Across the ocean, Starfall Continent.
In the mysterious and primeval sacred land of Shamanism—the Ancestral Valley, deep within the western interior of the continent—the long-simmering tension finally reached its sharpest point. Now, under the gaze of all, it erupted.
Late at night, at the center of the Ancestral Valley, in the now-halted Great Wild Rite, countless grotesque and deformed evil spirits were rampaging wildly through the sacred land, attacking all living things. The shamans were doing their utmost, wielding their powers to resist the seemingly endless tide of evil spirits pouring out from the Nether Realm.
From the forests in all directions, vast numbers of wild spirits surged in to join the battle, assisting the shamans in resisting the assault. These bestial wild spirits efficiently tore apart the evil spirits' forms, causing them to dissolve with agonized wails. Thanks to their superior spiritual essence, the arrival of the wild spirits quickly turned the tide. The rampaging spirits were being brought under control, and the situation gradually improved.
However… that was only how it appeared.
At this level of confrontation, the overall outcome would not be determined by how well the lower-rank battle progressed. What truly mattered was the high-ranking clash. And in this regard, the shamans now faced an enormous unknown.
With grim expressions, the True Spirit Shaman, floating mid-air, along with the three Great Shamans who had just regained their composure, stared unblinkingly at the summoning array in the sky that was rapidly dissipating, focusing on the entity that had emerged from it.
It was—shockingly—a floating mass of white powder in the night sky. Fine and dry… like bone dust. This white powder was the only thing that had emerged from the array. At this moment, it was quickly condensing toward a central point, forming a more solid shape.
In the blink of an eye, the floating white dust coalesced into a pale skeletal frame. It looked like a typical human skeleton. As it fully materialized, ghostly green soul-flames ignited in its hollow eye sockets. A translucent robe and crown began to manifest over it, gradually solidifying.
It was a set of archbishop's vestments in the distinct style of the Radiance Church—ancient, tattered, but still unmistakably regal. The skeletal figure wore these robes, marked by torn holes and rotting threads, as though it had been unearthed from some ancient crypt. A noble yet decayed presence. Its broken crown rested atop its skull. It stared down upon all beneath with its unreadable hollow eyes.
“Expel the evil spirit!”
Frowning, the True Spirit Shaman immediately invoked necromantic banishment, attempting to drive this undead entity—summoned by Kudoshum—out of the physical world. Waves of spiritual light surrounded the skeletal bishop’s form, as the shaman’s power enveloped it, trying to force it back into the Nether Realm.
Yet, the bishop’s soul force was too immense. The banishment had no effect. Even as the True Spirit Shaman exerted full strength, the skeletal bishop remained completely unmoved.
“Support the True Spirit Shaman!”
Seeing the danger, the three Great Shamans, having just regained their composure, quickly followed the lead. Together, they channeled their power to support the expulsion. Behind them, over a hundred ordinary shamans—recently freed from battling the evil spirits thanks to the wild spirits—also joined in, targeting the skeletal bishop with coordinated banishment spells.
Under the combined force of so many shamans, progress seemed to be made. Around the bishop, faint distortions began to appear. A sign that the Nether Realm was starting to reconnect. It seemed they might truly be able to banish the bishop from this realm.
Just then, the skeletal bishop silently turned its head. After glancing down upon the ritual site, it slowly extended its bony hand and made a beckoning motion.
In an instant, all the ordinary shamans supporting the True Spirit Shaman felt a surge of unbearable soul-level pain and discomfort. They cried out and collapsed, their souls forcibly wrenched from their bodies and drawn toward the bishop in the form of ghostly flames.
Even the three Great Shamans collapsed to their knees under the bishop's influence. Their souls, too, were being painfully pulled from their bodies, and they struggled with all their might to resist.
Realizing the bishop meant to annihilate the core strength of the Shamanic Church in one sweep, the True Spirit Shaman urgently redirected focus to the soul-flames flying through the air. Exerting great effort, he forcibly stabilized them, pulling the ghostly lights back into their bodies.
Seeing this, the skeletal bishop turned his focus toward the True Spirit Shaman, extending his desiccated hand. His gaze fixed, and he clenched his fingers downward.
A terrible curse descended. The True Spirit Shaman's spiritual body seemed seized by an invisible giant hand—twisting and crushing it until it collapsed into a swirl of shimmering spiritual dust, drifting into the air.
While the shamans below stared in terror, that spiritual dust suddenly began to gather once again, rapidly reforming the True Spirit Shaman’s figure. However, his soul appeared dimmer than before, and his expression was grim.
“All forces… terminate the Great Wild Rite. Evacuate the site immediately!”
The True Spirit Shaman’s soul-speech resounded across the entire battlefield. All the shamans, including the three Great Shamans and those who had just returned to their bodies, quickly stood and began to flee, abandoning their posts and retreating from the ritual grounds.
With their departure, the paused Great Wild Rite began to show signs of collapse. Seeing this, the skeletal bishop turned his gaze toward the fleeing shamans, clearly intending to enslave their souls and drag them back to the ritual.
Having anticipated this, the True Spirit Shaman acted swiftly. With a wave of his hand, the earth surrounding the ritual ground began to shake violently. Amid the tremors, the earth cracked, and soil and rock fused to form a colossal ten-meter-tall stone hand. It rose from the ground and reached toward the sky, grasping toward the skeletal bishop.
“Spirits of the earth—fight with me! Defend the sacred land!”
Facing the oncoming earthen hand, the skeletal bishop remained expressionless. He grasped the air, and under a surge of curse power, the hand instantly shattered.
But the True Spirit Shaman was not done.
Even as the first stone hand was destroyed, his will spread across the battlefield. With even greater tremors, more stone hands began to rise from the land—dozens, then hundreds—forming from soil and rock and reaching from every direction, surging toward the skeletal bishop.
Faced with the onslaught of massive earthen stone hands coming at him from all directions, the skeletal bishop continuously unleashed curses, shattering them one after another. In midair, hand after hand exploded into rubble and rained to the ground. However, there were simply too many of them. He couldn’t destroy them all in time, and his space to maneuver grew increasingly narrow under the relentless assault.
Just then, a pale blue barrier shimmered around the skeletal bishop. As he gave a slight shake of his tattered robes, the barrier rippled outward in a wave. When the wave touched the incoming stone hands, they were instantly frozen into ice blocks, which then shattered and fell to the ground as shards of ice.
At that moment, the True Spirit Shaman once again raised his hand. The surrounding earth surged, forming even more stone hands to strike the skeletal bishop. But just as he prepared to respond with another icy ripple, the True Spirit Shaman pointed skyward—where, at some unknown point, a dense cluster of pitch-black storm clouds had gathered.
“Answer me—spirits of the sky!”
Boom!
At his high cry, the black clouds above erupted with a deafening clap of thunder. A thick bolt of lightning split the heavens and struck down with precision, hitting the skeletal bishop just as he was conjuring the freezing wave. The impact made his form tremble, interrupting his movements. The wave of cold energy vanished instantly.
Seizing the opening, the next wave of stone hands surged toward the skeletal bishop. Two grabbed him tightly, and more and more piled on, layer by layer, until they formed a massive sphere tens of meters wide, sealing the skeletal bishop at its center.
“Seal!”
As the True Spirit Shaman chanted, vines and roots burst forth from the earth and wrapped tightly around the stone sphere. Glowing runes appeared on the surface, signifying the brewing of a powerful sealing spell.
Within this prison, the skeletal bishop was unable to break free immediately. The seal seemed to be working.
But then, Kudoshum acted.
Having successfully summoned the skeletal bishop, Kudoshum had already begun preparing the next summoning. As the True Spirit Shaman moved to seal the bishop, Kudoshum unleashed his next move.
“Sanctum of the Ossuary!”
Placing both hands on the ground, his vast spirituality spread through the space. A massive illusion began to manifest, transforming the sacred land of the shamans into a different, eerie scene.
It was a vast cathedral, hundreds of meters tall—magnificent and otherworldly. Though resembling a Radiance-style sacred chapel, it was constructed entirely of chilling bone. Enormous pillars were stacked neatly from countless bones. Skulls formed concentric ring chandeliers above, and the murals on the walls were masterfully arranged from various remains, depicting scenes of helpless people dying in all kinds of horrific ways. On both sides stood rows of marble sarcophagi, and at the altar was a giant throne of bones—its seat ominously empty.
This was the tomb-sanctum where the skeletal bishop resided. By summoning its spiritual domain into this world, the bishop’s power ascended to a new level.
Silently, the vines and plants wrapped around the stone sphere withered and crumbled. The massive stone prison rapidly began to weather and disintegrate, falling away as crumbled debris.
Eventually, as the last of the prison shattered, the skeletal bishop reappeared midair. This time, his soul-flame burned even brighter, and his body was surrounded by writhing shadows of wailing, struggling souls. Countless black markings spread across his pale bones.
“Guardian of the Soul Path… Is that all the strength you possess?”
He spoke in a hoarse voice, gazing at the distant True Spirit Shaman. The shaman, feeling the elevated and malevolent power now emanating from the bishop, responded with a solemn tone.
“A servant… of the Evil Spirit?”
Confronting the skeletal bishop, now freed once more, the True Spirit Shaman took a deep breath, then raised his voice to the sky and earth.
“Great Spirits! All Spirits! Ancestors! Grant me your protection! Spirits of the heavens and earth—unite with me!”
At his call, the entire Ancestral Valley shook with violent tremors. The earth twisted and deformed like clay, gathering toward one place. Simultaneously, lightning flashed and thunder roared in the skies above. Fierce winds swept through the valley. Gales are howling across every corner. In that moment, it was as though the entire world was crying out in rage.
The intense quake finally caused the already crumbling Great Wild Rite to fully collapse. Seeing this, Kudoshum diverted part of his strength to stabilize the ritual. It was a difficult task. Thankfully, the skeletal bishop also took action, helping Kudoshum suppress the turmoil in the earth beneath the ritual, preventing the ceremony from falling apart completely.
The wind howled. The earth screamed.
At that moment, the Ancestral Valley and everything around it responded to the True Spirit Shaman’s summons in the most violent way.
In the heart of the tremors, where the land twisted and converged, a massive figure began to rise. Similar to the previous stone hands, but this time, it was a full stone giant!
This towering guardian of earth and stone stood over 200 meters tall. Its clothing was woven from thick vines and brambles, shaped like a traditional Starfall warrior’s attire. In its hand, it wielded a giant stone spear over 300 meters long. As the giant stood firmly upon the sacred land of the Ancestral Valley, black clouds descended from above and circled around it. Lightning crackled within those clouds, and a storm gathered at the tip of the spear, forming a whirling vortex of lightning and wind.
As the guardian formed, the aged soul-body of the True Spirit Shaman flew into it, merging completely.
The True Spirit Shaman was not only the highest-ranking shaman in the present world. He was also the guardian of the sacred land, the Ancestral Valley. Every True Spirit Shaman in history had merged their soul with the land itself, becoming one of its wild spirits.
In essence, the True Spirit Shaman was the supreme embodiment of the wild spirit.
The True Spirit Shaman was also the wild spirit of the Ancestral Valley. Once he fully released himself and merged with the sacred land, he could command every natural force within it as if they were his own limbs. Whether it was vegetation, stone, thunder, or storm. Even though he was not an elemental summoner, as a spirit of nature he could simultaneously wield many types of nature power.
"Return to your shadowy grave… servant of the Great Evil Spirit!"
Now embodied as the sacred land’s guardian giant, the True Spirit Shaman bellowed furiously at the skeletal bishop. His roar was echoed by the heavens. Lightning rained down from the clouds, striking at both the bishop and Kudoshum, who was maintaining the ritual below. Simultaneously, fierce cyclones formed around the skeletal bishop, rapidly escalating into a whirling tornado that enclosed the bishop and the entire Great Wild Rite, attempting to annihilate them.
Storm and lightning—wild elemental forces surged at the bishop under the True Spirit Shaman’s command. But just as the storms rose and the lightning was about to strike, everything abruptly ceased. The storm halted, the lightning vanished, and the violent fury turned calm in an instant.
This was the effect of a divine power the skeletal bishop now wielded. After the Nether Coffin Order’s plan in Stinam had nearly collapsed and Kramar’s half-soul escaped, the bishop had reclaimed much of the divinity previously channeled into the Forgetting Curse. That divine power had originally come from him, and as one of the highest authorities under the King of the Underworld, he had near-total control.
Withering Breath—this was the skeletal bishop’s new application of that divinity. He created a boundary around himself and the Great Wild Rite. Anything that passed through it would rapidly decay: plants withered, stone weathered, storms died, and even lightning—brief as it was—fizzled into nothing upon contact. The bishop was using this Withering Breath to ensure the ritual remained intact.
After neutralizing the True Spirit Shaman’s first assault, the skeletal bishop retaliated. He extended his hand and made a crushing gesture toward the distant giant. With immense curse power, he caused the guardian’s massive form to shatter violently, its soul fragmenting along with it.
Yet only a second after the collapse, the scattered fragments began to reassemble. The giant quickly returned to its original form, soul and all.
Now sustained by the entire sacred land, the True Spirit Shaman’s soul had spread across every inch of it. His form could be composed from any part of the land. Destroying a single avatar was far from enough to destroy him.
With his form restored in an instant, the True Spirit Shaman drove the giant forward, spear in hand, charging at the skeletal bishop and the ritual he guarded. With thunderous, earth-shaking steps, he reached the bishop and thrust the colossal spear with immense force.
As the stone spear met the boundary of Withering Breath, the storm surrounding it dissipated rapidly, and the spear itself began to crumble. But the True Spirit Shaman, master of the sacred land, was not easily deterred. As the storm faded, he summoned another from the sky to wrap around the spear again. When the tip shattered, he formed new stone to extend the shaft further. The spear lengthened continuously, enabling the giant to keep stabbing forward.
For a moment, the battle entered a stalemate. Though the skeletal bishop wielded divine authority, the True Spirit Shaman had vast spiritual resources from the sacred land to match him in endurance. This kind of attrition wasn’t something the bishop had planned for.
Trying a different tactic, the skeletal bishop waved his hand and unleashed another power. An invisible wave of cold spread through the air, and massive ice crystals began forming spontaneously. These quickly shaped into enormous skeletal frames—five or six towering frostbone skeletons, each 70–80 meters tall. They wielded massive polearms, swords, and other oversized weapons. The moment they were fully formed, they rushed to attack the giant.
Facing these slightly smaller foes, the guardian giant initially ignored them and kept pressing his attack on the bishop. But when their blows landed and frost began to spread across his body, he sensed something was wrong. He broke off his attack and swept the frostbone skeletons aside with a wide slash of his weapon, shattering them. Yet, the shattered bones quickly reformed, rebuilding themselves into new frostbone giants.
The guardian giant now grew cautious. Though the frozen parts of his body had been replaced and no longer showed frost, the True Spirit Shaman discovered to his alarm that a portion of his soul—shared with the sacred land—had been forcibly frozen, and he couldn’t undo it.
These frostbone skeletons had been enchanted by the skeletal bishop with a portion of divine power. Their weapons could inflict an irreversible soul freeze on anything they struck, including spirits. While the True Spirit Shaman’s body could regenerate with the land’s help, frozen soul fragments could not be restored so easily. He would have to face these skeletons with care. One misstep, and his entire soul could be locked in ice.
Meanwhile, having temporarily forced the guardian giant to retreat, the skeletal bishop looked toward the struggling Great Wild Rite. It was nearly complete but still required a final moment. With all the shamans driven out and his attempts to enslave their souls thwarted, continuing the ritual wouldn’t be easy. A price had to be paid.
“Kudoshum… I grant you my Lord’s power… Soul Fracture.”
Without hesitation, the bishop separated another portion of divine power and delivered it to Kudoshum, who was still maintaining the sanctum and ritual.
Kudoshum, receiving the divine force, gritted his teeth.
“Understood.”
Though not a high-rank divine vessel, Kudoshum endured the excruciating pain that came with divine power and used it to fracture his own soul into more than one part.
Countless afterimages flew from him, spreading outward and forming dozens of soul-duplicates, each a perfect copy of himself. These were fragments of Kudoshum’s own soul.
With divine aid, he created over a hundred duplicates and placed each at the original positions of the departed shamans. He himself took the True Spirit Shaman’s former position and began conducting the ritual.
“Hear me… O great one from the ancient days… once more, heed the call…”
The rhythmic chanting once more rose over the ritual grounds. Kudoshum alone had resumed the Great Wild Rite. Though this method of splitting one’s soul to forcibly conduct a large-scale ritual was immensely taxing—especially for someone of limited divine affinity—thankfully, the ritual required only a little more to be completed. He only had to finish what was left.
Seeing the ritual restart, the guardian giant launched a renewed assault to stop it. But the skeletal bishop immediately deployed his powers and commanded the frostbone skeletons to intercept, blocking the giant’s attack. Under the bishop’s multi-layered protection, Kudoshum calmly advanced the final phase of the ritual.
…
"That is… it really is…"
Within the Ancestral Valley, not far from the battlefield and standing quietly amidst the woods, Nephthys—wearing an illusionary version of the Church’s high ceremonial robes—stared into the distance, her gaze fixed on the skeletal bishop clashing against the True Spirit Shaman in the skies above.
As she focused on the bishop, the half-soul of Kramar residing within her gasped in disbelief.
Nephthys, hearing this, asked curiously.
"That bony guy up there is dressed a lot like you. Was he part of the Church in life? Wait, do you know him?"
She posed the question directly to Kramar, who remained silent for a moment, deep in thought, before finally replying in a grave tone.
"It’s… hard to say for certain. But I have a hypothesis. It sounds ridiculous, but it may actually be correct… and if it is… it’s terrifying."
Kramar muttered solemnly within Nephthys’s mind.
"A hypothesis? What kind of hypothesis? Does it have to do with that bone bishop? Tell me! Can it be verified?"
Nephthys pressed further, speaking frankly.
After a short pause, Kramar responded.
"It can be verified…"
As Kramar took control of Nephthys’s body, she raised her head toward the distant sky where the skeletal bishop loomed. Then, when she opened her mouth again, her voice was deep and commanding.
"You—sinner of immeasurable guilt! A traitor unforgivable by the heavens! One of the greatest stains in the thousand-year history of the Holy Church!
"Fabrizio—former Inquisition Cardinal! A heretic who should’ve been consumed in the cleansing flames of sin! Your very existence is a concentration of evil!
“In the name of Saint Kramar, I sentence you to the ultimate punishment!"
Through Nephthys’s mouth, Kramar proclaimed a soul-verdict that echoed across the heavens. As the sacred name resounded, something immediately happened around the skeletal bishop.
Spikes of iron appeared out of nowhere, impaling his form and nailing him in place mid-air. At the same time, searing soul-flames ignited on his body, engulfing him in a fierce blaze that continued to expand.
"A sacred name verdict… how nostalgic…"
Despite being bound and engulfed in flames, the skeletal bishop didn’t appear fazed. While still controlling the frostbone skeletons that fought the guardian giant in the distance, he calmly pulled out an object from his sleeve.
It was an ancient scroll.
"The Scroll of Logos…"
Amidst the soul-flames, the skeletal bishop unfurled the scroll—covered in dense writing in the main continent language, adorned everywhere with symbols of the Radiance Church. Holding it up, he began to recite loudly.
"The burdens of doctrine bind the body and obscure the Lord’s true will. Dogma is a lie crafted by false intermediaries.
"In the name of Saint Kramar, I hereby absolve Fabrizio of all charges, granting him highest absolution—freedom from all bondage, to pursue true divine will."
As his words rang out, the nails pinning him vanished, and the flames burning him rapidly receded, until they disappeared completely.
Below, Kramar was stunned.
"That sinner… he actually left himself a pardon!"
Fabrizio—the skeletal bishop—had once served as an Inquisition Cardinal, one of the Church’s Seven Living Saints. A few centuries ago, he held the name of Saint Kramar.
Perhaps foreseeing that he would one day betray the Church and confront Kramar, Fabrizio had used a rare mystical item, the Scroll of Logos, to record a divine pardon in advance while he still bore the Saint’s name. Even after losing it, the scroll retained the power of the recorded declaration.
Now, Fabrizio had activated the self-recorded absolution written centuries prior, wiping away all Radiance Church charges and granting himself an extended period of immunity. The sentence Kramar had imposed was instantly nullified.
Having freed himself, Fabrizio turned his gaze toward the source of the proclamation—Nephthys. He stretched out a hand, and the air around her plummeted in temperature. Frost instantly coated the ground and her body, encasing her in ice, locking her in place.
But that wasn’t all.
While suppressing Nephthys’s movement, Fabrizio unleashed a powerful soul-pull, attempting to rip the soul of Kramar from her body. Nephthys felt herself losing control.
"No… no, this is bad…"
Just as it seemed Kramar’s soul would be forcibly torn out, the guardian giant arrived. Controlled by the True Spirit Shaman, it leapt high, broke free of the frostbone skeletons, and landed between Nephthys and Fabrizio with a thunderous quake.
The impact shattered the frost imprisoning her. Protected by her resilient body, Nephthys broke free.
"Fall back."
The True Spirit Shaman spoke softly. Then, controlling the giant once more, he charged at Fabrizio. Fabrizio responded instantly, commanding the frostbone skeletons to assist—thus beginning another clash. The earth quaked, and the souls roared once again.
"Huff… huff… that was close. I almost lost it there. Your sacred law… didn’t work on him at all?"
As Nephthys flew backward and caught her breath, she spoke to Kramar within her.
Kramar replied heavily.
"That man… Fabrizio… was a great sinner of the Church from centuries ago. One of my predecessors.
"While still bearing the Saint’s name, he used the Scroll of Logos to craft a safeguard for himself… With my current power, I can no longer affect him…
"For years, we’ve only confirmed the identities of two of the Nether Coffin Order’s three Death Lords. The last one, the leader of them all, known as the Silent Bishop… we’ve had no concrete information.
"And now… to think his true identity was that."
"One of your predecessors, huh… So that means there’s more than one Church Saint who defected to a heretical cult. Jeez… Why is it that every ex-Saint who joins a cult ends up as a big boss?"
Nephthys couldn’t help but mutter, remembering Unina from Busalet.
Kramar sighed.
"This isn’t the time for philosophical debates. The priority now is stopping the cult from completing that ritual.
"It’s protected by divine barriers. The native shamans here—though powerful—can’t breach it alone. And my sacred law is useless against him right now…
"So… tell me. Does your backer have a plan?"
Kramar, slightly impatient, questioned Nephthys. She blinked in surprise at how eager he was to rely on Dorothy, then mentally offered a prayer, asking if Dorothy had any solutions.
Soon, Dorothy responded.
"Mm, I’ve been watching your situation through both your and Kapak’s perspective.
"I did suspect the Nether Coffin Order’s third Gold-rank, but I didn’t expect it to be this difficult…
"Still, don’t worry. Although Fabrizio is similar to Unina in some ways, I can tell he’s not as powerful. His divine power is limited and split across tasks. That’s our opportunity.
"In short, he’s easier to deal with than Unina. I’ve already begun working on a countermeasure. I’ll mark a location. Rendezvous there. We need to coordinate our final plans."
Dorothy’s voice echoed calmly in Nephthys’s heart.
She paused, then thought with relief.
“So Miss Dorothy is already planning… That’s reassuring. With her around, nothing’s impossible. A divine Gold-rank? We’ve handled that before…”
Comforted, Nephthys flew swiftly toward the designated location. Upon arrival, she found many figures already gathered. Most were shamans who had retreated from the battlefield. The three Great Shamans were also present.
"The Tupa clan’s elders have spoken with us at length. Foreigner… we follow the True Spirit Shaman’s orders. We’ll aid you with all our strength."
One of the three Great Shamans stepped forward to greet her. Among the crowd, Nephthys also saw familiar faces—Kapak and his mentor Uta, along with the souls of Harald and Rachman nearby. Seeing her arrive, Kapak grinned and said,
"Miss Thief! You’re finally here! We’re more or less ready. Let’s begin!"
"Tch… I thought I could sit this one out. What a pain…"
"Miss Boyle, the Nether Coffin Order is a dire threat to our homeland. I will give it everything I’ve got."
Seeing all the people gathered, Nephthys quietly let out a breath of relief.
And within her, Kramar watched curiously.
“Could this strange collection of souls… actually do something in a battle involving divinity?”
…
In the heart of the Starfall Continent, within the Ancestral Valley, the battle between Fabrizio and the True Spirit Shaman continued. Their clash shook the land, and at the periphery of that tremorous battlefield, it seemed no mortal could intervene. But now, Nephthys and her allies were preparing to re-enter the fray.
On an open clearing near the battlefield, over a hundred ordinary shamans had gathered, led by the three Great Shamans. Together, they formed a grand ritual array. At its center were two focal points.
One was Nephthys, seated cross-legged and still channeling the soul of Kramar. In front of her stood a cold, sealed ice coffin.
“Soul Invocation…”
With the three Great Shamans leading, a new soul ritual began. Countless shamans released shimmering light, which converged onto Nephthys—or rather, the Kramar half-soul within her.
The Shamanic Path held the most direct and powerful authority over souls. Not only could it summon, banish, and console spirits, it could also enhance them, allowing summoned souls to manifest with far greater strength.
Now, with three Great Shamans and countless regular shamans joining in, they began strengthening the half-soul of Kramar. Under this overwhelming boost, his soul power surged dramatically, and the force he projected through Nephthys rose rapidly as well.
Despite this surge in strength, Kramar did not aim his judgment at Fabrizio. No, the target of this divine judgment was the ice coffin before them.
“Leader of heretics… sinner of grand betrayal… bringer of harm to the mortal realm… your crimes are irrefutable…
“In the name of Saint Kramar, I hereby sentence you to eternal confinement and torment!
“Term: seventy million years!”
The moment Nephthys—channeling Kramar—declared the verdict, a phantom began to materialize around the coffin. It quickly took solid form and wrapped around it.
A towering, terrifying Iron Maiden appeared. Its hollow torso opened, swallowed the ice coffin whole, and sealed shut—imprisoning it.
This Iron Maiden was the physical manifestation of Kramar’s sacred law judgment. It acted as a prison, swallowing the condemned and locking them away for the sentence of seventy million years.
Once the coffin was sealed, the Eastern Great Shaman closed his eyes and sent a soul-message to the True Spirit Shaman in the middle of the battle.
“All is ready. Begin.”
Receiving the signal, the True Spirit Shaman responded immediately. Controlling the guardian giant, he abandoned the frostbone skeletons, threw off defense, and launched a fierce assault on Fabrizio!
He ignored the frost-enchanted weapons piercing his body, disregarded the soul-freezing damage spreading through him, and charged the ritual grounds once more. As he attacked, countless stone hands erupted from the earth to aid him, storms surged again above the ritual, and lightning struck down in a storm of coordinated aggression aimed at Fabrizio and the ritual circle below.
Yet all of it—every bolt, gust, and strike—was undone by the Withering Barrier.
The storms stilled, the thunder vanished, stone crumbled to dust, and plant life withered. An invisible decay devoured everything that entered the barrier. Nothing could break through it—until, from the crumbled remains of one shattered stone fist, something large fell through.
It was the Iron Maiden.
Brought in by the stone hand, the Iron Maiden began rusting the moment it touched the barrier. But unlike the rocks and plants, it decayed slowly—far more resistant.
Why? Because this was the materialized holy judgment of Saint Kramar. According to the sentence, the Iron Maiden had a "lifespan" matching the sentence—seventy million years. Until that time expired, it would not easily break, and its prisoner would suffer eternal torment.
Such an absurdly long sentence was not something an Inquisition Cardinal would normally give, since most only served for a few centuries, and if their successor didn’t continue the sentence, it would be meaningless. But this situation was different: under the Withering Barrier, millions of years of decay occurred in an instant.
Thus, even the Iron Maiden began to corrode rapidly.
Still, its slow rate of decay allowed it to break through the Withering Barrier before it was destroyed. As the Iron Maiden crumbled, the ice coffin inside burst open within the barrier.
Fabrizio’s divine power—already split three ways—was insufficient to fully reinforce the barrier’s strength.
From the shattered coffin flew dozens of tiny creatures—birds, squirrels, monkeys, wildcats. The moment they escaped, they shrieked and rapidly transformed, their bodies swelling in midair into fearsome forms.
Before being sealed, each creature had been implanted with genetic bombs developed by Rachman and delivered through Nephthys. Upon thawing, these triggered an instant evolutionary reversion or divergence, forcing each animal into its most ferocious possible form on their genetic family tree.
Birds became dinosaurs. Monkeys became giant apes. Wildcats turned into tigers and panthers.
Suddenly, a storm of predators of all sizes fell from the sky, targeting the ritual site below!
At this moment, the Great Wild Rite had entered its final phase. Kudoshum, whose soul had been split into many fragments, was operating the ritual. His duplicates were spread across the circle. Even without intent to destroy, those falling beasts—some massive dinosaurs—could crush his fragile soul-splits and severely damage the ritual.
"What?!"
Shocked, Fabrizio acted immediately. But now he had to be extremely precise. The beasts were already right above the ritual. A misstep would damage the entire array.
He couldn’t use soul extraction—killing their spirits would still leave heavy corpses to fall.
He couldn’t use elemental attacks—too uncontrollable. Even freezing them would create deadly falling ice blocks.
So he chose the most conservative solution: curse-killing. He would obliterate the beasts in midair—reducing them to mist and gore—minimizing impact.
He acted at once.
With a glance, he locked onto each descending beast, using their visible forms as curse mediums. As he clenched his skeletal fingers, their bodies contorted—shrinking, twisting—and exploded into clouds of blood mist in midair.
As they died, the beasts devolved back into their original forms: dinosaurs to birds, tigers to cats. But one stood out—
A giant ape regressed into a monkey, and then—unexpectedly—transformed into a human.
A fully-grown adult man. Just before his body twisted into blood mist, his face became visible.
It was the face of Kudoshum.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!!"
At the moment his physical body was curse-killed, Kudoshum, who remained in spiritual form at the ritual’s center, howled in unimaginable pain. The cry tore through the air. One after another, his soul fragments began to disintegrate into nothingness.
Fabrizio’s expression turned to shock.
"What’s happening?!"
The answer: when he cursed the human-form beast—Kudoshum’s original body—his powerful death curse, which targeted both flesh and soul, had traveled through the body straight into Kudoshum’s true soul.
To infiltrate the Great Wild Rite, Kudoshum had possessed Pasadiko’s body, while his own physical form was hidden and guarded by his subordinates. But now, with all three Crimson-rank guards slain, his body had been left unprotected.
When the True Spirit Shaman merged his soul with the Ancestral Valley, he naturally sensed the unguarded corpse.
Meanwhile, as soon as the situation turned critical, Dorothy had already dispatched Kapak toward the ritual grounds. On the way, he encountered the retreating shamans, and through them, Dorothy established contact. Especially with the True Spirit Shaman.
Under the circumstances, the shaman decisively agreed to cooperate. Dorothy, in return, obtained intelligence on Kudoshum’s hidden body and quickly retrieved it.
Then, Dorothy laid a subtle trap for Fabrizio.
First, she had Nephthys channel Rachman and use his power to transform Kudoshum’s body into a monkey, while taking care to preserve both the stabilizing spirituality and the genetic bomb planted within it. Next, she had Harald seal that monkey, along with all the other animals implanted with genetic bombs, together inside Kramar’s Iron Maiden. During this phase, both Rachman’s and Kramar’s souls had been dramatically enhanced by the shamans, significantly boosting their abilities.
From there, everything unfolded simply.
Dorothy instructed the True Spirit Shaman to launch a large-scale assault on Fabrizio, allowing the Iron Maiden to be smuggled into the barrage and breach the Withering Barrier. Then, the genetic bombs inside the animals detonated, causing them to mutate into giant beasts. Fabrizio, reacting instinctively, used his curse-kill ability to eliminate them from the air, unknowingly targeting Kudoshum’s disguised monkey body among them.
Fabrizio’s curse was one that killed both body and soul, a fact Dorothy had confirmed with the True Spirit Shaman beforehand. That meant any curse inflicted on the body would also transfer directly to the soul, making it far more devastating than merely killing someone physically. Thanks to this dual-kill mechanism, Kudoshum’s soul crumbled alongside his body.
“Aaaaahhhhhh…”
Amid diminishing wails, Kudoshum’s soul began to disintegrate, fading into nothing in midair. Along with him, the tomb and the Great Wild Rite that he had been maintaining also began to collapse.
Witnessing the rapid decay of the bone chapel and the unraveling of the ritual, the skeletal bishop’s emotionless face betrayed no expression—but in his eyes, the ghostly soul-flames burned ever colder, filled with a furious rage that seeped into the surrounding frost.
Sensing the shamans and foreigners beyond the barrier, the bishop—now seething with fury—longed to unleash his full strength, pour out every last ounce of his spirituality, and make them pay dearly.
Humiliated, the skeletal bishop wanted nothing more than to obliterate every living and dead thing in the area. But he understood all too well: in his current state, he had to stay calm. Even if he destroyed the entire Ancestral Valley, his objective would still fail.
The Great Wild Rite… had to be completed.
And now, under these most desperate of circumstances, the skeletal bishop was forced to resort to their final contingency, a method they had been most unwilling to use.
Gazing down at the collapsing ritual below, Fabrizio reached out once more to stabilize it. At the same time, he silently pulled something from his battered ceremonial robes.
It was a helmet—damaged, weathered by time, and seemingly on the verge of crumbling. Despite its broken state, it still retained traces of ancient Frisland craftsmanship… or more precisely, a Northern Sea style.
If Nephthys had been close enough to see, she would have immediately noticed that the broken helmet closely resembled Harald’s horned helm, but with key differences. The decorations on this helmet were far more elaborate, and the horns on either side were not mere bull horns.
Instead, they were far larger, more aggressively shaped, and extended outward with wild abandon—twisting and towering, their tips far sharper.
These thick, ostentatious horns were not bovine, nor from any common beast.
They looked much more like… dragon horns.