The fall of the Nephilim

The guards hovered between worlds. Defenders of the Spiral of Worlds, created by the Universe to confront the dragon Vortirus, the personification of the eternal Chaos, beautiful and powerful. The guards were called Nephilims.

Once all the guardians of the Universe were united and lived in harmony and agreement. The first generation, the so-called First Created, carried the proud name of the Demiurges. They were the most perfect creatures in the Spiral of Worlds, and the light shone from their wings like a thousand suns. The second generation, now known as the Nephilims, created from the essence of the Universe and the ashes of the worlds. Combining the original immortal and material natures, they were inferior in strength but had a talent for both creation and destruction. This made them dangerous opponents for the Dragon of Chaos Vortirus and his descendants. But it so happened that their thirst for the new, their boundless imagination, their pride, their desire for changes, with which the Nephilims flamed, enraged the Universe that created them.

What happened after that was called the Great Fall. The Nephilims community split into groups and factions, the great Demiurges disappeared, vanished without a trace into the darkness of the Lower Worlds, some were destroyed in the fratricidal war that broke out. And only a few shards of the once-great nation have remained devoted to the goals for which they were created.

One of the last groups of Nephilims, still remembering their destiny, stood guard over Signum.

A handsome four-armed giant with snow-white wings looked out over the rocky cliff to the mountain valley. A battle was raging in the valley, two armies locked in mortal combat, but to a winged man it looked no more meaningful than a beetle in an ant-hill. Mortals at war with mortals, and that had nothing to do with the Nephilims, who had vowed to defend the Spiral of Worlds against the Spawns of Chaos and Vortirus himself.

- My lord...

There was the sound of wings, and another Nephilim-woman, descended on the rock behind the four-armed man. Like her sibling, she was majestic and beautiful. Almost. If you looked closely, her body showed signs of mutation. The experiments with magic, the attempts to create new forms that the Demiurges had made just before the Great Fall, had not gone unnoticed, and the Nephilims now suffered the consequences of their own hubris.

- My lord, I feel the call of other Nephilims. Perhaps they are our brothers and sisters who disappeared after the Fall. Or perhaps it's the First Ones-the great Demiurges-who will help us get rid of" - The Nephilim-woman twitched her mutation-marked wing.

- Yes, I felt them, too. - The Nephilim leader crossed his upper pair of arms over his chest thoughtfully. - It's strange that we haven't heard them calling before, but since the Cataclysm, these oddities have been happening more and more often. Go after them, whatever it takes. Tell them the brethrens will be glad to be reunited.

Finding the place where the call of the other Nephilims came from was not easy. It took more than a dozen worlds to find it, descending deeper and deeper into the dark realm of the Lower Worlds. Worlds distorted beyond recognition, where the rule of despair, where the very space and time were writhing in eternal agony. Nephilim flew through what was created by the war between the Universe and the dragon of chaos, Vortirus, and wondered why her siblings could have been carried into such darkness. By the time she realized this, it was too late. A strange, strong will shackled the Nephilim's limbs, angry voices echoed in her head, chanting something about eternal suffering and pain and vengeance, and she lost consciousness.

- Awaaaake.

Nephilim opened her eyes and tried to focus. But all she could see in the darkness of the cave were even thicker clots of darkness, remotely resembling human figures. The clots moved from side to side around the stalagmite to which she was bound. More with magic than with physical restraints. The magic smelled of death.

- Child of the Universe, we have been waiting for you.

- Who are you, and why did you attack me?

- We are you. You and all of you who once stood to the death against the great dragon of Chaos. But while you were left to bask in the light after the Great Fall, we fell into darkness. Chaos and darkness allowed us to survive, gave us a different path, gave us the strength to accept our present existence. But we still remember the feeling the light gave us. Sometimes, very rarely, we dream of the light. And now, child, you will give us a few sweet moments. Or rather, give us your light-saturated blood.

- But... But why do you need all this? Go back to the light forever, the Universe will forgive you.

The laughter that sounded in the Nephilim's head was more like the agony during tortures.

- To the light? Forgive? We do not need forgiveness, we need blood and power! - One of the dark silhouettes stepped closer. Instead of a beautiful Demiurge, the Nephilim-woman saw a grotesque creature with the torso of a woman and the body of a giant millipede. That the creature had once belonged to the heavenly army was evidenced only by its wings. The white feathers looked so out of place in the darkness of the cave that they seemed a hallucination of a tortured mind.

The Nephilim took a long time to die. She was literally being devoured piece by piece, mentally and physically. Those who were the hope of the last surviving guardians, once called the great Demiurges, were dark and vicious creatures who had dwelt too long in the Lower Worlds. For centuries, the blood of other creatures, their pain and suffering, was their only food. Gradually, step by step, perverting the divine nature of the Nephilims. From luminous angels, defenders of the Universe, conquerors of Vortirus, they turned into dark spawns of Chaos. Moreover, they lost their very essence, becoming something new and unknown. The Dark Unknowns...