Prologue
At the beginning of time, the only being residing within the whole of the universe was the Almighty. Despite having all of the immense powers of the cosmos, the Almighty still felt a great emptiness in such eternal solitude, and so began to create the heavens along with other divine beings to reside within them. To some, these divine children would later be known as angels. To others, they would be known as gods and goddesses of various domains. Next, the Almighty created the Earth and all of its beauty so that the divine children could produce creations of their own. Once presented with such a gift, the heavenly beings each became inspired in their own ways. Some fell in love with the elements and in turn divided the Earth's surface amongst themselves to carve out a majestic landscape of water, earth, air, and fire. Others wished to be like the Almighty and worked to bring forth new life of their own. From these beings came the birth of all of the creatures of the land, sea and sky.
Then on one faithful day, a lone goddess, known then only by the name of Mother, brought forth the first pair of human beings to the Earth. One was called Man, and the other was known as Woman. In Mother's eyes, they were two halves of a very important whole, equals made in the image of the divine beings, whose fates were intertwined by the bond of love that she had given them. When Man and Woman were presented to the Almighty, favor was immediately showered upon Mother, as none of her siblings had succeeded in creating creatures that were in any way like themselves. The Almighty commanded Mother to bring forth more humans to serve as companions to Man and Woman, and humans were deemed worthy enough to be placed above all other creatures as both masters and caretakers of all of Earth's glory.
While many of Mother's siblings rejoiced over her creations, there was one brother who grew furious in his jealousy of her success. He was the god known as Reaper, and was the only remaining divine being who had yet to present the Almighty with any creations of his own. Each and every attempt had resulted in incomplete creatures which had been unable to survive for more than a day.
Time passed, and soon humans began to bring life to children of their own. The continued success of Mother's creations caused Reaper's jealousy to spiral out of control and consume him, driving him mad. In his insanity, Reaper captured a small group of humans and used his powers of creation to warp his prisoners into mindless and deadly demons. Upon the discovery of Reaper's crime, the Almighty created the endless void of Hell and exiled Reaper to its depths. With the aid of the Almighty, Mother attempted to save the humans-turned-demons from Reaper's evil influence. Mother's healing touch was able to save a portion of the warped creatures, but only to the extent of repairing their souls. Their bodies, however, were unable to be returned to their human state. To make up for this damage, Mother altered the bodies of these demons to take on the qualities of differing creatures and elements of the Earth and charged them with the protection of humankind against the possible return of Reaper's evil. As for those demons that were too far gone with Reaper's evil influence, Mother had no choice but to exile them to reside in Hell along with Reaper.
As more time passed, traces of Reaper's influence still lingered. Those humans who had escaped Reaper's evil unscathed soon began to fear their demonic protectors, for the alterations to the demons bodies increased their strength, sped up their ability to heal, and gave them much longer lifespans. In order to soothe the fears of her children, Mother chose a select few and imbued them with spiritual powers. The resulting priests and priestesses were charged with the duties of healers and peacemakers, and were also meant as a last line of protection should any demon or human be overtaken by evil and become a threat to others. Then, as a final touch, Mother began to weave invisible threads of fate between the souls of humans and demons, making sure that each and every person was marked as the destined soul-mate of another. Some couples consisted of partners of the same race, while others crossed racial boundaries and brought forth unions that resulted in the hybrid half-demon race. However, Reaper's influence remained persistent and combined with the free will, fear, and mistrust of the races to interfere with Mother's fateful threads. Eventually, the growing fear and mistrust of demons and half-demons by the common people became so great that demons and half-demons were forced into hiding in order to survive the increasing threat of persecution. With those of demonic blood living out their lives in secret, the priests and priestesses of the Earth were left with a decision that left them divided. Should they continue to remain in the open, or retreat into hiding as well and continue with their roles in secret? There were some who denounced the demonic races and decided to remain in the open as spiritual leaders of the common people, while others retreated into hiding and choose to continue to follow their original charge, aiding both human and demon alike.