Far away from the quiet, mossy stones of Blackwood Cemetery, the world was moving at a very different pace.
Deep beneath the bustling streets of a major capital city, hundreds of feet underground, lay the central command hub of the Aegis Sanctorum.
To the average person walking on the sidewalk above, the supernatural did not exist. Ghosts were just scary stories told around campfires, and monsters were things reserved for late-night television. But behind closed doors, every major government on Earth knew the truth. Ghosts were real, they were dangerous, and they were growing stronger every year.
To keep humanity from falling into absolute chaos, the governments of the world had quietly pooled their vast resources together to create the Sanctorum, a massive, global agency that operated entirely in the shadows.
Inside the Sanctorum’s central command center, the air was cold and filled with the quiet hum of supercomputers. The room looked like a mix between a military war room and a high-tech science lab. Dozens of analysts sat at glowing desks, monitoring global energy maps, tracking spectral signatures, and deploying squads of trained Exorcists to clear out haunts across the globe.
Usually, a standard day at the headquarters was busy, but manageable.
Rank 1 spirits- harmless wisps that made faint noises in old attics, were ignored entirely.
Rank 2 and Rank 3 spirit and phantom, which could move objects or cause minor bad luck, were swept away by junior agents with a simple prayer or a basic silver charm.
Even when a dangerous Rank 4 dread appeared, an elite Vanguard squad was sent to seal it away, usually finishing the job before dinner.
Today was supposed to be one of those ordinary days.
That was until 4:00 PM, when a sharp, red emergency light began to flash silently on the primary wall of the high-command chamber.
In a secure, glass-walled conference room overlooking the main floor, six people sat around a heavy round table. These six individuals held more power than the leaders of most countries. They were the High Council of the Aegis Sanctorum, representing the world's major continental blocks.
At the head of the table sat Director Vance, a stern man in his late fifties with graying hair and a sharp navy suit. He was currently reading a file on his digital tablet when the main doors of the conference room burst open.
A young analyst rushed in, out of breath, his face completely drained of color. He held a sealed black folder in his trembling hands.
"Director Vance! Members of the Council!" the young man stammered, bowing deeply. "An emergency report just came in from the Northern Sanctuary. It's... it's about Ms. Babayaga."
The room went dead silent.
Every single council member straightened up in their chairs. The quiet murmurs that had filled the room vanished instantly.
Ms. Babayaga was not an ordinary person of the sanctorum. She was a living legend within the Sanctorum, a grand prophet who had lived for 143 years. She resided in an ancient, isolated sanctuary surrounded by powerful protective seals. Over her long life, her prophecies had saved humanity from total destruction more than five times. She had predicted the rise of the Great Fire Demon fifty years ago, and she had warned the Sanctorum months before the Drowned Witch flooded the eastern coast.
Her words were never wrong. Her foresight was absolute.
"Speak," Director Vance commanded, his voice cold, though his fingers tightened around his pen. "What happened?"
"Ms. Babayaga..." The analyst swallowed hard, trying to regain his breath. "She passed away twenty minutes ago."
A low murmur passed through the council members. A few of them bowed their heads in quiet respect.
"A saddening loss," a female council member from the European block said softly, resting her chin on her hand. "She served humanity well for over a century. May her soul find peace."
"With all due respect, ma'am," the analyst said, his voice shaking even more than before, "her death is not the main reason for this emergency alert. It's... it's what happened right before she died."
The analyst opened the black folder and placed several printouts onto the center of the table.
"According to the medical staff and spiritual guards who were in her room," the analyst explained, "Ms. Babayaga was resting peacefully. Her life signs were fading naturally due to old age. But suddenly, at precisely 3:40 PM, every protective talisman in her sanctuary burst into flames at the exact same time."
Director Vance frowned deeply. "All of them? Those seals were built to withstand Tier 4 threats easily!"
"Yes, sir. All of them," the analyst confirmed. "Immediately after the seals burned out, Ms. Babayaga sat straight up in her bed. The staff said her eyes rolled back into her head, glowing with an intense, blinding white light. But she wasn't calm like she usually was during her visions. She looked... mortified."
The analyst pointed to a transcript attached to the report.
"She began to thrash around wildly, grabbing her own chest as if she couldn't breathe. She was screaming in absolute terror, a sound the staff said didn't even sound human. She was kicking, clawing at her bedsheets, and crying tears of blood."
The council members leaned forward, their eyes glued to the paper.
"What did she say?" Director Vance asked, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous whisper.
"She kept screaming the same words over and over again," the analyst read directly from the page. "'It has come! The end of the void! The pale devourer has woken up! It has come! It has come!'"
The analyst paused, taking a shuddering breath before continuing.
"She clawed at her own throat, looked directly into the empty corner of her room with a look of pure, unadulterated horror, and then... her heart stopped. She died right there, with that terrified expression still frozen on her face."
Silence heavy as lead fell over the room.
The six high leaders of the world's supernatural defense force looked at one another. None of them spoke. None of them even moved.
In the history of the Sanctorum, Ms. Babayaga had seen terrifying things. She had seen cities burn, ocean monsters rise, and armies of ghosts sweep across entire nations. Yet, through all of those horrific visions, she had always remained calm, speaking in a slow, wise voice as she dictated her warnings.
She had never screamed. She had never thrashed in terror. And she had certainly never wept tears of blood.
Whatever she had seen in her final moments was something so utterly horrifying, so monstrously vast, that the sheer sight of it had broken a 143-year-old grand prophet's mind and stopped her heart.
"The pale devourer..." Director Vance repeated the words slowly, testing them on his tongue. "Did she give a location? A time? A name?"
"No, sir," the analyst shook his head. "Ms. Babayaga's prophecies never gave exact dates or times. Sometimes her warnings came to pass in three days, sometimes in three years. But... she has never been wrong. Not once."
A man sitting at the side of the table, a heavily decorated military officer, slammed his hand down on the wood.
"If a calamity-class entity is waking up, we need to know where it is!" he barked. "Check every energy detector on the planet! Scan every high-density ghost zone, every ancient burial ground, every battlefield!"
"We already started scanning, sir," the analyst replied quickly. "So far, all global energy levels appear completely normal. There are no sudden spikes or unusual activity reported anywhere."
"That means nothing," Director Vance said grimly, standing up from his seat. "Entities of that level can hide their presence until they are ready to strike. Or worse... they absorb energy so fast that standard detectors can't even pick it up."
Director Vance turned to face the entire council.
"We do not leak a single word of this to the public. If the news gets out that a new calamity is coming, panic will sweep through the cities, and human dread will only fuel the ghosts. Keep the media silent."
The council members nodded in solemn agreement.
"However," Vance continued, his eyes sharp and serious, "we put all Sanctorum sectors on DEFCON 2 immediately. Double the patrols around all major high-density zones. Recall all elite Vanguards from their vacations. Prepare every sealing artifact we have in storage. I want every branch office on high alert starting right now."
"Understood, Director!" the analyst shouted, saluting before quickly turning around to run out of the room to broadcast the orders.
As the heavy glass doors closed, Director Vance walked over to the wide window, looking down at the massive command center below. The screens were already beginning to shift, changing from calm blue colors to yellow warning indicators as high-alert protocols were initiated worldwide.
The entire world's defense force was turning upside down, mobilizing thousands of trained warriors, spending billions of dollars, and preparing for an apocalyptic battle against a mysterious, world-ending devil.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away from the panicked headquarters...
The quiet breeze rustled through the tall ironwood trees of Blackwood Cemetery. The night was peaceful, dark, and utterly serene.
Inside the small, cozy wooden cabin sitting in the middle of the graveyard, there was only a small wooden couch in the corner of the room.
On that couch, wrapped tightly in a warm blanket, lay a small fifteen-year-old girl with long, floor-length white hair.
B shifted slightly in her sleep, pulling the soft blanket higher up to her nose to keep the chilly air off her face. A deep frown and uneasy look of her face as she snored softly.
"Nngh..." she mumbled softly into her pillow, "...No more... overtime... don't wanna... do more work..."
She kicked her leg slightly, squirming further into the comfortable cushions, totally completely oblivious to the fact that half the world was currently hyperventilating.
Author's Note
EliteToeCollector
Thanks for reading!
This may or may not be inspired by Jujutsu kaisen.
:3