In the territory of the Duchy of Lilith, the metropolitan capital.

The Duchy of Lilith was said to be blessed by earth, water, and heaven, for its territory was teeming with lakes and titanic mountain ranges themselves, standing upon a continental-sized plateau reaching so high that, on the summit, one could often reach the cloudy sky by simply reaching one's hand.

It was in the middle of an enormous basin formed by one of the mountain ranges that held Blue Lily, a strange blue salted lake, but also the largest lake on the human continent, after which the Duchy's metropolitan capital city and the Duchy itself were named.

Lily’s city was built on the shores of Lake Lily, one of the many lakes providing the entire duchy with unique resources found nowhere else on the continent.Because of this, as well as its particularly fertile land, the Lilith Duchy rose to become and remained the Altaria kingdom's second richest duchy for centuries, only behind the Royal Grand Duchy of Bellevue.

Karen Caelus was a well-known name in the duchy.

For it belonged to a national celebrity in the duchy.

Born from one of Lilith's twelve great noble families, she was also a descendant of the Caelus Family of the Seven Great Noble Families, both of which were quite renowned names on the human continent. On top of these, she had a plethora of titles that could make anyone gasp, but there was one in particular that made Karen Caelus a

In charge of the authority of the apostle Sora the Daughter of the Mountain, she went by the nickname of Karen, the Clement Krayntine Blade, a title that struck fear and respect in the hearts of many.

On top of her duty as Archbishop, she ran in the duchy several workshops, among which were several orphanages and the Duchy’s most important cathedral, in which she acted as High Bishop.

Though one might expect the duchy of being an archbishop to be one that required the executive to be somehow always next to the pontiff, the truth was quite different.

She was born and raised in Lilith. When she wasn’t required to, Karen would always be present here in the Duchy. She was, and always has been, remotely executing her duty. She only left the duchy when it was an absolute necessity, like it seemingly was 6 years ago.

6 years ago, What exactly happened?

Even now, Karen couldn’t tell precisely. But it did strike her for years.

Today, the memory of that night shone bright, for in front of her was something that vaguely reminded her of what happened that day.

Trying to curl her eyes because she didn’t believe what she was seeing, she realized that her hands were shaking.

She, who had the honorable title of Archbishop, was shaking in fear for the first time in her life.

The title, belonging to the most powerful and influential people on the human continent, now seems so shockingly superficial.

It was the middle of the day, or at least it was a few minutes ago.

The entire city was enveloped in a dark, ominous cloak.

The sky above the city had lost its blue and had become dark and sunless, as if caught in a void.

Maybe calling it sunless would be inaccurate; the sun was still present, high in the sky; it was just that its radiance didn’t reach as it should, leading the city to be stuck in a dark, nightmare-like eclipse.

But that wasn’t what made Karen shake. What shook her was the sight of that gigantic creature standing atop one of the faraway mountain ranges.

The day was dark, but an enormous dark figure with a red glowing orb that appeared to be eyes was plainly visible.

Karen’s heart skipped a beat when that same enormous creature flew off and approached the city, finally landing on an island in the middle of the lake.

Waves rippled, and a gust of wind whistled loudly in four corners.

A truly frightening sight. Yet, at that instant, the city and everyone within it were dead silent. Not a single cry could be heard.

No one dared say anything because they were frozen in place, as if life itself had been taken away from them, but it wasn't; they were witnessing what was happening; it was just that their bodies had abandoned the most basic survival instinct to flee danger, which that thing clearly was.

In less than a few breaths, the creature reached the outskirts of the city, landing on an inhabited island in the middle of the lake.

Only when the creature was this close did most of the people do the Karen, and most people realized how enormous it really was.

Karen was known for wielding a ridiculously large Odachi, but facing the creature in front of her, she didn’t even sheathe her blade, for she knew her blade would be akin to a mosquito bite.

There were no other words to describe that creature but black, so black that it somehow shone in the dark.

Karen recognized what kind of creature it was.

It was not her first time seeing a creature of this kind, but it was her first time witnessing one this frightening.

A dragon.

She was not a normal person, but one that exuded the same or even surpassed what she had imagined as the first dragon.

That dragon reminded her of the stories she'd heard as a child about the first dragons she'd heard about, Rena, the benevolent dragon, and Rana, the evil Siamese dragon.

The dragon, upon landing, started a glare at the shore the city was built upon, as if to judge whether or not the humans living on it would face the same fate as the humans back then.

On that fateful day, judgement was brought upon Lily City.

Primordial Darkness Elemental Dragon Qomoss, The Lightless Void

Kindness is the most extreme manifestation of selfishness. Like a void, kindness is engulfing and suffocating, death and destruction cloaked in a thick facade of self-righteousness,