My last peace

"A long, long time ago, Zeus, the God of the Sky and the protector of Olympus visited the land for his own curiosity and started living as a human. No other Gods had any idea what his intention was and even Zeus never talked about it to anyone. After living a life of solitude for some time, he had a child with a human woman. Following him, his brother Poseidon also came down to the land and as Hades was not permitted to leave the underworld, he sent his children to do the same. The other Gods of Olympus, though they worshiped and acknowledged Zeus as their leader on the surface, always wanted to overthrow him and rule the other Gods. So fearing Zeus' intentions, they, along with their sons and daughters, also came down to the land.

The Gods of Asgard also did the same and so did the Gods of other nimbus. They conceived with the humans and increased their population, then gathered their people to do the same, as if trying to raise an army, or another continent. As these children had the blood of the Gods and the humans as well, they were called 'demi-gods', though they still liked to refer to themselves as Gods.

As time passed, those Gods and demi-gods started to discriminate against the lesser humans or the pure ones without the blood of Gods. In order to show their superiority, they even created the so-called Land of Gods, "the Elysium".

But even then, they were all connected by -

The Stigmata.

A stigmata is a mark that represents their strengths or blessings received from the Original Gods. The humans and even the demi-gods, as they were half-humans too, got their own stigmata at the time of birth. In other words, everyone except the Original Gods that came from other nimbi above received their stigmata.

But one day the true Gods who started all these suddenly disappeared.

No one knew what exactly happened or where they vanished to, and so with time, people started to doubt the existence of those Gods. As more and more decades passed, the discrimination between the demigods against the humans naturally reduced and they began to coexist in peace. But some of the demigods still considered themselves as a superior race with Elysium as their precious and exclusive abode, so they kept holding Elysium as a mark of superiority, and take great pride in it even today."

After reading that story, which I already heard before, my mother closed the book and kissed me in the forehead and whispered softly into my ears.

"Good Night, Owen."

"That was a nice story mom; the only problem is that I heard it millions of times. Hah... Good night anyway."

"You look really tired today. Don't stay up reading the books all night, dear."

"Yeah, yeah. I was about to sleep anyway. I don't know why you suddenly wanted to read such a boring story out of nowhere."

She gave a slight giggle, and bringing her right hand to where her lips were, she said with a playful tone. "Why? Are you embarrassed that your mother read you a bedtime story?"

Seeing me giving an exhausted look to her teasing, she continued as she walked up to the door. She continued,

"Well, I don't really have a reason. I just felt like it today. Anyway, sleep tight. And P.S. it's not a boring story"

The door closed leaving me alone in the room.

Yeah, not a boring story but a really stupid one. I mean, I, as a demi-god myself, don't really want to doubt the truth behind the story but even so, why is it that nobody has ever seen Zeus or the other Original Gods. All we know is that we are the descendants of those Original Gods.

"Ah, such a pain."

Really, what a pain.

It was getting a little boring for me, staying at home and reading all these books every day. It has already been ages since I last went to school too. My parents also didn't really force me to go to school, though they seemed a little disappointed.

It was because I had to spend every day surrounded by all these geniuses, both at school and at home, whereas I myself was no good.

My mother, Jessica was obviously not one of the strongest out there, but her rare stigmata made her a very desirable unit for every battle. Her stigmata was a very powerful "5-star" Support stigmata- "Stigmata of Purification".

Name: Jessica Grey

Species: Demi-God

Rank: Warrior

Age: 39

Level : 48

Strength : 179

Defense : 211

Agility: 176

Intelligence : 192

Mana: 208

Luck:88

[Stigmata of purification :★★★★★]

My elder sister, Esmeralda who is turning 17 this month, also has a very strong "7-star" Fighting stigmata with a beautiful sword and shield mark on her back. 7-star is super rare and there are only a handful people out there who have that stigmata. In other words, she's a treasure for all the guilds and squads out there.

Name: Esmeralda Grey

Species: Demi-God

Rank: Warrior

Age: 17

Level: 22

Strength : 95

Defense : 91

Agility: 85

Intelligence : 69

Mana: 71

Luck: 39

[Stigma of Faith: ★★★★★★★]

And even my younger sister, Marielle who is 8 years old, inherited my mother's stigmata and has an incredible amount of magic power and luck.

Name: Marielle Grey

Species: Demi-God

Rank: Apprentice

Age : 8 years

Level : 4

Strength : 14

Defense : 13

Agility: 13

Intelligence : 15

Mana: 27

Luck: 18

[Stigmata of purification: ★★★★★]

Anyway, she'll grow stronger once she is ten years old and is allowed to enter the dungeons.

I, on the other hand, got a creepy, wings-like, black coloured useless stigmata.

Something called- "Stigmata of Void."

It's not like there's no information about my stigmata, but the information is very little to be honest. So little that it wouldn't make a single paragraph in a book.

The only thing I know is that it's a 0-star. Honestly, the lowest I know of is a 1-star so how could I have a 0-star?

Sigh!

The stigmata tends to guide the users by giving different skills, and also keep their record by an illusionary message in front of the eyes, like a strange window filled with ancient languages.

But in my case, it never provided me with a single skill.

Not even once.

What is that even supposed to mean? Is my stigmata nothing but an empty mark?

Well anyway, I've already given up on becoming any of those great myths out there. I was considered quite talented for my age during my childhood days as I started learning magic and sword at the age of 3. Some even called me a prodigy.

But as I grew up, the children of my age began to utilize the power of their stigmata and I was naturally left behind. I really tried hard to keep up with them, only to get nothing but bullied now.

Even my own sisters look at me as I am some kind of disgrace.

So I just stayed at home, training magic and new weapons, and also reading books during my free time. And my father? Well I rarely see him nowadays. He just owns his own weapon shop at the Capital.

With another sigh, I opened my status to see if there's any progress today, only to be left disappointed like always.

Name: Owen Grey

Species: Demi-God

Rank: Apprentice

Age: 12

Level: 12

Strength : 39

Defense :33

Agility: 66

Intelligence : 68

Mana: 29

Luck: 9

[Stigmata of Void (Inactive)]

Stigmata of Void : ☆ (0-star)

Passive : Beginner Swordsmanship (31.63%), Beginner Spearmanship (25.17%), Beginner Mana Manipulation(19.89%).

Skills: Fireball(1-star)

My physical stats are not bad. To be honest, it's better than the majority of the kids around my age. Those stats are also really important but what really changed the game were those skills.

Actually, there are three ways to learn a skill.

First is a skillbook.

But they are extremely rare. Even those noble families might have only two or three if they are lucky. Skillbooks can also be found in the dungeons but it can be considered as a miracle to be honest. People will just laugh at you if you tell them you found a skillbook at a dungeon.

Second is to learn a skill from others which is again, extremely difficult.

Even learning a 1-star skill is as difficult as running on a rope with one leg. There are only a handful of "geniuses" who are able to learn lower star skills. Above 3-stars? Well I have not heard of anyone learning it. I learned my 'Fireball' skill when I was four.

I really thought I was one of those geniuses when I learned my 'Fireball', only to ruin everything because of that damned stigmata.

And third, also the most effective one is the stigmata. A stigmata has its own unique skill set and as we level up we can unlock those skills. Which is why I was left behind by others of my age because my inactive stigmata does not have its own skill set.

"Well, not that it matters. I am living a happy and peaceful life right now, without any expectations from anyone. Better go to sleep."

I think that was exactly what I thought that night.

The night where it all began.

At that time I didn't know… I didn't know that there wouldn't even be a peaceful second for me after that night.

I didn't know that this was the end of my bitter yet memorable days and the beginning of my sweet yet hellish journey.

My journey to find the truth about these Gods and stigmatas, these kingdoms and kings, and these myths and lies.

I didn't know that this was just the beginning.

Beginning of my journey across the void.