Pain—pain beyond anything Dorothy had ever experienced. It wasn’t physical. It came from deep within her consciousness. At that moment, she felt as if her mind were being pierced and stirred by countless long needles. The extreme agony made her feel like her spirit was fracturing.
“Aaaaaah!!!”
Inside the Mirror Moon Golem, in the Advancement Ritual Hall of the spherical chamber, Dorothy—whose consciousness was plunging deep into the inner realm—suddenly clutched her head and screamed. Her body collapsed to the ground in agony. At the same time, her spiritual form in the Realm of Cognition, floating above the Sea of Information, was also writhing in pain, letting out a silent scream in this strange dimension.
Visibly, the symbolic information that composed Dorothy’s informational body was being corrupted. Strange and ancient symbols spread across her form. Her projection began to flicker and distort like a static-filled TV screen, indicating imminent collapse.
It seemed that merely making informational contact with that decayed, massive corpse had pushed her unshielded spirit to the brink of disintegration. Back in the physical world, Dorothy lay limp atop the ritual array, her eyes vacant, her body trembling uncontrollably. The situation was critical.
Then, at that moment, an anomaly occurred.
From the slightly modified divine statue standing before the ritual array, a soft silver-white glow began to emerge. It shimmered in the air above the ritual and then descended like threads of silk, wrapping over Dorothy like a luminous veil.
Under the shroud of silver light, Dorothy’s trembling slowly subsided. Her erratic breathing gradually returned to normal.
In the Sea of Information, her nearly-collapsed spiritual body still flickered. But behind her, a halo appeared—and from within it, strings of silver symbols extended, coiling around her. The decayed, invasive runes on her body began to fade under their touch. Her spirit stabilized, the flickering ceased, and she began to return to a calm state. The silver strings then began to pull her consciousness back.
A silent wind blew across the room, sweeping away the incense. The six deity-blessed artifacts floating at the edge of the ritual array gradually lost their glow and descended to the ground.
Silence returned—only to be broken moments later by a massive explosion outside, abruptly awakening Dorothy.
“Tch… what was that just now…?”
Opening her eyes, Dorothy sat up in the center of the array, holding her forehead as she muttered in confusion. She tried to recall what she had just experienced, but her memory was murky and chaotic. Before she could think further, another explosion snapped her fully back to reality.
“Right… now’s not the time for that. What matters is the ritual… the ritual…”
She quickly scanned the ritual space. Seeing the six divine artifacts back in their resting positions, she realized the ritual had ended.
“So… what was the outcome of this final ritual?”
With this question in mind, Dorothy sat upright again and closed her eyes, focusing inward. After a moment, she opened them with a faint smile.
…
On the lakeshore of Lake Starbind, under the dark sky, the flame-clad knight hovered above the water, gazing solemnly at the scene below. Francesco’s heart grew heavy as he took in the sight of his enemy—now drastically transformed.
“What’s the matter, old zealot? Done with your little fire tricks? Weren’t you going to purify me? What happened—your holy flames not hot enough?”
Standing defiantly on the lakeside, Gossmore—now with eight pupils and six arms—pointed her blood-forged blade skyward and shouted mockingly. At her taunts, Francesco’s flames, which had dimmed slightly, surged back to life. His blazing body flared again as he raised his flaming sword toward her.
“Even your blasphemous goddess cannot protect you now—heretic!”
He began conjuring fireballs again, hurling them toward the ground where Gossmore stood. She immediately resumed dodging like before. As each fireball hit the ground, it exploded with a thunderous blast.
One by one, red lotuses of flame bloomed along the lakeshore. Francesco continued his barrage, attempting to restrict her movements and land a decisive blow.
But things had changed. Gossmore was far faster than before.
Though each fireball’s blast radius was wide, she evaded them all with astonishing speed—now far beyond Crimson-rank Shadow. Her movement became a blur, a phantom the naked eye could no longer track. While Francesco could just barely perceive her using enhanced Lantern vision, his fireballs—and their shockwaves—simply couldn’t keep up.
Being able to locate a target is useless if you can’t hit it.
“Haha! Can’t touch me now, can you!?”
Leaving a trail of explosions behind her, Gossmore leapt into the air, shifting from defense to offense. She charged straight toward Francesco. In response, he unleashed a massive flame wave, a wall of fire sweeping toward her in an overwhelming tide.
The blazing wave swept wide across the battlefield, but its power was far weaker than Francesco’s fireballs. Gossmore chose to charge through it head-on. Paying the price of having large patches of her skin scorched black, she pierced through the flames and rushed straight at Francesco, all the while regenerating her burns at high speed.
Seeing this, Francesco flared up, expanding the flames that composed his form and transforming into a giant of fire. He raised his massive flaming sword and swung it downward in an oppressive arc.
Gossmore dodged the incoming blade with ease. Then, wielding the diverse blood-forged weapons held in her six arms, she combined them into a massive blood axe and struck at the giant’s arm. As the blood weapon cut through the flaming body, some of it was vaporized by the heat—but the fire giant still let out a howl of agony.
That scream was followed by rapid collapse. The giant form shrank, returning to human size, and its flames dimmed drastically. Francesco, who had never experienced such overwhelming pain before, faltered midair. Unable to maintain his elemental form, he reverted back to his fully armored knightly appearance.
With a dull crash, Francesco hit the ground hard. Dust billowed up around him. Leaning heavily on his sword, he struggled to stand.
But Gossmore had no intention of letting him go. She raised her blood weapon and prepared to follow up with another strike.
At that moment, a storm whipped up around her. A violently swirling tornado surrounded her in an instant, sweeping up the remaining flames nearby and engulfing her. Aldrich had made his move—he unleashed another flaming vortex to swallow Gossmore whole.
This time, though, Gossmore didn’t scream. Ignoring the sizzle of her skin being scorched, she muttered to herself within the inferno:
“A phenomenon that requires constant spiritual input and focused will to control and maintain… In essence, it is an extension of a Beyonder’s own limbs. And if it is a limb—then it can feel pain…”
With that, she gripped her blood weapon tightly and spun inside the vortex, performing a spiraling slash. She targeted the tornado itself—a technique that demanded constant attention to sustain—and cut into it.
The pain from the cut, transmitted through the spiritual link, passed directly to the Mirror Moon Golem.
With a deep, resonating hum, the enormous golem stumbled backward, as if it had felt a pain it never should have. It nearly lost its balance. The flaming vortex around Gossmore dispersed instantly.
Seeing this, Gossmore prepared to finish off the towering threat. She formed a blood spear and hurled it toward the Mirror Moon Golem.
Compared to the massive construct, the blood spear was like a mere pin, but it pierced the golem’s leg, eliciting another loud, groaning hum—like an elephant shrieking from a mouse bite.
Writhing in pain, the golem staggered and collapsed into the shallow waters of Lake Starbind with a thunderous crash. Aldrich, who had been standing atop it, steadied himself amidst the tremor and muttered with a grim expression.
“To be able to inflict that kind of effect on something this large… So this is a glimpse of the divine nature granted by the Lady of Pain. Under the Queen of Torment’s power, all things—no matter how great—shall taste ultimate pain…”
He sighed. With Gossmore now in a partially apostolized state, their side no longer stood a chance. Apostolization meant she had touched upon divinity. Even in this incomplete form, she was no longer someone Crimson-rank Beyonders could handle—unless Aldrich were in his full Gold-rank state.
“No match at all…”
Looking at the fallen golem, Gossmore sneered coldly. Her injuries were already mostly healed. She looked down and saw Francesco, still standing, still in pain. Her blood weapon shimmered with murderous intent.
Though her ultimate goal was the Mirror Moon Temple, she decided to eliminate Francesco first—the one who could cause her the most trouble. At the very least, she would leave him incapacitated, unable to interfere further.
“Fall here, old zealot…”
She launched herself at him like a bullet. Francesco raised his sword to block, but it was already too late. The flame had nearly extinguished.
In an instant, Gossmore reached him and shattered his sword with a single axe strike. Then, with her other two arms, she thrust twin blood spears into his shoulders, eliciting a scream so agonized that it sent a wave of savage satisfaction across Gossmore’s face.
Now that she had trampled the one who had nearly taken her life just moments ago, her smile turned even more arrogant. But just as she opened her mouth to taunt him—something unexpected occurred.
Suddenly, Francesco’s body began to turn translucent. Bit by bit, he faded into nothingness and vanished before her very eyes.
Gossmore’s eyes widened.
“He disappeared… Impossible! What just happened?!”
Clutching her head in disbelief, she suddenly understood.
“This is… an illusion. A hallucination created by a Shadow Beyonder… Who?! Who else is here working against me?!”
She shouted angrily, scanning the area.
Then, on the surface of Lake Starbind, she saw something strange.
A creature swam beneath the full moon. It had a long neck, a broad body, and was draped in tangles of waterweed. It stretched six or seven meters long, with most of its body submerged. Only its long-necked head and back rose above the surface.
On its back was the armored form of Francesco, gasping for breath.
Its head turned to stare at Gossmore. In its plant-covered eyes, a silvery, hypnotic glow shimmered.
“What… is that?”
Gossmore muttered in confusion as she stared at the lake. And atop the collapsed Mirror Moon Golem, standing at the former position of the chapel dome, was Dorothy, dressed in her monochrome western dress. She silently watched the strange aquatic beast in the moonlight—the creature that had rescued Francesco.
“Among the generations of Glamorne’s people, there has always been a legend: On full-moon nights, a strange water demon appears on Lake Starbind. It can cast illusions, luring people into the depths of the lake. They say it shows lost souls the things they most desire—And then drowns them in dreams.
“This creature is known locally as the Moonlit Water Hag. Though the tale has been passed down for centuries, no one has ever seen it. Most believe it’s just a scary story…
“But whether the Moonlit Water Hag is real or not doesn’t matter to me. Because under the pen of a Bizarre Author… Even false legends can be written into reality.”
Dorothy, now an Omni-Law Mentor, whispered softly as she looked down at her "creation" floating in the moonlit lake.