Chapter 624 : Realm of Cognition

Within the massive body of the Mirror Moon Golem, in the finely engineered core of interlocked rings and equilibrium structures, the serene statue of the goddess stood as always. In front of her, the previous ritual setup had already been cleared away, and a new one prepared.

In the incense-filled chamber, a vast and intricate ritual array had been drawn on the floor. Dorothy, dressed in a black-and-white western-style dress and a lady’s hat, sat calmly at its center—in the opened pupil of the “Eye of Revelation.” She herself served as its iris. Surrounding her, placed at the edge of the array, were six divine artifacts.

A deep-blue, crystalline gem—the Deep Blue Heart, a Chalice-aligned deity-blessed item, once held by the Abyssal Church and stolen by Thief K through a heist orchestrated by Dorothy and Nephthys.

A simple metal weight—the Scale Code, a Stone-aligned deity-blessed item, originally owned by the White Craftsmen’s Guild, which Dorothy had spent a large sum to rent.

A finely crafted spherical censer—the Dreamscale Censer, a Shadow-aligned deity-blessed item, once sacred to the Butterfly God but later taken by the Blackdream Hunting Pack, and reclaimed with Dorothy’s help.

A strip of old cloth inscribed with scripture—the Sacred Remain Scripture, a Lantern-aligned sacred object from the Radiance Church, entrusted to Vania as a reward for her service.

A skull-engraved goblet—the Goblet of Nether Guidance, a Silence-aligned sacred item that was once the funerary relic of Addus’s founding king, Rachman, and personally bestowed upon Dorothy.

Lastly, a thick-covered ordinary book—the Literary Sea Logbook, Dorothy’s long-used mystical item. Just earlier, she had blessed it in the name of Akasha, consecrating it as a Revelation-aligned deity-blessed item of her own.

Now, Dorothy had placed all six divine artifacts required for her advancement ritual in their designated positions. She silently closed her eyes and, following the method she learned from the Temple of Revelation Runes, began to channel her spirituality.

Soon, under an invisible force, the six divine artifacts began to levitate one by one, each radiating faintly colored light. Within this shimmering glow, Dorothy’s advancement ritual officially commenced.

“The Realm of Wisdom is boundless. The Sea of Cognition is endless.

All sentient beings are lost; I likewise am lost…

What is truth is untruth. What is form is formless.

All six paths are illusions; cause and effect are distortions.

Even supreme mystery dissolves into phantasmal emptiness…

Wickedness cannot know. Deep thought cannot comprehend.

“To attain holy wisdom—Seek not divine answers.

But seek to answer the divine…”

As she recited the incantation silently in her mind, Dorothy’s consciousness began to detach from the realm of reality, venturing inward toward the hidden side of the world.

…

While Dorothy was undergoing her advancement, the battle outside—on the surface of Lake Starbind—between the Crimson-rank powerhouses continued.

Atop a hill once whole, now scorched by searing flames, Francesco, clad in full ceremonial plate armor, stood at the edge of a superheated crater. Through the visor of his fully enclosed helm, he gazed across the lake’s vast surface.

His gaze first fell on the towering Mirror Moon Golem, but only for a brief moment. Then he shifted focus toward the distant lakeshore, where Gossmore was just now staggering back to her feet.

Upon confirming her status, Francesco didn’t hesitate. He stood straight and began channeling his spirituality.

Flames began to leak from the joints of his armor as spiritual energy surged through him. Smoke hissed from the seams of the plating, and his body beneath the armor ignited. Blazing fire burst from every gap—flames even licking through the visor.

The fire within him expanded, stretching and distorting the armor as his body grew larger. Francesco transformed himself into a being of living flame, still bound together by the levitating fragments of his own armor—a burning elemental knight.

Now fully transformed, he released a jet of flame downward and launched himself into the air like a rocket, streaking across the lake straight toward Gossmore’s position. Watching from the belfry of the Mirror Moon Golem, Aldrich sighed in admiration.

“So the Heavenly Flame Saint of Pritt is here now? Looks like it’s Francesco of Tivian. I didn’t expect that the ‘strong backup’ that girl mentioned would actually be him. That’s… quite the ally. I wonder if she invited him—or tricked him. Probably the latter…”

With a faint smile, Aldrich added, feeling a wave of relief. His own spiritual reserves were nearly depleted, and he could no longer hold Gossmore off for much longer. With a Heavenly Flame Saint now entering the fray, things were finally stabilizing.

With that thought, Aldrich tipped his hat and began maneuvering the golem to follow Francesco’s lead.

…

Elsewhere, mid-prayer, Gossmore noticed a growing fireball rushing toward her from afar. She instinctively dodged at high speed. Not long after, the fireball—Francesco—slammed into her previous position, triggering a massive explosion.

BOOM!

The explosion rivaled heavy artillery. Though she had narrowly dodged, Gossmore was still caught by the shockwave. Her blood mist armor shattered completely, and the flames scorched large swaths of her flesh. She tumbled several times before crashing into a boulder, then violently coughed up blood.

Bracing herself with her blood halberd, Gossmore staggered upright. She pulled out two syringes filled with bright red liquid. She injected one into her arm, gritting her teeth as her burns rapidly healed. The other she shattered directly over her weapon, the fluid fusing into the halberd’s core. Instantly, her blood mist armor reformed.

Fully rearmed, she stared intently toward the impact site.

From within the billowing smoke, a fireball suddenly burst forth—rushing straight at her. She sidestepped with ease, but the fireball struck a rock behind her and detonated violently. Staggering from the aftershock, Gossmore lost her footing.

Just then, a column of fire surged upward from the smoke.

It was Francesco, suspended in midair. In his left hand, he conjured fireballs one after another and hurled them at her.

Gossmore now found herself forced into a desperate dodge. The fireballs weren’t fast—not like the wind blades the Mirror Moon Golem had used—but they exploded. Even missed shots erupted on impact, sending shockwaves and flame across wide areas. She couldn’t evade everything.

Assaulted by fire and pressure from all sides, Gossmore remained alive only through relentless agility. But the barrage confined her movement, hemming her in.

After sealing her off with four consecutive fireballs, Francesco suddenly dove, his blazing longsword raised for a direct strike.

Gossmore responded by conjuring several blood mist weapons and hurling them at him. But upon contact with his flame-forged body, they instantly vaporized.

With a body of pure elemental flame, Francesco was not only immune to Gossmore’s enhanced pain-inflicting abilities—he could also completely dissolve her blood mist weapons on contact.

He was a being of flame—one who could not feel pain.

Francesco broke through Gossmore’s barrage of blood-formed weapons with ease, closing in until his blazing sword was nearly cleaving into her skull. At the last moment, Gossmore narrowly dodged being bisected; the blade, which had been aiming at her head, grazed the side of her face—then slashed down and severed her left arm. With the stench of scorched flesh filling the air, Gossmore cried out in agony.

Against a Heavenly Flame Saint, even with her blood mist armament, Gossmore could barely resist. Among all Beyonder paths, the Path of the Saint was perhaps the most perfectly designed to counter her—her natural nemesis.

Her scream lasted less than a second before she gritted her teeth and suppressed it. Glaring at her severed, falling left arm, she watched as it twisted midair into a giant bat. The bat opened its mouth toward Francesco and unleashed a piercing sonic scream. The high-frequency vibration caused Francesco’s flaming body to waver, momentarily disrupting his concentration and throwing off his second strike.

In response, Francesco punched the bat, vaporizing it in a blast of fire. It exploded into a cloud of blood mist, obscuring vision. Gossmore seized the opportunity and shot skyward in escape. By the time Francesco had burned away the mist and looked up, she had already flown far away.

Just then, a violent gust rose along the lakeshore—a sudden tornado formed, sucking in the blazing flames Francesco had left burning. The whirlwind surged skyward and expanded rapidly, surrounding Gossmore in a storm of flame. Caught within it, she screamed again in agony, her flight slowed by the scorching winds.

Seeing this, Aldrich ceased fueling the tornado and commanded the Mirror Moon Golem to strike. A massive stone fist swung upward and slammed into Gossmore midair, sending her crashing down and creating a deep crater upon impact. Her blood mist armor shattered into fragments.

“Ugh—

cough, cough, cough…

”

From within the crater, Gossmore used her only remaining arm to brace herself on her blood halberd, coughing blood violently. But she had no time to rest—not even for a second. For above her, the flaming knight floated in the air, his blazing sword pointed straight at her.

“Be purified.”

With a deep, inhuman voice, Francesco unleashed a blinding column of high-temperature flame from his sword, raining it directly upon her. Too wounded to evade, Gossmore pooled every shred of her remaining blood mist into a shield, bracing it in front of herself.

The fire pillar crashed down, enveloping her completely. Her blood mist shield began burning away under the intense heat, vaporizing rapidly. The ground beneath her feet glowed red and began to melt into magma.

“Goss… more… are you done yet? I can’t hold on…”

A faint whisper echoed in her mind. Gossmore gritted her teeth and barked back.

“Shut up! Just one more moment—it’s almost ready!”

Still shielding against the inferno, she closed her eyes and recited the final lines of her prayer internally.

When she opened her eyes again, each of her eyes now had three pupils floating within the whites—a total of eight pupils, staring wildly, eerily.

Francesco continued scorching the ground with his fire, intent on vaporizing the heretic completely. His pillar of flame never faltered—melting the earth around the impact point, setting the battlefield aglow in molten red.

But suddenly—something changed.

Pain. Sharp, stabbing pain. Unexpected and unbearable, it surged through Francesco’s senses. As a being of flame, he should not have been capable of feeling pain. Yet now—it was as if his very essence had been pierced. The pain radiated from the pillar of flame itself—his extended body.

“Ngh!”

Startled, Francesco flinched. The flame column collapsed. He nearly lost control of his floating form, only barely maintaining it through sheer willpower. When he finally steadied himself and looked down at the impact site, he was stunned by what he saw.

Amid the scorched, glowing earth stood a tall, slender figure. Her upper body was ghastly pale and bare, her lower body covered only by tattered remnants of a scorched skirt. Gossmore—her eyes now horrifyingly crowded with pupils—stood there, staring up at him.

Her severed left arm had regrown. In fact, she now had six arms—two extra pairs having sprouted along her sides. Each of her six hands wielded a uniquely shaped blood mist weapon. With a twisted, triumphant smile, she glared at the airborne flame knight.

“Ahahahaha! Burn! Keep burning! What’s the matter? Didn’t you like that temperature earlier?! Why aren’t you burning anymore? Afraid of the pain?!”

She laughed, taunting him mercilessly. Francesco stared down at her and roared.

“Despicable heretic! What did you do?!”

“What did I do? Oh, nothing much… I just let something that doesn’t understand pain get a little taste of it. Go ahead—reflect on it. This is the Deep Web Queen’s blessing. Before Her… even flame must come to understand the truth of pain.”

Mocking him with disdain, Gossmore replied.

On the far side, Aldrich, atop the Mirror Moon Golem, furrowed his brow.

“To forcibly impose the concept of pain onto something that should not feel it… Is that the divine enchantment gifted by the Lady of Pain? That woman… she’s starting to undergo apostolization. This just became seriously troublesome…”

He sighed heavily. Deep within, Aldrich could already sense the balance of the battlefield shifting.

“The Lady of Pain’s gaze… it’s really beginning to fall upon this place. Dorothy… are you not done yet?”

…

Meanwhile, within the ritual, Dorothy’s consciousness had completely separated from her body, diving into the reverse side of the world. She felt herself detached from reality, drifting through a kaleidoscope of light. She pierced through one invisible barrier after another, descending ever deeper.

As she continued this plunge, countless shadows, countless beings, countless different paths flashed before her eyes. But Dorothy paid them no mind. She held firm to her will, guided by some unseen force, diving deeper—until she finally breached one last veil and entered a strange realm.

Color, temperature, time, space—Dorothy could no longer perceive any of these metrics. Sight, smell, hearing—none of her usual senses could grasp the nature of this place.

It was utterly abstract, anti-intuitive, and surreal. Dorothy had no words to describe what surrounded her. Her only way to comprehend it was through intuition. All that existed here was information—endless, ever-flowing information, vast and chaotic like a sea of data.

No sight, no sound, no scent—only thought and comprehension. Though there were no leaves or trees to see, the mind could still grasp an entire forest. Senses were meaningless here. Here, the mind alone could explore the cosmos and grasp infinite data. This strange state made Dorothy momentarily entranced.

To aid her own understanding, she translated this experience into a visual form within her consciousness. After this internal adjustment, she could finally “see” what this space “looked like.”

Words, symbols, numbers—countless vessels of knowledge and meaning surged like rivers across the void. Images, musical scores, manuscripts—fragments of information amassed like oceans, spreading toward the endless horizon. Dorothy herself appeared as a lattice of dense overlapping text, floating atop this informational sea.

She gazed around in wonder, taking in this surreal realm, until—deep within the great data ocean—she saw something massive.

A corpse.

It was a colossal, rotting skeleton floating atop the information sea. Constructed from arcane, unknowable runes, much of it submerged beneath the surface, with only fragments exposed above. The “flesh” had rotted away, and vast portions of the “bones” were exposed. Its form was so immense and so decayed that it was impossible to determine whether it had once been human or beast.

Dorothy saw thick black ichor, like corrupted blood, oozing from the bones—spilling into the sea of knowledge, tainting the waters black.

Staring at this horrific scene, Dorothy froze.

Then came a piercing headache, as if her consciousness were about to explode.