512
On the island in the Berserk Sea where the Numinous Episcopate's Artificial God of Death faction lay hidden, a coffin in the deepest recesses of an inverted mausoleum suddenly exploded with a bang.
Fragments of the stone coffin scattered everywhere, and a pair of enormous white wings stained with yellow grease unfurled like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis!
Haiter, the current leader of the Artificial God of Death faction and former High Priest of the Balam Empire's Church of Death, rose from his coffin and immediately knelt amid its wreckage with a fanatical expression, kowtowing repeatedly toward the Southern Continent.
The High Priest, who had suffered corruption while worshipping the Artificial God of Death, having somehow had the misfortune to awaken Death's mental imprint and become contaminated, sprang up full of life after Death truly returned!
Thud! Thud!
The entire mausoleum shook with his movements, but this was insignificant compared to the changes outside.
"Lord, great Death!!"
Thud! Thud!
"Great Death! Please forgive your ignorant servant's blasphemy against you!!"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Haiter raised his head, the smile on his face so fanatical that it was terrifying:
"My brethren who follow me, believers, all you fools who are just like me!"
"Kneel and pray!! For our folly and our arrogance in blaspheming a god!"
"Our god has returned!!! Our emperor has returned!!!"
The dark clouds over the Southern Continent grew larger and larger, almost obscuring the entire sky.
Ten minutes earlier, inside Aldra City, members of the Numinous Episcopate had driven large groups of spirits and Zombies to build two enormous four-sided, flat-topped pyramids in the center of the city square as though stacking blocks. The sacrificial ceremony for the empress had begun.
Members of the Numinous Episcopate sat around the pyramids, along with the Northern Continent