“Ugh...” Francesca sighed as the carriage rattled over the stone roads. She tightened her luxurious fur coat around her body, trying desperately to trap whatever warmth she could against the bitter chill of the thin ceremonial clothing underneath.
Why does Goddess Hakio have to be such a perverted deity? I am certainly not against wearing revealing clothes in the right setting, but I am totally freezing to death here...
Miller, immediately noticing her discomfort, reached up to remove his own heavy uniform jacket to hand it to her. Francesca caught his hand, offering a faint smile. “It’s alright, Miller... Once we reach the shelter of the chapel, it will be perfectly fine.”
Miller simply shook his head, refusing to take no for an answer. Unfurlurling his jacket, he gently draped it over her shoulders right atop her fur coat. “I have to remove it anyway the moment we step inside the chapel, so it’s fine.”
Blushing a brilliant shade of crimson from both the sudden rush of heat and his incredibly protective gesture, Francesca mumbled under her breath, “So do I...”
Tsk.
Sitting directly opposite the two, Ivan clicked his tongue in irritation, looking away from the blatant display of romance unfolding right before his eyes. “I thought the North maintained a completely different ceremonial uniform? One constructed from thick material, yet still featuring just enough tactical skin exposure to satisfy the Goddess's lust.”
“It used to,” Francesca replied, turning her gaze toward the frosty window as she scoffed. “But a few years ago, the Central Church standardized the holy attire for all regions of the Empire... and we have Miller and the Third Prince to thank for that, given the massive victory they brought back from the war against the Jin Kingdom.”
Miller smiled warmly, taking her hands into his own to gently rub her palms to help warm them up. “The original Northern ceremonial uniform’s style was heavily adopted from the traditional garments of the Jin Kingdom. Because of that cultural overlap, the Central Church believed it was best to completely phase it out once we won the war. They decided it was more patriotic to have all ceremonial clothing strictly match the style worn in the Capital across every single region.”
As the carriage rattled along the path, Francesca noticed a distinct absence and asked, “Where exactly is Sir Albert? I expected him to be riding with you today.”
Ivan merely shrugged, casually unbuttoning his own jacket as they drew closer to the chapel gates. “He managed to get sick from the brutal northern winds, I guess.”
Miller began opening the buttons of his shirt, pulling the fabric apart until his muscular chest and torso were fully visible. Ivan did the exact same with his own shirt.
Watching them, Francesca let out a dramatic, playful sigh. “You men truly have it so easy. You just have to remove your shirts or wear short pants to please the Goddess’s desires.”
The moment the carriage came to a complete halt outside, Miller stepped down onto the snowy ground first, holding her cane firmly in one hand so he could easily lift and support Francesca down.
“Even though women are culturally required to put far more effort into the presentation, it is also true that the Goddess prefers to get infatuated with women more often,” Miller noted with a soft chuckle.
As they crossed the threshold and entered the grand chapel, the space was already filling with local citizens. Many men stood with completely open shirts, while the women wore heavy fur coats draped carefully over their highly revealing religious uniforms. Even the priests’ holy robes were mostly left open at the top as they actively guided the new young adults toward a back-room closed stage, where the church was offering free baptism portraits for the local commoners.
Miller and Francesca, relying on the steady support of her cane, walked gracefully toward the towering main statue of the Siren Goddess. Priest Roland stood right beside the altar. He offered them a slight, respectful nod of his head, his expression dead serious as they arrived at their designated seats in the very front row.
“Francesca... I think he is subtly signaling for us to...”
Before Miller could even finish his quiet whisper, Francesca’s lips curled into a sharp, knowing smirk. “I know.”
In a single, unhurried motion, the heavy fur coat slid seamlessly from her shoulders. She didn't clumsily shrug the material off so much as she simply released her grip, letting the luxury fabric fall directly behind her like a shed skin, like something she had already completely forgotten about.
The breathtaking sight underneath instantly stole the breath right out of Miller’s lungs.
A magnificent, silver-encrusted bralet caught every single stray beam of light in the chapel, throwing the illumination back tenfold. Below it, a white, open-front ceremonial skirt sat exceptionally low on her hips. The fabric was so fine that it seemed to move before she even did, pooling gracefully at her feet in a sweep of pale silk that trailed behind her like a bridal ghost. Beneath the skirt's open, sweeping drape, the clean, elegant lines of her figure were completely unambiguous, a simple, striking bikini cut where absolutely nothing was concealed that the eye didn't already suspect.
Following the lead of the highest-ranking noble lady in the room, the other noblewomen and ladies in the congregation immediately let go of their fur coats, revealing their own sensual ceremonial clothing underneath.
Francesca tightened her grip on her cane and offered a flawless, respectful bow toward the Goddess’s statue alongside Miller. Ivan stepped up right behind them, performing the same greeting before they all finally took their respective seats. One by one, every single individual in the grand hall followed suit.
Once the entire congregation was properly seated, Priest Roland stepped up onto the center of the stage. He looked out over the crowd and projected his voice across the stone hall.
“Now that everyone has formally greeted the Goddess and taken their rightful opportunity to seduce her... I shall officially begin today’s holy sermon. We will be starting from a sacred tale that everyone in this room knows: The Tale of Creation.”
A long, long time ago, the Great Creator Dragon was traversing the infinite universes to find a final resting place. It eventually arrived here, in a world where nothing and no one was present, just a desolate planet full of water stretching out as far as the eye could see.
The Great Dragon spent millennia just sleeping in the depths, but over time, the silence started to breed a deep loneliness. Seeking companionship, it decided to use its divine essence to create two entities:
Hakio, the Siren Goddess, and Nakio, the Rageful Mermaid Goddess, both meticulously sculpted in the image of the Great Dragon's most beloved creatures in its travels. For many millennia from then, the two races under each respective goddess, the Sirens and the Mermaids. lived in perfect, undisturbed harmony until the fated time finally arrived.
The Great Dragon had near the very end of its grand lifespan. It deeply pained the dragon to think that the two Goddesses and their races might perish upon its final breath. Thus, with the last remnants of its divine power, it forged two ultimate creations that would allow the world to endure even after its passing: The Creation Trident and its eternal guardians, the Fairies.
No living soul knows the true catalyst, but shortly after the dragon's death, a catastrophic Divine War erupted between the Sirens and the Mermaids. The conflict raged relentlessly for the next millennium, during which many terrified Sirens fled from the depths of the ocean, seeking refuge on the barren, newly formed continents of land far away from the carnage of the sea.
In the definitive, final years of the war, Goddess Hakio successfully seized absolute control of the Creation Trident. In a display of unfathomable power, she gathered all of the world's oceans and her Sirens in them, lifting them completely off the face of the planet to forge the moon!
The Mermaids, fundamentally unable to survive without the vast waters of the deep, lost the war within just ten short years of the moon's creation. However, the Siren deserters who had fled to the dry lands were left completely behind in the vacuum. By the war's conclusion, they had lost almost all of their magical traits, transforming into what we now know as humans. Desperate and stranded, they cried out and prayed to the heavens, begging the Goddess for mercy upon those who had abandoned the sea.
Taking pity on the fragile humans, the Goddess relented. She returned a portion of the taken water back down to the planet, filling the empty basins to create our current oceans, which in turn made the moon significantly smaller in size. Realizing that Goddess Hakio was now the undisputed, true master of the creation trident, the Fairies left the surface of the world, ascending to the moon to guard her divine presence for all of eternity.