The Chronicles of the Daevas is a manuscript containing the recorded history of the Daevite Empire from its inception in 11000 BC to its destruction by the Fuladhi Army (Mekhanites) around 5500 BC. The chronicles were recorded by several authors, in the language Daevic Barhon. It contains six thousand pages.
The original manuscript has six copies, with the first found in the ruins of Rakhigarhi in the year 1970. The rest were found around the globe, with the latest found in Spain, with claims that the book originally belonged to a Spanish noble who bought it from a Mexican treasure hunter who in turn found it at a Mayan ruin around 1820. The book is written in a script, seemingly an ancestor of the Indus script, and thus became a Rosetta stone for archaeologists, strengthening the theory that the Indus Valley civilization was a successor state of the Daevic Empire. However, later analysis showed that both spoke a very different language, and IVC seemingly just took the Daevic script and modified it according to their needs.
The Book 3 was found at the ruins of Old Adytum, Manchuria, in 1889, also called the Manchurian manuscript, by a Nalkan, Amur Xi, and was kept at the New Adytum library for a hundred and one years before being handed over to the Nine Shields.
The Manchurian Manuscript is a bilingual text; each Daevic line is followed by a Nalkan translation, and it contains illustrations with captions containing context. This makes the manuscript have an additional two thousand pages.
Here are some of those illustrations:
A Daevic slave named Dazhari, trained as a hunter by his Potnya. The slave was one of the finest hunters of the Daevon, thus his potnya gave him a cloth to wear around his upper body, a sign of upliftment among the slaves of Daevon.
A priest initiate, she was chosen by a priest of the Scarlet. She will face several trials throughout her time as a priestess, and if the Scarlet smiles on her, she may become one of the brides of the Maharaja, the avatar of Scarlet, or, if fate allows, the Rajmata.
Sarciks are the savages who live in Shinak. They are a race of barbarians who worship a false god called Yaldo and do magic with corrupted carrion. They bring forth abominations that one cannot even dream of. Several in Daevon wanted nothing less than the extermination of the Sarcik race. This one, however, is a simple foot soldier.
Arch-traitor Iun, a Daeva with Sarcik blood, turned his back on the empire and joined the ranks of Yaldo. He led a revolt against the empire in vain. He and his ilk faced the wrath of Scarlet, and like the cowards they were, they fled to the dark city of Adytum, up in the north.
Rajmata Barishmutra, the first wife of the Scarlet Maharaja and our current Rajmata, Her throne is decorated with engravings, one on her right showing our history when we were simple tribals, strong but illiterate tribals, and one on her left showing our present, the only civilization on this Earth, unrivalled by everyone. Above her throne is an astra, procured by us during our war with the mountain dwellers. Its days are gone now; it has deteriorated into a showpiece, but at its prime, it was a force to be reckoned with.
Scarlet Maharaja, avatar of the Scarlet god. He was once a man in flesh who lived in the forests of Daevon when it was an uncivilised land. He made a pact with Scarlet and became an invincible entity in the form of a tree. The red stone on his crown is a witness to this covenant. Now he dreams of a place where our god and dead dwell; he is the soul of every Deava, the source of our power, and the immortal sovereign of our eternal empire.
Mekhanite grunt: people who have fallen into the lowest rung of their society—the beggars, criminals, sinners, blasphemers, or conquered—are ripped off from their humanity into an unceasing and agonising servitude to the demon, Mekhane. They do the simplest and most monotonous work to maintain the crawling city of Amoni Ram and to perform repairs to the properties belonging to both the public and the nobility.
Khiraz, the undead soldiers of the Bumaro, ruler of Amoni Ram. For the denizens of the city, no matter the rank, amount of wealth, or virtue, their ultimate fate would be to become Khiraz. The priests of the demon take a Mekhanite, man or woman, old or child, before dying and perform unholy rituals, trapping the soul within the body and turning the body into a metal abomination. Armed with a blade and a ray-bow, these were the most formidable warriors on this Earth. No spirit beast, a Sarcik abomination, or even the astras of the Northerners could harm them.
The Mekhanites, or, as they were known, Falud, originally lived on the triangular peninsula between Devon and Fi. They were a race of barbaric, charcoal-skinned nomads who would periodically raid and pillage the Irbain people, who inhabited the much larger peninsula of Yarkush. Till the day when Devon nearly exterminated them on the eve of our war with Sarciks, the demon Mekhane fell from the heavens and made a covenant with a single Faludi boy, Arin, and his wife, Minka, and thus was born Amoni Ram, an insect-like city. Arin Mai became the first Bumaro, and with his people and the newly founded demon and its city, he attacked Daevon during our war with Irbain. We were pushed back from Yarkush while Amoni Ram enslaved Irbain. Rajmata Sirbhanmini sent her best men and mages to destroy this new threat. With great struggle, we pushed Amoni Ram into the cursed desert of Fi and built a great wall over their former homeland to keep them out of Daevon. For a thousand years, there was peace until the wall was torn open by Amoni Ram, who, now having given birth to two more, smaller crawling cities and absorbed much of the denizens of Fi, attacked Daevon again. The time of ending began.
Bumaro Hamihs Arin, the city’s ruler during the time of the end, was only sixteen when he ascended to the throne. The Bumaro is not the fleshy body that gives direction to the city; the Bumaro is the soul of the city, sitting next to the demon. Hamish's soul inhabited the city and its war machines, guiding every Mekhanite, commanding every Khiraz, and holding god-like powers while his mortal body was taken care of by priests. Due to the nature of this transfiguration, the oldest child becomes the heir while the younger sibling produces a new one.
Demon Mekhane, lord of corruption. The cause of all the suffering that happened to Daevon. This is the replication of a mural of a warrior of Daevon found inside Amoni Ram during the battle of Upsa. Showing the event of the unholy covenant, at the centre is the demon; on the right and left are Arin and Minka, the first rulers of Amoni Ram; and at the bottom is the representation of the Mekhanite race, all shackled to this evil.
The Mekhanites began their assault on our empire, massacring our people and burning our cities down while reverting our slaves back into primitive animals in their twisted form of mercy. As our western half burned to cinders, the cursed city of Amoni Ram started crawling towards Mamjul. What remained of our army at the west fell back to the scarlet city while men were summoned from the East. In this bleak time, help came from the place we never even expected: Grand Karcist Iun arrived with his army of well-trained men and abominations, hardened by war with tribes in the frozen wastelands of the Baikal. The Sarciks came to our aid, not because they harboured any likeness for us, but because of the threat of Amoni Ram. They arrived not to save Mamjul, but to save Adytum. On the eve of the siege, Rajmata Vaslirasirraj-Shirat and Iun rode on a flying abomination, looking at the city of Amoni Ram before the war.
In the seventh thousandth and five hundredth and thirtieth year since the covenant made by the Scarlet Maharaja, the Farud, under the command of demon Mekhane, began marching towards Daevon. The three cities, Amoni Ram, Narham Ram, and Itihar Ram, started encroaching on Daevon. Itihar marched north and slaughtered everyone, daeva or otherwise, and then left for the savage north. Amoni Ram swept through Herza and crawled towards Mamjul, while Narham eventually diverged from Amoni Ram and began its assault in southern Daevon.
Amoni Ram marched for six months after it crossed the wall before it finally started climbing the Shield Mountains of Daevon. The ground trembled under its weight as the crawling city continued its march of death towards Mamjul, the city of the Scarlet. On the day of the battle, the city was a few mountains away as it started dispatching steel birds carrying explosives and Khiraz, beginning its assault on the city. Iun’s flying abomination, on realising what was happening, immediately joined the battle and started attacking the steel birds.
As Amoni Ram reached the limits of Mamjul, Grand Karcist Iun led his men to confront the Farud there. Leading his best men and abominations, the Grand Karcist declared that this was the most important battle the Sarciks would ever fight. His men, inspired, chanted, “For Adytum, for Grand Karcist!” On a cliff above the river Tarui, Iun waited as Amoni Ram nearly climbed over a nearby mountain.
By the time the warriors of Daeva arrived to reinforce the Sarckics, the only ones left on the battlefield were the Khiraz, their swords bloody, and bodies and limbs littered the ground. One of the Khiraz warriors was reported to be wearing the Grand Karcist’s mask as a trophy. Realising how dire the situation was now, the warriors retreated back to the city and prepared for a long siege. But within an hour, the city fell to the Khiraz as they entered and slaughtered the population.
As witnessed by Rajmata Vaslirasirraj, the Khiraz started a sack of Mamjul, killing all the Daevas and scattering our slaves away from the city while a steel bird landed on top of the palace. The Khiraz breached the defences of the palace, massacring everyone they could find. Other brides of the Maharaja found shelter somewhere else, where they hid with their children and lovers, only to be found one by one and executed by Khiraz. Even the children were not spared. Rajmata spent her last moments in the Maharaja’s chambers, embracing her husband as the Khiraz broke in and killed the attendants before seizing her, forcing her to kneel and face away from the Maharaja. She softly uttered a last prayer for the Daevon to Scarlet before a Khiraz beheaded her, ending the long line of Rajmatas, the first bride of the Scarlet’s avatar.
After the massacre of Mamjul, the Khiraz committed the final act of humiliation against the Daevas, the act of blasphemy. They beheaded the Avatar, allowing the head to fall down before kicking it around with sadistic pleasure. They used their knives to tear open a hole in his mouth to show him crying, begging for mercy. They then returned back to Amoni Ram, showing the head to the demon Mekhane, who discarded the head like one would throw a fly out of a vessel of water. Amoni Ram started moving again to hunt the last of the Daevas down, but not before turning Mamjul into dust.
With the fall of Mamjul, the Daevite Empire was dead. With the Avatar dead, Korar, the city of his dreams, collapsed, killing all of our ancestors and loved ones who would go there after death. The spirit beasts no longer could come to our world; our cities died as the magic required to maintain the house trees died. Anarchy spread as brothers turned against brothers; once comrades started waging war against each other as Farud continued their genocide against us, By the end of the year, the last Daeva on Daevon was ceremoniously beheaded on Jauni Island, ending our story forever.