23 Omens (1/2)
It began a few months after the founding of the new Greenwood Kingdom and its sole city. The Oracle, in the Monastery of Fate, had declared that she had been given a vision of the future of the five continents, and the world as a whole.
Before the details of the vision are told, some of Aregard's history should be explained. Originally, there had only been a single land mass, a supercontinent that was named the Ancient Land. On this supercontinent, there had been quite a few eras of peace and of war, as one would expect from a single landmass being home to dozens of races. An ancient Archmage by the name of Evandar Stormcrown spent many years documenting the many races of the world, their statuses and abilities, and, much later on, their fates. When he lay on his deathbed, he didn't hope for anyone to be able to finish documenting this, as he didn't want it to be lost to history forever. So, he sacrificed his entire power to enchant a large tome, writing his wish to the gods above to protect his life's work, and to grant it the power to update itself to the changes of the world's race. In order to preserve such dedicated work, and the irreplaceable documentation of the events before, during, and after the event, the gods obliged. The tome became known as the Worldly Archive.
Within the legendary book, the list of races in the ancient era, some of which were combined into one supercategory, such as Undead Race, was as follows:
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Human Race
High Elven Race
Fairy Race (nymphs, dryads, pixies and similar are all fairies)
Giant Race
Magical Beast Race
Beastman Race (also includes flying species)
Dragon Race
Draconian Race
Divine Beast Race
Orc Race
Demon Race (includes various demon species such as succubi and oni)
Angel Race
Spirit Race (ghosts, poltergeists, and similar)
Undead Race (vampires, skeletons, liches, etc)
Dwarven Race
Gnome Race
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However, at the end of the ancient era, several of these races were said to have gone extinct, and the Worldly Archive has documented if they were. The races that went extinct were the Giant Race, the Dragon Race, the Gnome Race, the Fairy Race, and the Divine Beast Race, along with various subspecies of the Demon, Undead, Beastman, and High Elven races.
All of these losses came from one calamitous event.
The Abyss Invasion.
One day, a massive rift the height of the modern-day Tokyo Tower and the width of an Olympic stadium appeared in the mountain range beside a major city. From it came endless legions of horrible creatures, along with 13 terrifying beings: the Ten Devil Kings, the two Devil Ministers, and their ruler, the Devil Emperor. Each of the Devil Kings was capable of flattening a country alone, not to mention their ruler being capable of wiping the ten of them out with a flick of his finger. Faced with overwhelming power and unending armies of devils, it took only a few days for more than 70% of the Ancient Land's countries to become ruins for eternity, along with the entire Giant Race and most of the Dragons and Divine Beasts. What made matters worse was that, by devouring the flesh of the fallen, the devils could continuously grow stronger.
With a rapidly declining population, and thus a quickly lowering survival rate, the mortal races were forced into a corner in less than a month. By now, almost all of the remaining species had been exterminated to less than a tenth of their previous amount, while the Gnomes had died out completely. As one would expect, most had given up on survival and wept in despair. However, a miracle appeared out of the darkness.
A brave company of 10 adventurers, the Sword of Hope, appeared one day at the defensive frontlines, behind each of which was the phantasm of a deity. Each of these adventurers had been given the unique job of [Hero], along with a subclass of it. Their names were recorded in history on this day, as they did what nobody had managed to do since the invasion began: they pushed back the devils.
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