In the void where the Tortoise-Elephant Tower stood, within the distorted myriad realms of the altered domains...
The tide of filth, formed by crimson blood waves and a horde of pitch-black beasts, continued its rampage, surging toward the mountaintop of the Tortoise-Elephant Tower, where countless cosmic spheres were embedded. Still, the defensive force stood firm, resisting the encroaching filth.
Radiance, steel, and dream—three powerful divine forces from different domains—now united to form a divine wall, purifying, annihilating, and confusing the incoming filth.
Due to the withdrawal of the third corrupting force, the tide of filth had weakened somewhat, granting the defenders a window for a counterattack. However, because most defenders were already weakened, the counteroffensive was quickly repelled.
To coordinate with Dorothy’s god-slaying railgun, Phaethon and Beverly had overexerted their power and were now in a weakened state. The young Butterfly God had also paid a price to escape the clutches of the Gluttonous Wolf and the Abyssal Serpent. In this prolonged standoff, the defenders’ condition steadily worsened. While they had once held the line against three corrupt powers, now they could barely maintain parity against just two.
At the rear of the filth tide, a vulture with a rotting body crawling with maggots flew above, watching the battlefield ahead and other lurking fronts.
“Other blood kin? Judging by this… you even brought your siblings. You’ve really prepared thoroughly, Queen of the Night Sky…”
Sensing the failure of the bloodline infiltration, the Plague Vulture muttered grimly. The bloodline assassination launched through the Spider Queen’s remnants, targeting the young Arbiter, had been thwarted by other powerful bloodline kin with strong divinity. The assassination attempt had ended in complete failure.
Yet the Plague Vulture wasn’t too surprised. After all, the Queen of the Night Sky had long known her sister—the fallen deity—might one day side with the Afterbirth deities who had also fallen and wielded bloodline powers. The blood tie between her and the Spider Queen would become a great risk, so it made sense she'd taken precautions.
“Such a divine power guarding the bloodline... could it be the Lady of Pain’s legacy? Very well. Stay there and protect her, then…”
While musing, the Plague Vulture began withdrawing the divine power it had poured into the bloodline tree, reclaiming most of it. Only a small trickle remained to maintain a weak, continual attack.
As it siphoned off power from the bloodline tree, great swaths of ghostly green plague mist manifested in the void, joining the tide of filth in waves, further strengthening its momentum.
While the Plague Vulture weakened its bloodline assault and redirected its might toward the frontlines, Gregor, who was guarding Dorothy via the bloodline, couldn’t do the same. He couldn’t abandon Dorothy to reinforce Phaethon and the others on the front.
The reason lay in the nature of the bloodline tree—it belonged to the domain of Chalice. As the god of Chalice, the Plague Vulture had more initiative and freedom to move within the bloodline tree—coming and going as it pleased.
If Gregor were to divert his divine power away from the bloodline tree to the front lines, and the Plague Vulture suddenly surged back with divine might to launch a new assault on Dorothy, Gregor wouldn’t make it back in time. That would place Dorothy in grave danger.
As a non-Chalice god, Gregor’s movements within the bloodline tree were much slower than the Plague Vulture’s. The only reason he had withstood the assault was because of Mirror Moon’s prearranged defenses. Leaving now meant he couldn’t return before the enemy. Thus, Gregor was completely unable to leave.
In this way, the Plague Vulture managed to pin down Gregor within the bloodline tree using only a small portion of its power—rendering him unable to aid the front line—while it committed most of its force to the main battle. Phaethon and Beverly, therefore, had no hope of receiving his support.
Though it failed to assassinate Dorothy through the bloodline, the Plague Vulture still exploited the tree’s properties to tie Gregor down.
“Failing to breach the wall… then devour everything, my siblings…”
With a solemn murmur, the Plague Vulture fully joined the war. When the ghostly green plague mist re-entered the tide of filth, the entire tide surged with new strength. Its attack intensified, pushing Beverly and the others to their limits.
“Damn it… isn’t it ready yet?”
In her form as a mechanical colossus, Beverly unleashed apocalyptic firepower to repel the tide. Yet, as her own weakness deepened and the tide grew stronger, her firepower was continuously broken through. Forced to retreat, she had to resort to using her giant sword to clear the beasts that lunged at her—but even so, she couldn’t completely stop the tide.
Walls of eternal flame were swallowed by blood, and the mist of delusion was assimilated by the plague mist. The gods of steel, light, and dream fell back under the overwhelming assault, retreating to the summit of the Tortoise-Elephant Tower, desperately defending the cosmic spheres atop the mountain. Below the peak, the embedded cosmic spheres were mercilessly consumed.
Beverly and the others had now contracted their defense line to the smallest point possible, focusing on protecting the most critical material realm cosmic sphere at the summit. They knew it was only a matter of time before their line broke—but they still fought to buy every second possible.
However, reality proved even worse than expected...
With a shrill screech, a colossal entity surged toward the tower’s summit. Upon closer inspection—it was a grotesque flesh planet, larger than a sun and still growing!
It was the Mother of Chalice incarnate!
Unlike the weakened Phaethon and Beverly, the Mother of Chalice had suffered no lasting damage from the god-slaying railgun. Her divine body had merely dispersed and had already nearly fully reformed.
Now, in the form of the Flesh Earth, the Mother of Chalice reappeared. The writhing mass growing upon her surface—Unina—seemed to act as her will, roaring at the crumbling defenses atop the tower.
“You’re no longer a threat! Hypocrites!”
With her shriek, the Flesh Earth extended a thick, massive tendril from Unina’s body. Like a blood-colored spear, it shot forward through the void—piercing straight toward the summit of the Tortoise-Elephant Tower.
To block the tide forged by the Afterbirth Three Gods, Beverly, Phaethon, the Butterfly God and others had already exhausted themselves. None of them had the strength to resist this incoming tendril. The scattered missiles, beams, and mists sent to intercept it were devoured by the countless mouths along its length—unable to stop it.
“This is bad…”
Seeing the scene unfold, Beverly’s expression tightened. They had tried their best, but the Mother of Chalice’s bloodflesh spear still pierced through the final line of defense—striking directly at the material realm cosmic sphere atop the tower.
Crack—
With a crisp sound, the tendril shattered the cosmic sphere’s shell like glass, then extended into it through the breach. Inside the material realm, massive space fissures began to spread in the darkness, and at the center of those rifts, a sinister crimson glow appeared.
Next, the crimson expanded rapidly. A bloody tendril burst from the rift’s center like a serpent, slithering toward the vast ritual array spread across the universe. At its tip, Unina’s monstrous face emerged, twisted with menace.
The Mother of Chalice had poured her divine power into Unina, turning her chosen vessel into a tendril. Taking advantage of Phaethon and Beverly’s distraction, she broke through—into the ritual space of the Heaven’s Return Rite!
“Fall from your throne… false Fate Sovereign…”
As the bloodflesh spear, Unina lunged toward the ongoing rite. The ritual was only two-thirds complete—not yet in its final phase. The Mother of Chalice could destroy it entirely, unimpeded…
But just as the tendril struck forward, a soft glow shimmered in the darkness ahead, and a delicate figure appeared—one that Unina knew all too well.
“You—”
Unina’s eyes widened slightly as she stared in shock at the figure bathed in gentle light: a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl in white nun’s robes, with platinum-blonde hair and a resolute expression—dressed entirely like a nun of the Radiance Church.
It was Vania Chafferon—the former Historical Scripture Department nun of the Tivian Church. The most sensational figure in the Radiance Church in centuries. The youngest Crimson. The famed Sister of Mercy, the Redeemed Nun, the Uncanonized Saint—revered by many as the incarnation of the God of Radiance herself.
“Courting death!”
Seeing the familiar figure appear, Unina scoffed and opened her tendril’s maw to spew thick plague mist at Vania. A single touch of divine plague—so potent on this battlefield—would be enough to end any mortal like her.
Facing the oncoming plague mist, Vania stood calmly within the void. At the same time, in the material realm, Phaethon—fighting desperately against the tide of filth—seemed to sense something, and murmured quietly.
“Holy Spirit made manifest, Holy Name bestowed… to Disciple Amanda… let the miracle return…”
In the story world, atop Holy Mount at the summit plaza, the six Cardinal Saints of Radiance who had withdrawn to this realm now knelt in a circle, praying devoutly to the heavens. During this prayer, Amanda—or rather, Olivia—began to glow softly. These glimmers turned into points of light that floated away from her body and vanished into the surrounding space.
As if sensing something, Amanda slowly raised her head in the middle of the prayer. She gazed toward the dim firmament above the story world and, in an even more reverent tone, continued her prayer.
“Give it your all… Vania…”
In tandem with Olivia’s whisper, Vania’s body in the material realm suddenly radiated with a burst of pure light. The plague mist that had drawn close was immediately dispelled, and her form began to transform amid the radiant glow.
As her body grew, Vania’s nun habit turned into a flowing white robe. Wide white wings unfurled from her back, and above her head, a phantom white serpent appeared—its head biting its tail, forming an angelic halo.
Beyond Pope Phaethon, the great secret of the six Cardinal Saints of the Radiance Church lay in the Holy Name—and the secret of the Holy Name traced back to the hidden Fourth Sacred God: the Holy Spirit.
The God of Lantern, whether the main deity or subordinate ones, had most of their power turned into shackles, used together with the God of Stone and God of Shadow to seal away the fallen evil gods and the Egg of Chaos.
But that wasn’t all. Because Heaven’s Arbiter had managed his legacy well, the Throne of Fate had long remained vacant. Radiance Church, having restricted its investment toward the domain of Revelation, had not fully committed. Thus, the divine power of the “Lantern of Revelation”—bearing the essence of “naming” and “hierarchy”—was not fully sealed and left behind residual fragments.
Phaethon, the Warden of Radiance, used these remnants combined with his own power to craft the Holy Name system. By bestowing the names of ancestors, he granted immense power to successors, creating six Gold-rank Saints to maintain Radiance Church’s rule.
As the central warden of the Radiance sealing system, Phaethon had long been unable to stray far from Holy Mount and often needed to ascend the heavens to reinforce the divine seal. Thus, he required the Gold-rank Saints to govern the real world in his stead. The Holy Name system stabilized this succession. Many secular nations built their official mystical systems atop the church, revering kingship and sanctity—these were in essence extensions and transformations of the Holy Name system.
Now, Phaethon had bestowed Amanda’s Holy Name upon Vania, raising her rank and elevating her further into angelhood. Yet, in the face of this transformation, Unina merely sneered.
“A Throne Angel? Hmph… You still cling to that kind of power?
“Such a pitiful little nun… Even now you haven’t realized Radiance’s hypocrisy…”
Confronting the now-angelic Vania, Unina showed utter disdain. The tendril beneath her opened its gaping maw, beginning to absorb the purifying light Vania emitted. Without the holy glow to shield it, the lethal plague mist surged forward again—and this time, Vania could no longer stop it.
Even if Unina was only a single tendril of the Mother of Chalice, Vania—still at the level of an apostle—was simply not equipped to contend with such power. A swift and overwhelming defeat was inevitable.
But even in such dire straits, Vania did not waver. Amid the dimming glow, her expression remained resolute as she gazed upon Unina—who had grown from the vile tendril—and solemnly spoke.
“Sister Unina… I know you were once a devout believer. You’ve simply strayed from the path. But it’s never too late. Redemption is still possible for you…”
“Hah? Are you trying to preach to me?!”
Unina’s face twisted in disbelief. She hadn’t expected this little nun to still speak such words at a time like this. Yet Vania earnestly continued.
“Yes… You once devoutly worshiped the Holy Mother. I still believe the Mother’s doctrine of compassion and mercy lives on in your heart. All you need to do is—”
“The Holy Mother is a lie!!!”
Before Vania could finish, Unina suddenly roared, as if provoked. Blood vessels bulged and burst across her face, turning her appearance even more grotesque and terrifying.
“Haven’t you realized the truth by now, Sister Vania? The Holy Mother is a fabrication! A despicable lie crafted by Phaethon to deceive the world! The true god—the true Mother—is imprisoned within that lie! I have never strayed from my path. I tore through that lie and found the real deity to believe in!
“I am the one who holds the true faith! Phaethon is the blasphemer! Everything I’ve done is to separate truth from falsehood!”
As she spoke, Unina’s voice and expression gradually softened. She gazed at Vania, whose angelic radiance was nearly extinguished and about to be devoured by the plague mist, and slowly continued.
“Look… poor little fool. You cling to Radiance—but what has Radiance ever given you? This meager gift is crumbling and worthless before the might of the Great Mother.
“I value you greatly, Sister Vania… You, Olivia… even I—we are all alike. With the Mother, you could achieve so much more… Come to our side. The Mother will show you what true compassion and mercy are…”
Gazing upon the angel about to be consumed, Unina whispered temptingly. In Vania, she saw a shadow of Olivia… and even of her own younger self. They had once been innocent, devout, and kind—just like Vania…
In the wavering holy light, like a dying candle, Vania did not accept the offer. Instead, she replied with a faint, broken voice.
“No… Sister Unina, you are mistaken… As I see it… the Holy Mother is no lie…”
“Heh… No lie? Then where is your Holy Mother now?”
“She is in righteousness… in faith… in self… and in all who believe with sincerity… This is the teaching of my Lord…”
Placing her hand over her heart, the angel within the fading glow replied softly. Hearing this, Unina scoffed one final time.
“Absurd…”
With that final word, Unina summoned her power and drowned Vania completely in plague mist, utterly extinguishing her final radiance. The struggling glimmer was snuffed out entirely by overwhelming corruptive divine force.
Having swept away the last futile obstacle, Unina—avatar of the Mother of Chalice’s tendril—was now free to continue her advance and completely destroy the grand rite.
BOOM!
Just as Unina prepared to take her next step, the ghostly green plague mist she had released suddenly erupted. A dazzling beam of radiant light exploded outward, purging the mist and illuminating all directions.
“What…”
Unina looked on in shock. The light expanded like a newborn sun, casting its glow across the dark universe. But unlike other divine radiance, this light did not burn nor blind—it was gentle, comforting, and warm. Yet it still dispelled vast swaths of plague mist, purifying and erasing them from the cosmos.
At that moment, in the story world crafted by narrative, every church began to ring its bells in unison. Every city became enshrouded in sacred chimes. In every settlement, people were moved by an unseen force to gather at shrines and churches, offering prayers before the Holy Mother’s altars.
“O lost and ordinary souls…
When you suffer… when you face despair…
Gaze upon the horizon…
There, the valiant Holy Son wields His blade to drive away calamity…
Listen, the righteous Holy Father proclaims sacred law to uphold order…
Reach out… to the emissary sent by the merciful Holy Mother—Her avatar—who shall heal our wounds…
O people of God… Never forget…
Their divine grace shall always be upon us. All pain and disaster are fleeting…
In the Kingdom of God… we find peace…
In the Kingdom of God… we find peace…”
A soft glow shimmered above Holy Mount in the story world, radiating across every corner of the realm. The prayers within the light echoed across the land—transcending the world itself.
These transcendent prayers passed into the material realm, compounding within the radiance until something began to emerge—taking shape and rapidly growing. Witnessing this incomprehensible sight, Unina gritted her teeth and exclaimed.
“What… are you?!”
“My truth lies within… and my heart echoes that truth…
“You may be right, Sister Unina… perhaps the Holy Mother is a falsehood. But that no longer matters. Her teachings have comforted countless people for millennia…
“So long as faith remains… the Holy Mother remains… She is formless… and I am Her form…”
From within the blooming radiance, a familiar voice rang out. That gentle voice spread along with the glow, reverberating throughout the universe’s ritual site.
Amid the ever-growing divine brilliance, a towering feminine figure gradually appeared.
It was the angel Vania had become—now swiftly transforming once more.
The hem of her white robe now shimmered with golden wheat motifs, interwoven to outline the flowing garment’s form. Her pure white wings gave a slight tremble, and as they shook, feathers scattered and drifted down, transforming midair into clear, crystalline dewdrops that hovered in suspension. The white serpent atop her head—once biting its own tail—loosened its grip and rapidly extended, unfurling a pair of pristine white wings from its back. One of her hands rose, forming the gesture of cradling an infant, and within her arms emerged a softly glowing orb, shaped like a miniature planet. Her face beneath the veil tilted gently downward, eyes closed, with faint golden tear streaks tracing her cheeks.
And that expression—so serene, so compassionate—was nearly identical to Vania’s own…
At this moment, Vania had successfully ascended to godhood, incarnated as the Holy Mother of Redemption, one of the Three Saints of Radiance. Her method of ascension was one of Dorothy’s long-prepared trump cards—the Armoring Rite.
“My deeds are yours, my words are yours—until none can tell us apart…”
The Armoring Rite was an ancient and powerful ritual tied to the domain of Revelation, capable of blurring the line between two similar entities. Through the continuous imitation of key traits and behavior, one would act as another and don their “armor” to become them. Previously, the Fallen Revelation had intended to use this rite to absorb Bainlair and exchange the shattered world of the True Universe with the virtual realm. However, due to Dorothy’s intervention, both attempts failed.
Yet such a potent ritual wasn’t something Dorothy would let go to waste. Once she seized the Throne of Fate, she began planning her own Armoring Rite. Her chosen armor-bearer: Vania. The target: a true god—the Holy Mother.
Long ago, Dorothy had discerned from various signs that the Three Saints of Radiance were nothing more than falsehoods—fabrications that did not truly exist. After obtaining the Throne of Fate and speaking frankly with Beverly, she confirmed this, learning in detail that the Three Saints were, in essence, prisons forged by faith.
From that moment on, Dorothy conceived the idea of having Vania don the armor and ascend. The reason was simple: Vania’s innate qualities were a perfect match.
Vania had become the most famous newcomer in the church for centuries. Ever since the Summer Tree incident, her name had spread among the common people. She gained further renown through her involvement in incidents and disasters across Yadith, Kankdal, Pirate Island, Frisland, and many others. She became a true celebrity nun, a public darling.
She was a favorite of the media—a headline-maker and bestseller magnet. Since Yadith, media outlets had been subtly pushing the narrative of her being the divine representative of the Holy Mother, though restrained by church regulations at the time.
But after the events in Frisland, when Dorothy revealed her identity before the Cardinal Council, the church dared not restrain Vania any longer. Some media realized they could now write freely without consequences, and they began lavishing titles upon her—directly framing her as the earthly agent of the Holy Mother. Countless believers accepted this.
After defeating the infant god and seizing the Throne of Fate, Dorothy sharply noticed how the world now saw Vania. She then coordinated with the church and numerous official institutions, using state media and ecclesiastical channels to intensify this narrative—further sanctifying Vania, and elevating her from the Mother’s representative on earth to her incarnation.
Those nursery rhymes that circulated in many cities—some openly, some subtly—that sanctified Vania or hinted at the Holy Mother’s descent? Nearly all of them were written and spread by Dorothy herself. This was all part of her plan to blur the line between Vania and the Holy Mother in the public eye—an essential prerequisite for the Armoring Rite.
During the preparation for war, Dorothy had fully arranged the ritual in her own story world. Using her authority as holder of the Throne of Fate and her divine power, she worked with Beverly’s craftsmanship to forge a divine artifact capable of autonomously completing the ritual in her place. At the start of the holy war, after Dorothy had sent nearly all sapient minds from the real world into the story world, the ritual officially began there—and was only just recently completed.
Although stronger than the infant god, Dorothy still couldn’t create a true god by ritual alone—not even a subordinate deity. Thus, the final step of the rite required the endorsement of Pope Phaethon, the highest representative of Radiance Church at the time. More than mere approval, it needed him to bestow a Holy Name upon Vania to facilitate her rank breakthrough and fully enable her divinity.
In other words, the Armoring Rite could only conclude after the Pope descended to the real world. That was why Dorothy hadn’t initiated the ritual earlier. She knew that the Pope’s descent would coincide with the Mother of Chalice’s release—and that the Holy Mother was one of her key counters to it.
Though the Holy Mother among the Three Saints of Radiance had gathered immense faith, she was ultimately a prison, not a true deity. Upon the Mother of Chalice’s release, this prison called the Holy Mother had shattered into countless fragments. Now, with Dorothy’s ritual, Vania had taken those shards and forged them into armor—donning them upon herself—and thereby ascended, temporarily becoming the Holy Mother.
Witnessing this scene, Unina—grown from the tendril—stared with grotesquely wide eyes. Her hands spread open, veins bulging across her entire body, face twisted with savage rage, her emotions a storm she could not contain.
“You… You… You became the Holy Mother?! How is this possible?! The Holy Mother is a lie! She doesn't even exist! How can you manifest in this form?!”
Unable to suppress her inner upheaval, Unina grabbed at her own face, clawing ten deep bleeding gashes down her cheeks, her mind unraveling as she burst into hysterical laughter.
In Unina’s belief system, it was impossible to accept that the Holy Mother truly existed—because that would mean she was the real apostate… the true god-betrayer…
“Hah… hahaha… I see. This must be another illusion. Another trap laid by the Fate Sovereign. I won’t fall for it… No, I won’t…
“You… You’ll perish right here!”
As the Mother of Chalice’s tendril, Unina shrieked in madness. With her frenzied cry came the flood of filth unleashed by her tendril.
Boiling plague… howling blood tides… black beasts… The tide of filth erupted from Unina’s tendril, overwhelming everything as it rushed toward Vania and the solemn rite she protected.
In response, Vania, eyes still closed, spoke calmly and firmly.
“Purify—”
At her word, the glistening dewdrops surrounding her swirled into motion, flying toward the tide. As they drifted, the crystalline droplets shattered and fused into the filth, instantly transforming it.
The plague turned into morning mist… The blood water became clear springs… Only the black wolves continued charging after swallowing the dew. Then Vania spoke her second word.
“Redeem—”
As they ran, the wolves trembled as if something stirred within them. One by one, they halted, whimpering. Their fur began turning white, their eyes becoming clear—as they transformed into white hounds.
These white hounds immediately turned and began mauling their former kin. As more black wolves transformed into white, the black tide quickly fell into disarray. More white hounds lunged for Unina’s tendril, tearing off chunks of flesh that—under the suppressive divine power—could not regenerate.
“Aaagh! You… You illusion! Shatter for me!!”
Though torn to shreds by the white hounds, Unina still forced her broken body to charge at Vania. But in response, Vania whispered one final word.
“Disperse—”
And at that instant, Unina—riddled with wounds—exploded. Her monstrous body disintegrated entirely, bursting into fragments that vanished into the cosmos, expelled from the material realm—like harmful waste naturally excreted by a body. Unina was completely erased from existence.
As the chaotic, frenzied cries faded, Vania did not pause. She lifted her head and gazed into the vast scarlet rift high above in the cosmic sky—then turned into a stream of divine light and soared through it.
Through that rift, Vania and her divine body emerged into the endless void beyond the material realm—into the realm where the Tortoise-Elephant Tower stood among all worlds. And there, as she stepped into the void, she beheld the titanic sea of filth, countless times more immense than what she had just faced, and the three types of divine power struggling bitterly to hold the tide at bay.
And beyond that sea of filth, a monstrous mass of flesh had swelled to nearly half the size of the Tortoise-Elephant Tower—a lump of sensory organs and limbs continuously fusing and distorting, taking the form of a viscous, formless pulp of flesh...
The entity Vania had just eliminated was merely a vanguard—a spearhead unit sent into the material realm by the Afterbirth deities in unison to breach the frontline. The true main force, however, had not only remained unharmed—it had grown even stronger.
“Was that thing that slipped inside successfully taken care of? Thank goodness. Her hand always comes through in the end…”
On the final defensive line around the material realm cosmic sphere, Beverly, in her form as a steel colossus, sighed in relief upon sensing Vania’s arrival. On the other side, Phaethon, who was also struggling in battle, immediately called out.
“Redeemer, aid us!”
“Y-Yes, Your Holiness!”
Momentarily forgetting her divine form, Vania answered anxiously before quickly joining the battle. Together with Beverly, Phaethon, and the Butterfly God, she defended the final line—buying just a little more time for Dorothy’s ritual.
“Blessing… Healing…”
With her soft murmurs, Vania began to fully release her divine power as the Holy Mother. In an instant, the wounds on Beverly and the others began rapidly healing. Powerful blessings settled over them. Her purifying force seeped into the sea of filth, slightly calming its madness. Most critically, the material realm itself began to recover under her influence—the rift previously pierced by Unina rapidly mended.
With Vania’s arrival, the faltering frontline was reinvigorated—like a shot of adrenaline—becoming stable once more, enough to hold out a little longer. However, as the Mother of Chalice reconstituted herself, the filth tide surged with renewed force.
“Unina… ultimately, she failed to deliver…”
Amid the sea of filth, the Plague Vulture sensed the state of the final line and sighed. Although Unina's mission had failed, and Vania’s ascension to godhood had added pressure to their efforts, the Plague Vulture showed no panic—for it knew the advantage was still theirs.
The Mother of Chalice was already approaching a state of power beyond their ability to resist…
Beverly and the others continued desperately holding the tide at bay. But as the Mother of Chalice grew closer to full reformation, their resistance became increasingly difficult. The reprieve brought by Vania's appearance quickly vanished under the renewed strength of the sea of filth, and the frontline again teetered on the edge of collapse.
Then, as the gelatinous mass of blood and flesh merged into the sea of filth, the ocean surrounding the Tortoise-Elephant Tower began to thrash like never before—bringing with it unprecedented pressure on the divine defenses. From the surging waves, several massive serpents—black-scaled with crimson markings—burst forth, screeching as they shot straight toward the tower’s peak.
Despite the defenders unleashing all their power to suppress the sudden outbreak, the serpents moved with overwhelming force, piercing through the limits of the defensive line and slamming into the edge of the cosmic sphere atop the mountain. There, they sank their venomous fangs deep into it.
“This is bad…”
Realizing the situation had worsened, Phaethon and Beverly took advantage of a brief ebb in the tide to obliterate the serpents. Yet even after they were destroyed, a sinister hue continued to spread across the surface of the material realm cosmic sphere.
“It’s poison… Redeemer, suppress the toxin!”
“On it!”
Phaethon called out urgently, and Vania responded immediately, channeling her power into the cosmic sphere to suppress and purge the divine venom that could rot the universe from within…
Meanwhile, the Plague Vulture, watching from the depths of the tide, began gathering power for a new move.
This time, it wasn’t targeting the frontline, nor aiming to exploit the Spider Queen’s divine blood to assault Dorothy again. This time, it had a new target: Humanity itself.
The Plague Vulture was now turning its bloodline attack on all mortals safeguarded within the story world by Dorothy.
Unlike the divine, mortals' blood was bountiful—endless. The Afterbirth gods had more than enough to spare. The Plague Vulture could use the blood it had already absorbed to strike every mortal in existence.
“The Redeemer’s divine throne has only just been unlocked… Before this, the mortal world showed no signs of preparing a proper ascension ritual… For someone to ascend so quickly, they must have used an irregular ritual…
“And for that young Arbiter to pull it off, there’s only one such ancient Revelation ritual that fits… Armoring Rite…”
Yes. From its long-term intelligence gathering in the material realm, the Plague Vulture had deduced that Vania had temporarily ascended through an irregular rite. And the only ritual capable of such was, precisely, the Armoring Rite.
And how did the Plague Vulture know of this rite? It was because of Sage King, Taharka. After his mind was corrupted by the Mother of Chalice, nothing remained hidden from the gods of Chalice. Many of the Revelation secrets—once known only to Taharka and the First Dynasty—were now laid bare to the gods of Chalice.
The Plague Vulture knew the Armoring Rite. And it knew its weakness.
That weakness lay in the mortals who served as the rite’s foundation of belief. Kill them all—and the rite would collapse. Just like Dorothy once did within the scroll world.
The Plague Vulture launched a bloodline attack to annihilate all mortals. In normal circumstances, Dorothy could easily block this with her control over divine power. But the problem was—she was currently occupied inside the ritual, unable to intervene.
“This is bad… Sister Vania! Watch for bloodline retaliation!”
In the story world, Shepsuna, sensing the impending crisis, warned Vania just in time. Vania immediately acted, diverting a large portion of her divine power to grant blessings of disease protection across all mortals in the story world. When the Plague Vulture’s bloodline plague struck, the people collapsed in agony and severe discomfort—but none died.
Thanks to her swift healing, Vania avoided humanity’s extinction—and preserved her own godhood. But this came at a heavy price.
A large portion of her divine power had been diverted. Her strength to purge the toxin from the material realm was now severely reduced.
Due to the weakened divine influence of the Holy Mother, the toxin was suppressed—but not eradicated. Though it could no longer destroy the universe outright, it still infected its fundamental operations…
And the consequence was that Dorothy’s ritual stalled.
The Heaven’s Return Rite, now 90% complete, had stopped entirely. The final step—could no longer be reached.
“This is bad…”
Beverly couldn’t help but feel a surge of despair. They had entered a death trap. If Vania protected the mortals, the ritual would stall and the defense line would fall before its completion. If she didn’t protect them, she would lose her divinity, the universe would collapse, and the ritual would fail anyway…
A deadlock. Vania and the others could not break it. And in this standoff, what awaited them—was annihilation.
And hidden within the tide of filth, the Plague Vulture murmured softly.
“Checkmate…”
At last, the end approached. The Mother of Chalice gathered more divine power, ascending to a level utterly beyond Beverly and the others—a height from which she could freely control all realms and domains.
“…Ah.”
With a long sigh, the tide of filth that had been besieging the Tortoise-Elephant Tower abruptly receded, flattening into a calm, stagnant sea that stretched across the void.
Then, from that eerily still ocean, something began to rise—a featureless, expressionless face, slowly forming.
Beneath that barely-perceptible visage, a massive and voluptuous female form emerged—so immense that the entire Tortoise-Elephant Tower rested atop her belly.
Hazy, murky, and overwhelmingly grand—indescribably so. That magnitude was such that even true gods would feel as if She were everything, She were all, and that aside from their own meager selves, nothing existed but Her.
She was the embodiment of the Mother of Chalice, condensed from the sea of filth—the closest incarnation to Her complete self yet. Though still not the whole, She had already grown larger than the Tortoise-Elephant Tower, which encompassed most of the realms.
At last, with the liquified mass on Her lower belly forming a spiral vortex, the entire Tortoise-Elephant Tower began sinking rapidly, swallowed into the filthy abyss.
Crimson threads of blood spread across the Tower. Beverly and Phaethon attempted to counterattack, but every strike was far too insignificant in the face of that vast sea of filth, not even enough to cause a ripple.
In the end, the gods who had resisted were helplessly overpowered. Even escape was impossible. Light, steel, and dream—all were enveloped in a web of blood, fused into flesh and absorbed into the very body of the Tortoise-Elephant Tower. Before their very eyes, they and all things were dragged down into the abyss of corruption.
Under the absolute crushing weight of the Mother of Chalice’s divine station, under Her irresistible power, all struggle was futile. Everything—even the greatest beings—would be devoured, never to return.
“So close… I did everything I could… Father… Grandfather…”
With a long, weary sigh, Phaethon gave up his resistance. He let the filth erode his radiance. His golden armor shattered. His aged form returned. At last, Phaethon appeared as a tired old man, closing his eyes and falling into a final, eternal sleep. Not far off, the fluttering butterfly gave one last whimper before stilling. The mechanical colossus had rusted down to just a severed head, and yet even then, it continued to fire faint blasts of energy into the abyss below.
“Get away from me… you filthy thing!”
At the edge of the material realm cosmic sphere—now transformed into a mass of pulsating flesh—Vania, her radiance gone, knelt upon bloodstained ground. She offered her final prayer, her final confession before the end.
“Forgive me… my Lord… Forgive me, Miss Dorothea…
“We… have failed…”
The Redeemer wept.
The majestic Tortoise-Elephant Tower was completely devoured by the filthy abyss. When the vortex ceased, everything had been consumed into the belly of the Blood Chalice.
“It’s over…”
Suspended above the sea of filth in the form of a small bird, the Plague Vulture murmured, gazing upon the end of all things. After a long and bitter struggle, they had finally achieved victory. The moment it had been born from the Mother of Chalice—it was for this. And now, its mission was complete.
“Now… Mother, gather the last remnants… undo the foolish seal…
“Let the grand cosmos return to fullness… to our perfection…”
With all enemies eliminated and most of the domains now absorbed, the only remaining task for the Mother of Chalice and the three Afterbirth gods was post-war cleanup—such as retrieving and releasing the sealed power within the story scroll realm.
Yet, just as the Plague Vulture prepared to move forward…
— — - — - - — -— - —
“Hmm?”
Without warning, without transition—like a TV switching channels—the world before the Plague Vulture’s eyes changed in an instant.
The endless sea of filth in the void vanished in the blink of an eye. In its place appeared a scene utterly unlike before.
It was… a room. An ordinary room—something only found in mundane, mortal life. Not particularly spacious.
Polished wooden floors gleamed underfoot. Against the white walls stood modest-sized bookshelves, neatly lined with a variety of books. On one side, a slightly larger writing desk sat covered with stacked documents and an extinguished candelabrum. Beside a half-finished manuscript lay a quill rack and ink bottle. The soft-cushioned chair before the desk was empty.
Bright sunlight streamed in from the window, bathing the room. On the windowsill sat pots of green plants, some of which had begun to bloom with small, delicate flowers.
No matter how one looked at it, this appeared to be nothing more than the private study of a well-off individual—completely disconnected from the cosmos, the void, the sea of filth, or the boundless battlefield of divine warfare.
“Where is this? Why am I suddenly here?!”
Confusion flooded the Plague Vulture’s mind. It looked around, then caught sight of a full-length mirror in the corner of the room. There, it saw its own reflection.
The being in the mirror was not the plague-tainted bird. Not the rotting maggot-covered form. But a parrot—a vividly colored long-tailed parrot. But that wasn’t the strange part.
The strange part was… it was perched on someone’s shoulder.
A tall, beautiful woman. She wore a sheer, flowing gown like a nightdress. Her long, golden-green wavy hair nearly touched the floor. Sharp elven ears poked through her locks. She was clearly a graceful and noble elven matron.
What didn’t match her noble appearance, however, was her cold, expressionless face. Her eyes glowed with ominous red light. From those eyes extended warped crimson threads across her pale skin.
In her hair, a small red-spotted serpent poked its head out, staring blankly around. At her feet, a black dachshund sat solemnly, its gaze just as lost.
“Mother…”
The Plague Vulture turned to the woman beside it, about to speak. But just then, a crisp voice interrupted.
“Welcome.”
That familiar voice made the Plague Vulture snap its head toward the sound. And there, on the other side of the study, it saw a figure it could barely believe.
By the open window, under the sunlight, sat a small tea table. Beneath the wall clock hanging above it sat a petite figure.
She wore a pristine white dress, layered beneath a tailored dark jacket. Her legs, clad in black stockings and leather shoes, were crossed neatly. Atop her coiled silver hair rested a small, round-topped hat. The girl held a steaming cup of coffee in her hands, smiling gently at the figure before her.
Upon the tea table next to her were several trinkets—glimmering prisms, a brass toy soldier, a bat-shaped brooch, a butterfly hairpin, a crusader pendant…
“Mmm… in this form, I suppose this counts as our first proper meeting. Why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll have a good little chat, shall we?
“Esteemed Lady of Abundance… Tiametta…
“No… I should say—Mother of Blood Chalice.”
Gazing into the silent, crimson-lit eyes of the Blood Chalice, Dorothy spoke calmly.