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Lamento: Dies Irae is a webtoon series created by Maerichii in February 2023 and published in September 2025. The story features dark fantasy and Catholic horror elements, set in 14th-century Italy. This story consists of classic fairy tale retellings and biblical references.
A witch seeks to fulfill the purpose of her cursed immortality, while a grieving young priest must investigate the strange murders of his brothers. When the two cross paths, they uncover each other's true natures while partaking in a sacred ritual that will determine the fate of a world abandoned by God.
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Romance, Tragedy
Date Created: February 2023
Date Published: September 2025
Chapters: 16
WIKI Status: WORK IN PROGRESS…
In a small rural village in Medieval Rome, the villagers suffered from the Black Death and were desperate for the cure that does not exist. One night, a blood moon rose and the villagers heard wailing in an abandoned chapel where they discovered an infant. The plague stopped the moment the infant stopped crying, and since then, the villagers were led to believe that the infant was the ‘second messiah’, whom they named ‘Maria la Fata’. Maria grew up and developed the ability to grant miracles, until she turned 19, the age when she was gang-raped by the ‘Vella Malvagia’ cult ****that raised her. Maria’s wrath from their betrayal manifested a curse that grants people around her ‘karma’, taking many lives in a manner to make them ‘repent’. This deemed her a witch sent by the devil and she was arrested to be burnt at the stake, where she declares the arrival of ‘Dies Irae’—the day when God’s wrath will incur and burn the world, before meeting her demise. Maria’s remains caused the blossoming of the ‘Atropa Angelo’, a floral plant that can cure diseases and serve as a drug to forget one’s sorrows.
Two centuries later, the small village was established into a religious town called ‘Gardenia’—ruled by the House Amante, a prominent family of saints and winemakers. Seven brothers of the family; Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Barachiel, Selathiel, and Jhudiel were born, but the two eldest twins, Michael and Gabriel were considered to be ‘Apostles’ for their abilities to recall the past (Michael) and the future (Gabriel). Despite being treated with fear and disdain by his parents, Michael remained loving towards his brothers. He shared to his twin brother about having a glimpse of one of Maria la Fata’s childhood memories which inspired Gabriel to write a fairytale about the latter, called ‘La Storia della Santa’. The story became popular in Gardenia that nearly led to the exposure of the family’s secret about being descendants of the Vella Malvagia cult, eventually resulting in the twins’ discovery of their family’s corrupted nature.
When the twins turned 18, Michael ultimately witnessed Maria’s death through a dream and became driven to take control over Gardenia as the next high priest to expose his family’s sins and alter the town’s devoting system. Gabriel was then coerced by his parents to kill Michael to stop the reveal, as they were unable to cease his rights as the heir until they started going mad, eventually dying. Gabriel, after learning that his resemblance to Michael was what drove them to insanity, becomes distraught and dreamt of a prophecy that Maria la Fata will return as a resurrected witch and awaken Dies Irae—a calamity that will deliver eternal damnation on earth, on the condition should one Amante Apostle be granted a holy crown. Hoping to stop this by defaming his brother, Gabriel announced the prophecy during Michael’s papal coronation, only to be reprimanded and sentenced to death as an alleged possessed cultist. The shock turned Gabriel berserk, believing he held the forbidden knowledge that the world needs in order to be saved, turning excessively prideful.
Gabriel started pushing the blame of his corruption onto Michael for feeding him with the knowledge of Maria la Fata’s existence. When Michael snuck into Gabriel’s cell to bail him, the deranged latter mistook this for the execution and beheaded his twin brother before returning to his senses. At that moment, Gabriel took Michael’s name upon himself to make amends for his crime. With Raphael’s help, he dosed himself with the Atropa Angelo to be relieved of his guilt and his memories were altered after adapting his deceased brother's behaviors and manners, that he completely turned into his very twin——unbeknownst to him, Gabriel himself was the Apostle that the prophecy referred to.
The arc of Lamento begins with the first chapter of a fairytale ‘La Storia della Santa’, when a saintess named Maria la Fata was born from a red moon and grew up to become the embodiment of perfection and the catalyst of salvation. The scene shifts to a silent night in reality, focusing on a young disfigured sacristan named Jhudiel, who has been singing in a filthy and barricaded chapel, until he was interrupted by the arrival of a young woman, who soon reveals to be the resurrected Maria la Fata. Recalling traumatic events, Jhudiel attacks Maria only to discover that she cannot be killed easily. Maria explains that she came to grant him a peaceful death as a part of her goal to delivering ‘salvation’ to the world, but Jhudiel rejects this at first out of fear. She questions the boy, aware of his suffering, to which the latter responded that he wished to live until he feels the warmth of sunlight, although he's chained to the altar. Maria removes the barricades confining the chapel, just so Jhudiel would allow her to kill him once he feels sunlight.
Jhudiel tells Maria that he was ‘possessed’ by the devil after committing an unforgivable sin towards one of his five older brothers, though he barely remembered the events. Despite that, he sought to atone by living longer in suffering as a monstrous being. The open barricades exposed Jhudiel to an angered rally, blaming him for the sudden murders in their village. Maria, concerned for the boy, convinces that he should escape to fulfill his wish. However, Jhudiel changes his mind and decides to stay, hoping that his death would serve as a stepping stone to Maria’s goal—as his way of offering gratitude for being kind to someone like him. Much to her agony, Maria leaves the chapel as the rally invade to dismember the boy. She later burns the chapel and experiences sorrow, when a familiar entity called Azrael puts her to sleep to make her forget the lamentation and force her focus back to her goal.
The arc of Dies Irae begins with the death of Barachiel, the head of his family’s winemaking business and the fifth brother of House Amante, who was found lying alone in the salon of his mansion. Raphael, the family doctor and the third brother, diagnosed the cause of his brother’s death as an overconsumption of human flesh and the Atropa Angelo in the form of drugs. The eldest brother and high priest of the House, Michael deduced that Barachiel was coerced into over-feeding himself by someone who had the ability to manipulate them into ‘sinning against their wills’—in the similar manner of how his other younger brothers died. This led him to suspect that the prophecy of his deceased twin brother is beginning to occur; that Maria la Fata had been awakened and set loose.
MICHAEL
RAPHAEL
JHUDIEL
URIEL
BARACHIEL
SELATHIEL
Gardenia, also known as ‘Home of Eden’ and the ‘Garden of Rome’, is a rural town located in Vatican City—a sacred home to the Renaissance arts and culture, as well as the Roman Catholic Church. The town is ruled by the House Amante, an aristocratic family of priests and saints, claimed to have been born with holy blood for having the genetic trademark of silver eyes and golden hair. Gardenia is also surrounded by various flower fields, of which the ‘Atropa Angelo’ is mostly known as its native plant, as the ‘gift’ from God when Maria la Fata was crucified and sent to hell. These flowers were used by the family to make their specialty sacramental wine and drugs to cure diseases.
