OF MAGICAL BEASTS
Fragments of history, legends, and forgotten truths.
Thousands of years ago, when vast lands still lay beyond the reach of civilization and endless forests stretched far beyond the borders of the few scattered settlements, into places where few humans ever ventured, the world belonged to creatures of every shape and size.
Yet they were all bound by the same unchanging law: as they grew older, they grew stronger, gathering power until, one day, they reached the limit nature itself had set for them.
Yet among the countless creatures that inhabited the world, there was one for whom that limit seemed not to exist.
When its growth could go no further, the creature transformed its own body, taking on a new and more advanced form, then continued to grow stronger as though the boundary it had reached were nothing more than another stage in its evolution.
Years turned into decades, yet the creature showed no sign of reaching its true limit. Whenever one form could carry it no further, it changed again, emerging stronger than before and drifting ever further from the creatures it had once lived among.
In those days, people were only beginning to understand the creatures that roamed the wilds beyond their communities, and there was little agreement on how humans should approach them. Some watched from a distance, hoping to learn their ways, while others sought a way for humans and creatures to coexist without intruding upon one another’s territory.
Others saw them as little more than dangerous beasts, a threat that might one day turn against humanity. To them, the only way to keep human lands safe was to destroy these creatures before their numbers grew beyond control.
But as human civilization spread beyond the boundaries of its early settlements, carving roads through lands that had long belonged to the wild, encounters with the creatures that lived there became increasingly common. What began as occasional clashes between hunters and territorial beasts gradually escalated into open conflict.
Humans cleared forests and claimed new lands, while the creatures fought to protect the places they called home. Every life lost fueled another act of vengeance, and with each passing generation, the line between fear and hatred grew harder to distinguish.
The war might have raged on for many more years, had the extraordinary creature not reached yet another limit and undergone its third transformation. No one had ever witnessed such power. Even the deadliest creatures known to humans, beasts that could cost dozens of lives to bring down, were nothing compared to one that had already surpassed the natural limits of its kind three times. Until then, humans had always stood some chance of victory, whether through sheer numbers, weapons, or cunning.
Now, even the thought of defeating such a creature had become meaningless. Yet it did not turn its power against humanity, nor did it seek to destroy those who had spent so many years at war with its kind. Instead, it brought the war to an end. In time, tales of the creature spread far beyond the lands where the final battles had been fought, and people gave it a name that would endure in legend for thousands of years - GENESIS.
After years of conflict, peace finally came. Fragile at first, that peace grew stronger with each new generation. In time, three great clans emerged, the first to cast aside the fears of the past and approach Genesis with an offer of service in exchange for his knowledge.Their motives were different even then, yet Genesis welcomed all three, seeing no reason to withhold his knowledge from those who had finally chosen understanding over war.
It was from Genesis that humans first learned the truth behind his remarkable transformations, each one occurring when his current form could evolve no further. Genesis explained that each new form allowed him to grow once more, gaining strength and continuing beyond the point where the development of any other creature would inevitably end. Seeking a name for a phenomenon they had never encountered before, humans came to call this process - Evolution.
Yet the discovery also brought with it a realization that would trouble humanity for centuries to come: no matter how many creatures they observed or how closely they studied the oldest and most powerful among them, none possessed Genesis’s gift. Once a creature reached its natural limit, it remained there for the rest of its life.
Centuries passed, and the peace that had once seemed impossible became an ordinary part of human life. People learned to harness energy to wield magic, to understand the creatures around them, and to live alongside them, gradually forming bonds with those willing to accept their presence. The knowledge first shared by Genesis and expanded upon by generations of the three clans brought humans closer to these creatures than ever before.
Yet as understanding grew, so did something far less noble. The more creatures came to live alongside humans, the clearer it became just how much power they could place in human hands. What had begun as an attempt to end an endless war gradually became, for many, a desire to possess ever rarer and more powerful creatures.
People compared their creatures, sought out the strongest among them, learned to harness their abilities, and passed that knowledge from one generation to the next, until possessing a powerful creature became a mark of influence and authority.
Genesis, too, had changed over the centuries. When Genesis reached another limit and underwent his fourth evolution, the three clans once again found themselves in the presence of a creature unlike anything they had known before, one whose power surpassed all others. Yet for the first time in centuries, those who beheld him felt something besides admiration. Humanity had not stood still either.
Creatures once thought impossible to defeat now fought alongside humans, while generations of accumulated knowledge had taught the clans to wield their power with an effectiveness never seen before. The clans themselves had grown so powerful that the gulf which had once separated them from Genesis no longer seemed impossible to cross.
For the first time, people looked upon Genesis and began to wonder why he alone possessed the ability to evolve beyond his natural limits.
Genesis, however, continued to trust the descendants of those who had once come to him with a promise of peace. And so, many years later, when he felt another transformation approaching, he made no attempt to hide it from the three clans. He told them that he had reached another limit, but this time, something felt different.
Genesis called the coming transformation his final evolution and told them that, once it was complete, he would ascend into a being of an entirely different nature, though even he could not say what awaited him beyond that transformation. To the three clans, his words were not the promise of a great discovery, but confirmation of their deepest fears.
Some feared that after his ascension, Genesis would become so powerful that humanity would forever be at the mercy of his will. Others could not accept the thought that the secret of limitless evolution might disappear with him, while the third clan had long believed that the power allowing Genesis to surpass the limits of nature need not belong to him alone.
And so fear became entwined with envy, and envy with a hunger for power, while centuries of gratitude for peace and knowledge gradually gave way to the belief that humanity had been presented with an opportunity that would never come again. For all the differences in their desires, the three clans found themselves in complete agreement for the first time in generations: they would betray their teacher.
For years, the clans prepared for the moment when Genesis would begin his final evolution, gathering knowledge, forging weapons, and choosing from among their tamed creatures seven whose power surpassed all others. None of the clans believed that a single creature could withstand the full extent of Genesis’s power. Instead, they intended to divide it among the seven they had chosen, hoping that each would inherit only a fraction of the ability they had spent centuries trying in vain to understand.
When the long-awaited day finally came and Genesis’s body began its final transformation, he was more vulnerable than ever before. His old form was already breaking apart, while the new one had yet to take shape, and it was this very moment that the three clans had spent so many years waiting for.
They unleashed upon him everything humanity had learned to create with the knowledge Genesis himself had once given them, while at their side fought creatures their ancestors had tamed over centuries of peace. And Genesis, who had trusted them until the very last moment, was unprepared for an attack from those he had long considered his students and allies.
The final evolution was never completed. When Genesis died, the clans divided his remains into seven parts and gave each one to one of the seven most powerful creatures they had tamed, believing that by consuming his flesh, the creatures would also absorb the secret of his limitless evolution. They expected to see obedient beasts endowed with a power that had once belonged to Genesis alone, already imagining what possibilities might open before humanity if their plan succeeded.
They had been right about one thing. The seven creatures did indeed change. The power that had belonged to Genesis alone for thousands of years took root within them, breaking through the limits nature had imposed, and for the first time, other creatures gained the ability to undergo an evolution of their own. But the power brought with it something the clans had never anticipated.
When the transformation was complete, the seven no longer recognized the authority of those they had once obeyed. Neither commands nor any method of taming known to humans could make them submit to human will again. The creatures turned against their masters, then left the place where Genesis had fallen and scattered across the world, each carrying a fragment of the power the three clans had hoped to claim for themselves.
In time, their former names were forgotten, and accounts of their appearance became tangled with rumor and speculation. One by one, those who had witnessed the death of Genesis passed away, leaving their descendants only the story of seven creatures, each carrying within it a part of the being humanity had once betrayed for a power it ultimately failed to claim.
And so, as the years passed, the names they had once borne faded away. From then on, the world would know them as the Seven Hearts of Genesis.
Years passed before humanity discovered the final consequence of its betrayal. The Seven, scattered across distant corners of the world, left behind countless descendants, and among them, more and more were born with an ability that had once belonged to Genesis alone.
Upon reaching the limits of their growth, they transformed and continued to grow stronger, passing this ability on to the generations that followed. Over the centuries, evolution ceased to be a miracle and became part of the very nature of magical creatures.
Yet the legacy of Genesis proved to be only a pale shadow of the power he himself had possessed.
Sooner or later, every creature reached a limit it could no longer overcome, and no matter how many generations passed, the world never again saw a creature capable of advancing beyond its fourth evolution.
And so, in seeking to take that power from a single creature, humanity had given it instead to countless generations of those it had once sought to control.
Yet the story does not end here...