Liu Dero
Liu Dero is a Hadien man known to history as the Black Devil — a title he earned long after his first death. His relationship with Kona Ryu, and the divine ascension he began developing through her Nesur blessing, made him interesting to Hadieha in the worst possible way. Hadieha executed him.
What no one knew at the time was that the execution did not hold. Liu eventually woke with no divine purpose and no context, and spent years hunting humans — a creature of terrifying capability and unchecked hunger. The stories became legend. The people of what would eventually be called Liundero finally defeated him, and tradesmen fashioned several powerful items from his remains, collectively known as the Black Devil's Remains: a sword, a pair of gauntlets, and others.
The Remains traveled through centuries of history, passing from one hand to the next, carrying a version of Liu Dero's energy long after anyone remembered his name.
Liu Dero in life is largely defined by adjacency — the record focuses on Kona and the divinity she carried, and Liu Dero appears in that story as the person she loved, the person whose growing power attracted catastrophic attention, the person executed before he could choose anything. What the record suggests of his living personality is someone who was loved deeply and who inspired, in the Mystic of Darkness himself, enough concern to act. Whatever he was becoming was considered a genuine threat. That implies power, certainly, but also something beneath the power that made the development alarming.
After death, the personality that remains is the Black Devil: a creature without apparent interiority, hunting and killing without purpose, eventually brought down and dismembered. The Remains were made from that corpse. The energy in them persisted across centuries.
Whether the Black Devil was Liu Dero, a version of Liu Dero, or simply what Liu Dero's form became without Liu Dero inside it, the record does not specify. What it does record is that the thing that woke up was not the person Kona loved — and that the story of the Black Devil's Remains is, in a way, Liu Dero's personality continuing to act on the world long after any self that could be called his own had ended.
Fall of the Mystics: The War of Creation and Its Aftermath (500–250 BF) ►
In the primordial era, the supreme being Toriatik created the first Mystics to alleviate his loneliness, beginning with Alifia, the Mystic of Creation. His cruelty toward his creations caused Alifia great suffering, which influenced the birth of her children Havimael (Mystic of Light) and Hadieha (Mystic of Darkness). While Mystics typically created Mysterva — demi-divine beings dependent on their creators — Havimael created the Hav, a self-developing race, and Hadieha secretly created the rapidly evolving Hadien, both violating Toriatik's prohibition on independent growth. This triggered a war among the Mystics. Alifia granted a Hav named Kona Ryu a power called the Nesur, enabling mortals to ascend toward divinity. Kona's Hadien lover Liu Dero began showing signs of divine ascension as a result. Hadieha traced this back to Alifia, tortured her, apparently executed Liu, and planned to use Kona's unborn child — blessed by the Nesur — as a vessel to overthrow Toriatik. Kona fled to Havimael, who hid her on the neutral world Eitoria. During the final battle against Toriatik, Hadieha betrayed Havimael, sealing all Mystics within Eitoria and entering a deep sleep. Liu, who had survived, became the legendary monster known as the Black Devil before being defeated in the region later named Liundero. Kona awoke in Santerris, gave birth to Arkem, clipped his wings, left him at an orphanage, and died. Arkem's clipped wings remained with her.