Chapter 725 : Retreat

In the depths of the desert of Busalet, a grand and magnificent ancient city had reappeared under the influence of ancient and mysterious forces. At this moment, high above the skies of this millennia-old city, two extremely powerful forces were locked in confrontation.

Beneath the thunder-laden storm clouds, Unina, hovering in the air, stared at the familiar yet foreign figure reflected in the flowing mirror. Her eyes widened, pupils filled with disbelief.

"You… what did you do?! How could you turn my noble form… into… into this blasphemous and disgusting appearance!" she cried, her voice trembling.

Reaching out with shaking hands, she touched her own face—eyes still wide in shock—and clutched at her regal, dignified robes, as if trying to tear them apart with sheer strength.

Upon seeing her own reflection in the water mirror, Unina's expression grew agitated and unstable.

"From the looks of it… you're not very happy with this image, are you? But why? Isn't this also you? This was what you looked like… four hundred years ago. Are you trying to deny it?"

Floating in the distance, Dorothy, now in the form of the Heaven-Anointed Sage, gazed silently at Unina and murmured coldly, the eyes behind her mask staring icily at Unina's form.

"Shut up! End this ridiculous trick of yours at once!!"

Furious at Dorothy's seemingly mocking tone, Unina shouted. She raised her hand and attempted to summon a blood serpent to strangle Dorothy. But once her motion completed—nothing happened. The blood serpent that once answered her call instantly was now entirely absent.

"What…"

Unina looked at her hand in bewilderment. Dorothy, meanwhile, spoke softly.

"As you are now, graced by the Mother of Chalice, you were transformed into a pure path centered around Chalice, allowing you to perfectly channel and wield Her power… But four hundred years ago, you weren't like this. Back then, attempting to use your current powers would be… difficult, wouldn't it?"

Seeing Unina unable to exert her strength, Dorothy slowly explained. Then, with a wave of her hand, she summoned a thick bolt of lightning from the heavens to strike Unina.

With a resounding crack, lightning surged down from the clouds above and struck Unina directly.

Previously, Dorothy had hit Unina with lightning many times, but every time it had been devoured by the wolf mouths sprouting from Unina's body, rendering the attacks useless. No matter how powerful the current, they had never harmed her, nor even caused stiffness or pain.

But now, it was different. The lightning bolt crashed into Unina—and she screamed in agony. Her garments ignited, and her skin was seared into charcoal. Her body convulsed violently, spasming uncontrollably in the air.

Dorothy showed no mercy, summoning bolt after bolt of lightning to strike Unina again and again. Blasted back repeatedly, Unina's limbs shattered as she howled in pain.

At this moment, Unina had been forcibly reverted to her state from four hundred years ago, during her time as one of the Seven Living Saints of Holy Mount. All the divine power and Chalice authority she'd wielded was gone. Against Dorothy's enhanced lightning, she could do nothing but be battered through the skies like a ragdoll.

This was the ability of "Historical Overwrite", possessed by Dorothy through the godhood of Heaven's Arbiter. She could rewind a person—or an object—back to a specific point in their past, forcibly overwriting their current state with a version from history. Unina had been dragged back to her former self, far weaker than she was now.

Though powerful, Historical Overwrite had several limitations. First, the further back in time one tries to rewind, the harder it becomes if the target resists. Second, the user must know the history of the target; without sufficient knowledge, the effect weakens. Third, if the target has a history deeply tied to strong jurisprudential forces, the effect strengthens—it anchors the overwrite to that power. Lastly, the divine strength of the target also affects the overwrite's effectiveness.

Of these four elements, only godhood was strictly necessary. The more conditions fulfilled, the stronger the overwrite's effect.

Unina was currently around 400–500 years old—ancient by mortal standards, but relatively young for a Crimson-rank Beyonder. Her time as a Saint was only 400 years ago, which wasn't far in the past at all—an easy rewind for Heaven's Arbiter's godhood.

As for her history, Dorothy knew it well. She had read Unina's mystical texts, and Ivy also understood Unina's state four centuries ago. Lastly, and most critically: jurisprudence. The Church's jurisprudence was among the strongest in this era, and Unina, a former Church Saint, was intimately tied to it. Dorothy could easily use that as an anchor to drag Unina back.

Looking at all this, Dorothy's Historical Overwrite worked exceptionally well on Unina. The result: Unina was forcefully returned to her Church Saint self—her power vastly diminished, no match for Dorothy, who now wielded both Heaven's Arbiter godhood and Viagetta's legacy.

As lightning roared again and again, Unina's charred body was struck repeatedly. Her form broke down piece by piece. Under the unrelenting blows, she could barely even fight back. And yet—she didn't die. Her powerful regenerative ability still clung to life.

In a brief gap between lightning strikes, Unina seized the moment to unleash an ability from the Redemption Path, aiming to detonate every hidden injury within Dorothy's body and kill her in one strike.

Her ability succeeded. Within Dorothy's body, every latent cellular flaw—those that everyone carries—began to deteriorate rapidly. Microbes and bacteria multiplied explosively. The immune system went berserk, attacking healthy cells. Cancer cells proliferated in a frenzy.

Assaulted by a storm of internal illnesses, Dorothy's body began to falter. Her skin started to weep blood, which soaked her robes as it poured out in torrents. In that instant, she was on the verge of sudden death.

Just as Dorothy seemed on the brink of death, her body suddenly flickered with a faint violet glow—and in the next instant, she returned completely to normal. The blood stopped flowing, her cells and immune system stabilized, and the rampant cancer cells vanished completely. Seeing this instantaneous recovery, Unina, half her face charred by lightning, widened her eyes in disbelief.

"What… this kind of recovery…"

Unina hadn't expected Dorothy's Revelation-based recovery ability to be this powerful. It had instantly healed damage of this magnitude—damage involving malicious cellular overgrowth and complex physiological breakdowns, the kind that ordinary healing could never mend. Forcing healing into such injuries would usually make them worse.

But in truth, what Dorothy had just used wasn't healing at all—it was another overwrite. Dorothy had simply overwritten her injured state with her own intact form from a few seconds prior, restoring herself through historical rollback. In effect, she had restored herself by loading a backup—and thus had no need to figure out how to treat the injuries in the first place.

After fending off Unina's counterattack, Dorothy pressed her advantage. As another bolt of lightning flung Unina backward, she quickly raised her finger and released a blazing arc of lightning directly at her foe.

This time, the arc didn't vanish after a flash—it sustained, continuously discharging from Dorothy's fingertip. Unina was caught in its current, convulsing as her body was cooked and seared under its unrelenting burn. Her screams echoed through the heavens.

But it didn't stop there. Dorothy summoned hundreds upon hundreds of lightning bolts from the sky, each one hammering down on Unina with thunderous might. The world was swallowed in light and roar.

Dorothy kept up the onslaught, intending to completely obliterate Unina with this divinely empowered barrage. Under the endless lightning, Unina's body trembled violently, her skin charring and cracking over and over again.

Under such sustained divine destruction, not even a Gold-rank Saint like Unina should have lasted long—yet she endured. Her body disintegrated and regenerated endlessly in the lightning storm. In terms of total matter, she had been annihilated countless times already, but still had not turned to ash. She persisted—resurrected each time by her unyielding regeneration.

Though Dorothy had overwritten Unina's state to a time before she possessed divine power, the connection to divinity itself wasn't so easily severed. Dorothy's ability, in its current state, could affect Unina, but not the Mother of Chalice directly. Thus, Dorothy could not completely cut off the divine supply from the source.

The present Unina had merely lost the qualification to act as a vessel of godhood—she could no longer channel divine power at will. But that didn't mean the godhood itself was gone, nor that it couldn't still influence her body. Even under such devastating lightning, it was the Mother of Chalice's divinity that sustained her life. As long as that divinity remained—Unina could not die.

"Ugh… ah… hah… interesting… this lightning… this power… it's strong… worthy of having ruled the First Dynasty…"

"But… this still isn't enough to kill me… my Mother's milk still… nourishes me… as long as I drink from Her gift… I shall never perish…"

In the flickering, thundering skies, Unina's broken, pain-wracked voice echoed out. Hearing her, Dorothy responded with a serious expression.

"You think… you can just keep going like this?"

"Why not…? My Mother's might is boundless… why wouldn't it continue? As long as I don't give up, I can remain eternal…"

"My Mother's power is immeasurable… She births worlds… Her strength dwarfs oceans and stars alike… But you—you ancient relic from who-knows-how-many-thousand years ago—your god has long since fallen. The only thing you wield now… is a mere remnant."

"And with that scrap of power… how long do you think you can last?"

"So while you still can… flee. Hand over this Sacred Land, surrender that little nun you're protecting, and Ivy—and I won't pursue you. I'll let you go."

Unina's words rang out into the world, fragmented and painful as they were, laced with mockery.

She could sense it—though her opponent might be able to tamper with time or history, such abilities could not touch divinity itself. In other words, the source of Dorothy's power couldn't affect the very god that granted it. And thus, her power was not infinite. Any ability drawn from godhood must have a limit.

Faced with Unina's taunts, Dorothy paused briefly, then chuckled lightly.

"Heh… quite a bold claim. You're that confident… that the Mother of Chalice's blessing will stay with you forever?"

"What else? Or do you think… you know my Mother's love better than I do?"

Unina continued speaking, but Dorothy replied coolly.

"'Love'... I can't say I understand it well. But what I do know about the Mother of Chalice… might be more than you think."

"I'm sure She loves you very much. Otherwise, She wouldn't go to such lengths—tearing through layer after layer of powerful seals—just to send you Her 'milk'. That milk wasn't handed to you effortlessly, was it? Your Mother had to struggle greatly to gift it to you."

With a glint of amusement in her eyes, Dorothy looked Unina dead in the face. At those words, Unina stiffened—then spoke with a serious tone.

"You… what do you know?!"

"Me? You've always called me some ancient relic, but I'm not the kind to live in seclusion, blind to the world. I know far more than you think… you overly attached 'daughter'..."

Dorothy said calmly. Unina remained silent. Seeing her reaction, Dorothy turned her gaze to the thunderous sky and spoke again, slowly and without rush.

"I can see it… the Crimson Chalice Mother, deep within the world's inner layers, bound and sealed—imprisoned by mighty restraints. She's sending you milk… by tearing open the prison walls… creating a tiny fracture in the barriers to reach you…"

Dorothy went on. Unina's silence deepened. After a long pause, she finally spoke, voice tinged with something strange.

"What… exactly have you seen?"

"I saw the Crimson Chalice, mad and thrashing against Her restraints, struggling to send Her milk to you. I saw the retaliating counterforce—the prison's defensive mechanisms—clashing with Her desperate efforts."

"Your Mother is now a prisoner. And there's also a jailer—a power tasked with containing Her. This act of nurturing you… in a way, it's an escape attempt. And the jailer—the binding force—is starting to gain the upper hand…"

Dorothy continued in her same amused tone. After hearing all that, Unina hesitated, then gritted her teeth.

"What are you trying to say?!"

"I'm not implying anything… I'm just saying: even though the Divine Mentor has fallen, They left me a truly independent divinity. That power now belongs to me."

"But you, Sister Unina… you never possessed divinity of your own. Your power has always come directly from the Mother of Chalice. And She, right now, is leaking Her power to you by forcibly bypassing those restraints. I may not be able to use the Divine Mentor's power indefinitely—but do you really think the Mother of Chalice can maintain that breakthrough state forever?"

Dorothy's voice was earnest now, no longer taunting but clear and pointed.

Though both wielded godhood, their circumstances were vastly different. Dorothy's divinity had been granted as a severed, independent piece of Heaven's Arbiter's own essence. Unina, on the other hand, relied entirely on the Mother of Chalice, and strictly speaking, had no godhood of her own.

If godhood is compared to spirituality, then Dorothy's divinity is like her primary spirituality of Revelation—it has a fixed upper limit and can recover a bit each day; even when depleted, it gradually replenishes. But Unina has no such system—her divinity comes entirely from an external source, and she herself possesses none innately.

Now, while Dorothy's divine power runs the risk of being depleted in a short period, Unina's power carries its own risk: the instability of its external supply line.

"You... are questioning the power of my Mother...?"

Unina spoke with a low, calm voice. But Dorothy answered steadily.

"No. I'm not doubting the power of the Mother of Chalice—I'm merely stating the facts. As for whether those facts are true... I imagine you'd know better than I do. Surely no one can feel the fluctuations of divinity better than the one who receives it."

"Even if you're right… so what?"

"So what? If the seal suppressing the Mother of Chalice is currently growing stronger, then the channel through which She grants you Her power will eventually be cut off. Which means your claim that you're 'undying' becomes meaningless. You have no right to threaten me."

Dorothy stated this seriously. Upon hearing her, Unina once again fell silent. If Dorothy had been able to see her expression then, she would've seen how terribly dark it was.

Seeing Unina's silence, Dorothy didn't stop. She continued.

"So... would you like to test whose godhood lasts longer—mine, as a remnant of the Divine Mentor, or yours, as the grace of the Mother of Chalice? Of course, whoever loses that gamble... loses everything. Without divine backing, neither of us can win this battle. But me, being the one currently with the upper hand… I have a little room to spare."

Dorothy's tone remained composed. It was true that neither of them could win without godhood—but in reality, Dorothy held the advantage. With her superior understanding of history and her legalistic grounding, she had enacted an almost perfect Historical Overwrite on Unina.

Thanks to this, Dorothy had Unina completely suppressed within a lightning cage. The moment Unina lost her divine protection, she'd instantly perish. There was no margin for error.

In contrast, Dorothy—currently in a dominant position—could still act if she lost her godhood first. She might not win, but she could likely retreat. From Unina's perspective, Dorothy was like an ancient Gold-rank being, and this battlefield was her turf. In terms of fail-safes, Dorothy had far more options.

Most crucially, Dorothy owned her divinity. She knew exactly how long she could maintain it. She could plan accordingly, even reserve a final burst of divine power just to escape if needed.

Unina, however, was different. She had no idea how long her divinity would last—it all depended on the struggle between the Mother of Chalice and the binding seal. When would the seal completely block divine interference? No one knew.

To Unina, this was all abstract and unknowable. That divine struggle was beyond her comprehension, which meant she had far fewer strategic options than Dorothy.

After carefully thinking it over, Unina realized: though Dorothy spoke of a gamble, the only one actually gambling was Unina herself. Dorothy stood securely on high ground.

The enemy held battlefield advantage. The Sacred Land itself suppressed her power. And the divine supply from the Mother of Chalice was unstable. All this combined made Unina realize—things were not looking good. And in this sacred site, her power was constrained; she couldn't deploy wide-scale techniques like blood-flesh terrain.

In truth, after seeing what Dorothy was capable of, Unina had already given up on killing her and seizing her godhood. Her only goal now was to intimidate Dorothy into backing down—into surrendering Vania and Ivy, and abandoning this threatening sacred ground in North Ufiga. Otherwise, this trip would've been for nothing.

But now, not only had that intimidation failed—she was in serious danger herself.

Finally, amidst the roaring lightning, Unina made her decision. With a faint laugh, she said:

"Heh… remnants of Revelation… This time, I'll call it your win. But don't get cocky. You who've lost your divine patrons—clinging to leftover embers—will never stir waves in this era…

"You've shielded those two Radiance traitors this time—I tolerated it. But take this as a warning: never again interfere with us crimson followers. The tide we stir under the Mother's gaze will be unstoppable, swallowing this world whole.

"No matter how Radiance may rise… it will be drowned in blood. You are the ashes of a bygone age. You can change nothing. Either hide away in some dark corner… or choose the right side…"

Her voice faded into the thunder as she spoke. Then, Unina's body, caught in the lightning storm, suddenly seemed to lose its regenerative strength—and crumbled instantly into ash and smoke.

Right after, a powerful shockwave erupted from within the lightning, scattering the divine thunder Dorothy had maintained and blasting outward in every direction. Dorothy turned into lightning and retreated swiftly, barely evading the blast before coming to a stop.

After that blast, a red halo abruptly contracted. Space twisted—and she was gone.

The world fell silent.

Unina's presence vanished entirely. Within this sacred city of Heopolis, Dorothy could no longer sense her.

Unina had used the power of the Mother of Chalice to flee into the inner realm. This escape cut through Heopolis's bindings. It was as if she had returned to the Mother—retrieved, taken back.

But in doing so, she consumed all the remaining divinity left in this region. Even the traces she'd used to corrupt the pseudo-history were completely erased. With no godhood residue left behind, Unina could not return here anytime soon. Even if she were to be reborn like before, that rebirth wouldn't happen here.

"Haah… she's finally gone…"

Looking at the aftermath, Dorothy let out a soft sigh.

Her goal had never been to kill Unina—only to drive her off. Unina's divine supply had already been faltering. But Dorothy's own condition… wasn't much better.

What limited Dorothy's power wasn't just Heaven's Arbiter's divinity—it was the final buff from Viagetta. After all, Dorothy was still only Crimson-rank. Without Viagetta's dying gift, she could never have wielded such godly power. That buff was what temporarily boosted her compatibility with Heaven's Arbiter's divinity to Gold-rank levels.

But Viagetta's buff wouldn't last long—much shorter than Dorothy's own divine energy.

If Unina had been as reckless as a Dread Devourer Direwolf, brute-forcing her way through… Dorothy might not have been able to win. The only reason Unina backed down was because she mistook Dorothy for a true divine envoy—an ancient First Dynasty monster.

Just like the four pharaohs, Unina assumed Dorothy was a relic from seven thousand years ago who had simply avoided becoming undead.

Of course, seeing the sacred capital of the First Dynasty reappear, then seeing someone emerge from it—someone dressed like the pharaohs, but in even more refined regalia, and wielding the divine power of Revelation… it was understandable Unina got it wrong.

If Dorothy hadn't deceived her into backing off, she would've had to drag Unina deeper into pseudo-history, hoping that the added barrier would sever the fragile divine channel between Unina and the Mother of Chalice. But… that backup plan had a very low chance of success.

"Has she… finally gone for good?"

On the streets of the sacred city, a graceful and elegant woman in regal robes slowly opened her eyes, gazing toward the now-quiet skies.

"The Divine Mentor's chosen successor… is quite an interesting person,"thought Shepsuna as she looked up at Dorothy's lone figure.

It had been Shepsuna who uncovered key information about the Mother of Chalice's state and fluctuating divine supply—intelligence that Dorothy used to formulate her battle strategy.

Dorothy had entrusted a fragment of her precious divine power to Shepsuna to temporarily restore her ancient self, so she could help uncover the enemy's weakness.

"A blasphemous Mother God of the Crimson Chalice… struggling to break free from Her cage, hm? Looks like this era's great upheaval… is about to begin…"