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Havenna, the Royal Capital of Dragonsworne, had become the heart of the new kingdom, just half a day’s journey from the Old Capital—now the Special Region of Yariah, an autonomous port city with its own governance. Nestled among rolling hills, Havenna’s natural landscape was ideal for dragons, their massive forms landing and taking off with grace.

By day, the skies above Havenna were alive with motion. Dragons, their scales catching the sunlight, flew in synchronized arcs, carrying riders, goods, and messengers. Magicians glided alongside them, conjuring spells to defy gravity. Below, the streets were quieter by comparison, though the constant rumble of wings overhead was a reminder of the city’s unique rhythm.

By night, the city transformed. The skies grew still, save for the occasional silhouette of a patrolling dragon, as darkness made flying treacherous. On the ground, lantern-lit mechanical carriages and enchanted wagons trundled through the hilly roads, their flickering lights resembling fireflies scattered across the landscape.

But even in the stillness of this late hour, when even the rowdiest taverns had gone quiet, one window remained aglow. Inside, a woman in her thirties hunched over a desk piled high with paperwork. Empty coffee cups were scattered across the table, their bitter aroma mixing with the musty scent of parchment. Her long red hair was tied loosely to one side, but several strands had escaped, framing a face lined with exhaustion. The dark circles beneath her eyes stood out starkly against her pale skin.

“How the hell am I stuck with this job…” Hildara Eriz, Chief of Internal Affairs, muttered as she sifted through yet another stack of papers.

In her hands were reports and proposals: the relocation of the immigrant district, a tax audit on prominent merchants, a petition for night flight permits during medical emergencies, incidents of vigilantism, and a brewing dispute between a local religious leader and a temple priest, amongst other things.

Her frustration peaked when she spotted two documents that didn’t belong on her desk.

“Wait, these should’ve gone to Lancelot and Yamato!” she groaned, slamming the papers onto the table. “Ugh…”

Hildara dropped her head onto the desk with a dull thud, glaring at the towering stacks of paperwork. The faint light from the crystal lamp cast jagged shadows that loomed like ominous cliffs around her. The last thing she needed right now was more work.

Naturally, that was when the door to her office slammed open, nearly shaking it off its hinges. One of her subordinates stormed in, panting.

“Chief!”

“What is it now? Can’t you see I’m busy?” she grumbled, still slumped over her desk, her eyes fixed stubbornly on the wood grain instead of the documents before her. “If it’s the Pariah Press, tell them—again—that we don’t have lizard people secretly controlling the government. They’re dragonkin.”

“It’s not that!” The subordinate’s voice cracked. “There’s an undead breakout in the Lamra district. Dozens of headless zombies pouring out of a local church. Your presence is needed.”

Hildara groaned and rubbed her temples. Lamra district… That small border town just outside Havenna, sitting on the trade route to Yariah. It had once been a sleepy village but now thrived with commerce as merchants used it as a waypoint between the two cities.

“An undead breakout? That’s the police’s job,” she said flatly, gesturing toward the door. “Go bother Lancelot instead.”

“That’s the thing! Sir Ardwain asked to get you on site,” the subordinate leaned forward, lowering his voice. “The zombies are all wearing Old Empire military jackets… We might have uncovered an abandoned secret base.”

Hildara’s eyes snapped open, her exhaustion vanishing in an instant. With practiced precision, she stood from her chair and snatched her coat from its hanger.

“Lead me there,” she commanded, already striding toward the door.

♢♦♢♦♢

A streak of crimson ripped through the night sky, trailing smoke like a fiery comet. The glowing red mass plummeted toward Lamra, its descent swift and sudden. Below, the church grounds emerged, ringed by a patchwork of tents scattered like flickering embers in the darkness.

With a resounding poof, the red cloud struck the earth and dissolved into a swirling mist. From its core stepped Hildara and her subordinate—who promptly doubled over, clutching his stomach before losing his dinner.

“Eugghhh… I’m never Porthiking with the Chief again…” he groaned between heaves, his voice muffled against the grass.

Hildara, entirely unbothered, brushed soot off her coat and strode forward without so much as a glance back. Her attention locked onto the most prominent figure on the site, both literally and figuratively.

“Lancelot!” she called, her voice cutting through the din of activity. The towering knight, all two and a half meters of him, turned at her approach.

“Hilda,” he greeted with a slight nod, his deep voice steady. “I hope I didn’t interrupt your beauty sleep.”

“Sleep? I’ve been buried under mountains of paperwork. They’re endless, I swear. Honestly, though, this little outing might just be the break I need,” she said, slapping a vandalism report against his armored chest. “That’s yours now.”

Lancelot glanced at the document, then handed it off to one of his men with practiced ease.

“You look like you haven’t slept in days,” he noted. “I’ve got a trick to cut down on that mountain of paperwork. It’s called—”

“—compartmentalization,” Hildara finished in unison with him, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll get around to it when I find someone I can actually trust to handle things.”

For a mind-reader like her, that essentially meant never.

“What’s the situation?”
“A couple of teenagers trespassed and accidentally activated a hidden switch. It opened a staircase leading underground. From there, headless zombies started pouring out. This was three hours ago. The zombies were dealt with quickly, but—”

Right in the middle of Lancelot’s speech, a red light flickered ominously from within the church, its glow spilling through the tinted windows like blood. Moments later, two soldiers burst out, one limping and had to be carried by the shoulder.

“A demon! There’s a demon in there!”
“Somebody, get the Battle Priests—ASAP!”
“Medic!”

The rest of the soldiers erupted into activity, their shouts overlapping as they scrambled to respond to the escalating crisis.

“—there are other things dwelling in there. We also found a number of these.” Lancelot held up a black, rectangular box, its surface worn but unmistakably a recording device.

“What’s on it?”
“Records. Logs of experiments, it seems. Let’s wait for Lady Yamato before digging into it.”

Ten minutes later, Yamato, the Minister of Religious Affairs, arrived on-site via the same Portspell Hildara had used—minus the crash-landing.

She emerged gracefully from the dissipating red cloud, her white silk robe shimmering faintly under the dim light. Lustrous black hair framed her face, spilling from beneath a puffy, oversized hat that looked more suited for bedtime than battle. Resting just above her brow was a sleeping mask, and tucked securely under one arm was a pillow. Everything about her screamed reluctance to part with her slumber, making it clear she hadn’t bothered to change out of her sleeping gear.

“Uh,” Lancelot stammered. “I apologize for interrupting your beauty sleep, Lady Yamato.”

“This better be worth my time,” she warned, her scowl making her exhaustion evident.

The three retreated into a nearby tent and sat in a circle. At the center was a standard military audio device used for playing recordings. Lancelot reached into his pouch, retrieving several more rectangular recording devices, their surfaces scratched and worn. He opened one and slid out a disk drive.

“I’ll play them in chronological order,” he said, slotting the disk into the player.

The device buzzed to life, its static giving way to a voice:

“Log ten dash seven dash five. Experiment Deity Advent slash Possession, subject four two eight. Supervisor, Doctor Peter Haumann. Time is, uh…” The man in the recording, Peter Haumann as he called himself, stammered. “Twenty-three hundred hours, October tenth, sixteen seventy-two of the Sun calendar. Begin log.”

“Peter Haumann…”

“Do you recognize the name, Hilda?” Lancelot asked, noticing Hildara’s furrowed brow.

She nodded. “His name appears in some expunged files. Keep going.”

Lancelot pressed play again.

“Subject four two eight shows minimal to no response. Examination commencing. As anticipated, crystalline tumors have formed across the subject’s body. The rate of progression for the Advent is within the expected parameters after five weeks of exposure. Torn skin and broken nails suggest the subject attempted to claw at her own flesh. However, it appears the subject expired shortly afterward. Blood and crystalline samples will be collected before disposal. End log. ——Prep the room for the next test. The kid goes to the furnace.”
“Roger.”

The recording clicked off, leaving an unsettling silence in its wake.

“What do you think is happening here?” Lancelot asked, his voice heavy with concern as he looked at his companions’ stern faces.

“This man claims it’s a Deity Advent experiment,” Yamato said, gesturing toward the audio device. “Someone was trying to summon a God or an Angel into this realm, and they had the backing of the Old Empire’s military. I’m not sure which pantheon’s deity they were targeting, but I can tell you this: Lady Amaterasu and the Court of Heavens would never have allowed it. If they’d known, this entire nation might have been erased from existence.”

“Do you think it could be an Abrahamic deity?” Lancelot ventured.

“Hard to say,” Yamato replied, shaking her head. “This experiment happened in the facility beneath the church, not in the church itself.”

“October 10th, 1672…” Hildara murmured, scanning her memory. “That’s three weeks before we launched the attack on Yariah. Are there any other recordings? What’s the closest one to this timeline?”

“There are logs on demonic summoning rituals, homunculus soldier development, and fae changeling procedures. All of them are connected to the same man: Peter Haumann. But…” He held up a recorder labeled 480. Several others on the table bore the same number. “These are the ones you’ll want to hear.”

Lancelot inserted the next disk drive. After pressing play, the device hummed to life once again.

“Log ten dash eight dash one. Experiment Deity Advent slash Possession, Subject four eight zero. Supervisors, Doctor Peter Haumann, Priest Yayoi Sugisaki.”

“Priest Sugisaki?!” Yamato exclaimed, her usual composure breaking. “He was here?”

“Lady Yamato?” Lancelot paused the recording, surprised by her reaction.

“That man is filth,” she spat. “A rogue priest, excommunicated from Hinomoto years ago. He’s been causing chaos in foreign lands ever since. We’ve searched for him endlessly. Continue the recording—I need to know what happened here.”

Lancelot nodded and resumed the playback.

“Subject four eight zero, please get onto the table,” came a calm male voice. The faint rustle of clothing followed, accompanied by metallic clicks. “Time is twenty-four thousand hours. October twenty first. Subject four eight zero is ready for Advent.”

A strange, low hum began—faint at first but growing steadily louder. The tension was palpable, the hum reverberating in their ears, until suddenly—

Zap!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

A blood-curdling scream erupted from the device, the anguished cry of a young girl so harrowing it made everyone recoil. The sound was so vivid, so raw, it felt as though her very soul was being torn apart in front of them.

And yet, that was just the beginning of it.

zap!

zap zap zap zap zap zap zap zap zap zap zap zap zap zap zap zap!!

The scene unfolding from the recording was so visceral, it felt as though the air in the tent had turned to lead. Stomachs sank, hearts thudded in a slow, oppressive rhythm, and each breath came shallow and strained. Even the soldiers outside, drawn by a morbid curiosity, had paused their activities to listen.

Chattering sounds crackled faintly from the recording, but they were drowned out by the girl’s tortured screams and the relentless cacophony of explosions assaulting her. The torment dragged on for minutes, an unrelenting storm of agony that seemed to stretch time itself. Then, at some indistinguishable moment, the girl’s cries ceased entirely. Suddenly, the cacophony stopped. Silence fell—thick and suffocating.

“…Subject four-eight-zero is confirmed to have expired during Ascension,” Peter Haumann announced flatly. “End log.”

The recording continued, picking up the sound of a door creaking open, followed by the measured steps of boots on stone.

“Clean her up.”
“Roger.”

The footsteps resumed, accompanied by faint chanting of mantras in the background. But then—

Zap!

Zap!

More explosions erupted, followed by the sound of two bodies hitting the ground with heavy thuds. Electricity crackled violently, drowning out all other noise. Amid the chaos, an otherworldly chant began, its unholy syllables reverberating through the recording:

‘Vzobj. Vzobj. Vzobj. Vzobj. Vzobj. Vzobj.’

‘BJIIFHQKLABPXBIMBFALQQKXTQKLAFAILPOXBVKBBQKBSBPBIXJXFEPLQXPJXF.’

The crackling energy grew louder, surging with an intensity that felt almost tangible. The audio device itself began to hum and spark, reacting as if the past events were bleeding into the present. And then—

Silence.

It was as though nothing had happened.

“We…we did it. —We’ve tethered a powerful Deity!”
“Or one hell of a Devil.”

Clack.

The recording clicked off. The church grounds fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.

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