[The Second Day of Destruction, 01:05] [The Abyssal Sanctum]
Muffled by a mile of solid bedrock, the distant thud of falling bodies continued above them. The architects of the Slane Theocracy were forced to listen to every single drop of spilled blood.
"If the Sorcerer King wants a war of Gods, we will give him the silence of the grave."
Hanging heavily in the stale air of the underground bunker, the decree of Ginedine Delan Guelfi served as a bitter epitaph for the greatest human civilization the New World had ever known.
His command spurred the surviving clergy into frantic, fatalistic motion. Acolytes began stuffing priceless relics into dimensional sacks while lesser priests wept silently, hastily dispelling protective wards around secondary artifacts in preparation for the deep evacuation. They were abandoning Kami Miyako. The cradle of humanity was officially lost.
The gloom shattered before the spatial mages could dial the first teleportation gate to the southern mountain sanctuary.
The Thousand Leagues Astrologer let out a piercing, ragged shriek.
Slapping her trembling hands hard against the smooth surface of the [Oculus Stone], the young girl fed a highly dangerous surge of her own life force directly into the divination spell.
"Someone else has appeared!" the Astrologer screamed. Her voice cracked, conveying a volatile mixture of raw terror and absolute shock. "In the airspace above the Southern Gate!"
Frantic packing abruptly ceased. Heavy holy items dropped to the stone floor, echoing loudly through the cavernous room as the Cardinals and the Black Scripture members scrambled back toward the glowing dais.
Panning rapidly across the burning skyline, the crystal focused upon a solitary figure hovering high in the sky. The apocalyptic fires of the ruined city illuminated the silhouette from below while thick, oily smoke billowing from incinerated homes swirled aggressively around it, completely masking its features.
Sheer panic seized the command center for one breathless, heart-stopping moment.
They feared the Sorcerer King himself had descended from the heavens to personally oversee the butchery of the Inner Sanctum. Gripping his cane so tightly his gnarled knuckles turned bone-white, Sinedin instantly predicted a localized Super-Tier destruction spell poised to shatter the bedrock right above their heads. Raymond Zag Lauransan took an involuntary step backward, drawing a jagged breath to brace for the end.
The hot updraft shifted the smoke. The dark clouds parted.
The crystal caught a brilliant glint of white-gold.
A majestic suit of full-body plate armor hovered in the air, remaining entirely unblemished by the soot and ash filling the toxic sky. It carried no necrotic miasma. It lacked the grotesque aura of negative energy radiating from the forces of the Sorcerer Kingdom.
Instead, it carried four distinct weapons. A spear, a katana, a massive hammer, and a greatsword floated around its back to form a halo of bladed wings. They hummed with an ancient, primal power, generating a profound resonance that the highly magically attuned priests could literally feel vibrating through the viewing crystal.
"The Platinum Armor," Berenice Nagashia Santini breathed.
A fragile flicker of genuine relief crossed her tear-streaked face. The Cardinal of Fire clutched the heavy fabric of her robes tightly over her chest.
"One of the Thirteen Heroes? Have they returned for us?"
"Hmph," Sinedin snorted.
The rigid tension in his shoulders relaxed slightly, yet the deeply ingrained hatred the Theocracy held for non-human entities flared instantly in his aged eyes.
"The vultures have finally arrived. He watched us burn all evening, and only now does he deign to intervene."
"He watched!" Raymond erupted.
The brief flash of hope instantly soured into vitriolic, spit-flecked rage. Slamming his fist against the granite edge of the dais, the Cardinal of Earth pointed a shaking finger at the projection.
"That arrogant, scaled bastard! He let half a million of our people die! He watched the Miko Princesses burn, and he watched the First Seat fall! He waited until the city was reduced to a sprawling graveyard before finally showing his face!"
"Do not act surprised, Raymond," Cardinal Yvon Jasmina Edessa spat. He narrowed his eyes with bitter disgust as he glared at the majestic armor. "To a True Dragon Lord, a human lifespan is but a fleeting breath. Our entire civilization is nothing more than a chessboard to him. He viewed the slaughter of our citizens as an acceptable sacrifice to accurately gauge the strength of the enemy."
Stepping slightly out of the shadows, Arashi Tengen let out a low, venomous hiss from beneath his dark cowl.
"He used us as bait," the Twelfth Seat of the Black Scripture rasped. "The Argland Council State must have known the Sorcerer Kingdom was mobilizing. They deliberately let the undead breach our walls so the Sorcerer King would overextend and reveal his trump cards. That armor is not here to save us. It is here to collect combat data."
"That cowardly lizard!" Quintia growled.
Hovering his hands dangerously over his weapon belts, the Beast Master ground his teeth together.
"Sending a remote-controlled suit of armor instead of facing the undead sovereign himself! He sits completely safe in his floating castle while the skull of the Grand Marshal is crushed into the pavement! If we survive this night, the Council State will answer for this betrayal!"
The discourse in the room turned utterly toxic.
The Slane Theocracy was built upon the absolute foundation of human supremacy. Relying on the Six Great Gods represented divine providence, but being saved by a True Dragon Lord represented the ultimate humiliation. Their gods had fought and bled to protect humanity from those exact entities. Accepting their salvation felt like swallowing a jagged pill coated entirely in the ashes of their kin.
"Astrologer!" Cardinal Maximilian barked.
The Cardinal of Darkness pointed a trembling, furious finger at the weeping girl kneeling on the dais.
"Record every second of this! Burn every spell, every movement, and every martial art that armor uses into a high-grade memory crystal! If that lizard intends to use our holy city as his personal testing ground, we will harvest every single secret he exposes!"
"I am already recording, Your Eminence!" the Astrologer stuttered. Her eyes were wide and deeply bloodshot while thick, dark blood dripped steadily from her nose. The sheer strain of maintaining the high-tier scrying magic actively pushed her to the brink of a cerebral aneurysm. "The recording crystals activated the exact moment the Eternal Death appeared! I am capturing everything!"
Leaning heavily on his cane, Sinedin fixed his cold, hyper-calculating eyes upon the projection.
"Do not assume the Argland Council State is our savior, Raymond," Sinedin advised, staring directly at the white-gold armor descending toward the Cathedral of Darkness. "The Dragon Lords detest the influence of Players. The actions of the Sorcerer King tonight, summoning the Eternal Death and tearing open the fabric of reality with massive negative energy, drew the lizard out. He senses a threat to his established world order, not a threat to humanity."
Wiping a bead of cold sweat from his pale forehead, Maximilian struggled to breathe. The ideological hatred was palpable, yet the primal instinct for human survival warred violently within his chest.
"Does it matter?" Maximilian asked, his voice cracking on the final word as he issued a desperate plea to whatever Gods were still listening in the dark. "If he fights the undead, they might destroy each other!"
"Perhaps," Sinedin said softly.
The image in the crystal framed a stark, blasphemous juxtaposition.
Pristine white-gold armor belonging to the ancient Thirteen Heroes faced off against the writhing, shadowy miasma of the Eternal Death. The grisly, silent queue of hypnotized human livestock stretched between them while fresh gore slicked the cathedral steps. The purple, unholy glow of the undead entity pulsed in rhythmic contrast against the majestic, humming aura radiating from the floating weapons.
"That armor is but a puppet," Sinedin murmured. "A remote-controlled shell of the Platinum Dragon King. He cares nothing for humans, only for the balance of the world. But if he sees the Sorcerer King as a genuine threat to that balance, then the Theocracy may have just found its most dangerous ally."
The room grew incredibly heavy. A suffocating silence wrapped tightly around the surviving high priests.
The visceral terror of the undead invasion was suddenly eclipsed by the horrifying realization of their own utter insignificance upon the cosmic stage. The Slane Theocracy, the sword and shield of humanity, the proud inheritors of the Six Great Gods, had been violently reduced to a fragile ant farm caught directly beneath the boots of warring behemoths.
"The King of Darkness and the Lord of Dragons," Berenice whispered.
Dropping heavily to her knees, she closed her eyes as the oppressive geological weight of the moment finally crushed the last remnants of her fighting spirit.
Sinedin leaned closer to the glowing crystal, narrowing his eyes into dangerous, unblinking slits to permanently record every tactical detail with his own analytical gaze.
"Watch closely," Sinedin commanded the silent room. "This is no longer a human struggle. The true monsters of this world are finally beginning to clash."