The Fifth God

A long time ago, just as this universe came into existence, beings of unknown origin brought light into the dark void of space.

To the four gods, these entities became a kind of guiding presence—silent observers whose very existence seemed to assist in the creation of the floating platform and the portals connecting all 60 worlds, as though they were passive witnesses who watched without interfering.

As the gods shaped the universe into what it is today, these beings lived quietly alongside them.

But when the gods began reaching out to humans across the different eras, they recognized—perhaps for the first time—the danger hidden in those silent watchers.

When the gods began selecting demigods, a severe imbalance of power arose, which quickly escalated into wars and violent power struggles.

At first, the gods did not intervene. But when their glowing companions suddenly began to appear in the night skies of every world, they realized these beings did not mean well.

Soon after, thousands of humans and dozens of demigods fell into madness.

They leapt from high cliffs or into the void, and their bodies vanished completely—only to become one of the luminous beings in the sky themselves.

The four gods took the initiative and declared war on these entities.

Yet even united, they were utterly powerless.

They had created this universe together—and still, these beings existed beyond even their reach.

Worse still: not a single attack ever made contact.

No matter how far they flew, no matter what they tried—the distance to the stars never lessened.

After countless years of failure, three of the four gods—the God of Hours, the God of Minutes, and the God of Seconds—came to a conclusion: they would have to align themselves with these entities, rather than try to destroy them.

The God of Aethra, however, refused to surrender.

He continued his journey, endlessly trying to reach them—traveling for centuries into the eternal darkness of the cosmos.

Then something hoped for finally happened:

The stars stopped appearing.

They no longer drove humans and demigods to madness.

After thorough analysis, the God of Hours discovered the exact moment this phenomenon ceased: it was when the balance of power across the worlds had become perfectly even.

A thousand years later, the God of Aethra returned—entirely changed.

His personality had shifted.

But no one knows what he found out there, or what altered him so completely.

With the others' consent, he established the Center of the Clock—Aethra Prime—as the axis to uphold universal balance.

From each of the remaining 60 worlds, a portion of the population was chosen and relocated to this newly created realm.

From then on, the four gods withdrew into four different core epochs and entrusted the inhabitants of Aethra Prime with maintaining the balance—without ever informing the demigods of the true reason behind it.

Since that day, the Stars of Madness have only appeared where imbalance exists—

or to the Unknown Space, where the paths to all worlds converge.