NOVPUBA long time ago—so long that even time itself had yet to find a name—there existed only one: Existence, the Supreme Source, the Infinite Origin, known by many as GOD.
From Him flowed everything: reality, dimensions, light, dark, chaos, order, energy, matter—everything. But at the beginning, there were no stars, no worlds, no mortals. Only Him, and the raw, pure concepts that were born from His immeasurable power. These children, though not living in the way one understands life, were the first echoes of thought, will, and potential. They were essences, ideas, forces—they were what would one day be known as Paths.
These initial concepts birthed further derivatives—sub-paths, echoes of the original power. From the Path of Fire came the Path of Ash. From Time came Memory and Prophecy. These derivative Paths wove the intricate tapestry of the multiverse. All power, all cultivation, all forms of ascension ultimately came from these sacred roots.
But what the world had long misunderstood was the origin of the Primordials.
They were not born gods.
They were not created like divine tools.
They became.
The Primordials fought, bled, endured, and ultimately surpassed the gods. They defied the hierarchy established by the divine and reached higher—becoming something more. Not beings with power, but the very concepts themselves. Their names are etched into the bedrock of all existence:
Balance
Death
Light
Darkness
Order
Chaos
Time
Fate
Destruction
Creation
Life
Infinity
These twelve Primordials are the pillars that sustain the multiverse. They are above the gods. Beneath only Existence. They are not users of power—they are the power.
Their ascension was made possible through Paths—each of them discovering and becoming one of the original, absolute Paths. But once they crossed the threshold into primordiality, they transcended the Paths. They no longer required them. The Paths became unanchored, free, scattered like seeds across the multiverse for others to discover, master, and embody.
This created a mystery... and a temptation.
It was said—whispered in ancient tongues and forbidden scrolls—that whoever could find and become one with their Path would transcend mortality, and perhaps even godhood. To become your Path meant total alignment. Total mastery. You would no longer wield the power—you would be the power.
However, this led to fear and paranoia in many circles.
"Become a Path?" they asked.
"But if these Paths once belonged to Primordials... doesn't that mean I become their tool, their shadow, their slave?"
That fear festered until a revelation, or perhaps a vision, brought truth. The Paths may have been used by the Primordials, but they are no longer theirs. The Primordials are now pure Concepts—they no longer require Paths, nor do they claim ownership of them. The Paths are free for all to pursue, to inherit, to become.
And so the universe began to understand.
The Paths are not chains.
They are destinations.
They are truth.
From a Path can come infinite variations—two cultivators may walk the Path of Flame, but one might wield Abyssal Fire, while another bends the Flame of Judgment. The variations are endless. But the Primordial Paths—Order, Chaos, Life, and the rest—those remain singular. Unique. Divine. Only one being at a time can truly embody them.
Ethan, for example, walks the Path of Order, one of the sacred eleven. Alongside it, he has awakened Mysticism, a rarer, more obscure Path not counted among the Primordial twelve but still profound in scope.
He has not yet become his Path, but he walks steadily toward that distant summit. A place where many believe he will become something even the gods fear.
No one has ever reached that summit. No one has ever truly proven what lies beyond complete union with a Path.
Some say it is godhood.
Others say it is something greater.
Something... eternal.
In truth, everyone has a Path.
Not all find it.
But those who do awaken to it gain a new dimension of power. Strength flows naturally. Spells grow sharper, faster, heavier with meaning. The world itself begins to respond to their presence, as if recognizing its own reflection in them.
The Path is not taught. It is not given. It is discovered.
Some are born close to theirs—those rare geniuses who seem aligned with an element or truth from birth. Others struggle for years, decades, even centuries before finally uncovering the echo that was always inside them. And a rare few defy all expectation, manifesting Paths never seen before, unique truths of their soul made real.
Once discovered, the journey does not end. The Path deepens. The more aligned one becomes, the more reality bends in their favor. Lightning that moves before thought. Ice that reshapes terrain with a breath. Blades that cut through fate itself.
But the Paths are not just tools of power. They are reflections of the soul. You do not wield your Path. You become it.
Yet even this isn't the final step.
Legend speaks of the Becoming—when one's Path and one's self are no longer separate. At that point, they are no longer just powerful. They are inevitable. Their presence is law. Their words are fate.
And though many fear that walking a Primordial Path is a step toward servitude, it is now understood to be the opposite. The Primordials do not own the Paths—they transcended them. The Paths are free, scattered echoes of divine origin. They call to those who are ready.
And so, across the infinite planes, among mortals, spirits, and stars, the same question repeats:
Can you hear your Path calling?
...
The land was red—not by birth, but by butchery. Blood soaked the earth in thick, choking rivers. The skies blazed like parchment set aflame, and from their fiery maw, crimson rain fell in slow, mournful drops. The very ground, cracked and enraged, split open like the jaws of a beast, swallowing warriors and innocents alike into its insatiable depths.
Screams pierced the air—agonized, furious, hopeless. The sound of steel clashing was drowned out by the symphony of death. Children and adults alike ran in wild desperation, fleeing from the end that galloped behind them. But their flight was futile. Nothing outran the scythe. That bloodstained crescent carved through flesh and bone with unrelenting cruelty, severing bodies with the careless ease of a painter's stroke, indifferent to age, race, or reason. It obeyed only its master's will.
And amidst this carnage, a child ran.
Xander stumbled across the broken terrain, his small legs pumping with all the strength his eight-year-old body could muster. His tail—a thin, pointed whip—lashed behind him erratically, like it too was trying to escape. Blood poured from the gaping wound where his left arm used to be. His sleek, curved horns—signs of his infernal bloodline—were cracked, and his tattered clothes hung from his battered frame like ruined flags. As an incubus, he should have radiated allure, mystique… but now he was just a boy. A broken, grieving, furious boy.
Memories flickered through his mind—brief, beautiful moments of peace. Laughter, music, stories by dim magical candlelight. A home. A family. His father's steady voice. His mother's warmth. His sister's playful teasing. It all felt like a lie now.
They were gone. Gone in a moment.
Swallowed by the earth, screaming his name as they forced him to flee. They'd given their lives to save him—his father's arms holding the line, his mother's chant of protection, his sister's final push—and it had cost him more than just an arm.
It cost him everything.
And he hated them for it.
Why? Why not let him die with them? Why force him to live through this horror alone? What future did they think they were saving?
Then—BOOM.
A searing heat struck his side and threw him like a ragdoll into the ash-stained dirt. His skin burned. His ribs screamed. Fire licked across his shoulder and cheek, searing away flesh already too wounded to heal.
From the swirling smoke and flames, a voice crawled forward. Cold. Vile. Mocking.
"I've always wanted to taste your sister," the voice said, cruel delight dripping from every syllable. "She was a fine little succubus. Fiery, like your mother. Pity your noble father wouldn't share her. You lust demons were made to serve, yet he clung to dignity like a fool."
A pair of red eyes glowed in the smoke, deep, ancient, and filled with rot. Hate. Amusement.
"Your grandmother, the Sin of Lust herself... she died like the whore she always was. Screaming and begging. Tattered and filthy. Forgotten. Just like you will be."
Xander trembled. Not from fear, but from rage.
Something inside him cracked.
And something else began to wake.
Xander's breathing hitched as the cruel words echoed inside his skull, ringing louder than the battlefield around him. His broken body lay in the dirt, twitching in pain… but inside, something far older stirred.
His blood began to boil. Literally. Steam hissed from his wounds as the blood clinging to his skin turned black and burned like oil. The earth beneath him sizzled. The air pulsed—once, then again—as if the very world recognized what was happening. 𝓃𝓸𝓋𝓹𝓾𝓫.𝒸ℴ𝓶
He clenched his remaining fist. A low growl escaped his lips. He wasn't just a child. He wasn't just an incubus. He was their son. Her grandson.
"They died… to protect this?"
The words of his enemy twisted like blades. But instead of breaking, Xander's mind snapped into clarity. Pure. Blinding. A shard of himself—buried under grief and pain—rose like a beast from the depths.
His irises turned black, ringed in violet. His broken horns cracked, then twisted into longer, more elegant shapes, pulsing with a crimson glow. The dirt around him erupted into a ring of molten ash, and the temperature surged with impossible intensity. The air reeked of desire and damnation.
A scent that once ruled empires.
The creature in the smoke froze. Those glowing red eyes widened, just slightly, sensing the tectonic shift in the child's presence.
Then Xander stood.
He rose slowly, his frame surrounded by a dark, carmine flame that danced with seductive grace and unrelenting power. His wounds closed with sticky, dark energy. His missing arm reformed—not of flesh, but of violet-black crystal laced with golden veins. His voice, once small and cracked, now spoke with the timbre of a thousand whispers and a single command:
"I am no one's toy. No one's servant. Not yours, not theirs."
The flame around him spiraled into a sigil. One that had not been seen since the fall of the last sin. A mark of endless desire, dominance, and control—forged not from love or lust, but from the right to take what was owed.
The Sigil of Lust.
And as it burned into the air, a vision slammed into his mind.
He stood atop a dying world. The skies were void, cracked like glass. Oceans boiled, continents shattered. Stars fell like rain and screamed as they died.
Before him, in the center of all destruction, stood a being of impossible scale, shrouded in jagged crimson-black armor made from the bones of broken gods. Its face was masked, yet its gaze pierced all.
It held no weapon, for it was the weapon.
Behind it, a sigil spun slowly in the void. Older than time. The Primordial Path of Destruction.
And then it spoke, not with words, but with the very truth of existence.
"I see you, fragment of desire. You who will one day walk the edge between ecstasy and annihilation. Lust is but hunger given form. Destruction… is hunger's end."
Xander fell to his knees in the vision, not from pain, but awe.
"You are touched by fire. Touched by sin. Touched by me. Should you walk your path… then you will not only awaken as a Sin. You will inherit what follows after sins burn away the world. You will destroy gods… and birth nothing."
"Choose."
Then the vision shattered like a mirror dropped from heaven.
He gasped, reality slamming back into him. The battlefield, the smoke, the laughter—it was all there again.
Except now, he stood transformed. Glowing with forbidden power. Breathing the breath of the damned and the divine.
And the creature who mocked his family?
It now trembled.
For in the boy's eyes, it saw two truths.
He was the new Sin of Lust.
And he had glimpsed a path that even gods feared.
The Path of Destruction.
