[TinyRedLeaf]

"No one knew from whence they came. We only knew when people started dying.

"The first deaths occurred in the pleasure districts. No one cared about the loss of one or two streetwalkers. But then, young nobles, hotbloods eager to sow their seeds, also began disappearing, only to turn up a few days later, their bodies torn beyond recognition.

"Whispers of anxiety became murmurs of fear, which grew eventually into a swell of full-blown panic. By then, it was clear that a monster walked among the people, undetected and unknown. Not surprisingly, those who could do so, fled the city. First a trickle, then a flood. More people died in the ensuing stampede than had died in the hands of the unseen monster.

"It was clear that the Emperor had to do something, or risk losing the capital. A quarantine was imposed, and martial law declared. The Temple Knights were called upon to hunt the monster, and to destroy it with extreme prejudice.

"We could not have known how many demons we truly faced. Through the folly of our actions, we turned a city of half a million souls into a macabre buffet for the hidden host that soon revealed themselves from among our midst.

"Grandia, the citadel of the East, the mighty bastion that withstood a thousand sieges — it fell in a matter of days, a ruined city wiped clean of all life.

"The plague had come. May God have mercy on our souls."

— Chronicles of the Fall

Spoiler for Volume 10 onwards:

“Sir! Captain Isley! A message from His Eminence!”

The silver-haired knight turned wearily to receive the messenger. The dust and blood from last night’s battle still clung to his cloak and armour. His surviving troops had bivouacked in the rock-strewn valley, finding what shelter they could to avoid the howling winds that swept through the mountains.

Two weeks ago, Isley led a company of a hundred men into Darufar, to hunt the Youma that the Church’s “eyes” had detected. Out of the hundred, twenty-seven were killed outright, while a further forty-two now lay injured or dying in the shadows of the valley. Few, if any, would live to see another dawn.

So many lives lost, for just one monster destroyed. The price — it’s too high, Isley thought bitterly, as he took the parchment from the messenger’s hands.

The message was terse, written in the Bishop’s spidery handwriting. During these troubled times, courtly niceties were a thing of the past. A look of grim resignation spread across the young captain’s face as he read the note. Whatever it contained, it was not good news.

“Dauf, gather the men. We have been summoned back to Starfall.”