Dusk Realm

**Dusk Realm** (黄昏世界, *Dasuku Rerumu*; lit. *Twilight World*) is an other world connect to Darunggar and Grimgar (via the Wonder Hole), its most noticeable characteristic is its constant state of Twilight. It doesn't seem like the Dusk Realm has a sun as the whole horizon is red instead of just the part where the sun has gone under the horizon, Haruhiro compares it to the sky having been painted into the color of dusk.

Another noticeable characteristic of the Dusk Realm is the fact that God-given Magic doesn't work while in it, making it an unforgiving place for Volunteer Soldiers who usually rely on priests to heal them.

Finally, compasses don't work in the Dusk Realm, which, combined with the lack of a day-night cycle or stars can make navigation in that world quite difficult. Thankfully the Realm isn't lacking in remarkable landmarks so to cope with the lack of cardinal directions, Shinohara has decided that north would be the direction from the passage to a giant pillar visible in the distance, something which was then accepted by all Volunteer Soldiers.

## History

Next to nothing is known about moqt of that world history but from the numerous and sometimes gigantic ruins, it can be theorized that at some point in time the Dusk Realm likely was home to a flourishing civilization that fell for unknown reasons.

Concerning the recent history, the most important event would be the discovery of a passage between Grimgar and the Dusk Realm via the Wonder Hole by Team Haruhiro which lead to the arrival of a large number of Volunteer Soldiers. While at first, the volunteer soldiers limited themselves to exploration and only fought when attacked by the native, with the arrival of bigger and more aggressive clans they started to have a real impact on that world. One clan, in particular, Iron Knuckles, started to launch raids on Cultist's town and bases leading to the complete destruction of some of them. Around the same time, Volunteer Soldiers and civilians built a settlement "The Dusk Realm Volunteer Soldier Corps Settlement", strengthening the human presence in the Dusk Realm.

Iron Knuckles' constant raids on cultist towns would lead to White Giant starting to escort cultists and roam in areas they originally weren't in and more importantly to the appearance of the White God. However that wasn't enough to deter Volunteer soldiers who just hunted White giant for their rainbow peroxide, the Tokkis would even launch a plan to take down the Giant God using a trap with the help or support of other powerful Volunteer Soldiers present in the Realm.

Bur everything changed when a swarm of cultists and White Giants alongside Hydras attacked the settlement, since numerous powerful parties like Team Soma and Team Akira were present in the settlement in preparation for the fight again the Giant God, the Volunteer Soldiers were able to fight the hydras but were ultimately forced to retreat to the Wonder Hole. Unfortunately for them, the Giant God had position itself between the initial hill and the settlement making the retreat highly dangerous and eventually leading to the destruction of the passage after the Giant God stomp the initial hill, trapping a number of parties, including Team Haruhiro, and Lala and Nono, in the Dusk Realm and ending the Volunteer Soldier presence in that world.

## Geography

### Initial Hill

A small grass-covered hill, surrounded by whitish pillar-like boulders.

A perfectly normal sight in the Dusk Realm, save for one thing: a passage to the Wonder Hole in one of its sides. It seems likely that that passage only appeared recently, at the same time as it did in the wonder hole, as the Cultists, who attack on-sight any outsiders, would probably have guarded the passage otherwise.

That hill, and the passage, were later destroyed by the Giant God to block the volunteer soldier retreat.

### Great Pillar

A giant pillar-shaped object visible in the distance north of the initial hill, because of its size and shape, it's unlikely to be a natural structure. As it doesn't seem like any Volunteer Soldier has ever got close to that structure, or at least none that we know of, not much is known about that structure. As such, its importance mostly comes from the fact that to cope with compasses not working in the Dusk Realm, it was arbitrarily decided that the direction from the initial hill to that pillar would be north.

### The Dusk Realm Volunteer Soldier Corps Settlement

A settlement established by volunteer soldier corps around a valley with a spring at its center not far to the East of the Initial Hill, discovered by Lala and Nono. Most of the Settlement inhabitants are volunteer soldier currently hunting in the Dusk Realm, but there's also a number of business run by civilians, including an itinerant cafeteria, an itinerant bar, a blacksmith, a bathhouse, a reseller, a branch of the Yorozu Deposit Company, and a whorehouse. Those businesses are concentrated at the center, surrounded by the volunteer soldiers' tents. It seems like the population of the settlement is about 100 persons, as without most of the merchants about 70 to 80 volunteers soldiers were left.

The Settlement started emptying during the preparation of the Giant God trap as most merchants left as the trap was being built. Finally, the Settlement was destroyed in the Cultist offensive and most likely hasn't been rebuilt since.

### The great cauldron of the Gods

A basin southwest of the initial hill, it's one of the only places, with cultist bases, where White Giants are usually found. It was discovered by Lala and Nono and probably got its name from the fact that the Giant God was originally sighted patrolling that area.

### Cultist Bases

Gigantic white ruins of what look like to be temples. A temple for giants as the temples aren't just gigantic because of their overall size but also because the interior is built for giants. Their age is unknown but they are likely very old as anything not made of stone as long rot away living only traces behind.

Bases are usually the only places (aside from The Great Cauldron of the Gods) where White Giants can be found, it also seem to be the only place inhabited by Hair-less Apes.

### Cultist Towns

Towns made inhabited by Cultists, they can be found throughout the Dusk Realm and are, like most things in that world, made almost entirely of white stone from the stone pavement to the box like houses.

## Inhabitants

The Dusk Realm as few inhabitants and the ones seen so far all seem to work together and share some basic traits: all of them being mostly white in color, with only one eye.

### Cultists

Cultists are the main inhabitant of the Dusk Realm, they lived in towns and bases throughout the world. They look humanoid and are about the same size as a human, their blood is red, and like every other inhabitant of the Realm, they've only one large eye. It also seems like their anatomy is fairly similar to human as attack design to work on humanoids work perfectly well on them.

Cultists always wear a long white poncho which covers them from head to feet, it's unknown what cultists look like without that poncho as, while there's multiple instances of characters removing the poncho of dead cultist, the body underneath was never described. However, their skin is likely white as that's a trait shared by all other Dusk Realm species.

That poncho is made of a thick highly resistant, yet light and flexible material (which seems to be unfindable in Grimgar), as such the poncho makes for a fantastique armor against sharp and pointy weapons but are mostly useless against blunt weapon and magic. For other equipment, they wear boots which seem to be made of the same material, Cultists also regularly wear small accessories with small pieces of polished rainbow pyroxene embedded into them.

It seems like the Cultists society is divided into (at least) to classes:

* Pansuke: They make up most of the cultists' force, they use white particularly sharp spear like weapons.
* Tori-san: They're rarer and likely of higher status since they usually lead a group of 5 Pansukes, They're arm with a sword and a shield and are all pretty skilled warriors. Moreover, their swords which were named Electric sword Dolphin (by Ranta) are cover in a purplish aura and paralyze the target on impact, even if they manage to block. However, those swords have a limited number of uses and it's unknown if the Cultists can recharge them or craft them; or if they're a form of relics. Their shields were named Mirror shields because of their appearance but don't seem to have any special characteristics.

(The names were chosen by the Tokkis)

Cultists are really aggressive and will attack any volunteer soldiers on sight, and if the Tokkis' story is to be trusted even ambushed them before they had really started to explore the Dusk Realm, with no prior aggression, and never tried to speak or any other form of peaceful first contact.

### White Giants

White Giants look like 3 to 4 meters tall humanoids except for their head which look like that of a lion with one eye. They look like constructs as their body is made of a white cold to the touch stone-like material, with one exception: their eye which looks like a living being's eye. As such White Giants are incredibly tough, both to physical hit and most magic, however, their eye is their main weakness alongside the nape of their neck and to a lesser extent some of their joints especially the knees

Because of their size, white giants are sluggish but powerful, able to kill a human in one hit. When harmed or enraged they let out a rumbling roar: "Go, go, go, go, ...!". They originally only roamed specific are: called cultist bases and a basin named "The great cauldron of the gods", however after Iron Knuckles successfully destroyed one of those bases and some cultist towns, the White giants started to roam the rest of the Dusk Realm alongside Cultists.

While at first, Volunteer Soldiers mostly fled from White Giants because of the danger they represent and how tiresome it was to kill them, the discovery by Shinohara of Orion that White Giant had multiple organs containing a rare valuable metal called rainbow pyroxene turned White Giants into prime targets. Multiple rainbow pyroxene can be harvest from one white giant, they usually come in the form of rainbow-colored orbs with usually a diameter of around 10 cm (since a 15 cm is considered large and 10 cm not small). White Giant seems to be the only creature with rainbow pyroxene organs but Cultists regularly wore small polished pieces of rainbow pyroxene.

### One-eyed Dogs

Like the name suggests those look very similar to dogs, more precisely they look like medium to large dogs with long white fur, a tail, and only one large eye; when injured they bleed red blood. However, unlike dogs when threaten they let out a creepy "O, o, o, o," growl, and numerous sharp bone-like protrusions grow out of their body, hard enough to deflect one of Ranta's strikes and sharp enough to damage Kuzaku's shield.

Those protrusions serves both for offence and defenses, and their good speed ans agility make them a dangerous but manageable threat when alone, however their good use of pack tactics make them truly dangerous when working in a group. Moreover they seem to be fairly intelligent as show by their capacity to efficiently work in group and their cautious approach to the unknown.

### Hair-less Apes

They look like little hairless apes and like all species in the Dusk Realm they're white with a singular eye. However, unlike all other creatures seen so far, they're not aggressive and neither attack nor follow volunteer soldiers.

So far they've only been seen inhabiting the giant ruined temple.

### Hydras

A giant white creature which looks like a ball of tentacles or a mass of snake, it seems to be a bit bigger than a two-story building and unlike other giant creature of the Dusk Realm Hydras seem to be a living being and not constructs.

In total a hydra has 9 tentacles, it used 4 to move and 5 left are used to attack or look for foes. Each of those tentacles is between 2 and 3 meters thick and end with a head like section, all of them eye-less. The center part of its body, its torso looks like a massive white succulent plant. It seems like they're the only creature native to the Dusk Realm without one eye.

Hydra are incredibly tough enemies when severely injured they release some sort of mucus everywhere and lay motionless for a time but quickly come back seemingly healed and definitely enraged. They mainly attack by swinging or thrusting their tentacles but they can also jump around using their massive size as a weapon. They're so powerful that even Team Akira, while they could incapacitate one without much trouble, found themselves incapable of finishing it despite Gogh and Miho using powerful original elemental magic on it.

Hydras first appeared after Iron Knuckles destroyed a Cultist base, at the same time as the Giant God, and later were part of the force which attack the Volunteer Soldiers' Settlement. So far we've seen 4 Hydras and it's unknown if more exist.

### Giant God

A gigantic white humanoid-looking creature about 300 meters tall (its feet about 45m wide), it doesn't seem to be alive, and similarly to White Giants is probably is construction. So far only one of them has been seen and it's unknown if more exist.

It first appeared when Iron Knuckles successfully raided and destroyed a cultist base, it usually roam around a basin named "The Great Cauldron of the Gods" and attack all Volunteer Soldiers who come near it.

It seems to be fairly intelligent as during the offensive on the volunteer Soldier Settlement it positioned itself near the initial hill blocking the volunteer soldier retreat.