High above Aransdel, above the clouds.
Fabrizio, the Death Lord of the Nether Coffin Order and former Inquisition Cardinal for the Radiance Church, was controlling the skeletal dragon, keeping its jaws wide open as it unleashed breath after breath upon the land below, attempting to freeze the entirety of Frisland.
The blue-black breath engulfed the sky above Aransdel, while the opposing golden flames—meant to shield the city—were steadily pushed back, compressed under the overwhelming assault. They now flickered precariously, as though they could collapse at any moment.
After reclaiming the divinity originally used to suppress Holy Mount, the skeletal dragon’s power had risen to a level sufficient to fully suppress even the Radiance Scion. Seeing his enemy, who had only moments ago held the advantage, now struggling to hold the line, Fabrizio could not help but feel a surge of triumph.
“Futile resistance means nothing… Even between divine powers, there are differences in magnitude. No matter what Phaethon tried, it could never compare to a true deity corpse...”
With his gaze fixed on the flickering wall of celestial flame below, Fabrizio brimmed with confidence—until a sudden beam of light pierced through the spreading sea of blue-black breath.
There was no time to react. No chance to adjust. The moment Fabrizio perceived the light, it had already struck.
Not even the ice-crystal coffin condensed from the Lord of Calamitous Cold’s divine essence—nor the divine bones of the Lord himself—could stop it. The skeletal dragon, the crystalline coffin at its chest, and the soul of Fabrizio within were all pierced in an instant. The crystal shattered, the dragon’s body began to collapse, and Fabrizio’s soul began to burn. It wasn’t until his consciousness began to dissipate that he realized something had gone wrong.
“What… What is this light…? What happened?! Why all of a sudden… Why can’t I defend against it… Why…?”
As his soul burned and his awareness unraveled, Fabrizio was overwhelmed by shock and confusion. He couldn’t understand how the enemy, who had just been under pressure, could suddenly unleash such an overwhelmingly powerful, unreasonable strike. He couldn’t comprehend how their strength had risen so quickly—enough to threaten a deity's corpse.
“Damn it… I’ve failed my Lord… I must retreat...”
The speed of his soul’s dissolution left no room for analysis. Realizing his state, Fabrizio knew he could no longer continue fighting. He had to withdraw—at least temporarily.
Yes, even though he had been directly hit by this immense divine holy light, even as his soul was being destroyed, Fabrizio didn’t believe he would truly perish. He believed that the god he served—the King of the Underworld, the deity of the dead—would never allow death to claim him.
Fabrizio believed his god would save him. Just as he had during his battle with Phaethon centuries ago, when his soul had nearly been extinguished, it was the Nether Father who had intervened.
If the Lord had saved him once, then he could save him again. Fabrizio was convinced that as one of the Nether Father's most important agents in the mortal realm, he would not be forsaken so easily. Even if this plan had failed, with a few centuries of preparation, he could try again.
And so, with unwavering faith in his god, Fabrizio waited for salvation while his soul burned. He could already feel the divine power of the Nether Father descending upon him. It was this very force that had kept his will intact this long.
Yet only a moment later, he sensed something was wrong.
“What… Why… my Lord… Why…?”
As his consciousness reached the brink of total dissolution, Fabrizio still hadn’t felt salvation. Instead, he felt something… strange. The power descending upon him didn’t feel like salvation.
It was in that instant that Fabrizio understood: he had been abandoned. Abandoned by his own god. And with overwhelming terror, he also understood why.
“So… this is your choice...
“You… no longer wish to wait…”
In that final moment of despair, Fabrizio’s soul burned away completely. His will scattered. His body and the icy coffin vanished into the radiant arrow’s light. The skeletal dragon, too, after being pierced through the chest, let out one last howl before its breath ceased entirely. Its vast body collapsed and began to fall from the heavens.
With the breath of the skeletal dragon extinguished, the blue-black flames that had blanketed the entire sky above Aransdel vanished. As the enormous dragon’s body plummeted, it punched a massive hole through the golden flames still covering the city’s sky. Then it continued its descent, crashing violently into the northern section of Aransdel, plunging into Dragon Severance Bay. With a thunderous boom, a towering wave surged from the impact, briefly flooding the coastal docks.
“Thank you for your mercy upon the mortal world… Thank you, Miss Dorothea…”
Witnessing the scene, Vania, standing in the cathedral square, offered a heartfelt prayer of joy. On the other side of the plaza, the True Spirit Shaman gasped in disbelief.
“It’s fallen… The Lord of Calamitous Cold actually fell… What was that power just now? What kind of force could strike down an ancient god of disaster?!”
The shaman cried out in awe. Never had he imagined that the very god of calamity from ancient shamanic myth could be struck down before his eyes. The astonishment on the two nearby cardinals was even more profound.
“That dragon… that heretical divine dragon… It’s been brought down? We’ve won? Could this pure divine power truly be the descent of an angel? Is the Pontiff returned? Or has the Lord shown mercy upon the world?”
Cardinal Kramar spoke with both joy and disbelief as he stared at the fallen skeletal dragon in the northern sea. Amanda, beside him, nodded with a similarly shaken expression.
“With the might of that divine corpse, even an angel might have struggled to match it. The divine presence we just witnessed… it may be something even higher than an angel. Come, Kramar, we must show respect. We may need to go pay our respects in person…”
Amanda spoke in a steady voice.
Now that the skeletal dragon had fallen, the divine power responsible for it—though its origin remained unclear—very likely had a direct connection to the Pontiff or to the god of Radiance. As cardinals of the Radiance Church, they had no choice but to verify it for themselves. And to do so with the highest form of reverence: an audience.
The Ice King had fallen. The powerful polar vortex that once loomed over the Northern Sea dissolved in an instant. Under the light of dawn, snowstorms ceased, dark clouds scattered, and the golden flames that had once set the heavens ablaze slowly faded—revealing the pale morning sky. The abnormal cold over the northern part of the main continent was rapidly receding.
The frozen sea began to crack open, and many of the ancient souls that had been summoned fell into confusion and disarray.
All signs pointed toward a return to normalcy. The Nether Coffin Order’s plot had failed. This cataclysm that spanned two continents seemed to be over.
And yet, the one who had ended it all—the Radiance Scion, Dorothy—did not show the slightest hint of relief.
Atop Dragon Severance Cliff, Dorothy stood amidst shimmering holy light, her golden hair billowing as she held the sacred bow in hand. Her blazing gaze remained locked firmly on the sky. Though she had brought down the skeletal dragon and completely eliminated Fabrizio, the Nether Coffin Order’s strongest anchor in the material world—thus presumably rendering their entire ritual a failure—there was not the slightest sign of relief on her face. On the contrary, her expression had grown increasingly grave.
Right now, Dorothy possessed near-godlike Lantern sight. She could see numerous abnormalities appearing across both the material and mirrored layers of Frisland.
Something was coming.
“So this… is your choice, Evil Spirit King…”
She muttered softly as she gazed upward—and in the very next instant, a sudden change erupted. Heaven and earth were thrown into upheaval.
“AAAAAAAHHHH!!”
Screams. Piercing, agonized screams filled with resentment, hatred, cruelty, and curses erupted from deep beneath the earth. The sound rippled across the entire city of Aransdel, spreading through every region of Frisland like the earth itself was howling. Every conscious living and undead being felt a sharp pain in their heads, unable to bear the screech.
“What… what is this? Spirit howls? How are they coming from so deep underground… and at this scale? Wasn’t the ice-dragon deity corpse already brought down?!”
On the rooftop of a tall building in central Aransdel, the spirit of Rachman winced and spoke in shock as he endured the psychic screeching from the land.
Nearby, Nephthys, who had been leaning against a wall and preparing to end her "spectator mode," frowned slightly and sat back down.
“Ugh… so noisy… Is it not over yet? These guys are really persistent. What a hassle… Come on, Miss Dorothy, hang in there…”
Nephthys covered her ears and settled in again to continue observing the situation. Elsewhere, in the cathedral plaza, the reactions were much more intense.
“This level of resentment… this depth of hatred… What’s going on? Why are so many spirits manifesting all of a sudden?!”
Feeling the overwhelming wave of malice rising from the land, Amanda, who had just been preparing to go pay her respects, spoke in astonishment.
Not far from her, the True Spirit Shaman closed his eyes in concentration, then spoke with a grave tone.
“This is… evil spirit resonance! The first layer of evil spirits buried beneath the earth has awakened and begun to resonate. They’re guiding something… summoning something… This is bad!”
“What?! Are you saying it’s the Earth Grievance Ritual?!”
Kramar’s face twisted in horror as he cried out. His voice trembled with fear and disbelief.
“How?! How could the Earth Grievance Ritual activate? The Nether Coffin didn’t meet the conditions—it shouldn’t be possible! Why?!”
Panic swept across the entire cathedral plaza.
Elsewhere, Vania looked skyward with deep concern.
“How could this happen…? Wasn’t it all supposed to be over? Why is the evil of the mortal world so hard to purge…”
In her eyes, amid the cacophony of wailing souls throughout Frisland, Aransdel’s sky—so recently returned to its calm blue—began to darken. A smoky gray, like ink in water, bled into the sky, spreading rapidly until the entire heavens were dyed a dull, oppressive gloom.
As the morning sun in the east was once again blotted out, Aransdel fell beneath a suffocating gray pall. And then, more anomalies appeared above.
Letters. Characters. Texts from different cultures—languages from every country in the world—began manifesting in the sky. Twisted black words assembled into even more twisted words and phrases, crawling like worms across the sky’s surface. Their numbers grew rapidly… grotesquely…
Before long, the sky—which now resembled a sheet of paper—was filled to the brim with these “text-worms.” They slithered and writhed across the heavens, their meanings all uniformly vile and disgusting.
Kill. Self-harm. Plunder. Defile. Kidnap. Torture.
Such phrases, written in countless languages, slithered above the city like a plague. Even a momentary glance at them filled the mind with revulsion.
Amid this grotesque ocean of text-worms, there was one area that stood out.
The worms here were much larger than the rest, forming a rotating circle. Unlike the others, they didn’t represent curses or hatred—but praise.
And the moment those praising worms began to appear, the screaming of the evil spirits across the land became synchronized.
Thousands of malevolent souls began to chant, exalting the meaning carried by the praising worms.
“Origin of Curses… Genesis of Malice…
Herald of Decays… Orator of the World's Funeral…
Poet of Death… Mouth of Patriarch Sovereigns…
Accept these offerings… Descends upon us with verse of myriad venom…
Cursed Black Skeleton.”
Amid the chorus of the evil spirits, at the center of the worm-ring high above, a massive, dry-lipped black mouth—hundreds of meters wide—began to manifest and open.
After the first mouth appeared, more began to form nearby: a second, then a third. All of them opened wide. Soon, the entire sky, already crawling with text-worms, was filled with withered black mouths. The sheer grotesqueness and oppressive presence of the scene intensified drastically.
Standing on Dragon Severance Cliff, Dorothy muttered upon seeing this sight.
“So… Cursed Black Skeleton, is it? I see… So whether it’s the Earth Grievance or Corpse Consumption… it was all for your arrival in the end.
“To bring you down… the King of the Underworld was even willing to sacrifice Fabrizio—his best divine proxy in the material world. Looks like he’s no longer willing to wait…”
Gazing up at the grim and twisted sky, Dorothy spoke with a sense of solemn clarity. The arrival of the Cursed Black Skeleton didn’t surprise her. She had expected this.
If the Nether Coffin could preserve Fabrizio during the Muddy Stream War centuries ago—even under assault from the Pontiff—then they could certainly try again now under her hand.
But when she struck down the skeletal dragon just now, Dorothy had clearly seen it: Fabrizio was utterly annihilated. No one saved him. There was no possibility of survival.
That was suspicious.
And the answer was clear. The King of the Underworld had used Fabrizio’s soul to complete the final missing piece of the Earth Grievance Ritual.
Fabrizio had already sacrificed many ancient souls of the Northern Sea through the skeletal dragon’s soul-summoning. The ritual’s progress was nearly complete, missing only one last portion. It had been interrupted when Dorothy activated her Radiance Scion form.
When Fabrizio was pierced through by her arrow of light and the Nether Coffin’s plan was thoroughly defeated, the King of the Underworld activated His final resort.
Rather than rescue him as before, He used the divine link to Fabrizio and, at the moment of soul collapse, immediately sacrificed him to complete the ritual.
Fabrizio, slain once by the Pontiff and now destroyed by the Radiance Scion Dorothy, fit perfectly the criteria of a soul “harmed by Radiance.”
His soul was of Gold-rank quality—exceptionally potent.
After sacrificing him, the King of the Underworld rapidly fulfilled the Earth Grievance Ritual’s final condition… and began summoning the Cursed Black Skeleton.
Now, the Nether Coffin Order’s god of curses had successfully projected His power into the material world through the ritual. Cursed Black Skeleton was unlike Inut. Together with many other evil gods, He was blocked from descending by some powerful force and thus could not enter the world through awakenings like the Great Wild Rite. Only through a massive evil ritual and a vast quantity of sacrificial offerings could He be summoned.
“Wh-what is that…? That presence… so immense… so malevolent… It’s even stronger than the divine corpse from before! What kind of monster is this? Could this be its true form…?”
Even Kramar, a Saint of the Church, staggered as he looked up at the dreadful sky of countless black mouths and crawling word-worms. It felt as though a thousand venomous voices were chanting curses in his mind. Clutching his head and struggling to remain conscious, he spoke in horror.
Nearby, Amanda, equally shaken, steadied her thoughts and responded.
“A multitude of vile words… countless cursed phrases… This is the god of curses worshipped by the Nether Coffin… This level of interference with the material world… Is He descending? Can any divine Radiance withstand such a god…?”
As Amanda stared at the grotesque sky in growing despair, the True Spirit Shaman also cried out in alarm.
“This… this must be the remains of the legendary Wordbearer, fully corrupted by a great evil spirit… turned into His servant…
“This is… a great catastrophe…”
Confronted with this intrusion of a true evil god into the world, the two cardinals and the shaman were overwhelmed with despair. Even Vania, who had been praying with sincerity, began to falter.
“Miss Dorothea… Are you all right…? If it’s too much, we should retreat for now…”
Even the devout Vania was shaken by the god’s oppressive presence. As she endured the spiritual torment, she couldn’t help but worry.
Dorothy, standing on Dragon Severance Cliff, heard Vania’s prayer—but she didn’t choose to retreat. Instead, she raised her gaze toward the sky filled with gaping black mouths and locked eyes with the largest among them.
With a sweep of her arm, a sea of golden flame ignited across the sky. It engulfed the crawling text-worms and withered mouths. The heavens above Aransdel once again blazed with holy flame.
Yet this flame seemed less pure than before, lacking the intensity it once had when repelling the dragon’s breath. The golden hue had noticeably dulled.
After igniting the sky, Dorothy once more conjured a radiant spear in her hand. As she gripped it, hundreds more appeared around her, floating in the air. Without a word, she hurled her spear skyward, followed by a barrage of golden spears—hundreds of them rushing toward the gaping black mouths above.
But then, one of the flaming mouths in the sky began to speak.
“Extinguish…”
A voice rasped from the twisted maw—dry and weak like the dying breath of a sickly elder. Yet it echoed across heaven and earth, resonating in every soul.
In that instant, the blazing sky was instantly extinguished. The radiant spears climbing into the sky were suddenly covered in crawling word-worms spelling the command to “extinguish,” and they dissolved into nothing.
Even massive Saint Steel Vessels like the Annihilation Nun and the Sacred Law Judicator, once floating in the sky, were overcome by these worms. Their engines died mid-air, and they plummeted helplessly to the ground.
“Lady Amanda! My energy core has frozen! We’ve lost power! All systems… are fail—”
Before the message could be completed, the transmission cut out. Amanda could no longer hear a word from Ivy.
“I… I understand, Ivy… This is a curse… a high-grade divine curse…”
Amanda collapsed in the cathedral plaza, panting heavily on her knees. Her body too was now covered in writhing extinguishing worms. Nearby, Kramar and the True Spirit Shaman had also been overwhelmed—pinned down by the crawling words. They couldn’t use their powers. They couldn’t even move.
These same word-worms now crawled across the buildings of the Requiem Cathedral district.
They weren’t limited to Aransdel; they had spread across all of Frisland and much of the northern continent.
Within this area, every church facility and clergyman—even every Lantern Beyonders—was covered in these worms. Under their influence, all Lantern power vanished. Even Saints and Cardinals were affected equally.
Naturally, Dorothy was no exception. The extinguishing worms had begun crawling across her body. Under the weight of this powerful curse, the glow surrounding her dimmed. Her floating hair stilled. The divine light in her eyes faded. Her aura of divinity vanished. She now looked simply like a beautifully dressed, mortal young woman.
Under the Cursed Black Skeleton’s linguistic curse, even Dorothy’s power was sealed. Against such a divine incursion, she seemed to have no means to resist.
Although Cursed Black Skeleton was indeed a true god, He had not descended in full—this was still a partial projection of power. The Earth Grievance Ritual didn’t support a complete descent.
In theory, Dorothy, as a Radiance Scion, might not be His equal, but she should still have been capable of some resistance. Yet now, she had been completely suppressed.
The reason was simple. After she had brought down the skeletal dragon, Dorothy lost the battlefield resonance with Hyperion vs. the Northern Dragon. The juridical power she could invoke collapsed. Her scale of divinity sharply diminished. Her strength declined. After all, there were no myths or precedents of the Emperor of Light ever fighting a god of curses. Dorothy could no longer draw upon mimicked historical power.
Now, all she could do was barely maintain her Radiance Scion state by clinging to her identity as Hyperion’s granddaughter. Her strength had already fallen well below what was needed. In this state, she had no hope of opposing Cursed Black Skeleton.
Her power sealed, Dorothy stood silently atop Dragon Severance Cliff, gazing at the heavens filled with black mouths and crawling words. Even though she couldn’t see His eyes, she could feel the god of curses staring back at her.
Then, another mouth spoke.
“Bind...”
Another curse was uttered.
More word-worms appeared across Dorothy’s body. They crawled over her in such density that her form began to turn entirely black. At that moment, she could no longer move. All motor function was sealed. All resistance was cut off. All she could do was look upward—at the sky, at the evil god preparing to pass judgment upon her.
Facing this helpless Dorothy, the divine mouth in the heavens slowly opened a third time.
That mouth would deliver her end. Dorothy could tell what it was about to say, just by its forming shape.
“Exti—”
The mouth of the evil god opened, about to deliver the final curse. But before the word could finish, the world was shaken by a more ancient, more powerful roar.
“ROOOOAAARRR!!!”
The earth quaked. The sea surged.
From the crashing waters of Dragon Severance Bay, a massive blue-black aurora burst upward, freezing the surface as it shot into the sky.
In an instant, the dark sky filled with words and mouths was pierced by the aurora. The third mouth, mid-curse, froze solid—encased in invisible ice. The frost rapidly spread across the heavens, freezing the other mouths as well, including the two that had cursed before.
The mouths and word-worms caught in the frost fell into complete paralysis. As the ice spread, other mouths farther out opened quickly, trying to counter.
“Melt… melt… melt…”
Their words pushed back against the frost, compressing it and causing the aurora to vanish.
At the same time, the frozen bay exploded open. From beneath the shattered ice, a colossal figure erupted skyward.
“ROAAAARRRR!!!”
A massive, 800-meter-long undead ice dragon spread its wings and soared again into the skies. The former King of the Ice Sea, the Northern Emperor Inut, had returned—and once more soared above the Northern Sea, proclaiming his freedom.
From afar, one of his former vassals witnessed this and cried out in ecstasy.
“Hahaha! The Emperor—it’s truly the Emperor! You’ve finally broken free of those damned chains! I told you! Chains don’t belong on an emperor!
“Go, take revenge! Great Emperor Inut! Make those who dared enslave you pay! Drink from their skulls!”
Harald shouted with wild joy, reveling in his emperor’s return.
At the same time, a faint smile formed on Dorothy’s lips. Her heart, at last, relaxed.
“You’ve finally come through… Inut. That strike… looks like my gamble paid off…”
She thought with quiet relief. She had anticipated something like this, but now that it had truly happened, she could finally exhale.
Her use of the sacred bow to target Inut had been a precise, surgical attack. Its purpose was to destroy the controlling technique and sever Fabrizio’s hold on him, while minimizing harm to Inut himself.
In the previous battle, Dorothy had used her divine eye to completely see through the divine technique the King of the Underworld had layered upon Inut—one that allowed Fabrizio to control him. After thorough analysis, she decisively pinpointed its critical weak point.
Dorothy calculated that as long as she launched a precise strike at this exact vulnerability, the entire control technique would collapse, eliminating the manipulator and severing the King of the Underworld’s ability to operate freely through Inut. She could free him with only minimal harm inflicted.
The reason Dorothy chose to free Inut was simple—she had already guessed the King of the Underworld’s backup plan. The moment she realized that Fabrizio himself qualified as a “soul harmed by Radiance,” she anticipated that the Nether Coffin might sacrifice this Gold-rank soul to forcibly trigger the Earth Grievance Ritual if their initial plan failed.
At that point, Dorothy was concerned. If the ritual truly did proceed in such a forced way, and she herself lost the battlefield bonus tied to “slaying the dragon,” would she be able to handle the consequences?
After careful deliberation, she decided to rescue Inut without gravely wounding him.
Her logic was sound—if the Nether Coffin needed such drastic measures to control Inut, then it was clear that Inut and the King of the Underworld were not on good terms. Once freed, the chance of Inut turning on the Nether Coffin was extremely high.
Moreover, Dorothy had another reason for releasing him.
This world of the Fourth Epoch was clearly abnormal. Evil gods were rampant, and every one of them had ideologies of extreme destruction—whether it was annihilation, devouring, or world reshaping.
According to legend, though Inut was violent and conquer-driven, a classic tyrant figure, he at least could establish a kingdom and rule mortals in a relatively orderly fashion. His reign may not have been ideal, but compared to the inhuman cults of the other evil gods, he was the lesser evil—at least he allowed mortals to live somewhat normal lives. Compared to that bunch of twisted deities, Dorothy considered Inut more acceptable.
If Inut returned to the mortal world, his ideology would surely clash with the others—perhaps even more so than with Radiance. Letting him loose might help rein in the increasingly active evil gods.
Besides, Dorothy had the ability to counter him to some extent. Thus, she was very much in favor of freeing Inut.
And now, it seemed—her judgment had been correct. Regardless of what Inut’s attitude toward her might be, there was no doubt that what he hated more was the Nether Coffin that dared to control him.
“ROAR!!!”
Another thunderous roar shook the air as Inut unleashed a breath of blue-black aurora toward the sky filled with black mouths and word-worms, freezing them in place. As he froze one section of the sky, another group of mouths issued new curses, countering his invisible frost with “Melt” incantations while also cursing Inut directly.
“Bind… Bind… Bind…”
“Fall… Fall… Fall…”
“Perish… Perish… Perish…”
With the sky’s countless mouths opening and closing, an overwhelming number of venomous curses converged on Inut. His undead dragon body was instantly covered with wriggling word-worms. But just as they emerged on his bones, a layer of ghostly blue ice instantly froze them into forced dormancy, rendering them inert in conceptual frost.
As the curses kept accumulating, Inut continuously froze them. It was how he resisted the barrage of divine curses. But this method had its limits.
The black mouths above seemed endless. Freeze one wave, and another soon replaced it. Each batch released new divine curses, and only divine frost could suppress them. But if all that frost was used on himself, Inut would eventually freeze his own body into stillness, disabling even his thoughts—transforming himself into a lifeless ice statue.
This stalemate was not sustainable. Inut had to take new action.
“Hrrrnnngh—!”
Stretching out his long neck, the skeletal dragon released a deep, reverberating roar. Wind and snow rose around his flying form, wrapping tightly around his frame.
Within the blizzard, Inut’s massive skeletal body began to shift. The bones dismantled, reshaped, and rapidly reassembled. His enormous form underwent reconstruction.
At the moment of completion, Inut flared his massive wings, scattering the surrounding snowstorm. When the wind cleared, Inut reappeared in a completely different form.
His skeletal dragon body had transformed drastically. His long neck had contracted, placing his draconic head directly atop his chest. His legs lengthened, taking on a humanoid shape. His claws extended, forming arms more like those of a giant man. His entire posture shifted from quadrupedal flight to an upright stance.
From head to toe, he was now clad in pitch-black ice armor. Ancient and heavy, the armor wrapped around his undead bones. A black-ice helmet now crowned his draconic head, its horns grown even more imposing through the helm. Inut had transformed from a skeletal dragon into a winged and tailed warrior giant.
This was Inut’s dragon-man form—the Frost Dragon War-Avatar of Calamity.
It signified a different combat mode.
Now in this form, Inut raised one arm. A massive, unadorned warhammer of black ice formed in his grasp. Gripping it with both hands, he surged toward a frozen section of the sky, swung the hammer with overwhelming might—and brought it down.
CLAAANG—!
With a thunderous quake that echoed across the world, the moment the hammer struck the frozen sky, it cracked like a shattered mirror. Deep fractures rippled through space itself.
Under that unstoppable blow, the invisible frost sealing the sky shattered completely. Along with it, the space containing it and the black mouths and word-worms attached to it all broke into pieces and disintegrated.
The curses spoken by the shattered mouths immediately lost their effect. Many of the word-worms covering Inut’s body vanished. He undid much of his self-imposed freezing, his movement quickening significantly.
Then, with a beat of his wings, Inut dashed across the sky at incredible speed. He swung his hammer again and again, smashing more frozen sky panels into fragments—along with the mouths and words rooted in them. The more mouths he destroyed, the fewer curses afflicted him.
Meanwhile, the sky above the Northern Sea became more and more fractured—riddled with tears like a mirror shattered by countless blows. Beyond those tears were glimpses into bizarre realms—fragments of the mirrored world.
Shatter Ice, Inut’s dragon-warrior combat style, was built around this.
Unlike his draconic form that specialized in freezing breath, this form emphasized close combat. Though his breath attacks were weaker, he could now wield divine armaments. His warhammer could freeze enemies, even space itself, and then shatter it. If the target had been previously affected by his breath, the effect was even stronger.
Throughout this process, Inut tried to direct his divine shockwaves into the mirrored world, stirring its depths. Though the material world’s sky was ravaged, its foundation remained intact.
Transformed into a divine warrior, Inut rampaged through the skies, violently purging Cursed Black Skeleton’s influence from the material realm. Every blow of his shattered space resonated through the mirrored world—like striking one side of a mountain and shaking the other.
Under this sustained disruption, Cursed Black Skeleton struggled to maintain its foothold.
His power could no longer find anchorage in the shredded sky.
At this point, Cursed Black Skeleton had no choice but to try a different tactic.
Just as Inut was efficiently clearing the sky of cursed mouths, a sudden change occurred. From within his armor, word-worms burst forth.
Swarming together, they rapidly formed new black mouths—this time growing directly on Inut's body.
The mouths quickly expanded—and opened.
Since the fragmented space of the material realm could no longer serve as an anchor, the Cursed Black Skeleton had chosen a new tactic—anchoring itself directly onto Inut.
If Inut wished to remain conscious and continue fighting, he had to maintain his own stability. That stability could be exploited.
As a result, the Cursed Black Skeleton focused all its power on resisting the tremors from the mirrored realm and began to generate black mouths directly on Inut’s body. These mouths rapidly formed and launched curses from within him. If Inut wished to stop them, he would have no choice but to freeze himself—thereby limiting his own movements.
The sudden maneuver gave Inut pause. But just as he was considering how to respond, he suddenly sensed a familiar power rising from below.
A light arrow—radiating with golden brilliance—shot upward from beneath him at high speed.
Then, midair, it suddenly burst and splintered apart, splitting into countless smaller beams of light. These beams curved and redirected themselves mid-flight, swerving through the sky to strike with precision at the black mouths still in the process of growing on Inut’s body.
In an instant, Inut’s form was engulfed in a radiant golden glow. When the brilliance dispersed, his towering figure reappeared—completely unscathed by the blasts. But the black mouths that had been forming across his body were now gone without a trace.
After glancing down at himself, Inut turned his gaze in the direction the arrow had come from—and saw a familiar figure.
Dorothy stood calmly upon Dragon Severance Cliff, holy bow in hand, aiming skyward at Inut. A faint luminous glow once again surrounded her; her golden hair floated upward, billowing with divine energy. The word-worms that had previously plagued her body had all vanished.
While Inut had been rampaging through the skies, destroying the cursed mouths of the Black Maw, those afflicting Dorothy had also been cleared away. Thus freed from the curse, Dorothy had regained her strength. And in response to this, a deep and resonant voice echoed from within Inut’s helm.
"Heh… So it’s the little whelp from Hyperion progeny. Seeing you trapped by that foul thing so easily, I thought you’d become too exhausted to even draw your bow.”
Inut spoke with a wry chuckle, his voice booming with power. Dorothy responded with a composed smile.
“Thank you for your concern, Lord Inut. It’s true there were some… complications earlier. But I’ve adjusted now. Though my strength is still far from what it once was, I can at least rejoin this battle. I’m grateful that you were willing to assist me selflessly, despite any past grievances between your line and mine…”
Dorothy’s words were genuine. Since losing her ability to emulate historical archetypes, her power had declined dramatically, leaving her vulnerable to the Black Maw’s curses. But now, through experimentation, she had found a way to partially recover.
Within the Hyperion Bow she wielded was a reserve of Hyperion’s authentic divinity. By channeling her diminished imitation divinity alongside that true divine essence, Dorothy had managed to help free Inut.
Now, though her emulated divinity was significantly weakened, she remained in her Radiance Scion state and had found a way to draw the bow’s true divine essence into her own body—restoring a portion of her Radiance power.
This process required extensive research on the Hyperion Bow. But as a Revelation Beyonder and someone in the Radiance Scion state, Dorothy didn’t need much time to master it. Had she been alone, it might not have been enough to resist the Cursed Black Skeleton. But thanks to Inut holding the front lines, she’d pulled through.
“Past grievances?” Inut gave a soft laugh and continued.
“Don’t get it twisted, little scion of Hyperion. You freed me from the schemes of those vile tricksters—I owe you for that. These cowards dared to enslave me. That, I will never forgive. I know well the difference between favors and enmity.
“And besides… I never had any grudge against that Hyperion brat to begin with. We simply contended for dominion over the world. He won—that was his skill. I lost. I fell on foreign soil, never to rise again. That was my failure.
“What right does the defeated have to complain about the victor?”
Inut’s deep, steady voice echoed through the sky.
Hearing this, Dorothy was momentarily stunned—then offered a faint smile once more.
“You truly speak with the dignity of an emperor, Lord Inut. Now, let us crush these vile schemers together—once and for all.”
As she spoke, she nocked another light arrow onto her holy bow. Her eyes fixed on the broken sky above, where remnants of the cursed mouths still lingered.
She knew well—what awaited now might be the final battle against the Nether Coffin Order. This was the last stage of resistance against the cult of Silence. With this fight, she would drive the influence of the Evil Spirit King out of the mortal world—completely.
The end of it all was near.