The day before the wedding arrived far too quickly.

For a ceremony that was supposed to be “solemn and sacred,”  

the headquarters of the Chalice of Emberlight looked more like a demonic carnival.

Every hallway was filled with noise—laughing, drinking, shouting.  

Guild members ran in every direction, half-dressed in tuxedos and half still wearing armor.  

Someone had turned the entrance hall into an impromptu bar.  

Another had filled the fountain with red wine.  

And in the middle of it all stood Jexy Bakian, the groom himself, clutching a cup of coffee like it was holy water.

“…This is supposed to be a *wedding*, not a siege,” he muttered.

Freya, immaculately dressed in black lace, only smiled.  

“Consider it an accurate reflection of your life, my lord—half ceremony, half catastrophe.”  

“Comforting as always, Freya.”

Meanwhile, the guild’s “decorating committee” was out of control.  

Rhazel, the dragon warrior, was polishing his horns in the mirror.  

“I call dibs on best man! Nobody’s gonna outshine me!”  

Velna, the shadow succubus, appeared beside him.  

“Too late. I already bribed the florist. I’m maid of honor *and* flower girl.”  

“What? You can’t be both!”  

“Watch me.”

Then came the real chaos.  

A group of elderly demons from the lower districts had arrived, all in glittering suits and absurd hats.  

Each of them was fighting over a basket of petals.  

“I said I’ll be the flower boy!” one shouted.  

“Move aside, rookie! My family’s been waiting five hundred years for this kind of publicity!”  

“Ha! You couldn’t even throw petals straight last funeral you attended!”  

“THAT WAS A WIND SPELL MALFUNCTION!”

Jexy watched the argument unfold, completely done with life.  

“Why… why are there *old men* fighting to be flower girls?”  

Freya didn’t even blink. “Because the flower attendants walk before the bride and groom. To them, it’s the perfect chance to ‘represent their noble lineage.’”  

“…They’re literally just throwing petals.”  

“Ah, but in front of the Demon King and ten thousand nobles? That’s history, my lord.”

“History smells like old socks,” he grumbled.

Somewhere above the chaos, the Demon King himself was watching from a balcony, laughing like thunder.  

Dalph Bakian’s booming voice echoed across the hall:  

“Let them fight! A proper wedding needs a little blood!”  

“Grandpa!” Jexy shouted back, exasperated. “Can you at least *pretend* to control this?!”

“Why? The Bakian family has *never* had rules!”  

The king lifted his goblet in triumph. “The more they riot, the happier I am! That’s what family means!”  

Jexy buried his face in his hands. “We’re all going to die before the vows.”

Lyssara Veinflare, meanwhile, sat quietly in her room on the top floor.  

The noise of the celebration reached even there, muffled but constant.  

She had spent the day trying on the ceremonial dress—dark crimson silk woven with gold flame patterns—and still couldn’t believe it was hers.  

She had never imagined herself in white, nor under the world’s gaze.  

No family, no clan. Just her name.  

And yet, tomorrow, she would stand beside the most infamous man in the realm.  

She sighed softly, touching the edge of her veil.  

“...What am I even doing?”

But somewhere deep inside, her heart fluttered—not with fear, but with something dangerously close to anticipation.

While the Demon Realm prepared for a celebration of chaos and laughter,  

the other worlds prepared something far darker.

Far beyond the horizon, within the sanctum of the human capital,  

a meeting was taking place—quiet, cold, and blasphemous.

Candles burned blue in a circle of marble priests.  

At the center stood **Extor N’Valque**, the high god of resurgence, his silver eyes gleaming like mercury.

Around him, human clerics and divine envoys knelt in worship.  

Each bore cuts along their wrists; blood flowed into a complex pattern carved across the floor.

> “Tomorrow,” Extor said softly, “the demons will gather.  

>  Their strongest, their proudest, all in one place.  

>  A feast for the heavens.”  

The oldest priest trembled. “But my lord… it is a *wedding.*”

Extor’s gaze turned cold.  

> “All the better. Joy blinds even the wary.  

>  Their laughter will hide the screams.”  

The chamber fell silent.

On a distant balcony, another figure watched the ritual from the shadows—**Archbishop Anderskam**, his hands clasped, voice shaking with reverence and dread.

> “The Twelve Ancient Gods… they will truly return?”  

Extor smiled faintly.  

> “If we offer enough lives, they will.  

>  A thousand demons, ten thousand if necessary.  

>  And where better to reap them… than at the wedding of the Bakian heir?”  

He raised his hand, and the circle flared with divine light.  

> “Tomorrow, under the guise of peace, we will send an embassy to Emberhold.  

>  A ‘delegation of goodwill.’  

>  When the vows are spoken, the sigil will ignite.”  

He looked toward the horizon, where black clouds swirled over the Demon Realm.  

> “And once the blood flows… the heavens shall open.”

The plan was perfect—twisted, cruel, and unholy.  

For all their talk of purity, the gods had become what they once despised.  

And the humans, desperate for salvation, had gladly offered themselves as executioners.

The Demon Realm, for all its chaos, was the only one still laughing.

Tomorrow, laughter and fire would meet.  

And beneath the vows of love and loyalty,  

a far older power waited to awaken.