Central region of the Main Continent, Holy Mount.
Across the boundless grassy plains, the towering spire of Holy Mount rose like a divine pillar, piercing into the heavens. Atop the mountain, within the grand Holy Mount Cathedral, an emergency Cardinal Council was underway. Just as the four high-ranking and powerful Cardinals of the Radiance Church were making critical decisions, they were suddenly interrupted by an unexpected intruder. Upon seeing who it was, each of them revealed a hint of surprise.
“Vania, this is not a place where you belong!”
In the majestic and sacred Grand Chapel, Amanda stood in front of her seat, speaking with unprecedented sternness as she looked at the white-robed nun now kneeling on the floor. On the other side, Kramar immediately stood up and barked out harshly.
“Vania Chafferon, how dare you behave so presumptuously, violating ecclesiastical law by trespassing in a restricted area—seize her and detain her for punishment!”
As he spoke, Kramar seemed ready to take action himself. But just then, the kneeling Vania raised her head and addressed the four Cardinals before her with conviction.
“Your Eminences, I acknowledge that trespassing into the Cardinal Council is a serious offense, and I will accept whatever punishment comes after—but I have come with reason. I’ve obtained critical intelligence. Please, do not activate the Sacred Staffs right now—it could lead to disastrous consequences!”
Vania’s urgent plea caused a brief pause among them. Kramar, however, scoffed and slapped the armrest of his chair before retorting.
“Hmph, and what critical intelligence could possibly need you to deliver it? A heretic who’s repeatedly defied church law? Let me—”
“Hold on a moment, Cardinal-Inquisitor.”
Just as Kramar was about to act, Hilbert interrupted. He turned to Vania, his expression grave.
“Where did this intelligence come from? What is it? Speak clearly.”
“Yes!” Vania answered promptly.
“The source is the Cardinal of Secrets, Her Excellency Saint Artcheli. She contacted me through special means just now. According to her, the fog now enshrouding Tivian originates from the Dreamscape. It surrounds and protects a powerful divine presence. The heretical group, the Blackdream Hunting Pack, seeks to obtain this divinity, and they’ve enacted a large-scale ritual to blur the boundary between the real world and the Dreamscape—bringing the fog into the present world.”
“Their goal is to lure Your Eminences into using the Sacred Staffs left behind by the Holy See to dispel the fog. But with the barrier between Tivian’s reality and the Dreamscape so fragile, the sacred radiance released by the Staffs will inevitably shine into the Dreamscape—opening a path for the Blackdream Hunting Pack to reach the divinity they covet. Please—do not fall into their trap!”
Vania bowed low again, her voice both reverent and urgent. The Cardinals paused, pondering her words. Kramar was the first to respond.
“The Cardinal of Secrets? If she wanted to send a message, she would relay it directly to the Court of Secrets. There’s been no movement from them at all—yet you show up instead? What a laughable excuse.”
Kramar's reasoning sounded compelling, and Vania’s earlier claims did seem insufficient. Hilbert gave a slight nod in agreement. But Vania responded once more.
“The Cardinal of Secrets did not use conventional means to contact me. Right now, Pritt is wrapped in a fog of divine origin—normal communication is impossible. She used special channels to relay the message.”
She paused briefly, then swallowed and continued.
“To put it simply, the Cardinal of Secrets collaborated with a mysterious cult of ‘Revelation’—the Rose Cross Order—using their divine power to transmit the message from within the fog. This Rose Cross Order is deeply connected to the Heaven’s Arbiter Sect active in North Ufiga. I’ve had prior contact with them, and they possess my contact methods. It was through that connection that the message reached me. That’s why only I received the information—and not the Court of Secrets.”
Vania explained earnestly, and upon hearing her reasoning, Amanda’s expression darkened slightly. Meanwhile, Kramar’s eyes lit up—he slammed his hand on the armrest and shouted.
“Aha… I’ve always suspected you were secretly colluding with heretics, and now you’ve admitted it yourself! Do you realize the consequences of this, Vania Chafferon?!”
He shot a glance at Amanda’s solemn face as he spoke. Vania answered firmly.
“I’m fully aware of the consequences. But back then, cooperating with the heretics was necessary for salvation—and I do not regret it. Still, none of that matters now. What matters is that you believe me and do not activate the Sacred Staffs. As for the punishment for violating church law—I will accept it later!”
She raised her head, eyes resolute as she faced the Cardinals. Her words visibly enraged Kramar.
“Nothing a sinner says can be trusted! Let me—”
“Stand down.”
Amanda finally spoke again, her voice stern.
“Sister Vania may not hold a current office, but she has achieved the ecclesiastical rank of Crimson. At that level, the Inquisition no longer holds unilateral authority. Only a six-member Cardinal Council may judge and sentence her. Cardinal-Inquisitor, you do not have the authority to pass judgment on her now or act against her.”
Amanda was right—the authority of the Inquisition only extended to clergy below the rank of archbishop. For archbishops and above, they fell directly under the jurisdiction of the Cardinal Council or the Holy See. Crimes at that level could only be judged by the Pope, by the full Council, or if explicitly authorized.
Vania, though lacking an official position, now held Crimson rank—effectively equivalent to an archbishop. The Inquisition had no power to act alone.
Kramar froze for a moment, then looked directly at Amanda and sneered.
“So… even now you insist on shielding her, Cardinal of Redemption? Heh… this is the first time I’ve seen you make such a foolish mistake…”
He spoke with a tinge of smugness. The situation was clear—Vania had admitted, with her own mouth, to colluding with heretics. Amanda, instead of distancing herself, was dragging herself deeper into the mess.
While Amanda did hold some incriminating leads on Kramar’s own dealings with heretics regarding Falano, they remained mere leads—nothing concrete. Just one governor’s testimony wasn’t enough. Amanda had only suspicions, whereas Vania had just confessed outright. There was no comparison. Kramar had the upper hand.
Amanda paused briefly, inhaled deeply, then continued in a low but firm voice.
“I’ve already said—any discussion of Vania’s guilt must wait. Only a six-Cardinal Council can pass such judgment. For now, Cardinal-Inquisitor, you may not take any action against her. The real question now is—do we believe her warning, and do we use the Sacred Staffs? Everything else can wait.”
With that, Amanda turned slowly to Vania and asked.
“Vania. You said the Cardinal of Secrets gave you the message—do you have proof?”
“I do… Please come with me now to the Court of Secrets. I can point out many secrets of the court—hidden codes, mechanisms, even passwords that only the Cardinal of Secrets herself should know. There are also several authentication rituals that will verify that the message truly came from her. She personally taught them to me.”
Vania’s tone was calm and composed as she addressed the Cardinals. Amanda responded first.
“I believe Sister Vania makes a reasonable point. Why don’t we go to the Court of Secrets now and verify her claim?”
She looked to her three peers. But in their eyes—she found no agreement.
“To visit the Court of Secrets together…? Impossible. Under the Lord’s divine radiance, an entire nation’s capital has been infiltrated by a cult. Even an avatar of an evil god has appeared. The situation in Tivian is dire and changing by the second—we don’t have time to validate her claims! I suggest we don’t listen to this sinner. She may be a decoy sent by the cult to delay our actions!”
Kramar spoke flatly, glancing coldly at the kneeling Vania. Nearby, the gaunt and normally reserved Marco nodded as well.
“According to records from the Great Holy War, once a heretical grand ritual is activated, entire cities can be wiped out in an instant if not stopped in time… At such a moment, we must act decisively. Delaying could be fatal.
“I’ve heard of the Court of Secrets’ verification protocols. They’re extremely intricate—deliberately designed to ensure absolute accuracy. But they take too long. Based on experience from the Great Holy War, we simply don’t have that luxury right now.”
Marco spoke calmly and measuredly. With both Kramar and Marco opposed, Amanda’s expression darkened. In the end, her gaze turned to the only one who had yet to speak—Hilbert.
At this moment, Hilbert was deep in thought, his brow furrowed. After a long pause, he finally seemed to make up his mind and spoke.
“I agree—there’s no time to go to the Court of Secrets now. Sister Vania’s words aren't convincing enough for me to believe. The Cardinal of Secrets doesn’t strike me as someone who would lightly turn to heretics for help.”
His voice was serious. Just recently, Hilbert had received an emergency transmission from his subordinate, Samuel, confirming that the situation in Tivian was extremely dire and calling for immediate reinforcement. Compared to Vania, Hilbert trusted Samuel more. In fact, he felt a personal urgency to reinforce Tivian, as that ecclesiastical district fell under his jurisdiction.
Vania had warned that using the Sacred Staff could bring grave consequences—but delaying the use of the Sacred Staff in such an emergency might lead to even worse ones. Between two risks, and with Vania’s intelligence lacking clear provenance and requiring complex verification, Hilbert chose to trust the more recent and direct report from Samuel. Had Samuel not broken protocol and sent that urgent distress call, Hilbert might have made a different decision.
Now the situation was clear: among the four Cardinals in this emergency meeting, only Amanda supported Vania. The decision to use the Sacred Staff was inevitably going to pass. This grim reality made Vania’s face pale. She stood up hastily and cried out.
“Your Eminences… please listen! You must not use the Sacred Staff now! If you do, something truly terrifying—”
Just as she was speaking, Amanda—who had remained grim and silent—reached out and placed her hand on Vania’s shoulder, pressing her back to the ground.
“Enough, Vania. Be silent now.”
“But Your Eminence—”
Amanda’s voice was solemn. Vania was about to argue further when, suddenly, a voice echoed in her mind.
“This is as far as you go, Vania. Don’t force it. Do not confront any Cardinal directly. Stay where you are. Wait for the right moment. There is still a chance…”
Startled, Vania froze. Then, as if she had resigned herself, she lowered her head and knelt back in silence, making no further pleas. Seeing her reaction, Kramar sneered coldly.
“No time to waste. Let’s use the Sacred Staff to disperse the evil mist over Tivian. Since the Holy War Cardinal convened this emergency meeting, you’ll be the one to wield the Staff.”
With that, Kramar gave the word. After Hilbert nodded in agreement, Kramar gestured lightly—and the whitewood staff, already summoned and suspended in mid-air at the center of the chapel, adorned with dense carvings and a massive golden gemstone, floated swiftly into Hilbert’s hand. He grasped it tightly.
Then Hilbert gently struck the floor with the staff. A halo of sacred radiance rippled outward. The surroundings blurred and transformed, and above the chapel floor, hazy illusions emerged. Looking closely, one could see seascapes, skies, mountains, and land—a satellite-like view rendered in divine light. The floor of the entire chapel had become a massive display.
From this god’s-eye view, the Cardinals could see the eastern coastline of a vast island. Most prominent were three things: in the eastern sea above the coast, a massive spiraling vortex of cloud—a typhoon—with a clearly visible eye at its center. The vortex was sucking in nearly all surrounding clouds, leaving only one area untouched: the region over Tivian.
There, the Cardinals saw dense white mist enshrouding the city. This fog, unlike the natural typhoon around it, was unaffected by the storm and hovered eerily over Tivian, cloaking it entirely.
Frowning slightly at this unusual spectacle, Hilbert ignored the storm and focused instead on the strange mist above the city. He slowly raised the staff and began to chant.
“O Sun Wheel… first symbol of the Lord, crown of the Supreme Court…
In the name of the Lord’s shepherd, I call forth purest light…
Let it pierce all veils of illusion…”
As he whispered the sacred incantation, the staff in his hand began to emit a subtle radiance. That divine glow fell upon the faces of everyone present and upon the immense projection on the chapel floor.
At that same moment, far away on Pritt’s eastern coast, above the mist-shrouded Tivian, the blazing sun hanging in the sky suddenly flared brighter than ever before. A beam of extraordinary white light burst forth from the Sun Wheel and descended into the mist over the city.
Instantly, the mist began to churn violently. Even the typhoon that had failed to stir it was now no match—the divine light caused it to part and scatter.
…
A short time earlier, within the misty Tivian on the eastern coast of Pritt.
In the fog-drenched northern district of Tivian, within the ruins of the cathedral district—recently devastated and now reduced to a crater—an intense battle was underway. Both combatants moved with unimaginable speed.
Within the pit where the sacred power of faith still lingered, the fog was slightly thinner than elsewhere. Here, a battlefield of invisibility played out. Nothing could be seen—but the sharp clashing of weapons echoed constantly from all directions, shaking the space. Rocks exploded without cause; gashes appeared as if cleaved by invisible blades. The pace and intensity of the battle only grew.
This clash unfolded in a space where ordinary human eyes could perceive nothing. Only the two fighters knew what was truly happening.
Artcheli had just emerged from the Misty Domain within the Dreamscape Forest, returning to Tivian—only to immediately encounter Gaskina, who had just finished subduing Archbishop Samuel and was about to call for help from her allies through the mist. Without a word, Artcheli launched an assault, pinning her down before she could act.
Both women possessed speed akin to Gold-rank Shadow Beyonders. From the moment their blades met, they had fought at blistering velocities, trading blows, dodges, and feints in a frenzy of motion. Their figures became streaks of light, invisible to all but one another.
At one moment, Gaskina found an opening. Spinning her massive body, she slashed with six blood-colored weapons—one in each monstrous arm—like a whirlwind aiming to crush Artcheli’s petite form.
But Artcheli dodged swiftly, blocking one strike and using Gaskina’s immense force to vault high into the air. Activating a windborne sigil, she flipped midair and dove down with her blade aimed straight at Gaskina’s monstrous head.
Gaskina countered with four arms raised to parry, but Artcheli twisted again, stepping off Gaskina’s raised weapons to alter her descent. She landed at her side and struck a clean blow across Gaskina’s divine torso, drawing a deep, bloody gash and a shriek of agony.
Scenes like this had played out repeatedly. Over the course of battle, Artcheli had gained the upper hand, her blade repeatedly cutting through Gaskina’s immense form. Several times, she had even severed one of Gaskina’s six arms. Though Gaskina’s regenerative ability was swift and furious, none of her counterattacks had yet landed a decisive hit on Artcheli.
In theory, Gaskina—with not only Gold-rank strength but also divine enhanced—should have surpassed Artcheli in speed. But this battle was about more than just speed.
In close-quarters combat, speed matters—but it’s not everything. Artcheli’s abilities came from two sources: as a Church priestess, she wielded the power of Lantern; and through her inherited Saint Name, she bore the power of Shadow.
Indeed, Artcheli was a special kind of Beyonder—an atypical Lantern Beyonder. She possessed no auxiliary spirituality, no support-path abilities—just the pure and inferior form of Lantern. But as one of the Church’s specially cultivated high-rank Lantern Beyonders, and the bearer of the name Saint Artcheli, she also inherited a powerful Shadow trait. All Secrets Cardinals were like this.
Among the Church’s seven saints, all but the Pope inherited their Gold-rank strength through ancient Saint Names. The power wasn’t always Lantern—those who followed the Saintess (like the Court of Secrets) inherited potent Shadow power.
However, due to the opposition between Lantern and Shadow, Artcheli had paid a price. Her Beyonder path was warped, flawed. Still, she now possessed not only the speed and agility of a Gold-rank Shadow, but also the heightened perception of an advanced Lantern Beyonder—comparable to a typical Gold-rank in that regard.
Combat—especially close-quarters dueling—relies on more than speed. Speed makes you hard to hit, but not better at hitting. Excessive speed can even hinder one’s ability to track opponents.
That was Gaskina’s current problem. She was faster than Artcheli—but their speeds were so high that she could no longer properly lock onto her opponent. And if she couldn’t hit Artcheli, her speed meant nothing.
In contrast, Artcheli, with her nearly Gold-rank Lantern perception, although also finding it difficult to fully lock onto Gaskina, had a much easier time than Gaskina did locking onto her. After disorienting Gaskina through rapid maneuvering, she could land the occasional surprise attack—each strike delivering real damage.
With her combination of extraordinary speed and precision tracking, Artcheli was a formidable force in close-quarters combat. Back in Igwynt, even when Artcheli wasn’t going all out, Anna still needed Dorothy’s powerful Revelation calculations and simulations just to barely defend against her. Now, with Artcheli fighting without restraint, Gaskina’s superior speed meant little.
“You damned little brat!!”
Faced with Artcheli's relentless attacks, Gaskina was forced to adjust her tactics. She began preparing to shift into a blood mist form, planning to disperse across the battlefield and use her environment to launch area-based attacks against Artcheli. However, Artcheli had already anticipated this.
Just as Gaskina began her transformation, Artcheli fired a light projectile from the handgun in her other hand—not to strike directly, but to detonate midair. The result was a dazzling, searing explosion more intense than even a Heavenly Flame Saint’s fireball. The intense heat immediately threatened to vaporize the initial traces of blood mist forming from Gaskina’s body.
Artcheli was a powerful Shadow-aspect Beyonder—but, once equipped with a spiritual outlet using rare support artifacts, she was also a formidable Lantern-aspect combatant. And against a Lantern Beyonder who could manipulate searing heat, transforming into blood mist was a dangerously poor decision.
“Tch…”
Cornered, Gaskina altered her approach again. She began condensing blood-red armor over her body, trading some of her speed for defense. Once the eerie, scarlet armor encased her six-armed monstrous form, Artcheli’s attacks became less effective—her sword slashes and bullets ricocheted off the armor, inflicting little damage. Not long ago, it was this very blood-armor that allowed Gaskina to withstand Samuel’s final strike without injury.
Gaskina, too, had her advantages. The powerful spiritual support from the Chalice Path ensured her survivability. Artcheli couldn’t kill her in a single blow—she could only wear her down bit by bit. In contrast, Gaskina’s weaponry, imbued with divinity of Pain, meant that even the slightest scratch inflicted on Artcheli—or on any projection or construct connected to her—would completely incapacitate her. In essence, Gaskina had six lives; Artcheli had only one. She had to maintain a perfect, untouched record.
Fortunately, with Gaskina’s terrible tracking ability at present, Artcheli’s "no-hit" streak was holding strong.
And now that Gaskina had reduced her own mobility with that blood armor, Artcheli found it even easier to track her movements. After dodging a sluggish swing, Artcheli retaliated—she fired another light shot at Gaskina. But before it could explode, Gaskina intercepted it midair with a blade. Infused with divine Pain, the bullet spasmed and veered off course, detonating harmlessly in the distance.
But Artcheli had never intended for the shot to hit. Using the explosion’s burst of light, she lunged. As Gaskina’s shadow grew sharper in the flare’s glow, Artcheli cut across it—and instantly, a gaping slash tore through the armor at the corresponding spot on Gaskina’s body, unleashing a gush of blood and a pained shriek.
Even with the regenerating blood armor, Gaskina couldn’t defend against shadow-strikes. Whenever Artcheli attacked through a shadow, both the armor and the flesh beneath suffered together. Against her Shadow Severance, no armor could protect.
Even clad in full blood armor—Gaskina still couldn’t stop Artcheli from injuring her.
“Damn it… you little pest!!”
Utterly enraged after being one-sidedly wounded for so long, Gaskina made yet another strategic shift.
“Die!!”
After gaining some distance, she stabbed her six blood-red weapons into the ground and channeled her spirituality. The earth began to tremble. A massive transformation followed.
From the ground, dense clusters of blood-red spikes erupted like weeds, growing at an alarming pace. In seconds, they had grown from “grass” to towering “trees,” sprawling wildly in every direction.
Artcheli reacted instantly, unleashing a barrage of light bullets from her handgun to intercept the spikes. But each projectile, upon contact, was tainted by the spikes’ divinity of Pain. The bullets faltered—either their structure destabilized and they fizzled, or their trajectories skewed wildly. Her firepower was severely hampered.
She couldn’t stop the wild overgrowth. In a matter of moments, she was surrounded—boxed in from all sides by the spikes.
The forest of thorns continued to multiply. From the initial growths sprouted secondary and tertiary branches. Within mere seconds, an entire needle-covered hellscape had taken shape across a kilometer-wide area. Everything nearby was swallowed in a crimson jungle of barbed agony.
In this horrifying forest, the space between any two spikes was no more than a few dozen centimeters. Even someone as small as Artcheli should have been impaled and shredded.
And yet—Gaskina couldn’t feel a thing.
Amidst this crimson thicket, Gaskina stood silently—frowning. Her spiritual perception sensed nothing. None of the spikes had pierced any flesh.
“Where is that little wretch?”
Just as the question flashed in her mind, a light projectile suddenly shot up from one direction, threading through countless minuscule gaps between spikes. It soared skyward and exploded—like a flare—illuminating the area.
Under its radiant glow, the entire forest of spikes cast down a dense web of tiny shadows.
And at that exact moment, amid those overlapping shadows on the ground, something moved.
A shadow, small and ethereal—without a physical counterpart—began to writhe. It twisted into shapes: blades and swords, which slashed through the shadows of the spikes themselves. As the shadows tore, their real counterparts—the blood-red spikes—shattered and collapsed.
In response to Gaskina’s massive area attack, Artcheli had once again become a shadow, slipping out of the present world and interfering with reality from the inner realm.
This technique, essentially a type of Inner Realm Phasing, normally couldn’t be used in regions choked with bewildering fog. But here, thanks to the lingering power of faith, the mist was thin enough. Artcheli could enter just shallowly—enough to execute her strike. If she ventured deeper, though, she risked losing herself entirely.
The shadow-form Artcheli rapidly shifted her shape, madly slicing through the shadows of the spike-forest around her, dismantling the entire formation. As the spikes collapsed in cascading crashes, the needle-hell began to unravel—her shadow pressed ever closer toward the center, where Gaskina stood.
Faced with this onslaught, Gaskina grit her teeth and commanded a surge of fresh spikes to erupt around Artcheli’s shadow, stabbing toward it from every direction. Artcheli, in turn, skillfully manipulated her shadow to weave and dodge, avoiding every piercing strike. Due to the risk of linked feedback, Artcheli had never used clones in this battle—if a clone made a mistake and died, she would suffer the same fate.
Unlike Anna’s wind blades, Gaskina’s spikes carried divine enchantments. Any blow that struck a construct or projection linked to a Beyonder could cause harm to the Beyonder themselves. Artcheli’s shadow, acting as a window between her and the material world, counted as such a conduit. If the shadow was damaged, so was she. Thus, she couldn't endure it head-on as she did against Anna—she had to dodge.
Fortunately, as a shape-shifting shadow, Artcheli’s evasion was now even more formidable. Gaskina found herself unable to halt the destruction of her domain—the thunderous collapse of the spike-hell encroached rapidly upon her position.
Then, Gaskina noticed something: the glowing orb of light Artcheli had earlier launched into the sky like a flare. She immediately extended a spike to pierce and extinguish it. With the light snuffed out, the battlefield—already veiled in peripheral mist—darkened, casting the shadows into obscurity. The shadows grew faint; Artcheli's connection to the material world weakened. Her destructive rate dropped dramatically, and even her presence began to thin.
In response, another light-bullet fired from Artcheli's shadow, squeezing through the thorns and once again flaring above the field to reinforce the shadowscape. But Gaskina promptly shattered it with another spike.
Thus began a cycle—Artcheli dodging while continuously launching light-spheres to sustain the shadow network, and Gaskina relentlessly sniping them down to suppress her. The battle settled into a stalemate. Overall, however, Gaskina maintained the upper hand. She had effectively slowed Artcheli's advance and regained control of the battlefield.
But just then—a sudden change.
The dense bewildering fog encircling the battlefield began to roil violently. After a burst of turbulence, a powerful beam of light broke through the mist-covered sky, bathing the entire heavens in white. From the apex of the sky, a radiant beam descended—cutting through the mist and striking the earth.
Under the divine illumination of the Sun Wheel, the mist veiling Tivian was scattered. The outlines of the city reemerged, and the battlefield where Artcheli and Gaskina fought was immediately flooded with light. Under this radiance, once-blurred shadows became razor-sharp and defined.
In that moment, Artcheli's shadow-form erupted with power. With the unprecedented clarity brought by the divine light, her strength surged. Her amorphous silhouette suddenly assumed a distinct form—her own. The shadow-Artcheli extended her hand, and a long shadow-sword manifested in her grasp, stretching far and wide.
She swung it.
In a single sweep, Artcheli’s shadow-sword severed countless spike projections. Their real counterparts exploded and crumbled along with them. Blow after blow, she cleaved through the blood-soaked forest. Gaskina's regenerative rate couldn't keep up.
This was Artcheli—the Cardinal of Secrets, the shadow in service of light. Her darkness stemmed from contrast; the brighter the light, the deeper her shadow…
Blessed by the Sun Wheel's brilliance, Artcheli slashed through the forest, shattering Gaskina’s spike-hell, advancing unhindered until she reached her foe. She destroyed every barrier in her path.
Gaskina, seeing this, immediately took to the sky to evade. But while she could fly—her shadow could not. Artcheli swiftly locked onto it and charged.
Realizing the danger, Gaskina performed evasive maneuvers midair, dragging her shadow along. Yet, even so, Artcheli’s boosted speed proved overwhelming. Her blade brushed across the shadow’s waist—Gaskina’s body split open at the same location, spraying a mist of blood.
Understanding now that the skies were even more disadvantageous, Gaskina swiftly dropped down to a newly cleared section of earth, keeping her body and shadow close for easier defense. She turned to face the charging Artcheli, ready to counter—but then—
“Shk—!!”
With the sound of blades piercing flesh, six black shadow-blades burst from Gaskina’s chest and abdomen, erupting in a spray of blood and mist. She froze in shock, coughing up a mouthful of blood. Slowly, she turned her eight-eyed head over her shoulder—and all her eyes went wide.
“What…?”
Behind her stood a towering, six-armed, shadowy monstrosity. In its hands were six weapons, now skewering her from behind. Gaskina recognized it instantly. Its form, its limbs—it was her own.
She looked down.
Its legs were fused with hers.
It was her own shadow—somehow animated, having risen up to betray her with a deadly sneak attack.
This was “Puppet Shadow”—one of Artcheli’s true powers. She could take control of an enemy’s shadow, turning it into a shadow-monster that backstabs its original host. The ultimate assassin—inescapable, ever-present, impossible to hide from.
Against lower-rank enemies, Artcheli could trigger this at will. But for powerful foes, it required a buildup—repeated strikes to the target’s shadow.
Throughout their duel, Artcheli had been building up influence with every shadow-strike. And just now—after slashing Gaskina’s shadow in the radiant light and delivering one last powerful blow—the accumulation had completed.
She had turned Gaskina’s own shadow against her.
Pinned down by her own traitorous shadow, Gaskina was nailed to the ground. She could no longer move. Bound by her own shadow, she couldn’t dissolve into mist to escape. And if she attacked the shadow behind her, she’d only hurt herself.
Now, utterly restrained, Gaskina could only watch as Artcheli's shadow-form charged in at full speed, clearly aiming to end the fight. There was seemingly no room left for resistance.
And yet—
Gaskina’s grotesque face showed no anger.
Instead… she began to smile.
A smug, sinister smile.
“Ah… how it hurts… Such exquisite pain…
“Little brat… the torment you’ve gifted me… is nearly enough.
“Now—it’s time to put us in our proper places…”
She murmured softly as the shadow loomed closer.
And in the instant her words fell, Artcheli’s shadow suddenly froze.
It quivered, destabilized—then warped violently.
From it, Artcheli’s true form emerged, collapsing onto the ground, her gun-sword falling from her grasp. She clutched her body—and screamed.
“AAAAAHHHHHH!!!”
An overwhelming, soul-piercing scream tore from Artcheli’s mouth. Her eyes opened wide, pupils contracting in agony. She howled toward the sky.
Gaskina burst out laughing.
“Hahaha! Little brat! Now you understand—on this execution ground, who’s truly holding the whip!”
This—was one of Gaskina’s Gold-rank abilities:
“Tyrant of Torment.”
Gaskina could frame any battle as an act of torture. In every session of torment, there was always a torturer and a victim.
And this power—reversed the roles.
In battle, so long as one side inflicted pain upon the other, the battlefield became, for Gaskina, an execution ground. The moment pain was caused—whether through injury or affliction—a hidden and special link was established between the two combatants: that of torturer and victim.
Within this connection, Gaskina had full authority to freely shift roles between the two sides. Once she designated herself as the torturer, she would cease to feel pain entirely—while the victim would bear all of it. The pain inflicted upon either party—even upon allies or enemies nearby—could all be funneled into a single designated target. In a large-scale melee, Gaskina could declare one person the sole victim, making them absorb all the suffering triggered by combat, regardless of its source.
Empowered by her divine enhancements, this ability gained an added delay mechanic—allowing her to store the victim’s pain and release it all at once, accumulating agony over a span of time and concentrating it in a single explosive wave.
In other words, from the very beginning of her battle with Artcheli, Gaskina had assigned herself the role of torturer, and Artcheli as the victim. Every injury and agony Gaskina sustained should have been felt by Artcheli. But to prevent Artcheli from catching on and adapting, Gaskina had instead delayed the pain transfer, storing it for later. She even acted out the pain to deceive her opponent, all in order to amass enough agony to shatter Artcheli's psyche in a single blow—just as she did now.
To mislead Artcheli further, Gaskina made sure to fight seriously, showing no signs of self-harm or deliberate damage taken.
While this ability bore some resemblance to certain Commandment Path doctrines, it was fundamentally different. This was not damage reflection, but manipulation and redistribution of pain—making delayed release possible. The pain she released wasn’t damage in a physical sense, but pain alone, though such overwhelming suffering was enough to break a person’s mind. Even against beings that could not naturally feel pain, Gaskina’s divine enhancements could impose the concept of pain itself.
With just one successful retaliation, Gaskina had won the battle against Artcheli.
…
When the thick fog had just begun to seep from the Dreamscape—and the veil between dream and reality grew thin—Gu Mian, leader of the Blackdream, had returned to the material world and now soared above the mist-shrouded Tivian.
But he wasn’t the only one to return from the Dreamscape.
There was another dreadful, monstrous presence—one that had not ceased its hunt, even after crossing into the waking world.
“ROOOAAR!!”
Spreading massive wings, Dorothy, still in the form of the Dream Dragon Paarthurnax, flew high over Tivian, pursuing her prey without pause.
The moment Gu Mian escaped during the Dreamscape's rift opening, Dorothy had given chase. Now that she understood Blackdream’s true objective, she had immediately contacted Vania, asking her to try and stop the Holy Mount Cardinals from acting rashly. But she held little faith in their willingness to listen. Although she had given Vania a fabricated but verifiable story—courtesy of Artcheli—she couldn’t be sure it would be enough.
So, Dorothy didn’t place all her hopes on Vania. She chose to act directly—by hunting Gu Mian down.
According to the black cat, once the mist was dispersed and the Sacred Cocoon appeared, Gu Mian would need to come into direct contact with the cocoon to awaken the Moth within. If Dorothy could kill him first, even if Vania failed and the fog dispersed, the awakening could still be stopped.
Thus, after crossing into the waking world, Dorothy remained in her dragon form and relentlessly pursued him. The mist now blanketing Tivian wasn’t too dense—thankfully—and she could still track Gu Mian.
Her method? The fragment of the Moon Crown she held.
The Crown had the power to manipulate mist—and with control came perception. Gu Mian, attempting to escape without becoming lost, was using his two Moon Crown fragments to disperse the fog around him. Dorothy only needed to detect any unnaturally cleared patches of fog to find his location.
Both of them had entered the waking world at the same time and place. Dorothy quickly locked onto his position—and pursued him without pause.
Gu Mian, clutching his fragments, could also feel the approach of another bearer of the Moon Crown—the dragon was tracking him through his mist manipulation. At this rate, she’d catch up quickly. He was growing increasingly desperate.
“Damn that spider-headed freak! Didn’t we agree that once the mist crossed into reality, she’d use a ritual to signal me? Where the hell is she!?”
Gu Mian cursed inwardly. According to their plan, Gaskina was supposed to perform a Moon Crown Summoning Rite as soon as the mist touched the real world, guiding his fragments toward her. Then they could regroup and roam freely through Tivian’s fog using their Moon Crown pieces.
Ever since he entered Tivian, Gu Mian had been waiting for Gaskina’s signal. Once he found her, she could help handle the dragon. But now—nothing. He didn’t yet realize that Gaskina had become entangled in battle with Artcheli, unable to free herself.
Without her aid, and with the dragon closing in, panic surged in Gu Mian’s heart. Only one idea presented itself.
“There's no other way…”
As he prepared to make a difficult decision, Dorothy soared faster than ever, guided by the Moon Crown toward the disturbance ahead. Finally, she caught up—breaking into a pocket of cleared fog where her prey should be.
She roared, dove in—and then paused.
There was no Gu Mian.
Instead, she found a large white moth. With a swipe of her claw, she shattered it, scattering a gust of wind and white powder. Two black jades fell to the ground—Moon Crown fragments. Dorothy caught them.
“This was... a decoy. He wrapped the fragments in a derivative construct to bait us!”
The black cat’s projection beside her growled.
Gu Mian had known exactly how she was tracking him. So in a desperate gambit, he used both fragments to create a false trail—while he abandoned all fog-clearing measures and deliberately became lost in the mist.
This was his only escape route.
If he had simply shut down one fragment and vanished, Dorothy might have seen through the ploy and guessed his general area—still possibly catching him. But by using both fragments—whose mist signatures differed from a single one—he ensured she wouldn’t suspect the trick. He had sacrificed his only tools of orientation for a brief window of safety.
And that short window… was all he needed.
“Quite a price to pay…”
Dorothy murmured, gazing at the two fragments now in her claw.
Just as she prepared to use all three Moon Crown fragments to scour the city and locate Gu Mian—
A sudden change.
From the heavens, the holy sunlight of the Sun Wheel poured down, driving back the fog. Under its radiance, the mist blanketing Tivian was peeled away, and the city re-emerged into view.
And in that moment—Dorothy’s eyes locked on a figure soaring upward from the opposite end of the city.
Wings outstretched.
Gu Mian.
He was flying straight toward the illusory silhouette of the Dreamscape’s forest, faintly projected above Tivian. The divine light that illuminated the city also shone upon the Misty Domain, whose boundary with reality had already thinned. Even the deeper fog within that dreamland projection began to scatter.
And as the light pushed deeper—
A massive white cocoon, suspended between colossal dreamtrees, began to reveal itself.
Gu Mian flew straight for it.
As he approached, his body began to resonate with the cocoon. He glowed with a strange radiance, swelling in size—undergoing a transformation Dorothy had never seen before. His very existence was changing.
“O Moth… I have come…”
Soaring toward that lofty place—toward the Sacred Cocoon suspended in the dreamlit sky—Gu Mian began his final pilgrimage.