Diluculum Aeternus

Diluculum Aeternus (ヂルスルムアテルネス, Latin for "Eternal Dawn") is a massive religious collective founded by Ichchha-un-Idika Edha Guha Thakurta and Eriphyla for the purpose of providing a like-minded community for Nefas to openly worship Velia Agostinha Vivax without fear of scrutiny or any sort of retaliation by other spiritual beings. Considered a true successor to Diluculum Sanctus, Diluculum Aeternus is the largest and most prestigious Nefas collective, having expanded beyond its original purpose by protecting humanity against supernatural threats; providing tutorship for inexperienced Nefas who wish to master their abilities; providing shelter and education for abandoned human children; and even accepting other spiritual beings, prominently Quincy, into the collective.

Unlike its smaller and more surreptitious relatives, Diluculum Aeternus was initially comprised of a fair number of highly experienced Nefas, ensuring its protection even against the likes of Randa Primarosa. Following an alliance formed with the Wolves for the purpose of combatting the Quincy while securing Diluculum Aeternus' peaceful community, most senior Nefas who tasked themselves with Diluculum Aeternus' protection accociated themselves with the Wolves, allowing Diluculum Aeternus to become almost exclusively a social collective under the protection of the aforementioned faction. Prior to the alliance with the Wolves, the group was headquartered in London, England, and has well over ten thousand members, nearly half of which are not Nefas.

Creation
According to herself, Ichchha first conceived of Diluculum Aeternus after confronting Randa for the first time in Egypt and learning of her conquest to eliminate all of Agostinha's affiliates regardless of individual intentions; but it would not be until long after this confrontation that an opportunity to build upon the concept would arise. As a result of Silvio da Parma's defeat of his father Massimo da Parma in October 23, 1515 in the “Battle of Successors” during the Nefas uprising of France, many Nefas leaders uninvolved in the battle heard of its true nature and took precautions to protect Europe from zealots obsessed with obtaining the power once possessed by Axenus Gate, which included further disciplining their own followers; spreading the word of the battle to other Nefas parties situated in neighboring countries; supervising unaffiliated Nefas; and even discreetly enlisting Shinigami messengers.

It was not until after Silvio's confrontation with Fabien that Ichchha and Eriphyla, both in England at the time, took notice of more gregarious Nefas disposition throughout all of Europe. Realizing that Silvio had indirectly united the Nefas of Europe for the second time in history, the duo cajoled all major Nefas leaders in England and proposed a permanent alliance in the form of a single collective, brought together by a merged, yet simplified philosophy that every Nefas could agree with. Although initially reluctant to follow the proposal of a Quincy woman, the leaders, largely due to Eriphyla's convincing, eventually acceded to share the proposal with other Nefas throughout the entire continent, a process which spanned many years.

Every major Nefas collective that caught word of the proposal finally congregated in England in February 5, 1563, where further ideas for Diluculum Aeternus were passed on to Ichchha. One distraught Nefas leader swayed his peers by arguing that, with the death of Silvio, such a massive gathering of Nefas could be overly dangerous as it would obviously attract the attention of Randa, and refused to involve his collective with Diluculum Aeternus until she had been properly dealt with; another major argument was that the entire idea of Diluculum Aeternus could be a ploy to deceive Nefas into serving Quincy (effectively placing them at odds with Shinigami as well), and that Ichchha, who identified more as a Quincy than a Nefas, could not be trusted. In a daring attempt to win the leaders' trust, Ichchha revealed that she was not even born a Nefas, but had been directly changed into one by Agostinha; she further cited the company of Eriphyla, a pure Nefas of legend, and offered to hunt down Randa without Quincy assistance to prove that she was unaffiliated with Wandenreich. The leaders accepted only under the condition that Eriphyla be allowed to lead the coalition in the assault against Randa.

Under Eriphyla's leadership, the coalition conspired to bait Randa into England with a fake tyrant cult acting as a decoy, where the rest of the coalition, effectively hidden from Randa's Corpus Ubique Praesens due to their unaffiliation with the cult, would ambush Randa and overpower her through sheer numbers of experienced Nefas; however, Randa, having already suspected that Ichchha and Eriphyla were involved, completely bypassed the ambush and took Ichchha hostage, keeping the coalition at bay. Knowing that even she would be no match for the combined power of the Nefas leaders, Randa spared Ichchha and agreed to a non-aggression pact that would forbid both parties from interfering with one another's affairs. Having successfully protected the collective from Randa indefinitely, Ichchha was unanimously accepted by the Nefas leaders as worthy of succeeding Axenus in a “reborn” Diluculum Sanctus. As word spread that a Nefas collective safe from Randa had been founded, many more unaffiliated Nefas would join Diluculum Aeternus in the following years, quickly turning it into the most prosperous Nefas collective of all time, surpassing even its predecessor Diluculum Sanctus.

Trivia

 * All images used in this article were drawn by the author.