Southern Coast of the Sea of Conquest, Kankdal.
In the afternoon, deep within a wooded area on the outskirts of Kankdal, stood a man-made structure nestled beneath the wide leaves of dense palm trees—a small, ornately decorated villa with a courtyard. From the outside, it appeared to be the country estate of a wealthy family from Kankdal.
Within the courtyard, there were fountains and sculpted trees. In the tranquil setting, several uniformed squads patrolled the premises. Two guards stood at the main gate, their expressions focused, unwavering in their duty to guard the door behind them.
Inside the heavily guarded villa, on the third floor of the main building, a woman sat in one of the rooms. She appeared to be around twenty years old, dressed in plain-colored clothing, with shoulder-length curly brown hair and yellowish skin—not of North Ufiga descent, but bearing features more in line with someone from the New Continent.
The room she occupied was windowless save for a skylight that allowed light to filter in. It contained only a bed and a table—nothing else. The woman sat on the bed, hunched over, her hand gripping her head, eyes wide open and pale-faced, wearing an expression of fright.
Alone in this sparse room, she stared wide-eyed around every corner, her whole body curled up into the corner between the bed and the wall, trembling slightly as she mumbled to herself in a constant murmur.
"Ahh… Mother of Chalice… Holy Mother… my mother… Mother of Chalice… Holy Mother… my mother…”
She repeated the words in a neurotic whisper, her pale face etched with fatigue and bearing all the signs of a serious mental breakdown. Just then, the door to the room opened, and in walked a man in a North Ufigan robe with a turban around his head. His features were unmistakably those of a local. He looked toward the trembling woman on the bed and frowned slightly before speaking.
“Sadroya, are you feeling any better? Did that medicine from earlier help at all?”
Hearing the man’s words, the woman named Sadroya turned her head. Her eyes, full of exhaustion, looked at the man. After struggling to suppress her muttering, she shook her head slightly and spoke weakly.“Hah… hah… it helped… a little, I suppose. But only a little… Mostly, I still feel the same. My head keeps buzzing every day. That nun’s voice keeps ringing in it… sometimes my body gets so hot I can’t stand it… I keep remembering that heartless woman I’ve never met before, and every time I do, I just want to cry… sob sob …”
As she spoke, Sadroya suddenly broke down in sobs, burying her face in the blanket and weeping aloud. The entire room filled with the sound of her mournful cries.
Seeing Sadroya’s out-of-control emotions, the man understood that the medicine he had given her had little effect. He could only sigh in resignation.
“It seems the cognitive poison affected you far more deeply than expected… Simple methods won’t cure this. Once we fulfill our contract with Robert, we’ll return immediately. Stay at the base and get proper treatment.”
He spoke gently to Sadroya. After some effort, she managed to stabilize her emotions. Wiping away the tears from her face, she spoke to the man in a weary voice.
“Hah… hah… For now, that’s all I can do. Damn it! Why did that nun only have to recite two lines of a mystical text and still affect me like this?!”
Gripping the bed sheet, Sadroya cursed bitterly. The man beside her answered calmly.
“Cognitive poison affects disembodied souls far more intensely than it does regular people. At the time, you were possessing someone else’s body as a wandering soul, so naturally it had a deeper effect on you. That little nun must have known this, which is why she used cognitive poison specifically to expel you. Based on reports, she used to work for the Church’s Historical Scripture Department. Knowing a few mystical texts is no surprise.
“But then again, even among Silence Beyonders, the fact that cognitive poison harms disembodied souls more severely is hardly common knowledge. How could that nun have known about this? Did she perhaps read it in some obscure book?”
The man looked puzzled. Meanwhile, Sadroya grew visibly irritated, gripping the bed sheet tightly.
“That damned little bitch… If I get the chance, I swear I’ll make sure she dies a miserable death… ugh…”
Her fury at the nun who had expelled her with cognitive poison was evident. But mid-rant, she suddenly clutched her head again in pain, her face contorted with suffering. Seeing his companion once again tormented, the man at the door could only shake his head and speak again.
“When Robert’s plan succeeds, that little nun won’t get off easy either. For now, just rest. For us, guarding that thing is our final task. Once it’s done, we’ll return and get you proper treatment.”
With that, the man turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. Seeing him gone, Sadroya could only shrink back into the corner of her bed once more, trembling as she resumed her obsessive muttering.
At that very moment, perched quietly at the edge of the slightly opened skylight above, a small inconspicuous butterfly observed the room from the shadows.
…
Meanwhile, in a forest five or six kilometers away from the villa, Nephthys stood beneath dense shade, gazing intently in one direction through the trees. Beside her, a spirit-form lynx floated lazily, licking its paw.
After peering into the woods for a while, Nephthys shifted her gaze to the ground beside her. There, spread over the earth, was a picnic mat laid out with tea and sweets. Next to the sweets, Dorothy sat cross-legged, eyes closed in meditation as she sipped her tea in a leisurely manner. After a few more sips, she set the cup down and opened her eyes—just in time for Nephthys to seize the opportunity to speak.
“Miss Dorothy, how did the investigation go over there? Did you find the prince’s soul?”
“More or less,” Dorothy replied calmly, lowering her teacup.
“Inside that villa, there’s a significant number of guards. The basement is especially fortified—with a heavy concentration of ghost patrols and powerful spiritual detection. With such intense layers of security all focused in one place, it’s basically certain that they’ve sealed his soul down there.”
Hearing this, Nephthys let out a breath of relief. Dorothy’s words confirmed her own tracking hadn’t been wrong—the soul they were searching for was indeed there.
“Since we’ve confirmed the location, then let’s figure out a way to steal the soul. Miss Dorothy, do you think that soul-sealing thing is easy to snatch?”
Nephthys continued to press for details, while Dorothy rubbed her chin and responded thoughtfully.
“Judging by their deployed security, it would be extremely difficult to take that thing without anyone noticing. The basement where it’s kept is not only protected by high-level mystical detection, but also patrolled by dense ghost patrols—there’s practically no blind spot. Even my insect marionettes would have a hard time flying in, let alone sending someone to physically steal it.”
Recalling the initial scouting of the distant villa, Dorothy explained as Nephthys furrowed her brow. She then voiced her concern again.
“Hmm… so stealing is out of the question… If we can’t sneak it out, Miss Dorothy, don’t tell me… you’re thinking of just taking it by force?”
Her tone held a trace of worry. But Dorothy shook her head in response.
“Robbing them head-on isn’t viable either. That villa has at least two White Ash-rank Beyonders stationed inside. It’s not realistic for just the two of us to break in, defeat them quickly, and escape with the soul.
“If we make a move and fail to neutralize them fast enough, they’ll have time to call for reinforcements. By then, Kankdal’s city guard—and even that mayor Robert himself—will come swarming. We’ll be up against the entire city before we even get our hands on the soul. A frontal assault would be a disaster.”
Dorothy explained matter-of-factly. Hearing this, Nephthys let out a subtle sigh of relief, reassured that they wouldn’t have to risk everything in a direct confrontation. She then followed up with another question.
“So we can’t steal it in secret… and we can’t take it by force… Then how are we supposed to get Prince Mazarr’s soul?”
She looked expectantly at Dorothy, who, rather than looking troubled, was still enjoying her sweets in complete composure. That alone told Nephthys that Dorothy already had a plan. Sure enough, after finishing a bite of cake, Dorothy smiled and answered.
“Heh, of course I have a way. While I was scouting earlier, I happened to notice something interesting. If we make use of it… we might be able to steal that thing without anyone even realizing.”
“Something interesting, huh…”
Nephthys looked puzzled as Dorothy’s smile widened.
…
Time passed, and another day slipped by. As the sun dipped below the horizon and the moon rose into the sky, Kankdal was once again cloaked in night.
Under the moonlit sky, the villa in the forest on the outskirts of the city remained heavily guarded, just as it had been in the daytime.
On the third floor, inside a sparse room, Sadroya was still curled up on her bed, occasionally shivering and murmuring to herself. Her condition had shown no improvement since that morning. Her mind was still tormented by the effects of the cognitive poison.
“Holy Mother… Mother of Chalice… my mother… Holy Mother… tch… damn it! Why am I reciting it again? It was just a few lines—why can’t I forget them?! Ugh…”
Grabbing her head and clutching at her hair, Sadroya’s face twisted in torment as she furiously blamed herself—why couldn’t she forget those few words the nun had spoken back then? Why did her voice echo in her mind at every waking moment? She clearly wanted to forget, but that voice just kept resurfacing endlessly.
“Ahhh… I can’t take this anymore…”
Clutching her head, Sadroya collapsed onto the bed in pain. She desperately wanted to forget the nun’s words, but they clung to her memory more stubbornly than anything else in her life. She wanted to resist them, yet deep inside, she craved for the nun’s voice in her mind to go on—to speak the rest of what had been left unsaid. Much of her torment stemmed from that inner conflict.
“Huff… huff…”
Lying on the bed, gripping the bedsheet tightly, Sadroya panted heavily. In that moment, a crisp sound reached her ears from above. Hearing it, she looked up and saw the skylight in the ceiling.
At that moment, the bright moonlight was filtering in through the transparent windowpane. Through it, she could see the full moon shining in the night sky. And in that moonlight, she spotted countless tiny black specks moving across the glass—on closer inspection, they were ants.
Under the moonlight, a swarm of ants had mysteriously gathered and were crawling in neat lines across the skylight glass. They formed rows and patterns that intertwined and weaved into letters. The letters formed words, and the words assembled into sentences.
Suddenly, Sadroya saw that text had appeared right before her eyes on the skylight.
“I am bathed in the amniotic water of the birth mother; I am bathed in the blood of the Mother of Chalice; I am bathed in the tears of the Holy Mother…”
Staring at the words on the skylight, Sadroya froze. Her gaze locked onto the ants, on the flowing, forming, and vanishing letters. These words seemed to possess a kind of magic, drawing all her attention—making it impossible to look away.
“The continuation… the continuation… it’s the continuation…”
She murmured, blank-faced. The pain once etched on her features, and the last traces of reason in her eyes, were now completely washed away.
The ants on the skylight spelled out the words Sadroya most deeply longed to see. But just as suddenly as they came, the letters vanished again. As Sadroya was struck with dismay, the ants formed a new sentence.
“To seek the rest, go to the third-floor balcony. Tell no one of your desire…”
“The third-floor balcony… the third-floor balcony…”
Mumbling in a trance, Sadroya rose from the bed, slipped into her slippers, opened the door, and walked out of the room. Before long, she arrived at the balcony. There, on the pillar of the railing, she saw countless moths crawling. Their joined bodies formed new lines of text for her to read.
“Ah, my Mother,
my Three Mothers,
my One Mother,
I and all beings are siblings,
and all beings and I are born of One Mother…”
“In dreams I seek,
the wing-beat within the skull,
I cross the shadowed woods,
and see the scale-trail left by the moth…”
On the pillar, Sadroya saw the continuation she had yearned for—new verses written out by the moths. Her eyes widened as she drank in every word. But again, these verses ended quickly, just fragments. And the moment she had read them all, a new yearning surfaced in her heart.
“What’s next? What’s next? Mother’s words, the moth’s too… what comes after? What comes next?”
Blank-faced, Sadroya muttered in a daze. Just then, the moths took flight and drifted toward the dark forest, as if guiding her somewhere.
Seeing this, Sadroya immediately descended the stairs and walked into the courtyard. A patrolling guard saw her and spoke up with concern.
“Miss Sadroya, where are you going? You haven’t recovered yet—please don’t wander around.”
“I’m just going for some fresh air. It’s too stifling inside…”
She replied without turning back and walked straight out of the courtyard. The guard could only watch helplessly—after all, he didn’t have the authority to stop her.
Leaving the villa behind, Sadroya made her way into the dense forest. Not far along, she saw a swarm of moths dancing over a clearing. Amid the fluttering wings, jet-black grains of sand began to rise from the ground, floating in the air and forming new sentences.
“Three Mothers as One; In this world there is but One Mother—My Mother, All’s Mother, the Mother of this World…”
“The moth draws me to seek light; Tells me the truth—Reality is dream, and dream is reality…”
“A ray of heaven’s light, a single thunderous chime; The teaching is One—this is the First Revelation…”
Staring blankly at the messages before her, Sadroya stood rooted in place, her eyes devouring the old and new phrases alike as if starved. Once she finished reading the brief fragments, the floating black sand suddenly gathered together into a stream and drifted away into the distance. Without hesitation, Sadroya followed it.
Following the trail of dark sand, Sadroya hurried through the pitch-black woods. She didn’t know how long she walked. Her shoes were flung off, her bare feet bled from the rough ground—until at last, the drifting black sand began to slow and settle.
Then, before her appeared a tall figure, cloaked in utter darkness, entirely hidden beneath a hood and mantle. The stream of guiding sand circled the figure, swirling into a ring. Sadroya approached slowly, her gaze seeking the figure’s face beneath the hood—but all she saw was a shadow, pitch-black and featureless.
“Thou… for what hast thou come?”
The tall shadowy figure spoke in a low, resonant voice. Hearing the question, Sadroya murmured her reply.
“I… I want to know what comes after…”
“What after? The Mother? The Moth? The Number?”
“All of it… everything that follows… those… the rest of the mystical text… I seek knowledge—those mystical teachings…”
Looking up at the towering form, Sadroya confessed the one desire that burned within her. The shadow paused slightly, then responded.
“Very well…”
“Then… for what thou seekest, pray. Recite the invocation. Pray to That One… They shall reveal all…”
As the figure spoke, the black sand surrounding it surged again. The sand gathered in front of the shadow, forming new lines of text. Seeing them, Sadroya murmured under her breath:
"The Boundless Above of This World… The Convergence of Endless Fate… The Gate and Key of Infinite Truths…”