Chapter 769 : Shadow Resolve

Frisland, Northern Main Continent.

In the dead of night, deep underground in a dark space beneath Frisland, a gruesome and claustrophobic ritual was quietly unfolding.

In a ritual chamber littered with bloody corpses like a slaughterhouse, several cultists dressed in hooded executioners’ robes with pointed masks were slowly approaching the central ritual array from the edges of the chamber. As they walked, they chanted in low, solemn voices while wielding massive execution implements. Step by step, they approached the horrifying throne at the center of the rite. Among them, three led the procession, their attire more elaborate, each wielding a distinct weapon: a flaying blade, a massive execution axe, and a meat-pounding hammer.

“Blood and bone, devoured together…

Shared fate in life and death…

A birthrite for the king… may all souls fall into the nether…

In life we differ… in death we return as one…

A vessel for the king… a sacrifice for the Father…”

As they chanted, the executioners of the Nether Coffin Order reached the center of the array, encircling the horrific throne. Resting upon its coiled spinal seat was the head of Jerak.

“With my life I bury all lives. With my soul I devour all souls. I lead them to the god for feeding… for the Nether Father!”

As Jerak's final words rang out, the executioners surrounding him raised their massive instruments high. Then, led by the three at the front, they brought them crashing down onto the throne.

A deafening thud filled the blood-soaked space. The heavy implements smashed the throne from all directions, shattering it with ease. Jerak’s head, resting atop it, was likewise cleaved and pulverized into mush—shards of bone and a slurry of red and white flesh mixing with the debris of the throne.

Thus perished the Death Curse Jerak, one of the three Death Elders of the Nether Coffin Order. His death marked the toppling of the first domino in a grand chain of horror.

Jerak dismembered himself, allowed his body to be devoured by sacrificial beasts, whose remains were in turn consumed by the survivors of Stinam. Finally, those survivors were dismantled and distributed into Frisland’s food supply. Through this process, Jerak mystically connected himself to millions across Frisland.

As with the tragedy on the Starfall Continent millennia ago, the Nether Coffin Order mimicked the god they worshipped, commencing the ancient ritual of corpse consumption. From Jerak’s location, intangible waves of spirituality began to spread outward. The millions now linked through the corpse consumption rite started to be corroded by Jerak’s death.

…

Late night in Aransdel.

An elderly nightwatchman walked the empty streets with his lantern as usual. Moments ago, a bright flash like an enormous firework lit up the sky, prompting him to look upward in curiosity. But just as he was wondering what had occurred in the heavens, a wave of nausea surged within him.

“Huff… huff… urgh…”

His heartbeat accelerated. Breathing became difficult. It felt as though a massive stone pressed against his chest. He staggered, then collapsed entirely, consciousness fading into darkness.

This same phenomenon was occurring not only in Aransdel, but throughout all of Frisland. In nearly every town and village, people were suddenly struck by intense discomfort. Many collapsed in their sleep. Others dropped to the ground unconscious. The invisible influence of the ritual rapidly drained their vitality. Deathly silence spread over Frisland like a blanket.

High above Aransdel, aboard the Saint Steel Vessel Sacred Law Judicator, Kramar, who had just exchanged blows moments ago, sharply sensed the rapidly spreading spiritual wave from the land below. Realizing the danger, he turned and shouted toward a colleague aboard a neighboring Saint Steel Vessel.

“The cultist ritual has begun! You see it now, don’t you?! Such a massive, evil rite! Stop obstructing me! I must initiate the purification immediately!”

His voice thundered toward Amanda. But Amanda showed no hesitation or concern. She remained poised in combat stance, unaffected by the encroaching spiritual silence below.

“No… it’s you who must stand down, Inquisitor Kramar… You will not purify a single innocent soul today.”

“Stubborn bitch of a Holy Mother! You’re the cult’s greatest accomplice!”

Infuriated by Amanda’s refusal, Kramar spat venom and flared with spirituality. After his outburst, he launched another attack at her.

Though the situation was likely already beyond salvation, Kramar still had to try. To purify, he first had to overcome Amanda.

…

As the two Radiance Saints clashed in the sky, down on the ground in central Aransdel, atop a tall rooftop within the Requiem Cathedral, Archbishop Sinclair of Frisland spread her arms and made a declaration to Vania.

“It has begun… the rite of corpse consumption… Do you feel it, Sister Vania? This glorious ceremony! A sacrificial offering to the Great King of the Underworld!”

Feeling the immense spiritual surge sweeping over the city and all Frisland, Sinclair trembled with excitement, her voice laced with fanaticism.

“Since the Redemption Cardinal chose to stop Vambas’s purification, let this tide of death come even stronger! People of Frisland, you shall serve as offerings to the King of the Underworld… and enjoy eternal peace in the afterlife!”

As she spoke, Vania remained composed. Even as she sensed the spiritual silence and the activation of the massive ritual, her expression did not change—prompting Sinclair’s brow to furrow.

“What’s this… Sister Vania, you always claimed to care for all life. Now, feeling so many lives perish, this is all the reaction you show? Is this your so-called Holy Mother’s compassion?

“I even went out of my way to lace the welcome banquet’s food with carefully refined corpse-consumption material, so you can feel it too. Your vitality fading under the ritual’s influence. For someone like you, blessed with the power of the Chalice, this effect is trivial. But for ordinary people, it’s instantly fatal.”

Her voice dripped with sarcasm. Vania sighed softly and looked at her intently.

“Death? What death…? The scale of your ritual is indeed grand, but has it truly brought death?”

“Hah… empty rhetoric… That’s not—hmm?”

Sinclair had intended to retort, but as she focused on sensing the death toll, expecting to mock Vania with numbers, she realized something strange.

Through her Lantern-sense, Sinclair detected a massive number of ordinary citizens affected by the ritual, collapsed on the streets and critically weakened. Yet despite the severity, they were all still alive—barely, but alive. The deathly effect of the corpse consumption ritual, which should have killed instantly, had only pushed many to the brink of death. The mass casualties expected by the Nether Coffin Order had not occurred.

“What… what is this?! The ritual should be active! Death should’ve descended equally from the sky! Why isn’t it working?

“These people… why haven’t they died yet?! Ordinary mortals shouldn’t be able to resist this!”

Staggered by what she sensed, Sinclair turned to Vania and shouted angrily.

“You… what did you do?! Why is the ritual failing?

“Impossible… This scale of ritual can’t be disrupted so quickly! I get it! You interfered with the ritual in the Aransdel region! But it doesn’t matter… as long as the rest of Frisland is running properly, all is fine! You won’t deceive me!”

To this, Vania replied calmly.

“No, you’re mistaken, Archbishop Sinclair. It’s not just Aransdel. Across the entirety of Frisland, the ritual’s influence has been disrupted. If the rest of the region were still working, the resulting spiritual anomaly would still reach Aransdel… But look around—does this feel like success to you?”

“This…”

Sinclair was speechless as she looked toward the tranquil sky. After a pause, she bit her lip and muttered through clenched teeth.

“Why… how could such a vast ritual be obstructed so swiftly?”

Vania’s eyes now glowed with spiritual light. Spirituality surged from her form as she looked back at Sinclair with a commanding presence.

“Under the Lord’s blessing, the truly innocent will not be harmed by senseless evil. Behold, Archbishop Sinclair! This is the grace the Lord and Holy Church bestow upon the innocent! I offer you one final warning… turn back now, while you still can.”

Assuming a battle stance, Vania gave her final admonition. Sinclair, eyes narrowing, raised her guard and coldly replied.

“Your warning… I return it to you in full, Sister Vania…”

…

In the deathly silence of Aransdel, dazzling beams of light burst forth again and again as immense spiritual forces clashed fiercely in the sky above. The entire city flickered between day and night, as if the heavens themselves couldn’t decide which to follow.

While the evil ritual spread across all of Frisland and the battles between light and darkness raged on their respective fronts, a force with the potential to decisively alter the entire situation moved quietly, concealed within the night.

Above Frisland, along an aerial route leading to Aransdel, an invisible iron colossus flew swiftly through the darkness—completely silent. This was the Twilight Devotion, a Saint Steel warship belonging to the Church's Court of Secrets.

Inside the fast-flying Twilight Devotion, in one of its observation chambers, a masked nun clad in black stood silently. She monitored the settlements below using the chamber’s instruments, checking for changes and confirming the situation.

“The ritual has begun… but everything is still under control. Most ordinary people affected by it have merely fallen unconscious or are near death, not dead outright. It’s just as that person had predicted…”

Murmuring as she observed the condition of the townsfolk below, the black-robed nun looked up through the cabin window at the scene outside the ship.

Flying alongside the Twilight Devotion were several other airborne warships. Though similarly designed as Church Saint Steel Vessels, these vessels were noticeably smaller. Each only around 200 meters long. These were the Church’s secondary Saint Steel Vessels. Less powerful, smaller, and more numerous than the full Temple-Grade Vessels like the Twilight Devotion. They were commonly referred to as pre-Temple-Grade Saint Steel Vessels.

A closer inspection of the observation monitors revealed that these ships flanked the Twilight Devotion in two even lines, forming a V-shaped formation with the flagship at the center. Upon closer inspection, two types of insignia could be seen painted on their hulls. One bore the moon enclosed within a sun—emblem of the Court of Secrets. The other displayed a sun, a ring of wheat, and a white-feathered serpent—symbols of the Court of Redemption. This was clearly a joint fleet of the Church’s Court of Redemption and the Court of Secrets.

“Good… We acted quickly enough. The mission was completed before the ritual began…”

Gazing at the ships outside, the nun silently sighed in relief. Then she reached toward a small glass vial on a nearby table, lifting it into her hand and watching the liquid inside swirl as her thoughts deepened.

“To think… such a small vial of medicine could disrupt a ritual of this scale. Could this too be a product of advanced mysticism?”

Her gaze focused on the paper label affixed to the vial. The largest line of text read: "BS61-C7."

This nun, this fleet, and this vial in her hand were the keys to halting the corpse consumption ritual. The substance within the vial was a modified strain of the super-exceptional virus “BS61-1”, originally developed by the Afterbirth Cult.

After Dorothy discovered massive traces of human remains in Frisland’s food supply, the idea that the Nether Coffin Order was preparing to mimic the King of the Underworld’s ritual from the New Continent—conducting a grand-scale corpse consumption ritual across all of Frisland—took root in her mind. Upon noticing Sinclair’s strange behavior, she became fully convinced.

From that moment, Dorothy began contemplating countermeasures. But truthfully, even for her, this was a daunting challenge. The ritual had already been mostly prepared, lacking only the final activation step. Conventional disruption methods, such as identifying and destroying the ritual’s key nodes, wouldn’t work in time against such a massive setup. She had to try something else.

That’s when she remembered “BS61-1.” If precision couldn’t work, then she would fight magnitude with magnitude.

The original “BS61-1” virus was developed by the Afterbirth Cult as a super-plague, using Busalet—a land influenced by the Savior’s Advent Sect—as a breeding ground. Later, Dorothy and Vania used the pseudo-history world to intentionally misguide the virus’s evolution, transforming it into a powerful yet unsustainable mutation that would quickly self-destruct.

However, Dorothy didn’t completely destroy “BS61-1.” Before leaving the pseudo-history laboratory, she used her materials and Vania’s abilities to create an extremely strict survival environment inside a container, nurturing a tiny sample of the virus with a continuous supply of Chalice spirituality. This extremely delicate balance meant even a tiny environmental deviation would kill it instantly.

Later, after the synchronized collapse of the remaining “BS61-1” strains in the real world, only Dorothy’s preserved sample survived. It became the sole remaining specimen.

At first, she had kept it out of sentiment, it was the result of a year of her virological research. But realizing it served no use sitting with her, and hoping to improve relations with the Church while helping them fight the Afterbirth Cult, she passed the sample (along with a full set of research notes transcribed by her corpse marionettes) to Amanda via Vania—as a favor in return for Amanda’s protection of Vania.

At that time, the Church's Cardinal Council had just approved preparations for an all-out Holy War against the Afterbirth Cult. Biological countermeasures were a top priority, and Amanda, as the Redemption Cardinal, took full responsibility for this aspect of war preparedness. She treated the virus sample with utmost importance, recognizing that it combined the most advanced biological mysticism of both the Afterbirth Cult and the enigmatic Heaven’s Arbiter Sect.

Amanda later personally led efforts to cultivate and modify the virus. First, she severed all residual ties between “BS61-1” and the Afterbirth Cult. Then she cut the virus’s evolutionary synchronicity into multiple groups and began cultivating them separately, guiding them toward a vaccine-like state.

The version currently deployed in Frisland, “BS61-C7,” is one such experimental derivative. When Dorothy asked Amanda whether any of her test subjects could help against the corpse consumption ritual, this was what she recommended.

Normally, a biological virus like the BS series would have no effect on the mystical link formed between civilians and the ritual through the consumption of corpse fragments. Those remains were lifeless objects; the virus couldn't touch the spiritual connections.

But the critical factor wasn’t the BS virus’s biological counter-infection—it was its spiritual channeling ability.

Originally, “BS61-1” had the ability to follow commands, drain Chalice spirituality from its host, and transmit it across great distances to a target. Amanda’s modified strain, “BS61-C7,” reversed that function—allowing a spiritual target to remotely provide Chalice spirituality to infected hosts. This was the key that kept ordinary people alive during the ritual.

Once Dorothy confirmed the likelihood of a large-scale corpse consumption ritual, she immediately contacted Amanda and ordered the Twilight Devotion to rush back to Holy Mount. Amanda then gathered a fleet of pre-Temple-Grade Saint Steel Vessels from the Court of Redemption—mainly battlefield medical and biocountermeasure ships—and loaded them with large quantities of BS61-C7 solution originally prepared for the Holy War. Amanda also adjusted the virus’s environmental tolerance back to a manageable level.

Dorothy, with her authority over the Court of Secrets, ordered the Twilight Devotion and its escort ships to accompany the Redemption fleet out of Holy Mount’s skyport. The joint fleet headed toward Frisland at full speed. Once they arrived, they split into squadrons and spread across the region. The Court of Secrets’ vessels provided stealth barriers to cloak themselves and the Redemption vessels, while the Redemption vessels used their equipment to quietly spray BS61-C7 over the towns below.

Because the Church had already mass-produced the virus for war, there was ample supply. Combined with their vast aerial deployment capabilities, the Church successfully infected nearly all of Frisland’s population within a single day.

The BS series had extremely high transmissibility. Though symptomless, nearly every civilian was infected. Then, once the Nether Coffin Order activated the corpse consumption ritual, Court of Redemption officials at Holy Mount activated their spiritual array, channeling Chalice spirituality into every infected person across the country.

The Church, being the most powerful supranational organization on this planet and rulers of the epoch for over a thousand years, possessed unimaginable reserves. With all of its wartime strategic resources on standby, the Church activated its external Chalice spirituality network. As a result, tens of millions of Frisland civilians were not killed instantly by the corpse consumption ritual but instead entered a suspended state—on the verge of death, yet biologically alive.

Thus, the Nether Coffin Order’s massive ritual was halted at the very first moment.

“Hah…”

On the balcony of a luxury hotel in Aransdel, Dorothy stood quietly, overlooking the slumbering city. As she received reports from all sides confirming the virus had worked and the corpse consumption ritual had been arrested, she finally allowed herself to exhale.

“The virus worked… I really must thank the Afterbirth Cult for this. Without them, I’d have had no way to deal with two deadly rituals running in parallel. Now, with Amanda stopping Kramar from triggering the Earth Grievance Ritual, and BS stalling the corpse consumption ritual… It’s not over yet, but at least we’ve gained precious breathing room…”

As Dorothy analyzed the current situation, her thoughts remained cautious. The crisis had eased, but it was far from over.

Relying on BS to stall the corpse consumption ritual was ultimately a temporary measure, it could not last. The BS compound’s ability to impede the ritual depended entirely on the Church’s strategic reserves of Chalice spirituality. Though vast, those reserves were not infinite. Sustaining the lives of tens of millions of people, even if each one used only a trace amount, would quickly drain the Church’s supply.

After all, the Radiance Church was fundamentally a Lantern-based mystical institution. Chalice was merely an auxiliary type of spirituality for them, while the Silence of the Nether Coffin Order was their core mystical element. So, while the Church far surpassed the Coffin in size, it couldn’t outmatch them in reserves of auxiliary spirituality.

Therefore, the current stalling of the ritual was only a stopgap. The true key was to use the time bought to locate and destroy the ritual. It could not be delayed indefinitely.

Fortunately, Dorothy had already prepared a plan to sabotage the ritual beforehand.

At that moment, across various regions of Frisland, secondary Saint Steel Vessels began descending toward the land. From these warships, several figures dropped swiftly from the sky.

These were the elite ritual specialists of the Court of Foundation, personally dispatched by Amanda and borrowed from Alberto. They were highly experienced in managing and maintaining the Radiance Church’s complex ritual arrays.

Upon landing in towns affected by the corpse consumption ritual, these specialists began immediate extraordinary interventions using professional mystical instruments. They connected to the grand ritual network through the unconscious residents, tapping into the ritual through them as spiritual conduits.

Their goal was to probe the edges of the ritual and reverse-engineer its structure to locate its central node. Once found, destroying that node would cause the entire ritual to collapse.

Soon after, aboard one of the Court of Foundation's Saint Steel Vessels, an archbishop, having gathered intel from all across the region, began calculating the central node’s coordinates using specialized equipment—and got a result.

“Ah… Found it. The node is located… wait, where?”

The moment he obtained the result and prepared to report it, the archbishop suddenly felt a wave of mental dissonance. He had forgotten the location he just calculated. He furrowed his brow.

This unexpected memory lapse triggered a protocol. As instructed earlier by the Court of Secrets—anyone who experienced sudden memory anomalies had to report immediately. So, before recalculating, the archbishop used the communication device to submit a report.

Through Court of Secrets’ channels, Dorothy was quickly informed.

“They located the node, and then forgot it? As expected… those bastards have hidden the critical ritual point in the Forgotten Land…”

Dorothy frowned at the report, then immediately attempted direct communication with the archbishop to assist with recalculations under memory shielding. At the same time, she opened her Literary Sea Logbook and contacted Artcheli in distant Stinam.

“Secrets Cardinal, the corpse consumption ritual has begun. The central node is most likely in Stinam—there’s no need to hide anymore. Locate the node and destroy it! Now that the ritual is active, it should be easy to trace!”

…

Frisland – The Forgotten Land.

Beneath the grim skies of night, atop a clocktower in the dead city of Stinam, Artcheli—cloaked and long-hidden—held Dorothy’s message from the Literary Sea Logbook. She softly exhaled.

“Looks like… the time for stealth is over.”

With a murmur, she stood up, tucked away the message, and gazed down upon the silent city. Then, she slowly retrieved a radiant orange-yellow gem from within her cloak.

“Eyes like burning suns…”

As she whispered, the gem in her hand shattered into fragments, and a dazzling light flared from her eyes. In that instant, the shadowed clocktower blazed like a lighthouse.

Empowered by the extraordinary tool, her already-Gold-rank Lantern insight surged further. Under this full-powered sight, the entire city of Stinam would be laid bare—no secrets could hide.

The beam of Artcheli’s gaze swept across the city. Soon, she located the most conspicuous anomaly—a highly active Silence spiritual convergence deep underground, near the city center. Though it was shielded by an advanced Shadow barrier, her gaze pierced it instantly. The defenses, while sophisticated, were not top-tier and thus useless before her light.

“Found it…”

The gleam in her eyes dimmed. Artcheli leapt from the tower, vaulting through the air, rushing toward the target she had identified.

…

Just before Artcheli ended her concealment and launched her large-scale investigation, in the underground slaughter site of Stinam, a strange atmosphere loomed. Several Coffin executioners who had completed the final execution sat silently on the floor in reverent stillness.

From the shattered remains of the throne, a half-intact, blood-red skull—still clinging to scraps of flesh—opened its crooked, broken jaw. In a shrill, trembling voice filled with rage and confusion, it rasped.

“Wh… why… I have perished… yet the vermin live… tens of millions… why… why… Chalice… why do those vermin carry such vitality of Chalice? Radiance… anticipated this? Interfered ahead of time? Or was it that… that Revelation…

“Despicable! Blasphemous! Let me see… how long you can oppose me!”

With halting stammers, Jerak—the fallen Death Curse Elder—voiced his indignation and confusion, while his subordinates sat trembling, not daring to move.

Just as Jerak steeled himself for a prolonged struggle of attrition with the Radiance faction, a piercing Lantern-gaze suddenly swept down from above. He felt its searing hostility from the surface.

“Lantern vision… a Lantern! That intensity… it’s a Cardinal! When? When did a Cardinal infiltrate here? How… how did they find this place?!”

Compared to his earlier confusion about the ritual’s failure, Jerak now felt genuine panic. He had never expected a Radiance Cardinal to appear in what should have been the safest location—sheltered by divine Forgetting. When had that defense failed?

“Doesn’t matter how you got here… DIE!”

Through spectral informants embedded in the city above, Jerak locked onto the image of Artcheli retracting her radiant gaze and preparing to leap. Using that image as a medium, he launched a remote hex—a death curse targeting Artcheli from afar!

The curse hit. Artcheli’s figure twisted violently in midair, crushed by an unseen force, then shattered.

Yet what burst apart was not blood and flesh—but a cloud of shadow.

“A double?! Where’s the real one?!”

Jerak’s mind reeled. At this moment, he had been completely reduced to the central node of the corpse consumption ritual—stripped of his form, sustained only by death. His former Gold-rank combat power was long gone. Now facing the hidden real Artcheli, panic gripped him.

“No… this won’t do! Calm down! I must take the most efficient countermeasure, or it’s all over!”

Trying to steady himself, Jerak concentrated his remaining strength to unleash his final recourse—a divine curse.

“Ah… King of the Underworld… grant me your power… once more…”

Jerak rasped. Not long ago, the Coffin’s divine curse targeting Kramar’s half-soul had been broken. Now, he extracted the divinity from that failed curse and rewove it, this time invoking a sacred name.

“Saint Artcheli! In the name of the King of the Underworld, forget your mission! Forget your purpose! Forget everything that brought you to this Forgotten Land!”

Only the Secrets Cardinal, Artcheli, could have infiltrated Stinam so silently and effortlessly. Thus, Jerak quickly deduced her sacred name and targeted her.

With no personal medium of Artcheli on hand—not even the ability to sense her—Jerak had only one means of casting his spell: her sacred name. However, a sacred name was not Artcheli’s true name, so the effectiveness of any curse would already be reduced. Moreover, a sacred name possessed exceptional mystical significance and was inherently highly resistant to curses.

Thus… even drawing on divinity, Jerak couldn’t cast a death curse through her sacred name. He had to settle for something lesser: a Forgetfulness Curse aligned with the nature of the King of the Underworld’s divinity. And soon, the curse took effect.

In a shadowed attic somewhere in the city of Stinam, Artcheli’s true body burst from a window, leaping into the quiet night sky. As she calculated her position mid-air, she reached into her cloak and drew a revolver engraved with exquisite runes, readying to aim ahead.

But in that instant, Jerak’s curse activated.

Artcheli felt her mind go blank. A dazed expression overtook her eyes.

“What… was I doing again?”

In that moment, under the divine Forgetfulness Curse, she forgot her mission in Stinam… forgot her current objective… forgot why she was even here… and, most critically, she forgot Dorothy.

Dorothy had been the key factor enabling Artcheli to resist the effects of Forgetfulness and operate within Stinam. But now, obeying Jerak’s divine command-word, Artcheli completely forgot Dorothy, erasing her and the Literary Sea Logbook from memory—along with any way to communicate.

That was Jerak’s precise calculation: not only did he make Artcheli forget her mission, he also made her forget how to resist the curse. He didn’t know the method she used to endure the Forgetfulness Curse, but it didn’t matter—as long as she forgot it herself.

This way… Artcheli would cease her attack on Jerak and wander aimlessly through the streets of Stinam in confusion. Having forgotten Dorothy, she would lose any chance of ever breaking the curse.

That was the future Jerak had designed for her.

But what happened next completely shattered his expectations.

Still mid-air, just after bursting from the attic, Artcheli’s confusion lasted less than a second. Then, her gaze sharpened and her expression became clear and composed once more.

“What was I doing again? Doesn’t matter. It must’ve been something important. I’ll just keep doing it.”

This was Artcheli’s current thought.

Though she no longer remembered why she was here or what she was supposed to do, as a veteran operative who had experienced countless life-and-death missions, she relied purely on instinct and battlefield experience to deduce that she must be in the middle of something urgent. The sudden mental confusion must have been caused by some kind of psychic interference.

Her attire, her stance—everything about her posture screamed “on a mission.” And if a mission warranted the personal involvement of the Cardinal of Secrets, then it had to be top priority. So even if she couldn’t remember what it was, the only thing that mattered was to keep executing. The task could not be halted.

So how should she proceed?

Well, judging from her posture… she had just aimed her gun. So she should simply finish what she started and pull the trigger.

Thus, floating in midair, Artcheli—driven by instinct as the head of the Court—recovered from confusion in under a second. Without breaking stride, she resumed her aiming motion and, following the natural movement of her body, pointed the gun in the exact direction she had intended before losing her memory.

This was the memory of the body. For a warrior, muscle memory often surpassed mental recall.

With this support from past experience and muscle memory, she fired without hesitation. Powered by an infusion of overwhelming spirituality, a beam of blazing light erupted from the gun.

The beam tore through countless walls and buildings, plunging diagonally into the underground ritual chamber. It sliced through layers of mystical barriers and, in an instant, pierced into the core of Jerak’s blood-drenched execution site. The chamber’s dimness vanished beneath the searing beam. Everything inside—the people, the objects—cast sharp shadows under the light.

Jerak was aghast.

“What…?!”

“Protect Lord Jerak!!”

As the light pierced the room, the executioners shouted and scrambled to respond. But none of them noticed that within their own shadows—cast by the searing beam—dark figures had silently emerged.

Shhk!

“Aaargh!!”

In a blink, shadow-born assassins emerged from the outlines beneath their feet. Knives flashed, blood flew, and one by one, the executioners collapsed in screams, killed by the assassins leaping from their own shadows.

After firing, Artcheli sensed the strange spiritual activity of the underground chamber and immediately determined that this must be the mission target she had forgotten. One glance at the occupants was enough. They were obviously cultists.

So be it. No need for memories. Cultists die. Kill first. Finish the task later.

With that logic, she used shadow-folding to teleport directly in and assassinated nearly every executioner in the chamber. Only three, whose outfits were significantly more elaborate, remained standing.

One had encased himself in solid frost armor, which blocked the strike from Artcheli’s shadow clone and allowed him to freeze it.

Another took a full blow but resisted through sheer tenacity, repelling the clone.

The last dodged the attack with superior speed and reflexes, sustaining only a minor wound before grabbing the clone’s arm and destroying it with a curse.

“Three of them… aren’t fodder.”

Artcheli murmured as she faced the trio.

To her, anyone that could endure that much had to be at least Crimson-tier.

“Kill her!”

Jerak roared. His three elite guards attacked at once. One summoned frigid blizzards from his ice armor. Another held two bone fragments, preparing to summon a soul to possess. The last fixed his gaze on Artcheli’s shadow, hand extended, ready to curse it directly.

Then—

Artcheli vanished.

In the very next heartbeat, blood sprayed across the room again.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The one who had been summoning a spirit? His head flew clean off, eyes wide, blood pouring as it tumbled away.

“You take that long to prepare in combat? You deserve to die.”

The one clad in ice armor? He and his shadow were both ripped apart, armor shattered like paper before her blade.

“Armor is solid. Shadows are not.”

The one trying to curse her shadow? He succeeded… Except the shadow he grabbed was not Artcheli. It was a decoy, identical in form. The moment he crushed it, his own body twisted grotesquely and exploded in a spray of blood.

In mere seconds, the last three executioners were executed. No one else remained alive in the ritual chamber but Artcheli.

And Jerak, now only a spirit fused into the ritual, felt the full weight of despair.

“Why? Why was she still attacking? She had clearly been hit by a divine curse! Why was she still moving—let alone moving with such precision!?

“The mighty curse of the King of the Underworld—had it failed? Why? How?

“How had this woman slain her way in without a shred of confusion…?”

Despair, confusion, and helplessness surged through Jerak’s soul as Artcheli stepped silently toward the shattered throne at the center of the enormous ritual array. Within the debris radiated an immense spiritual presence.

She didn’t know what this ritual was for. But it clearly looked like a cult’s work.

So—

Destroy it.

With that simple, straightforward thought, Artcheli tightened her grip on her blade…