ZeO is the planet ruled by the 15 gods of the heavenly plane. Here in ZeO, the gods schemed, fought, and used their power to control this planet and all others in their universe to be the one true god, the inhabitants of ZeO worshiped for all eternity.
The continent of Aiolia in particular was special. The land had an abundance of energy they called ather. Ather was everywhere in the universe, but it was incredibly dense in Aiolia on the planet ZeO. Ather gave the gods true ecstasy and power. In total, 13 of the gods battled to the death to gain complete control of the universe and ZeO in particular.
Gaia, the god of Terra and animals, grew tired of the infighting between the gods who he felt were his brothers and sisters. He chose to seal the heavenly plane of the gods away from the universe they fought over. For a time, ZeO lived without the gods for many years, until the seven seals were eventually broken. The gods came out to rage war against one another once again for complete control over ZeO.
This time, their war remade the planet and the universe itself. In the aftermath, the universe lost some of its ather, the energy the gods had fought one another for. The people of the universe were reshaped and time itself had been reset in the wake of this destruction, just as the one who broke the seven seals asked Gaia to do…But this story isn’t about him.
Over eight of the 15 gods died in this war, and the few remaining saw how much ather had disappeared throughout the universe throughout their war. The gods collected and stored the remaining few ather and made a pact to never interfere with the planet or its people again. They hid their plane of existence from the universe and chose to govern it together and decide the use and flow of ather in the universe. But like the person who broke the seven seals, this story isn’t about the gods and their war.
The one thing that stayed the same, or at the very least gained immense power during this war, were creatures who had already preyed on the weak. Monsters, beasts, whatever you want to call them, existed in ZeO before and after its restructure within the universe with only one goal in mind: the complete genocide of ZeO and its people.
So much fear and so much destruction had been caused by these creatures of the Night. Aiolia was the first to respond to these heinous actions. A select few Aiolians from different races and different areas of the land banded together and rebelled against the evil that preyed on them. They decided to hunt the Night.
They used the ather that some were born with to strengthen their attacks. Some found holy weapons left by the gods. In some circumstances, they were blessed by the gods. They had all promised not to interfere, but they did so in a last-ditch effort to steer the world away from the evils that the Night had wrought.
They called themselves Jaegers, the hunters of the Night. The Age of the Jaegers had arrived…But this story isn’t about the many Jaegers of old. At the advent of this new age, one man vowed his entire being, his entire soul to vanish the Night.
He made an unbreakable vow to Aiolia, to the gods, and to the Night. He vowed that his lineage would fight against the Night for all eternity, that his bloodline will always hate the evils of the Night. He was the first leader of The Illum Clan and was one of the key figures that pushed the Jaegers forward in this new age, making his once small clan into the main hunting house that eclipses all other houses.
He was the First Illum: Ziegfried Illum. He’s a man who will be worshiped by future generations. But…this story isn’t about him either. He’s very important after all, he laid down the blueprint, the groundwork for his children and their future children to combat the Night.
Each new generation was taught the same tenets and the same core philosophies that were recorded by the Second Illum who took the teachings of the First and built upon it with great admiration and respect for what her father had begun. And each generation after that helped strengthen the legacy established by Ziegfried Illum.
After seven generations, Sigurd Illum rebelled against the wishes of his elders and went to liberate a fortress of a bygone kingdom taken over by demons of the Night. The Amberrosa Kingdom, the Virutus Kingdom Alliance, and the Principality of Rune sent their best to reclaim this fortress over the course of many years. After all, it was located in the center of Aiolia and these powers wanted the extra land and the secrets that lay in the fortress.
Only a fool would lead his army towards the fortress after seeing the many failures of the Aiolain powers’ attempts 200 years since the Age of Jaegers had been declared. The Night had started to adapt while the current eighth and the future ninth generations of Jaegers were considered weaker than the generations that came before them.
But Sigurd Illum was different. After all, he was a descendant of the First Illum, so that spark of rebellion against the Night tugged strongly. Sigurd dreamed of his own kingdom, one where he protected the people that couldn’t protect themselves against the Night forevermore.
And so, he sought out and hunted the toughest creatures of the Night. Eventually, his travels had him cross paths with a wise old sage whom he had protected from a monstrous being of the Night. That wise sage gave him a prophecy, one that he was destined to complete. She had been waiting many years for the rebellious Eighth Illum to come and save her life. “Head to the fortress and claim it as your own. Go forth and vanquish the demons of the Night.”
And that is what he did. That fortress was under the Night’s “control” for over 200 years. In three days, three long grueling days, Sigurd Illum and his army battled the creatures that had inhabited the fortress before claiming it for House Illum, cementing their House as the strongest hunting house.
But…This story isn’t about him either. There was also a second prophecy that the wise sage gave to Sigurd. “Look at the stars. Do you see how many burn brightly? Those will be your children, the ones whose light the Night can never snuff out.”
After completing the first prophecy, Sigurd took the sage’s words much more seriously and fathered as many children as he could. House Illum, the family that vowed to hunt the Night, now all reside in the Fortress reclaimed by the Eighth Illum, Sigurd Illum.
The Fortress of Light, Lumencia!
Here, the youths of the ninth generation prepare themselves to write their stories in the pages of their families’ history. They are to do what the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth generations have all done:
To hunt their genetic enemy, the Night.
///
The sun had finally set, and the night had arrived. Soldiers of Lumencia walked the streets of their home, lighting up torches as a lone boy was being led forward to the main castle grounds. All around him, civilians of Lumencia kept their distance from the boy but walked with him towards his destination.
Musicians played a celebratory tune crafted by the Hathaway Clan as dancers moved to the beat as if the music and dance were what led the boy and the entire crowd. The crowd of civilians, Jaegers and soldiers, all cheered the boy on, much to his cringe. He did not want to be here. To him, it felt like he was marching to his inevitable death, the inevitable end of the world. All he wanted to do was run and hide, like he usually did.
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Here in Lumencia, a time-honored tradition had begun: The Illum Rite. When a blood member of House Illum becomes of age, they enter the rite and accept their first true hunt. They are accompanied by one of the 12 Bastions of Illum, the strongest 12 family members of the current generation.
Today’s rite was unexpected and was quickly being rushed to send out the boy on his urgent hunt. No one knew why the Eighth Illum chose this hunt for the boy’s rite or this boy for this important hunt.
The boy was tall. Most of Sigurd’s children were. But unlike most of his siblings, he was lanky for his age. Unlike the soldiers and Jaegers around him, he didn’t wear any armor or even had wolf’s fur on any part of his clothing. He wore a white dress shirt with a black suit vest and black trousers. He carried his brown satchel with him, holding the strap tightly with his left hand.
The only article of clothing he wore that pointed to the fact that he was a soon to be Jaeger was his purple cloak that stopped at his knees. At the tips of this cloak, feathers of blue and white were sewn in.
Under his golden blonde hair, he wore a matching purple cap, which he pulled down instinctively every few minutes to try to hide himself. Then he remembered that there was no more hiding. There was no more running away from this responsibility. There was no more running from the pressure of being a member of this family and being a Jaeger, something he wished he didn’t need to be.
The boy stopped upon reaching his destination: the steps to the castle. He grabbed the circular glasses off his face, pulled a cloth from the inside of his satchel, and nervously cleaned them as he waited to be called up.
“Bartholomew.”
A stern, older feminine voice commanded him from the top of the steps. It made the boy jump in place, almost snapping his glasses in two. He placed the cloth back into his satchel and put his glasses back on before strolling up the steps.
Waiting for him was his grandmother Nan Illum, the seventh generation head. She was ancient and hunchbacked, with the grayest of hairs and wrinkles beyond anything you could have imagined. The boy wondered just how this old bag could still be alive. Then he looked at the scowl she made as she gestured to the boy to stop wasting time, reminding him of the wrath she could cause if anyone was on her bad side. “The look of a frightened wolf doesn’t suit you. You can’t fool me, Bartholomew.”
She wore a white and blue gown, one she only wore during the rite. On her head, she wore a headpiece with a carved wolf’s head in the middle of her forehead. Much like the boy’s cloak, she had blue and white feathers adorning the headpiece with beads of the same two colors as well.
She stood in front of a table that held the stone statue of a fierce warrior whose hands were extended out. To everyone in attendance, they knew that the statue was of the First Illum. Around the hands and arms of the statue were beads connected together by a singular string. The beads were of only two colors: blue and white.
The boy was taught exactly what the beads are and how many are there, but he thought there were way more than he was originally told. The crowd had finally settled themselves down and were mingling with one another until Elder Nan walked into view and raised her arms in the air.
“It has taken a long time. But Bartholomew Illum, the sixth son and ninth child of the Eighth Illum Sigurd, will begin his rite of passage to be a full-fledged member of House Illum.”
The crowd cheered. The boy held on to the strap of the satchel at that moment. He was still looking at the statue and had his back towards the many faces of the civilians and his own family.
“Stop being rude. Turn around and face everyone,” Elder Nan barked. The boy begrudgingly turned to face the crowd while staring at the floor instead of the faces in attendance. His grandmother gave a short speech about him on how bright he was. She had to say good things about him to save face.
The boy knew the elders and other members of House Illum would rather have told everyone about how much of a “coward” he truly was. They would rather share how he was dodging the Illum Rite for many years, how he wanted to run away from his duty and responsibility.
Being a coward is much easier than being a Jaeger, the boy thought, trying to reassure himself.
He didn’t want this life…at least that’s what he thought…Why lose your life to save the people who would never sacrifice their lives for you? Why face the unspeakable evils of the Night when he could be reading a good book? He had no love for fighting, no need to help anyone, or no desire in his soul to hunt the Night.
He thought about that same desire and vow that his bloody damn ancestor supposedly instilled into him…or did he? He clenched his strap harder, trying to get those intrinsic thoughts out of his head.
I’m not a hero, I don’t want to be a Jaeger. He repeated this in his thoughts. The world is about to end, so what does it even matter?
As much as he tried his best to keep his eyes to the ground, he failed and ultimately looked at the crowd of people. He saw the faces of people pleading with him, all their hopes and worries pointing towards him. He then panicked and darted his eyes around before landing on two boys on top of one of the courtyard trees.
The two boys were two of his half-brothers. The older brother wore green and had goggles on his forehead while his younger brother wore blue and had burgundy-colored hair. He was in a relaxed pose on the tree as if he didn’t care about what was happening. The older brother stood on the branch and watched with indifference on his face, but every member of House Illum knew how badly the older brother in green wanted his Illum Rite.
The boy is heartbroken as he stared at his older brother, wishing that his older brother could be the one that stood here today. He deserved his birthright. He deserved to be a Jaeger, and he deserved to be born normal and not as a reject.
The older brother gave the boy a thumbs up, as if knowing that the boy’s thoughts were directed at him. On any other day, it would have put the boy at ease. But not today, not when the world was about to end.
If there was one thing that everyone loved about Elder Nan, it was that her speeches were short and to the point. She finished and motioned her grandson to the face of the statue of the First Illum. A golden dagger with blue gems on the handle was placed next to it by another elder during Elder Nan’s speech.
Elder Nan’s bony hands grabbed the dagger and pulled it free of its sheath. The dagger was a Sol blade, a weapon that pierced into one’s soul. At the dawn of the Age of Jaegers, all Sol weapons were broken apart and then rebuilt into smaller daggers to be divided to the noble houses, the hunting houses, and the powers that ruled Aiolia.
They were just too powerful as weapons to have, and it was a better decision to break them apart. As daggers, they couldn’t annihilate souls. And the thought of having them divided between different factions caused the idea to be swiftly implemented.
House Illum’s Sol blade was more of a ritual dagger and a key part of their traditions. Elder Nan placed the dagger near the boy’s chest, her hands trembling slightly with her old age. Yet, she was still a master of the blade. She would make sure you remember that if you called her out on her trembling.
“You will feel a sting. Suck it up,” she barked as she immediately pushed the tip of the dagger into his chest. The boy let out a yelp as the tip of the blade was then ripped out just as quickly, taking a small piece of the boy’s soul out of him.
It was the same size and shape as the beads the statue held. His soul was a white color with a blue outline that then flashed red slightly before going back to its original color. He started to sweat nervously, hoping that his grandmother wouldn’t notice the different color and hue his soul was radiating.
He also looked down and stared at his chest. There was no wound and no blood. The Sol blades really did just pierce the soul like the legends said. Elder Nan pulled the boy’s soul off the tip of the dagger and then grabbed the beads off the statue’s hands.
She placed the soul into the bundle of beads, which all glowed in unison, now accepting the piece into itself. “Your soul has been recorded and now lives together with the souls of all the other members of House Illum and Clan Hathaway.” She handed the beads to an attendant who was on standby for this moment. The attendant pulled one blue bead out and then placed it into a pre-made bracelet.
The Illum bracelet had the pattern of a blue bead followed by a white bead, a blue bead, and so on. Tied in between two beads were one blue and one white owl feather. The attendant then faced the boy, went on his knees, and presented the bracelet to him.
It’s the proof that he was a blood member of House Illum. The boy hesitated to grab it, but he could feel the rage and anger of his grandmother near him. So, he grabbed his bracelet and quickly put it on his right wrist.
“Recite the creed,” Elder Nan commanded. The boy looked towards the statue, took a knee in reverence, and began to speak the creed that was drilled into him since he could remember being sentient.
“I fight and hunt the Night…” He wished he didn’t have to. Nothing he could do would change what was going to happen to the world. He had no desire for this life or living up to the heavy burden and legacy of his family.
“Not for glory or honor…” He just wanted a quiet life of books and learning about how things were made, not what weaknesses vampires had.
“But for what is right…” Is this right? Was he right about this? Was a person like him right for this family?
“I give my mind and my body and all that I might…” That was the last thing he wanted to do.
“Until my soul departs, my resolve burns bright…” He didn’t want to die, but everyone was about to in the coming days.
“May the First Illum guide me against the Night.”
The musicians began to play again as the crowd cheered in celebration. It made the boy sick to his stomach. The world is about to end and I’m supposed to be one of the people they send to stop it? He stared at the statue of the First Illum and wondered if he truly was looking after and guiding him.
The boy tuned out the cheers and music while continuously staring at the statue. He would leave immediately with his Uncle Albert Higginbottoms on an airship to the location of his hunt. He still didn’t know which bastion was supposed to watch over him, as no bastion was currently in Lumencia. All of them were away on other urgent hunts.
He wished his uncle and mentor Blaive Illum would be selected and sent with him, but he hadn’t physically seen him in three years. He was on a top secret mission given to him by his brother Lord Sigurd.
The boy sighed and accepted his fate. He was going to be at the battleground that decides whether the world would end or continue. And even then…he is technically not who this story is supposed to be about.
Lumencia Zero.
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