Chapter Text
The legend tells of a time when humans were whole spherical beings with four arms, four legs, and two faces. Fearing their power, God split them in half. From that act was born a lifelong yearning for the missing half: a soulmate.
The Symposium - Plato
For years, Grisha lived without knowing the name of his other half. The problem stemmed from the strange characters engraved into his skin, a foreign language that made no sense for the longest time.
They live so far away— his parents murmured behind his back. And sometimes, they would look at the name of his soulmate as if it was the source of all their future problems. As if it were a curse and not a blessing.
How will you ever find them?— the children at school would ask, so young and unapologetically unfiltered. Often times, there was never a reply.
Chinese— an old scholar told him when he was still a boy, after his parents felt worried enough to seek actual answers.
Zhou Mingrui— Grisha learned much later in life. After tracing the mysterious characters countless times. After wondering what they may sound like, what meaning did they have, and what the person they belonged to might be like.
Someone kind, he hoped.
(Mingrui— it meant someone who is bright and fortunate, just like a star.)
Grisha never really knew why—or how—his other half existed in another country, speaking a different language, miles away and out of reach from him when everyone else around him remained trapped in the same small bubble of familiarity.
Weren't soulmates supposed to be together?
But, at the very least, Grisha had faith in the simple fact that they were both under the same sky, watching the same stars.
Because stars existed longer than earth did, and because humans were made out of star dust, so Grisha often loved to gaze at the night sky, to draw imaginary lines with the tip of his finger forming constellations, to seek out Polaris—the northern most brightest star— and think: maybe it will lead him where he wants to be, where his soulmate is.
And for now, that was enough.
Joining the research mission in Chernobyl was supposed to be Grisha’s ticket to success.
The plan was simple. Climb the ranks of the research institute, make a breakthrough in nuclear radiation physics, amass riches and retire early and head to China for his long awaited journey, to find his soulmate.
Instead, Chernobyl was his resting place.
Walking out of the Chaos Sea marked the beginning of everything.
There, Grisha was born anew.
Questions rose in his mind as he stared at the ruins around him only to be answered immediately.
How did the world change so much?
Because the gods destroyed it.
How long has it been?
Too long.
Where is everyone?
Dead.
When he lifted his gaze, he was met with vast darkness, a glaring blood moon that stirred something deep and uneasy within him, and the telltale pinpricks of fading stars, scattered too far and too wide to make any sense of the familiar consultations that used to decorate the night.
How cruel, Grisha thought.
Perhaps… perhaps, they were not even under the same sky anymore.
The legend says God split humanity because he feared them. And somehow, along the way, God had split himself as well. And then the world fell into chaos.
Here, in these ruins, there was no God. Only the grave left behind the cataclysm.
Here, in these ruins, there was no light. Only darkness and fire of destruction and mad beasts that fancied themselves as gods.
Here, in these ruins, humans were slaves struggling to survive…
It was sickening.
Grisha was once a man of faith himself. He had believed that fate was pre written, that there was a wisdom behind everything, even if it were a soulmate he couldn't find.
Now, Grisha is a man made God, and he didn't see any wisdom in this.
Now, Grisha is a man made God, he can put wisdom in this.
Because God loves the world.
Acting as a God is surprisingly easy.
Becoming the savior of humanity, on the other hand, was a much more complicated affair.
Among his early findings, Grisha had discovered that in this era, humans were nothing but slaves to other races. And, most shockingly, the humans of this era no longer had a soulmate.
Or, to be more precise, the bound between soulmates was no longer visible to them.
It was a strange, peculiar fact. And it arose a certain question;
Why did the primordial God Almighty and Celestial Worthy erase the connection between soulmates?
Because they feared them— omniscience whispered to him, but Grisha had only understood the implications when he stumbled on a certain ancient god.
Soniathrym, the king of elves, and his queen of calamity, Cohinem.
They made for a unique study case.
Among all the ancient gods—who were mad and corrupt— Soniathrym was the sole exception. Unlike them, he had a strong control of his pathway to the point that it did not influence him, showing no sing what's so ever of the original will awakening in him, as if it was completely suppressed.
And likewise, Cohinem displayed unique traits for an angel. Despite being only sequence 2 of the tyrant, she also possessed abilities of a reader and a dreamweaver without any sign of corruption.
How could this be possible?
Grisha had followed his intuition to investigate them. And surely, his findings were astounding.
The two elves were, against all odds, a pair of soulmates!
Cohinem, who was a survivor, still had the name of her soulmate engraved on her skin even when that soulmate was a mythical creature that emerged after the cataclysm.
And because Soniathrym had a soulmate, it allowed a perfect coexistence of divinity and humanity, which was the key to stabilizing such power.
And it was for this very reason that the gods made sure soulmates could not find each other anymore.
It made Grisha wounder, like days of old, when he was human, about the true meaning of a soulmate.
True love was not merely the reunion of missing halves, but a longing for balance.
It made him look at the ancient gods and think, that is madness.
It made him look at the king and queen of the eleves —the last pair of soulmates in this world—and think, that is balance.
Maybe—just maybe—if his soulmate, if Zhou Mingrui were still here, then everything would have been oh so very easy.
Acting as a God is surprisingly easy.
Bringing light into the world is a calling. The first miracle in history.
At that very moment, from beyond time and space, Grisha could feel eyes on him.
“Mysteries.”
No—not mysteries.
Grisha smiles, mouthing the name carved into his skin, into his very being.
"Zhou Mingrui."
Fate really played in the most unexpected ways.
God Almighty and Lord of Mysteries.
Divinity and humanity.
Grisha and Mingrui.
They were truly made for each other.
The legend tells of a time when humans were whole spherical beings with four arms, four legs, and two faces. Fearing their power, God split them in half. From that act was born a lifelong yearning for the missing half: a soulmate.
Why did the gods fear the idea of soulmates? Because it allowed humans to ascend higher, to blaspheme them, to kill them and crown themselves a new.
For that, the Celestial Worthy of heaven and earth made sure to pluck mismatched souls, only the ones missing their other halves, that no one in his resurrection plan could possibly have a soulmate among the cocoons.
But, coincidentally, Primordial God Almighty had also decided to pick a soul that could never find its other half, one that seemed as if it had never existed in the first place.
It set fate into motion.
Acting as a God is surprisingly easy.
It was the small details of life that haunted Grisha the most.
These feelings, buried in his chest—cold as ice and unforgiving—were not the feelings of his once human soul. And this place, rebuilt by his own hands, was not where he belonged. And this world, even saved, was not the world of Grisha’s dreams.
And the sky…
Like days of old, Grisha wanted to seek Polaris, the north star, to lead him home. But Polaris no longer existed in this night sky. And home had long since lost its true meaning.
In his divinity, Grisha could only recognize one feeling at a time, or perhaps they were mere echoes washed away in the eon he had lived alone. But in nostalgia, there was no difference between a day, a year, a decade, or a lifetime, because the amount of longing is beyond the idea of time.
It was the one feeling Grisha understood best; the lifelong yearning for his missing half, for his soulmate.
As if Zhou Mingrui were an endless path, and Grisha was created for this journey.
Now, as a God, Grisha needed his soulmate more than ever. And if this world didn't have a North star to lead him where he wanted, to his soulmate, then he would simply create a new one.
And for every time Zhou Mingrui would cross Grisha’s mind, a new star would be hang in the sky. Enough so the cosmos will be jealous of the galaxy he would made.
Maybe they weren't under the same sky—not now— but Grisha can at least make sure the stars would be the same. Now, he can still look at the brightest star among a sea of fading light, at the familiar constellations he used to draw with the tips of his fingers, and think:
Is it because there are too many stars in the sky that I can't seem to find you?
At the end of the third epoch, before the cataclysm, and in the later years of The Lord who created everything, many would recount that He fell into madness. That he kept creating stars, hanging them in the cosmos and giving them names and stories to the point of obsession. That sometimes, very rarely, he would gaze at his self made constellations and mumble a foreign word that no one could understand.
It sounded awfully like a name.
Maybe of a star only he knew of.
(Mingrui— meaning bright and fortunate, just like a star.
And Grisha was the watcher, the astronaut seeking cordinates of his home star, hoping to eventually get pulled back into orbit.)
.
.
.
(The fall of The True Creator was his own doing. Orchestrated after one simple, clear fact:
Why fight the awakning of the original will?
When, in the far future, his soulmate is waiting for him.)
What is a soulmate?
A single soul split between two bodies.
A language deeper than words, older than thought.
And, the thing about soulmates is;
They always —always— Find each other.
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Zhou Mingrui had long since accepted the fact that his soulmate was a researcher who had died in Chernobyl forty years ago.
Accepted—what a generous word for something that had hollowed him out so completely.
In a world where everyone drifted, inevitably, toward the person whose name was carved into their skin, where love was not a question but a destination… He alone remained stranded. A puzzle piece shaved down at the edges, forced into a shape that fit nowhere.
Still, he lived on.
He focused on the small joys: his parents’ quiet warmth, his friends’ easy companionship, the steady rhythm of a job well done. He built a life with careful hands, patching over the cracks, pretending they weren’t there.
But deep inside, Zhou Mingrui was always trying—futilely—to fill that emptiness in his chest. That loneliness that tore at him like a chasm he could never cross.
(And, sometimes, on the other side of the chasm, too far and too wide, he could almost swear someone was calling his name.)
Zhou Mingrui didn’t think much when he performed the luck enhancement ritual.
He knew that it couldn’t possibly bring back the dead. It certainly couldn’t rewrite fate or grant him a new soulmate.
And yet here he was, standing in the middle of a makeshift altar, whispering prayers to a god he didn’t even believe in.
Even if such a being existed, then Zhou Mingrui had a question.
Why him?
Why, of all people, was he the one bound to someone who had already turned to dust?
Gods, if they existed, were not kind. At least, not to him.
Mingrui stood in the silence of his own apartment. Nothing had changed. He let out a slow breath and closed his eyes.
The name engraved along his left shoulder blade throbbed faintly, a ghost of a burned brand on his skin, the ache familiar in the cruelest way.
Sleep.
He just needed to sleep.
Except Zhou Mingrui never woke up.
People talked. They speculated. They sighed with that knowing look, the one reserved for tragedies that were inevitable.
After all, the thing about soulmates is;
They always —always— find each other.
.
.
.
Zhou Mingrui’s death was written off as a suicide case.