The large room that had previously been filled with conversation, laughter, and light discussion among the participants was suddenly cut short by the sound of an emergency alarm echoing throughout the entire headquarters.
Weee-ooo! Weee-ooo! Weee-ooo!
The siren was loud and piercing, bouncing from wall to wall until it sounded far louder inside the enclosed room.
The room went tense almost immediately.
Several participants immediately stood up from their chairs on reflex. The sound of chairs scraping harshly against the floor rang out one after another from all directions.
SKREEET! GRRK!
Heads turned in every direction.
Questions spread through the room almost instantly, but no one seemed to have any answers.
A young woman with short hair immediately placed a hand over her pounding chest. "What's happening?" she asked anxiously while turning toward another participant beside her.
But the participant she asked merely shook his head, just as confused.
On the other side of the room, a thin young man wearing glasses stood up so quickly that he nearly knocked over his own chair. "Is it a Lamia attack?" he asked nervously while immediately glancing toward the windows with a pale face.
Not far from him, a girl who looked like a recent college graduate hugged her examination folder tightly against her chest. "Is this part of the test?" she asked uncertainly.
Anxious whispers immediately spread throughout the room.
People exchanged uneasy glances, searching for answers. But the more they looked around, the more obvious it became that no one knew what was happening.
Several participants hurried toward the large windows along one side of the room, trying to catch a glimpse of the source of the commotion outside.
Others stayed where they were, clutching their bags and personal belongings a little tighter than before.
In one corner, a group of participants who looked like office workers were visibly on edge. One man kept tapping his foot against the floor without even realizing it.
Meanwhile, the reaction at the back of the room was completely different.
A group of large, heavily built men who looked more like professional fighters than exam applicants seemed almost excited by the alarm.
A bald man rolled his shoulders and grinned. "Finally. Something interesting." A series of cracks came from his neck as he stretched.
Beside him, another muscular man let out a short laugh. "If it's really Lamia, I hope they let us join the fight."
Several members of the group looked downright eager.
Their eyes lit up, their bodies leaning forward as if they were waiting for someone to burst through the doors and tell them the battle had already started.
A thick-bearded man folded his arms across his chest and smirked. "If an alarm's enough to make you panic, how do you expect to become a Knight?"
The comment immediately earned him several irritated looks.
He simply laughed.
The room gradually split into two extremes, fear and excitement.
Some participants looked nervous and others looked as though they were waiting for the main event to begin.
As the commotion continued to grow, the supervisors quickly stepped in.
Several ARMOR personnel assigned to oversee the examination immediately rose from their seats and moved through the crowd.
"Stay calm!" one of them shouted. He walked between the rows of participants, making sure no one started pushing or rushing toward the exits.
"Don't crowd together!"
"Stay where you are!"
"Wait for further instructions!"
Their voices were firm and professional, the kind that came from people who had handled emergencies before.
***
Amid the chaos, Kenny was still chewing. "Give me a second. This cake isn't gonna finish itself."
Rafka immediately broke into a jog toward the command center. "Stop eating, you Food Vacuum!"
Ayu was already sprinting ahead.
"Hey! Don't leave me behind!" Kenny quickly shoved the rest of the cake into his mouth and took off after them.
***
"Captain, is it a Lamia attack? Where is it happening?" Rafka asked hurriedly the moment he burst into the command center.
The automatic door behind him immediately closed with a soft hiss, revealing a room completely different from the rest of the headquarters.
If the hallways and offices still looked like a modern military facility, the command center felt more like a futuristic control hub with dozens of holographic displays floating through the air in various sizes.
Data streamed endlessly in the form of graphs, coordinates, energy statistics, and situation reports updated every second.
The blue glow from those displays reflected off the dark metallic walls and polished floors, creating an atmosphere that felt both cold and tense.
At the center of the room stood a circular tactical table projecting a real-time three-dimensional model of the city.
Buildings, aerial transportation routes, road networks, and countless other details were displayed with remarkable precision.
Indicator lights blinked throughout the room while electronic notifications, fingers tapping against control panels, and reports from operators blended together into the busy rhythm unique to a command center during an emergency.
Several operators sat before their respective holographic consoles. Their hands moved rapidly across transparent screens floating in the air.
One data window after another appeared and vanished according to their commands.
On the massive main display occupying nearly the entire front wall of the room, a map of the city was shown in full, complete with district networks and transportation routes.
A bright red point blinked in one district, then another, until six red points appeared simultaneously.
Their location was not far from headquarters.
A female operator studied the display. "Six Lamia confirmed!"
Across the room, another operator received the latest reports from the field.
His expression immediately darkened. "Damage reports coming in!" he called out. "Multiple civilian vehicles destroyed. Civilian casualties confirmed!"
The command center grew even busier.
Several additional displays immediately appeared, showing surveillance drone footage from the incident site.
Smoke could be seen rising between the city buildings, while emergency alarms could still be faintly heard through the headquarters speakers.
Near the tactical table, a female analyst finished running the assessment.
She reviewed the results for a moment, then turned toward Captain Rangga. "Captain, threat assessment complete," she reported. "Classification ... Walpurgis!"
Several staff members exchanged grim looks.
A Walpurgis-class outbreak wasn't the highest threat level, but six of them appearing at once was more than enough to cause serious casualties if left unchecked.
Amid the constant flow of reports and data, Captain Rangga stood before the main display with his arms crossed, his eyes remained fixed on the city map.
Unlike the operators rushing to process information, he showed no sign of panic. If anything, his composure only made the situation feel more serious.
After a moment, he turned toward Rafka, Ayu, and Kenny. "You three." His deep voice immediately drew their attention. "You're up."
The three straightened instinctively.
"It's a Walpurgis-class outbreak," Rangga continued. "You can handle it."
Ayu stepped forward immediately, a confident smile appeared on her face. "Leave it to us."
Beside her, Kenny grinned and cracked his knuckles. "Finally! A real mission!"
Rafka's eyes drifted back to the main display.
Six red markers continued blinking across the city map.
My first mission as an ARMOR Knight.
His heart pounded against his chest, but there was no time to dwell on it.
He nodded firmly. "Understood."
***
The scene that greeted them was nothing like the city they knew.
Only minutes ago, this district had been one of the busiest and most orderly parts of the city. Automated traffic flowed smoothly between towering skyscrapers, holographic advertisements painted the air with shifting colors, and pedestrians went about their day without a care.
Now, the entire area had descended into chaos.
Panicked civilians flooded the streets, fleeing from the center of the destruction. Some gripped their children's hands so tightly they were practically dragging them along. Others abandoned bags, packages, and personal belongings where they fell, too terrified to stop and retrieve them.
The cries of frightened children mixed with desperate shouts, blaring sirens, and the constant noise of the evacuation effort, creating a suffocating wall of sound.
City security officers struggled to direct civilians toward safe routes, but their instructions were nearly drowned out by the panic around them.
The damage was everywhere.
A bus stop had partially collapsed after being struck by a Lamia. Its steel frame was twisted beyond recognition, while its shattered glass roof had scattered razor-sharp fragments across the sidewalk.
Nearby, a bakery had lost its entire storefront. The display window was gone, leaving only a jagged opening surrounded by broken glass. Shelves lay overturned inside, and boxes, ingredients, cash registers, and merchandise were strewn across the street.
Above them, a giant electronic billboard flickered violently. The advertisement displayed on its surface glitched and fragmented before the entire screen went dark, leaving the massive structure hanging crookedly from the side of the building.
Several delivery drones attempted to navigate around the destruction below.
One of the Lamia suddenly sprang into the air, its claws flashed.
The drone was ripped apart instantly.
Fragments of metal and shattered components rained onto the street as the package it had been carrying crashed onto the asphalt and burst open.
Elsewhere, two city cleaning robots lay overturned and broken.
Their metal frames were dented and torn apart. One continued to struggle forward on a damaged wheel, producing a harsh grinding noise while sparks erupted from exposed circuitry inside its body.
Thin columns of smoke rose throughout the district, from wrecked vehicles, damaged power systems, and buildings caught in the attack.
The air reeked of scorched metal and burning materials.
Traffic lights were dead, public information displays showed nothing but static, visual distortions, and rows of error messages.
In only a matter of minutes, the clean, orderly city had been transformed into a disaster zone.
And standing amid the destruction were six Lamia, each stood roughly two meters tall.
Their bodies were entirely black, as though shadows had been compressed into flesh. Their skin was rough and uneven, while glossy layers of black matter shifted slowly across certain parts of their bodies as if alive.
At first glance, they resembled humans, but the resemblance ended there.
Their arms were far too long, and their fingers ended in curved claws that looked capable of tearing through steel with ease.
Their backs hunched slightly, like predators poised to spring at any moment.
Some bore spike-like protrusions jutting from their shoulders, arms, or backs.
And their faces were the worst part.
There were no clearly defined eyes, no normal nose, no expression.
Only twisted features that looked as though they had been crudely carved from darkness itself.
Where eyes should have been, faint red lights glowed behind layers of pitch-black flesh.
Their mouths stretched unnaturally wide, revealing rows of sharp teeth growing in chaotic, uneven patterns.
Whenever their jaws moved, an unsettling grinding sound echoed from within.
There was one thing everyone in the world agreed on about the Lamia, they were creatures driven solely by the instinct to destroy.
They felt no hatred, no anger or joy.
They had no purpose beyond the simple, horrifying instincts of monsters.
To hunt, to kill, and to destroy.
***
Kenny rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. A series of sharp cracks echoed from his joints. "Six of them, huh?" He grinned. "Perfect. Two each." Then he pointed straight ahead. "Last one done buys dinner!"
Rafka let out a long sigh. "Unbelievable."
Beside him, Ayu watched Kenny disappear into the battlefield. Then she casually grabbed Rafka's arm. "We should get moving too."
Rafka immediately turned toward her. "Hold up! Those things are Walpurgis-class!"
Oh right. The readers probably don't know about Lamia rankings yet.
Big Sis Narrator, your turn.
Let's freeze time for a moment while she explains.
***
Big Sis Narrator here!
Rafka asked, so how could I possibly refuse?
Alright then, everyone. Let's go over the Lamia ranking system!
The Lamia ranks from lowest to highest are Halloween, Walpurgis, Baliem, and Likurai. Each Lamia is evaluated based on how aggressive, dangerous, and destructive it is during attacks, then classified into the appropriate category.
These classifications were created to help citizens identify the danger level of Lamia and to ensure extermination missions are assigned to the appropriate Knights.
If a dangerous-level Lamia appears, civilians should immediately evacuate or take shelter in a safe location while waiting for the Knights to handle it.
However, there is still one rank above those four and it is the most dangerous rank of all.
The Maya Rank.
Legends say that a Maya-class Lamia appeared only once, approximately three hundred years ago.
That incident became a catastrophic disaster for humanity.
It would not be an exaggeration to say it nearly burned, destroyed, or wiped out all life across the world.
According to the legend, that terrifying Lamia was known as Helios.
At the moment humanity stood on the brink of destruction beneath Helios's assault, a Knight clad in radiant armor appeared.
With immeasurable power, that Knight succeeded in destroying Helios. His figure then became an eternal legend and marked the beginning of the age of Knights.
Did everyone understand?
Good! Because this will be very important later on. Well then, that's all from Big Sis Narrator for now!
Before I go, here's a tiny spoiler!
I'll finally be introducing myself properly in Volume 2!
I'm looking forward to meeting you again, dear readers.
See you next time!