The official Korean Lost Ark Youtube channel dropped this year's April Fools joke.
It's a fake trailer for a version of the gamer where you play as the Legion Commanders. Gotta kill those pesky adventurers before they beat you up and take your loot.
The Thaemine raid after story was released on the Korean servers on 10/25. I'm not going to summarize the entire story, but below is a translation of the story cutscenes.
Spoilers below the cut!
The first cutscenes opens with a demonic clown music box spinning and playing a tune atop a cliff overlooking the armies of mortals and demons amassing in Boreas Domain. Kharmine saunters up to it.
Kharmine: It’s a sad sight, isn’t it? A being without self, wandering without an identity.
The clown dolls responds.
Clown Doll: You speak of others.
Kharmine: It’s different for me. I at least have a very good idea of who I am.
The clown doll stops turning and an enraged Kakul-Saydon emerges.
Saydon: A half-hearted, powerless subject, blah, blah, blah…shut up!
Kharmine: You’re the one ranting and raving without knowing the subject, aren’t you, Kakul-Saydon? No…you’re a traitor who will remain in the shadows until the end.
Saydon: Traitor?!
Kakul-Saydon goes nuts and proceeds to spin around before attacking Kharmine.
Saydon: You think I let you live? Huh? Huh? You’re just a shell. A shell that means nothing! A shell that doesn’t exist! Shell! Place! Energy!
Kharmine: A shell…
Kakul-Saydon backs off and lets Kharmine speak.
Kharmine: In the beginning, everything was chaos. All of it was mine. If it weren’t for Regulus's hypocrisy... Maybe Antares was right.
Saydon: Yours? Yours? No, no, no. It was mine! Just wait and see, if my plan goes my way…!
Kharmine: Hasn’t your grand plan already gone awry once?
Saydon: Cheeky…!
Saydon stomps towards Kharmine, apparently about to attack again, when Kakul speaks up.
Kakul: It’s not time yet.
Kharmine: You even know how to assess the situation…the power of time is amazing. If he even remembers me it’s going to be bad.
Saydon: In any case, it won’t work out the way Regulus wants.
Kharmine: The witch’s prophecy is out of our hands, Lauriel’s twisted fate is out of our hands, and there will be a great war, as great as the first one we fought…just watch.
The cutscene ends with Kharmine and Kakul-Saydon watching the demons and morals fight as darkness starts to rain from the sky.
The second cutscene takes place on Petrania, in the same canyon where Thaemine entered Kazeros’s service so many years ago. Brelshaza approaches Kazaros, who appears as a cloud of darkness.
Brelshaza: The Red Moon Ritual was completed by Baratron and the dimensions have begun to wrap. Chaos and order, light and darkness, once parallel…a single world, a path that never began…it is being realized at your will, Lord Kazeros.
Kazeros: Thaemine…long ago, I gave him the power of darkness when all he had left was his instincts. It was an unparalleled blessing, but also a curse of lasting oblivion.
Brelshaza: Since his defeat by Kazeros, he has been in a dream that will never be broken. All that remains to him now is instinct. He will never know what he must seek.
Kazeros: The dimensional rift will finally allow my soul to enter Arkasia.
Brelshaza: Kazeros, then…
Kazeros: No more prophecies.
Brelshaza removes her horn crown and discards it on the ground.
Brelshaza: The prophecy is complete…I will prepare for the end of days, Kazeros.
The final cutscene features Thaemine shortly after we last saw him, having broken free of his paralysis. He’s not happy. He swings around his sword, destroying rock formations. His breathing becomes labored, he clutches his head, and for a moment he goes completely still as his blue light fades. Suddenly dark energy erupts from him.
Thaemine: Kharmine.
He then walks off to parts unknown.
Here's a video of the entire story and the accompanying cutscenes:
The Thaemine Legion Raid was finally cleared. A video of the ending cutscene is below the cut.
Unfortunately we don't get a full shot of Thaemine's face like I was hoping for. Fans have pieced to together composites from pieces of face we've seen, like this one put together by Twitter user hch990414:
Some fans (including myself) wondered if Kadan and Thaemine looked alike because of the popular fan theory about them being Zosma's chaos shards, but that's not the case. There's similarities, yeah, but Thaemine looks somewhat older and his overall facial structurer is clearly different.
Still, there seems to be some kind of connection between Kadan and Thaemine, though. I've seen speculation that Thaemine and Kadan are brothers, or son/father, or that Thaemine is Antares, the disgraced creator god of the Hal race and fire. But, idk, all these theories ring false to me. I also don't put much stock in the theory about them being shards of Zosma (I personally suspect Kharmine is one of Zosma's shards), though I lend that theory more weight than Thaemine being Kadan's dad or something. Maybe I'll try writing more of thoughts about all this in another post.
Anyway, the most interesting part of these cutscenes is Kharmine's unexpected appearance. Here's a (very) rough translation of his dialogue:
Kharmine: "You look troubled. To push Carmen to this level, I have no choice but to admit it. But now it's time to return to Arkasia. This is not a good place to discuss the end."
Kharmine looks at Kadan.
"I'm sure you haven't forgotten Kurzan, have you, Kadan? Now, hurry up. Because Kamen is waking up."
After everyone else leaves, Kharmine stays to address Thaemine.
"Dark…Bharatron. How pathetic. Barathron is beyond the abyss, a place where greater ideas rule. It won't be long, Thaemine. So I hope it happens quickly. The real you that I have wandered around so often."
Bharatron/Barathron is the giant eyeball fortress thing Thaemine summonded and where the raid takes place. Kharmine's line about about "the real you" to Thaemine is also interesting. Thaemine's true nature is still a mystery, and it seems Kharmine might have clue.
