Chapter 309: The Day of the Six Calamities

Sunrise broke over Mythal, and for the first time in weeks, the city wasn’t busy. No merchants. No civilians. No ordinary noise. Only hunters, standing in a city that had quietly become a fortress waiting for a storm nobody could see yet.

The streets were strangely clean, rebuilt roads empty, new relay towers standing steady at every corner, golden mana pulsing faintly beneath the stone.

"...So it’s finally here," Kai said quietly.

"Yes," Tiamat answered.

"You sound calm."

"I have seen this before."

"How many times?"

Silence, then: "Enough."

His expression sobered. He looked out over the city. "Then stay with me."

"I am already here."

He kept walking, passing hunters along the way. Some straightened at the sight of him. Others nodded. A few managed small smiles. But he noticed it in all of them, even the veterans, checking weapons twice, tightening armor a second time, glancing at the relay towers like they might vanish if left unwatched.

Everyone had a job. Everyone knew the plan.

Nobody could stop thinking about what happened if the plan failed.

One hunter caught him watching and gave an awkward smile. "Everything’s ready."

Kai nodded. "Good."

The hunter hesitated. "...Good luck, Kai."

"You too."

He watched him walk away.

"He was afraid," Tiamat said.

"I know."

"So are you."

Kai smiled faintly. "Yeah. A little."

Inside the central research building, Lily stared at the entire Mythal Defense Network laid out in front of her, thousands of mana connections glowing, hundreds of relay nodes, barriers, conduits, teleport points, sensors, healing systems, artillery, terrain manipulation, all of it built over weeks into one enormous, glowing web.

She reached toward a control, checked it, then another, then another.

Elden walked up behind her. "You’ve already checked that."

"I know."

"Twice."

"I know."

"Seven times."

She finally looked at him. "Eight."

He paused. "...You’re making me nervous."

"I’m nervous too."

That stopped his joking cold. He looked at the network. "Everything is ready."

"I know." She glanced at the simulation results still displayed beside it. First attempt, eighteen percent city, fifty-two percent hunters. Final attempt, forty-three and seventy-four.

"We improved."

"A lot."

Her fingers tightened. "But those were simulations."

"Yes."

"The real disaster might be worse."

"Then we’ll adapt."

She gave him the same small smile she’d been giving everyone all morning. "You really like that answer."

"Because it’s the only one we have."

Lily stepped outside a while later, and hundreds of hunters filled the streets, some in groups, some alone, a few running final equipment checks over and over. One kept checking the same sword. Another rubbed his hands together nonstop. A third just stared at the horizon.

She overheard a conversation nearby.

"You ready?"

"No."

The second hunter laughed. "Good."

"Why is that good?"

"Because anyone who says they’re completely ready is lying."

They laughed together, short and quiet, before falling silent again.

Further along, she caught another exchange.

"Good luck."

"You too."

"See you afterward."

Lily stopped walking at that. See you afterward. She looked back. The hunter smiled at her, but she could see the nerves behind it.

"...You will," she whispered, not entirely sure who she was saying it to.

Mira moved through one of the staging districts, checking teams as she went. "Check your teleport markers."

"Already done."

"Check again."

The hunter sighed. "Yes, ma’am."

Another approached. "Mira."

She turned. "Yeah?"

He hesitated. "Do you think the simulations actually prepared us?"

She remembered dying inside them, watching the city collapse, starting again. "I think they prepared us better than we were before."

"That’s not exactly reassuring."

She laughed. "It’s not supposed to be." She put a hand on his shoulder. "But we’ve got a plan."

"And if the plan fails?"

She smiled. "We make another one."

He laughed nervously. "You sound like Kai."

"Don’t tell him."

She kept moving through the staging area, past a hunter telling a joke nobody was really laughing at, another eating without much appetite, another pretending to sleep against a wall, a few silently praying, others just checking gear that didn’t need checking anymore.

A veteran sat alone off to the side, and she approached him. "You’re quiet."

"Thinking."

"About?"

He looked toward the empty streets. "My family."

She stayed quiet. Everyone’s family should be somewhere safe by now.

He smiled. "They’re in Astran Port."

"Then you have something to come back to."

"That’s the plan."

She smiled and walked on, but her expression sobered once she was out of his sight. She knew exactly what the simulations had shown her.

Having somewhere to return to didn’t guarantee you made it back.

She found Raze sitting on a piece of rubble, Ruinbreaker resting over both shoulders, his armor already equipped.

"You’re unusually quiet."

"Thinking."

"That’s dangerous."

He laughed. "I know." He looked out at the city. "We’ve fought monsters. A lot. We fought Tiamat." A pause. "But fighting something we can’t even punch—"

"That’s bothering you?"

"A little."

She sat beside him. "We’ll find something to punch."

He grinned. "That’s the spirit."

A moment passed before he said quietly, "Good luck."

"You too."

"We’ll see each other afterward."

"We will."

Gabriel sat inside the Astral Church’s temporary command post, ancient records spread across the table in front of her, some copied, some damaged, some incomplete. She read one, then another, then closed them all.

A member approached. "Everything is prepared."

"The relics?"

"Ready."

"Emergency support?"

"Ready."

"Historical records?"

"Prepared."

He hesitated. "And you?"

She didn’t answer immediately, then smiled. "I’m ready."

He left. Her smile faded the instant he did, eyes drifting back down to the old records. She remembered telling everyone that some civilizations had survived the Six Calamities.

She also remembered the ones that hadn’t, the ones that had sacrificed thousands, the cities that never fully recovered.

She whispered, "Tiamat was different." She looked toward the window. "This will be different too."

She didn’t sound entirely convinced of it herself.

She stepped outside a moment later, looking over the city, thinking about everything she knew, the different versions civilizations had faced, the different outcomes, some earned through strength, some through luck, some through terrible choices made by leaders who ran out of options.

Her hands tightened. "Please." She looked at the hunters scattered through the streets. "...don’t make us choose like they did."

She took a slow breath and straightened. She wasn’t allowed to panic today.

Mayor Ko walked the city without ceremony, no speech, no announcement, just watching. The hunters. The towers. The Church. The defensive structures. The city he’d spent so long trying to protect.

A Church member walked beside him. "Mayor."

"Yes?"

"Are you afraid?"

He laughed, small and genuine. "Of course."

The man looked surprised.

Ko looked out at the empty streets. "Being afraid doesn’t mean we’re unprepared." A pause. "It means we know what we’re protecting."

The man nodded.

Kai found Sera a while later, and they walked together in silence for a stretch before he finally asked, "Nervous?"

"Yes."

He smiled. "Good."

She glanced at him. "Tiamat said that too, didn’t she?"

"...Maybe."

She laughed. "She’s already influencing you."

"I heard that," Tiamat said.

Kai almost laughed out loud.

Sera noticed immediately. "You’re talking to her again."

He said nothing.

She shook her head. "I’m still not used to this."

"Neither am I."

She looked up at the sky. "Do you think we’ll make it?"

He didn’t answer right away, looking out over the whole city, the network, the hunters, everything they’d built together over weeks.

"Yes."

She looked at him.

"Not because the plan is perfect," he said. "Because if something goes wrong, we’ll change it."

She smiled. "That’s more like you."

The day slowed down after that. A hunter checked his shield. Click. Another checked his weapon. Click. Someone adjusted armor for the fifth time. A relay hummed steadily. A mana conduit pulsed. A barrier flickered briefly during a test, then stabilized.

No disaster. No attack. Just waiting.

One hunter looked at the sky. "Still nothing."

"Maybe that’s good," another said.

"You know it’s coming."

"I know."

"Then why does waiting feel worse?"

Nobody answered.

The sun crawled across the sky through the afternoon, and still nothing came, which somehow made everyone more nervous rather than less. Lily rechecked the network again. Mira rechecked the hunters. Gabriel rechecked her records. Elden rechecked the underground system. Raze checked Ruinbreaker one more time. Sera checked her equipment.

Kai walked through the center of Mythal alone, past the central relay tower, past the research building, past the training grounds, out toward the outer district.

He looked at the city, not as a battlefield anymore, not as something he’d simply inherited, but as something everyone had built together, piece by piece, argument by argument.

"We’ve done everything we can," he said quietly.

"Have you?" Tiamat asked.

He smiled. "There’s always something else."

"Then why stop?"

"Because eventually you have to stop preparing." He looked at the horizon. "Eventually you have to fight."

Tiamat went silent for a moment.

"Good."

Then the wind shifted.

Kai stopped walking, feeling it against his face. Something had changed.

He looked up. Blue sky. Nothing else yet.

Then a small dark cloud appeared. His eyes narrowed. Another formed beside it. Then another, gathering slowly at first, then faster.

Across the city, everyone noticed at once. Lily looked up mid-check. Mira stopped talking. Raze rose from the rubble. Gabriel stepped out of the command post. Sera turned toward the sky. Elden left the research building. Hundreds of hunters stopped whatever they were doing and looked up together.

The clouds spread, sunlight fading, darkness stretching across the entire sky.

A hunter whispered, "...Is that it?"

Nobody answered.

Kai watched the clouds turn nearly black. Then one section shifted, dark red bleeding through the black.

He narrowed his eyes as the color deepened into crimson. Another cloud shifted. Then another. Then another, the crimson spreading through the darkness like something alive.

Tiamat went completely silent.

Kai noticed immediately, and it unsettled him more than the sky did.

"Tiamat?"

No response.

His expression hardened. "Tiamat."

Finally: "Yes."

He looked at the crimson sky. "You’ve seen this before?"

A pause. "Yes."

His grip tightened around the Fractured Blade. "And?"

Another pause, longer this time.

"Not this version."

Kai froze, eyes widening slightly.

Above Mythal, the crimson clouds twisted. The relay network activated in response, golden light racing through every street at once. Hunters raised their weapons across the city. Silence fell over everything.

Then a single System window opened in front of every awakened person in Mythal at once.

[The second disaster has started]

Kai looked up. The first crimson cloud split apart.

BOOOOOOM.

The sky itself seemed to crack open.

Kai’s eyes sharpened. "...It’s starting."