more spider-like limbs, his usually happy smile replaced with a blank, fleshy head, with a crude face revealing a completely hollow body.
With this, Soutsu dropped the Queen title, as he refused to serve a people that had betrayed his rule in such a horrific way. He ran off into the forest to gather the help of a demi-god. He found Mujona, which had hoped to avoid the war between the elementally pure. Soutsu knew this, and specializing in Manipulation and Trickery magic, approached her and told her a false story.
"Oh dearest Goddess, don't you realize how you allow yourself to be walked over? The Cult Of Demise has been plotting to exterminate you, and the other demi-gods! Won't you do something about these monsters? Or will you allow yourself, and your siblings to become a past memory?"
It had worked. Mujona entered a rage, and destroyed The Grand Tower Of Mors with a great blizzard. The Mujonan blizzard killed millions of species, leaving only the elementally pure as a side effect. The blizzard lasted decades, and Soutsu exploited the suffering of thousands. He offered refuge to surviving members of the Cult Of Demise, or any other species fleeing from their home or the war into a new place of worship. They would worship death in a much different way, where they'd worship his rebirthed son, Casktrap. With such desperation stewing, almost all accepted the offer. They wore specific uniforms designed to hide what species they were, so Soutsu could have more numbers.
Of course, this cult was not about religion, nor the offer of safety. It was to give Soutsu an army to play with, and numbers to work with...
Back in Palace Hill, Cinsa had claimed the throne, and had begun to reform the gorgeous sapphire colored palace into a sick lavender display of power. It was her personal favorite color, but the sapphire before matched the color of the Sofuren soul. Despite this, she convinced her population that this was to signify rebirth. They fell for it like fish to bait. But as the blizzard set in, Cinsa knew she had to do more than reap the rewards of being a Queen. She wanted personal glory, and she knew to get it she'd have to do something large. Something drastic. She must kill the demi-gods. It's their fault! They caused this war!
Cinsa developed the Atychine Council, led by Tellsai as the Head Atychine. She ordered her and the other Atychine to rule over the Sofuren whilst she develops her glory. She took the carcass of a Sofuren child, and at night, reaped the souls of various other Sofuren children as they slept. These souls had the most magic potential. She fused multiple into an amalgam of pure power that she revived the carcass with.
Cinsa named her new weapon The Other Light.
She trained The Other Light for a decade. It was immensely powerful, with a yellow blade of lightning called the Oh-ell. Truly ready to kill the gods. But as the day approached... Something racked Cinsa's mind. Was it ready? Was it truly powerful enough? No, no. It couldn't fight! It wasn't trained enough! Cinsa wasn't aware her mind was being ripped apart not by her own doubts, but by foreign doubts, implanted by Soutsu just outside of her work room.
Cinsa killed The Other Light, absorbing it's soul to empower herself, believing that she could be the one to kill the demi-gods. Once Cinsa left off to attempt to kill Mujona, Soutsu took the body of The Other Light, and left.
Cinsa attempted to fight Mujona, and quickly lost, exiling herself out of shame, leaving the Sofuren without a Queen, run by a council that did not care. Whilst Soutsu went to the shore, and placed The Other Light down. He revived the body, making sure to not make the same mistake as he did with his own son...
