Before Time, Space, everything and nothingness, there was only the Boundary, a formless, unknown creator deity. The Boundary created the first Universe, not out of any benevolent will, but simply to witness beings that were not itself. The first Universe was a golden creation of possibility, whose laws were so tightly weaved together that the Boundary would always have complete control over its creation. This worked for a time, but the Boundary quickly realized its major flaw: it was so extremely dull.

The Boundary is omniscient and omnipotent in regard to its creations, knowing all that Exists and all that Does Not, and in a universe so tightly bound by laws, perfect knowledge of the present also came with perfect knowledge of the future. The Boundary could predict the future of its creation with 100% accuracy, spanning into infinity. To a creature that wished to witness other beings, knowing how each and every story started, ended, and started again before it even had the chance to begin was the pinnacle of boredom. To the Boundary, the first Universe was a failure.

Putting the first Universe aside, the Boundary created the second Universe. Though it would still be bound by laws, they would not be quite as rigidly defined, naturally introducing chaos into its development. As the second universe went through its own development cycle, the Boundary could still perfectly predict the future down to the most minute detail, and was ready to consider the second Universe a failure as well.

But then something happened. A tiny, meaningless variation to its then perfectly accurate prediction. Suddenly, the creator deity found itself interested again, and in its excitement, sought to discover why something like this had happened. As time passed, more and more tiny, meaningless variations started to appear, until eventually, something happened that it had not at all predicted. The Boundary's perfect omniscience was no longer a perfect prediction of the future.

Upon investigating, the Boundary discovered the source of said variations: sentient thought. As the universe naturally developed and as creatures capable of more and more complex thought appeared, they developed sentience - something which until then had been exclusive to the deity itself - and that sentience allowed them to, in tiny ways, reshape reality around them. Their thoughts were their reality, and in so being, forced reality itself to conform to what, to them, was real. In allowing the existence of sentient thought, the Boundary unintentionally had given its creations a fragment of the power of creation itself - only the tiniest sliver, but still enough to more than excite the creator deity.

Indeed, the Boundary quickly realized that as these sentient creatures thought not just of themselves or of the world around them, but also beyond that, the universe itself would begin to morph to accommodate their thoughts. The stories that these creatures told each other, their belief and imagination, tiny as though it was, was enough to spark a meaningless creation into the universe, too weak to sustain itself. The Boundary, in a flash of inspiration, stitched the first Universe, with its endless power of possibility, into the second Universe, with its meek power of creation. The meager imagination of these sentient creatures, now brushing against the power of possibility from the first Universe, would grow and develop.

Eventually, the first and the second Universes would become so intertwined that they would bleed into each other. The sentient thought of these tiny creatures would wander into the power of possibility, which would in turn transform their idle thoughts and imaginations into an entirely new creation. From the moment one of them asked themselves, "what if there is more than I can see?", a floodgate was opened. Sentient thought and imagination were now capable of creating entire universes - other Dimensions - with their own laws, their own stories, their own creatures of sentient thought. The Boundary's first creation - what then had been known as the first Universe - would become known as "Fantasy", the second, "Reality", and the interstitial bridge between both would become known as "Dreams". This was the beginning of the System of Existence, and the Boundary could not be more overjoyed at this development.

Unfortunately for the creator deity, its excitement would be short-lived, as it very quickly also learned where this whole system frayed. With so many different creatures using the power of their sentient thought to change reality, it inevitably came to the point where the system could not handle it all. After all, what happens when an object that was in one place is changed to another simply through the power of perception - and, indeed, not just "changed to another spot", but had always been in that other spot as reality itself is forced to conform to their perception? Worse, what if two different sentient creatures perceive reality simultaneously in contradictory ways? What then?

With such an explosion of sentient thought, these scenarios became common, and eventually, the breaking point was found. Reality failed to reassert itself through these contradictions, and the very first Paradox was formed. A Paradox is an impossibility, something which Does Not Exist, and yet, through its creation by the failure of Reality, it now Exists. This metaphysical contradiction created the very first Abyss, and much to the panic of the Boundary, it learned of its ultimate limitation - the Boundary held omniscient knowledge and omnipotent power over All that Exists and All that Does Not, but an Abyss was somehow neither of these things. The Boundary could not gaze into the Abyss, could not control the Abyss, and could not affect it in any way.

Further, an Abyss served as a bridge between what Exists and what Does Not. Non-Existence is what the Boundary uses as its building blocks - raw concepts that it then forms into Existence. Both realms were supposed to be completely separate, but an Abyss opened a bridge between them, allowing these raw concepts to wander aimlessly into Existence and be forcibly, violently transformed not by the careful hands of a creator deity, but by the scattered, fragile sentient thought of the Boundary's tiny creations, and by the Reality that they shaped. These concepts, once taking presence in Existence, were called Abominations, and their very presence frayed Reality at its edges - although, curiously, Reality itself would also slowly transform them into comprehensible beings, forcing them to turn into something less lethal to itself.

Panicking, the Boundary almost decided to destroy the entire System right then and there, unravel it at its very foundation to fix the mistakes of its creation. However, it hesitated, for the unraveling of the foundations of its system would most certainly heavily destabilize the lives of the sentient creatures it had already created, and was almost certainly going to kill them all. These tiny beings had no guilt in living their lives - the fault laid entirely on the creator deity for its own mistakes, and punishing them in an attempt to fix the issue did not seem fair.

So instead of destroying the entire System of Existence, the Boundary decided to create smaller Systems in order to support it. The very first system to be created was the Truth of Being - a single creature of sentient thought, armed with a bigger sliver of the Boundary's power of creation, would venture into the Abysses that were created to unravel them from within, to fix the Paradoxes that created them, to allow Reality to reassert itself, and break the bridge between the realms that should never be connected. The first attempts were an unmitigated failure.

By allowing the Truth of Being to draw upon the power of Non-Existence - of the raw concepts themselves, through a connection with the Boundary - the Truth of Being could freely and powerfully rewrite reality to its whims. However, drawing upon the power of Non-Existence was, understandably, heavily destructive to these tiny beings. Draw too much of it, and they could not only cease to exist, but indeed, have retroactively never existed - a contradiction which only further frayed the fabric of Reality.

Further, power like this could easily be abused by creatures who were too short-sighted to see beyond their immediate future. And even further - power like this involved forcibly reshaping Reality, further creating contradictions that Reality itself would have to reassert. Inventive application of these powers could mitigate the damage done, but the damage could never be zero.

And so it was that the Boundary would constantly create what would eventually become the Patchwork System of Reality, adding in a new function to solve a problem that arose through its own attempts to fix the inherent chaos of Reality. To prevent the exponential growth of the system, it would forcibly change things so that sentient creatures from universes created by sentient thought could not themselves create new universes - and in so doing, would inadvertently label the very first Universe as the True Dimension.

It would detach a fragment of itself to create the very first Aspect of Creation, and grant her a Dimension to breed creatures that could grow into Embodiments of Concepts - creatures that could not only rival Abominations, but much like how Abominations would fray reality merely by their passing, these new creations would heal it by their mere existence. This Aspect of Creation would take the name of Fillem, her children would be known as the Dragons - the Children of Reality, destined to grow and eventually be judged by their mother, the Aspect of the Dragon, to turn into these Embodiments of Concepts that were so desperately needed.

The Boundary would detach another fragment of itself, creating another Aspect of Creation with its own Dimension to judge the aimless souls of the departed - those that had not been claimed by the deities of the tiny creatures' own creation - and ascertain whether they would be worthy to reincarnate into any given Dimension, with the sole purpose of aiding the Truth of Being should they ever have to fix a Paradox in that Dimension. It created the Boundary Archives, a database of omniscient knowledge controlled by the Boundary to aid these chosen few to help the Truth of Being. Those judged worthy would be called Boundary Dwellers, the Aspect would be the nameless Aspect of the Dweller, and the system would grow in scope far beyond the one Dimension it was originally created for.

But most importantly, through several iterations of the Truth of Being system, the Boundary would discover what traits would be most desirable in its chosen Champion. After countless failures, both out of weakness, bad choices, and lack of knowledge of what would be ultimately required for the job, the Boundary landed on three key requirements:

• An Extreme Cleverness and Creativity - for when your ability is to reshape Reality to your will, your only true limitation is your creativity.
• The Ability to See Beauty Where Others See Nothing - for without the ability to see beauty in the world, despite all hardships of the role, why would you ever be moved to protect it?
• An Overwhelming Sense of Justice - for the job will be full of grief, and pain, and suffering, and loss. The Champion must be capable of moving forward despite all of this, despite themselves, despite their loved ones, despite their regrets, all for the greater good.

These systems, even as they are, are not perfect, and they never will be. The Boundary is constantly and continuously adding new systems and potentially updating old ones, in order to keep the System of Existence alive, no matter what.

After all, the Boundary was so very bored at the start of its journey - and yet despite all of its problems now, it can never again claim that this job is dull.

And that's it. That's the basic creation myth and worldbuilding foundation of Digital Prophecy. Maybe one day I'll write more about it, since I seem to have a knack for worldbuilding that I don't have when it comes to actual story writing.

Addendum #1