Ethralah

The full story of what happened within the world of Ethralah, starting from the very beginning;

Mayonaka, the true devil of the universe, lived in a blank existence alongside the inappropriately named 'God'. For an unimaginable amount of time it was solely Mayonaka and God living alongside each other in that blank existence, until Mayonaka's inherit immaturity was pushed to its limits of boredom. In a hope to create entertainment for himself, he created The stars, the planets that orbited them, and the living beings on every single planet. It was all an effort just so he could sit by and watch as life unfolded before his eyes, living forever as he watched the people advance in life, skills, and technology. He witnessed the first creation of a community, the first ever wheel, the first ever farm, and all the way up through until the first vehicle, the first fire-arm, and the first airship. He was there to watch and enjoy it all, though stepping in to create some creative mischief time and time again. This mischief however, was enough for him to get him that label of being the devil, rather than just another higher power. They looked down on him, yet were scared of him. People were urged to do right, in order to avoid being trapped by him forever in a world of torment in the afterlife.

They turned to God for the answers they needed; for the hopes they wanted to cling on to. They would never receive an answer, as he had no knowledge of their existence even. Despite that, they thought that *he* had created them. That Mayonaka was only *something to fear*, and nothing more. He had to live in this image of his own work, his own life he created, thinking that they were borne from another power. Though that didn't stop his antics. Instead he became more open with them; creating a true hell as a plane for him to exist in, albeit different from what most would think of. He released demons that grew from his darkness onto the world, to give the people what they wanted, a true god to fear. He was uniting the people against him. He figured there wasn't much worry, since there would never be another god than him to interact with the small insignificant life forms he created. He created a beast that was locked behind what could be said was a dimensional gate that was strong enough that it could end all of what he created, being a fail-safe for if he needed to end things indirectly. It was never used by him in the many years that passed, and people flourished as they became united in the front of defeating demons and feral beasts that would arise, and explore magical ruins and find relics within that spawned along with said monsters. Humans- or atleast would could technically be as closely related to one as it could be, orcs, catfolk, birdmen, countless different races were banded together in the hopes of creating a life for themselves to share. All one that required for them to be united together against Mayonaka.

Nothing changed for years to come. Until a ninja named Rikku was killed within his own home town of Onigai. A thief who had broken in at the wrong place, at the wrong time, was forced into combat with him. He was lucky enough to become the victor, but unlucky for Rikku was his life was ended short, just almost eighteen years old. But he didn't live alone. While it was a dying practice as it was rarely ever successful if not a master at it, he lived with a young necromancer named @́͢͡͠!̵̀̕$̸͠#̨̛͟^̸̨̡̀҉ . Once he stumbled upon Rikku's corpse, it was far too late for any sort of normal revival. If he did, it would simply be as a mindless zombie, one no more responsive than a robot following commands. Instead, he resorted to calling back Rikku's soul, which he had to do by attaching it to a demons. Any normal demon would have worked. But whether you could call it bad luck or good luck, he snagged the biggest one he could, which Rikku still has no idea how. Rikku's soul returned to his body with ease, faster than any other revival has ever been accomplished. But only because the demon that he combined with, was the devil Mayonaka, and his soul was able to use the same dimensional travel as the demons that Mayonaka created, rather than being forced out.

When Rikku came to, the necromancer was gone. The only difference he found was that he wore a rosary around his neck. It wasn't so much as what the rosary meant however, as much as it was the necromancer enchanted it with magic that kept Mayonaka at bay. And it wasn't peaceful for him; within Rikku's mind he was able to hear Mayonaka speak directly to him, and him to Mayonaka. A year passed from that moment on, and Rikku continued on with life as normal; atleast as much as possible as one could with the devil sharing a body with him. Mayonaka's immaturity was a plus however, considering it matched Rikku's. In an unexpected way, they actually became fairly close; emotionally, being as physically they had already become as close as they could. Which caused Rikku to wonder, what would happen if he took off that necklace for the first time since? So of course he had to find out.

Mayonaka was released back into the world. But now Rikku was stuck within the shell of what used to be his body, that was now formed into Mayonaka's much more towering state. His body morphed once the necklace was taken off. Any time that necklace was taken off, the body they shared switched between them. That being said, thats only a known detail because Mayonaka was fond enough of Rikku to truly share the body, and volunteerly would put back on the necklace after they thought it was a fine time to switch. With that worry settled, and with Rikku being nineteen now, he set off. Training on the way, they traveled across the world to the other continents. Though they were noticing something- or more so, *two* things. First being the demons were becoming different. Instantly Mayonaka connected this to the fact he was no longer ruling over hell, the dimension where they are spawned. They were more hectic, no longer grouped together but rather focused more on their own solo growth. Their only guess was the underworld of his was in a state of war over who was going to become the next strong enough demon to take control.

The second issue was quite more worrying to Mayonaka. Rumors were spreading that there were sightings of Angels. If God had caught on, if he had found his little section of *nothingness* that he made into *something*, they all would be facing the consequences. They had to find the start of the rumors, and headed to the docks of the city they were in. Unlucky enough for the docks to be attacked by a large solo demon as soon as they got they, they *were* lucky enough to run into and meet a man named Mordale. After the demons swift defeat, it didn't take Mordale more than a few seconds to tell he shared something in common with Rikku. Rikku and mordale both had a bit of an issue with packing more souls than they should into one body. Mordale had to share his with a more fanatical demon named Kuratta. While a bit more dandy, Kuratta was more random and violent than Mayonaka ever was. Mayonaka doesn't know where Kuratta came from, and he only ever assumed he was spawned in the years that Mayonaka was not in rule of hell.

Becoming friends fairly quickly, they traveled together even if only for their own personal quests. For Mordale he seemed to have his own darker past he wanted solved. But for Rikku and Mayonaka, they were on there way to figure out more about the angels, without much luck at the docks. On the way they picked up another ninja like Rikku, though she wasn't very skilled at blending in and hiding, but more so in the swordsman-ship. Suzu, her name, was excited to meet another ninja in a time where they were a dying breed. She tacked on and followed the two...or, four? in their journeys together. Her goal was hopefully to one day create a dojo where Ninjas could train forever, and instead of being left behind by growing tech, embrace it. From there they all fought across land and sea, the demons and feral beasts seemingly to progress even further into fanatic rages in search of power. It wasn't until they reached the capital city of the entire planet that they met two more followers; Asane and Gel. The two were traveling together as they had been friends as long as they could remember. Asane was a gunner that had two dual pistols which she cherished seemingly very much so. Gel was a rocketeer gentleman. He thinks the right way to handle things is speak softly, but carry a big stick. By big stick, he means a rocket launcher. Gel just wanted to do right by the world, while Asane was in it as a merc looking for the quick buck.

Though shortly after their meeting that city was attacked by a large force of angels, causing them to flee from the city. People were either giving up their religion of the god they followed after seeing it, or became insane zealots of their belief, and became more obstacles for those who don't have as such strong faith as them. So now fighting through Demons, feral creatures, angels, and now mobs of zealot civilians, they made their way back to the ocean. They reached a private dock that Asane and Gel had used before in the past. Though, everyone that worked the docks had been killed. While they thought it had a silver lining of free use of the boats there, they did run into their first real known foes. The rumors of the Angels that came down; ones that did not attack on sight, had enlisted the help of strong beings. For every one of the heros, there was a villain to counter it. Rikku had a rival Samurai, Suzu had a monk, Gel had a heavy gunner, Asane was against a rifleman, and Mordale; well he had enough trouble fighting his own literal inner demon. It was a losing battle for them however, and had to flee once again, though fled over the ocean. They took the largest boat they could, practically a yacht. On it, they discussed what they learned from the meeting with their respective rivals. Well, were about to when they learned of a stowaway on the boat. Easily being found and detected, they met Azure, who really didnt seem to have a goal he'd talk about. That being said, Asane latched onto him as a friend and pulled him along for the adventure.

Now, they discussed as a full team what was going on. From their rivals being open with everything they know like most villains seem to be, their goal was to unleash the beast that Mayonaka created as a failsafe. It was locked by magically enchanted keys, but they were very ahead on the gig, already having more than half. But what Mayonaka could tell about Rikku's rosary necklace being as it keeps him locked inside, that the necromancer to entrap him into Rikku, had also collected one of the keys early on, and made it into his necklace. But that created another development; Mayonaka knew how to get himself back out. More than just a *bit* painful for Rikku, through extensive magical overloads from Mayonaka, the two became separated, and the devil had his own body back and at a good portion of what his strength was at before. It would take time to recover it all, but the party was gaining more strength, and had a key on lock-down for sure.

Once their boat landed on where they figured the next key was going to appear, as it was going to appear in an ancient underground ruin, they decided to plan things out more. Rikku started to use his engineering skills to build himself a set of armor. Azure did his thing and mapped out locations and collected information from other hideouts for thieves and rogues. Asane and Suzu met with those that were throwing away their once life-devoting religion, and started to train them, even if some of them would be lucky to be considered cannon-fodder. Gel was requisitioning more gear for everyone. And Mordale- well he was brewing ale and being dandy. They waited weeks, possibly months for that relic to show up. Mayonaka was in a state of recovering still; instead of only killing demons, resorting to consuming them in order to regain his power enough to leave the weaker form of his and return to his godlyhood.

But finally it appeared- and they hopped right into it. Before they could even reach the front door, they each met their respective rivals again; but instead of outright needing to run due to the substantial loss otherwise, they put up a good fight, and it seemed to be going in the way of a tie. But what they weren't expecting was the fact that Mayonaka was now free. Coming out of the rough without any warning, he was just enough to push them over the edge and claim the victory over the gods recruited warriors. They were not killed, as there wasn't any time to spare, but they used their flee to take control over the relic, and venture through it until they found the key.

While they had two, and their rivals had the rest, the beast couldn't be unleashed. But that being said, God was tired of playing games with the puny forms of life. He was merely not exerting himself at all. Mayonaka realized this early on during the boat ride and kept it to himself, but truthfully, he would not need the keys at all. Not that he could unleash the beast without the keys, but the fact is he didn't need the beast at all. The others were angry that their efforts were in vain, but atleast they had become better skilled fighters in it.

Mayonaka had to use most of his power of his restored form to keep God from entirely just interfering and making it so the universe never existed in the first place, but that left much of Mayonaka back at square one regarding his strength. Now playing on the defensive with him as the main target, They had to fight against the rivals again and again, truly one on one now. It seemed to be stalemate after stalemate, heros versus their rivals, mayonakas power vs gods power. It was in balance- until one mistake by Rikku's rival samurai that gave Rikku an advantage. He wasted no time in slaying the Samurai, and then proceeded to help with his pals. One by one, they died- Minus Kuratta, Mordales inner demon, which seemed to be more of a nuisance they'd have to grow to deal with than ever defeat.

With the main foes defeated, God could only send legions of normal angels after them. While it seemed to be a relentless situation of a small group against an army, it was easier than before, and Mayonaka was able to devise a plan. That plan was a bit bullheaded, in the sense he would use the same transportation magic to go from hell to the overworld, to go from the overworld to 'heaven'. He would be able to block the power of god from effectively deleting the universe much easier, being back in his original domain, and still provide help to the group. But they would need numbers, as it'd be the biggest number of foes they'd ever have to face. So, Asane and Suzu got back to work recruiting, and built a large army of their own. Gunmen, Swordsman, and even mages taught by Mayonaka, all joined up with them in the purpose that they were going to kill god. Civil wars were breaking out across the world as others heard the calling, the news, the hope that they were going to get back to normal life. People were taking up arms against their neighbors as news spread and they either took the side of having faith in the apocalypse that was now ethralah, and those who fought for their right to live peacefully. It was only a matter of time until they had enough people that they initiated their plan.

Mayonaka created a large gate, bigger than any car, any boat, any building, any city, and the heros along with their army of civilians, militia men, and real soldiers and warriors charged in. They left their homeworld, and entered the world of blank nothingness known as Heaven. Though once there, it's very much like how one would expect. holy-looking lands and buildings. Low clouds that it was like they were the ground you walked on, and holy lights blaring in the sky from what seemed like an infinite amount of suns. They went straight through the lands to find god as their army kept the angels at bay, destroying magical barriers along the way as to make the path open for the group. It wasnt long before they reached Gods chamber, which he laughed at their attempts to try and get here to defeat him. They had weapons created by themselves as small insignificant beings. It wouldn't hurt the god at all no matter how many of them attacked the large old looking man sitting in his throne. But what he didn't think about, is how Mayonaka, a fellow god was on their side. He infused his power into their weapons, and joined in battle against his once godly brother. The combination between Mayonaka's power, the magically infused weapons, and the people sheer will, the God was actually hurt, and had to fight back. But his underestimations of the people were enough to be his downfall, barely enough time to make a real defense, before he was slain.

However, just like the shift of power that came from Mayonaka leaving his realm and power behind to become one with a human, the power that was the stabilization from God was lost, and they realized the inevitable was always going to come true; and that was this universe ***was*** going to come to an end. All they had done was do it themselves, rather than sit by and have someone else do it. But no one was angered with how it was going to happen. As people they fought against those they followed blindly once before, and accepted their fate. Mayonaka however wasn't ready. Instead, he was going to create another universe, one with his remaining power. He was just going to make it enough for he and the group to survive, save for some of the soldiers that were close enough to be moved into the gate fast enough. And so he did, and just as the universe ended; Mayonaka, Asane, Gel, Suzu, Rikku, Mordale, and anyone else they had met on their travels that was not mentioned, plus some extra marines that were lucky enough, disappeared. The underworld, overworld, and heaven all collapsed, and the universe entirely ceased to exist. Ethralah was the beginning and end for itself, and its creators. Atleast until that universe Mayonaka made, was more than what was expected-

and thus ends the story of Ethralah in the creation of Etlemest.