Part 1 – The First Signs
A year without the Eternal Groom felt unnatural.
The world did not fall into chaos…
but it began to tilt, ever so slightly, toward something unseen.
And the first signs were small.
A shepherd in the outskirts of Aurelion vanished while tending to his goats.
His flock returned without him — silent, trembling, refusing to go near the northern hills.
A week later, children began whispering the same phrase in their sleep:
"The seal thins."
No one had taught them those words.
No one dared ask who whispered them.
---
The Beastman Kingdom – Quiet Tremors
In the Beastman territories, Queen Sarya's scouts brought strange reports.
Not of war.
Not of rebellion.
Something worse.
Monsters from the western marshes — creatures that were usually weak, nearly harmless — began shedding their skins.
What emerged was something else.
A rabbit-like marsh beast, normally the size of a loaf of bread, now stood taller than a man.
Its fur burned like coal embers.
Its bones protruded through the flesh, forming natural armor.
It did not roar.
It did not snarl.
It simply walked into a watchtower one night and ripped through three guards with silent, mechanical efficiency, like a creature following a command that wasn't its own instincts.
When the queen saw the corpses, she spoke only one sentence:
"This is not evolution… it is corruption."
And deep inside her palace, the youngest princess — Yuu's wife — clutched her chest, feeling something cold slithering beneath the earth.
She missed him.
But she also feared what he would return to.
---
The Human Capital – Night of the Crowns
In Aurelion's capital, a noblewoman was found hanging upside down from a cathedral ceiling — her body drained of blood with surgical precision.
Symbols were carved into her skin.
Not random.
Not decorative.
The pattern matched ancient script deep inside the imperial archives — writing no human should have seen.
The priest who identified the symbols fainted on the spot.
Later, he muttered a single word while trembling:
"Cultists."
And then:
"Not human."
---
The Cult Moves in Shadow
Someone — or something — began leaving messages across the continent.
Written in blood.
Written on walls.
Written on corpses:
"Open the Seal."
"Return Ansh."
"The Sleeper Stirs."
Scholars debated.
Kings panicked.
Priests denied.
But people kept dying.
And every death followed the same pattern:
No struggle.
No sound.
Eyes wide open, as if they saw something before dying.
A figure in a black veil was seen wandering the streets some nights. Always smiling. Always humming the same soft tune.
Witnesses said her voice carried like a lullaby.
Children who heard it cried in their sleep for days.
Adults who heard it started hearing whispers even when awake.
The cult did not attack cities.
They did not declare war.
They simply appeared.
Everywhere.
At once.
Like they had always been watching.
---
The Demon Border – A Door Opens
Demons had been silent for years.
Not hostile.
Not friendly.
Neutral shadows behind a mountain range.
But now the border guards began reporting unusual sightings.
Not armies.
Not scouts.
But Descendants — individuals claiming blood ties to the "Forgotten Heroes" of old demon-human alliances.
Their arrival was not a threat.
Their message was.
"We sense what your priests deny.
The Seal weakens.
When it breaks, the world will not have time to choose a side."
And they requested only one thing:
An audience with the Eternal Groom.
---
Aurelion Palace – The Quiet Realization
Inside the throne room of Aurelion, the king sat restless.
Documents piled before him. Reports. Corpses. Testimonies. Disappearances.
Patterns were forming.
Patterns he could not yet deny.
His daughter — Yuu's human wife — entered silently.
Her eyes were tired.
Her heart was heavy.
"Father," she asked softly, "Are we… safe?"
The king closed his eyes.
"No kingdom is safe when the world begins to remember its sins."
She swallowed.
"And if the seal breaks… what happens?"
He did not answer immediately.
When he finally spoke, his voice shook:
"Then we will pray your husband returns… before everything else does."
---
End of Part 1
Part 2 – The Shudder Beneath the Roots
The world had always believed the elves were the quiet ones.
Scholars.
Archers.
Forest mystics untouched by war.
But the forests themselves began to reject that fantasy.
---
The Elven Domain – The Roots Remember
On the seventh night of autumn, the Worldtree of Lythren groaned.
Not from age.
Not from decay.
But from memory.
Branches shivered though there was no wind.
Leaves fell though they were still green.
Roots shifted as if something beneath them tried to rise.
Elven Sentries knelt, ears pressed to the soil, listening.
What they heard made their skin pale:
A heartbeat.
But not a natural one.
Something ancient.
Something chained.
Something waking.
The High Priestess bowed her head.
"The seal falters. If it cracks, even a god will bleed."
Her words spread silently through the elven courts.
And with that truth came another:
For the first time in centuries, the elves prepared for war.
---
The First Ritual – Whisper of Ansh
Far from cities, deep inside a ravine drowned in shadow, the cult gathered.
Black robes.
Bare feet.
Eyes covered with cloth soaked in ash.
Their voices were like dry leaves scraping stone — soft, brittle, horrifying in their unity.
A girl was dragged to the center.
Barely older than fifteen.
Her voice gone from screaming.
Her wrists bruised.
The cult leader — the woman with the black veil — touched the girl's cheek with unnatural tenderness.
"Fear feeds the seal," she whispered.
"Your terror is a gift."
The girl cried silently.
The ritual began.
No flames.
No chants.
Just stillness.
And then the ground began to sink, as though the earth itself exhaled.
A black mist rose.
Faces formed within it — not ghosts, but impressions of something imprisoned for so long that even the air remembered its hunger.
The cult leader's head tilted in joy.
"It reaches for us.
It remembers us."
But the mist hesitated.
Then withdrew.
The ritual failed.
The woman in the veil did not rage.
She only smiled, as though a lover had whispered a promise.
"Soon," she murmured.
"Ansh will take his first breath again."
The girl's body fell forward — lifeless.
The cult vanished into the dark, leaving her blood to sink into the soil.
---
Yuu's Wives – The Same Dream
On the same night, in three different kingdoms, three different beds—
Yuu's wives all woke at once.
Their breath sharp.
Their hearts racing.
Their eyes wide.
They each saw the same dream:
Yuu standing in a field of bone-white flowers.
His back turned.
His sword dripping black.
The sky above him split open like a wound.
And a voice behind him whispered:
"Do you hear it?
The world calls for you."
The wives clutched their chests.
Fear.
Hope.
Loneliness.
All tangled together.
They looked toward the night sky, as though begging it for an answer.
But the sky remained silent.
---
The Demon Envoy Arrives
At dawn, the gates of Aurelion opened.
A single demon walked inside.
Not armored.
Not armed.
A thin man with gray horns and crimson eyes.
His gait calm.
His presence suffocating.
The guards blocked his way.
"State your purpose."
The demon bowed politely.
"I seek audience with the Eternal Groom."
"The Groom… is absent."
A pause.
Not surprise.
Not anger.
Just calculation.
"Then I will wait," the demon replied.
"No matter how long."
When they demanded he leave the capital, he sat down at the gate instead — perfectly still.
Hours passed.
Then a day.
Then two.
He did not blink.
He did not eat.
He simply waited, staring at the palace doors with unwavering patience, as if he knew Yuu would eventually walk through them.
People began whispering that his presence alone made the air colder.
And still… he waited.
---
The Corpse That Walked
On the third night, a guard at Aurelion's gate lit his lantern.
The light trembled as he saw something moving down the empty road.
A man.
Barefoot.
Bleeding.
Dragging his leg.
Neck twisted at an impossible angle.
He should have been dead.
He was dead.
But he kept walking.
Slow.
Steady.
Deliberate.
The demon envoy stood.
His red eyes narrowed for the first time.
"That… is not a man."
The corpse stopped at the gate.
Its mouth opened, very slowly.
A single whisper escaped — a sound colder than winter, soft as a dying breath:
"…open… the… seal…"
And then its body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut — bones snapping, flesh folding, blood spilling across the stone.
There was no pulse.
No life.
Nothing.
Only the echo of its message.
The demon envoy murmured:
"Ansh's shadow touches even the dead."
The guards trembled.
And somewhere far away…
the cult smiled.
---
End of Part 2
Part 3 – When the Quiet Finally Breaks
The world did not collapse in a single night.
It cracked.
Quietly.
Softly.
Like a hairline fracture on an ancient stone — too thin to see, too dangerous to ignore.
And one by one, the cracks began to bleed.
---
The First Mutated Tide
South of Aurelion, the town of Herrow used to be a quiet farming village.
Wheat.
Cattle.
Children laughing on dusty roads.
But the wheat fields changed first.
The stalks turned black.
Not rotten.
Not diseased.
Black like ink spilled on the world.
Birds refused to land.
Dogs barked at empty air.
Then, at dawn on the fifth day — the fields opened.
Not parted.
Opened.
Like something beneath the soil pushed upward and broke through.
Creatures crawled out.
Small at first — the size of dogs. Their bodies half-formed, limbs bent backward, faces melted into the shape of something that once resembled life.
By midday, every animal in the village had fled.
By afternoon, the creatures began to change.
Twisting.
Stretching.
Absorbing the mana in the air.
By sunset, they stood on two legs.
Eyes glowing faint red.
The first mutated horde stared toward Aurelion and moved, step by step, leaving black footprints that smoked in the dirt.
No roar.
No howl.
Just silent, deliberate hunger.
The monsters were not born.
They were called.
---
Elven Scouts – The Devoured Circle
In the Elven Domain, two scouts ran through the forest canopy, jumping silently from branch to branch.
Golden-braided Sylvi.
Stoic, sharp-eyed Theron.
They were elite. Trusted.
But even elites bleed.
They arrived at a grove known as the Moon's Circle, an ancient sacred site.
The moment they landed—
Their breath caught.
Every single tree in the clearing was gone.
Not cut.
Not burned.
Not uprooted.
Just gone.
As though erased.
The forest floor was smooth as polished bone.
Sylvi knelt. "No roots. No soil damage. No mana residue."
Theron placed his hand against the empty air. "Something consumed everything. From the inside out."
Sylvi whispered:
"Is it Ansh's hunger?"
Theron did not answer.
Because the wind shifted.
And they both heard it:
Breathing.
Not human.
Not monster.
Not anything natural.
Slow.
Steady.
Echoing in every direction at once.
Sylvi's eyes trembled. "We need to leave."
Theron nodded—
But the forest spoke before they could move.
A whisper brushed their ears, soft as falling leaves:
"…why run…?"
The scouts fled.
But the whisper followed them all the way to the city gates.
---
Human Nobles – Panic in Silk Clothing
In Aurelion's council chamber, nobles gathered around a long obsidian table.
Faces pale.
Hands trembling.
Voices sharp.
Disappearing citizens.
Walking corpses.
A demon envoy sitting at the gates.
Black footprints near the southern border.
Forest refugees speaking of trees that vanished into nothing.
And worst of all—
No sign of Yuu.
Lord Farnon slammed his cane on the table. "We rely too much on the Eternal Groom! He vanishes, and suddenly monsters crawl from the earth!"
Lady Asteria hissed back, "Then train soldiers, old man! Unless you prefer the demons protect us instead?"
The room erupted into arguments.
Accusations.
Fear.
Desperation.
One noble whispered the thought everyone else secretly carried:
"If the cult succeeds… the last seal holding Ansh will break."
Silence fell.
Every noble froze.
Even saying the name felt like committing a sin.
Behind the throne dais, a curtain moved.
A servant stepped forward quietly and placed a scroll on the table.
His voice was barely a breath:
"A prophecy resurfaced. From the first war."
The nobles leaned in.
The scroll opened with a crack of old parchment.
The words inside were written in dried black ink…
or dried blood.
"When the world forgets its heroes,
the forgotten god will remember himself.
And the first to bleed will be the ones who pray the loudest."
The nobles stared.
No one dared breathe.
---
Inside the Demansion – Yuu is Not Alone
Within the sealed dimension, Yuu sat with Arsenal Blade 0 resting against his shoulder.
His training was nearing its final stage.
But something felt off.
The air trembled.
The dimension's mana pulsed strangely — not in rhythm with Yuu, but with something outside.
He touched the ground.
It vibrated.
Soft.
Steady.
Like a heartbeat.
Not his own.
A whisper brushed the back of his mind:
"…your world stains… cleanse it…"
Yuu's eyes narrowed.
"That wasn't the Goddess."
He rose slowly.
He could feel it.
The world outside was changing.
Twisting.
Rousing something that should have stayed buried.
The Demansion itself was reacting to the disturbance — like a sealed beast pacing behind bars as the scent of blood reached its nose.
Yuu tightened his grip on the blade.
"Looks like I'm running out of time."
---
The Cult – The Black Herald Arrives
Under the ruins of an old chapel, the cult gathered once more.
Torches flickered.
Robes rustled.
Whispers thickened.
Then—
Someone entered.
A figure wrapped in chains, face hidden under a stone mask carved with countless cracks.
Their voice scraped like sand across bone.
"Ansh stirs. The seal bleeds. Our time begins."
The cult leader bowed.
"What of the sacrifices?"
"All in place."
"What of the heralds?"
"They will rise when he calls."
The veiled woman lifted her chin.
"Then we prepare the final rite."
She touched the stone mask gently.
"Soon, our God will awaken…"
Her smile widened beneath the veil.
"…and the world will kneel."