Chapter 814 : Consciousness

Inner Realm, Divine Battlefield.

This battlefield—formed by the collision and fusion of countless shattered realms—was the site of a war between god of steel and gods of flesh. The ferocious divine battle raged on, rapidly escalating in scale and intensity.

Relying on the divine authority of Commercial Gold, Dorothy and Beverly successfully leveraged the traits bestowed by Gluttonous Wolf and the Mother of Chalice to catalyze the maturation of a crucial portion of Illusory Dream’s divinity. This distorted the crisis within the Dreamscape, temporarily reversing the tides. However, the stabilization of the Dreamscape had not yet influenced the fierce divine battlefield. Lord of Forge still had to face the Afterbirth deities, empowered by the Mother's nourishing milk.

“ROAR!!!”

With a deafening howl that stirred oceans of blood, the black Wolf God—now several times its original size—became a blur that pierced space itself. Even divine beings found its speed difficult to perceive. It charged headlong toward its enemy: a massive, turbine-like mechanical construct formed from countless interlocking iron wheels spinning at high velocity.

The howl reverberated across multiple realms, carrying such profound terror that even the faintest echo transmitted to neighboring dimensions caused many beings—including some Apostles—to fall into panic-induced suicide. The mechanical giant, inorganic and planet-sized, faltered under the force of the howl. Its systems crashed, rendering it incapable of mounting an immediate counterattack.

The black wolf’s shadow streaked toward the front of the turbine-like machine. As the Steel God emerged from its brief system failure, it began to respond by rapidly transforming its body, attempting to create a corridor through which the Wolf God would pass—just like before—allowing it to counterattack. However, this time the wolf’s speed far exceeded expectations, even outpacing Lord of Forge’s transformation process.

BOOM!!!

Amidst a string of earth-shattering detonations, the planet-sized mechanical construct was pierced by a black bolt. In a blaze hot enough to ignite the very atmosphere, gears and turbines the size of continents exploded. At least one-fifth of Lord of Forge’s immense mechanical body was destroyed by this strike. Fortunately, its damage-control systems engaged in time to prevent further collapse.

Despite this unprecedented damage, Lord of Forge displayed no visible emotional reaction. While accelerating its self-repair, it forged countless sharp iron spikes from its own body and launched them toward the Wolf God’s black silhouette. Having just shattered countless divine steel barriers, Gluttonous Wolf’s speed had notably slowed—causing several of the spikes to strike it directly.

Yet unlike before, these spikes failed to restrain it. As soon as they touched the wolf’s pitch-black body, they sank straight in. Lord of Forge lost all sensory contact with the spikes, as if the steel itself had vanished into a domain of darkness.

There was no repeat of the previous incident where Lord of Forge’s iron jaws couldn’t bite through the wolf. This time, the spikes simply disappeared—just like when Lord of Forge once stabbed a Devouring Sphere that Gluttonous Wolf had manifested. Now, the wolf appeared to be in the same Devouring Sphere state but had retained its wolf form, allowing it to devour everything while maintaining high mobility. It no longer needed to bloat into a slow, expanding orb.

Faced with this development, Lord of Forge temporarily focused its strength on repairs. Though the black Wolf God returned with another violent strike that tore through Lord of Forge’s structure once more, its hyper-efficient self-repair systems quickly compensated—until the surrounding sea of blood began to change.

As the Wolf God lunged, the blood sea surged anew. The once-calm surface began to churn. Endless currents split off, intensifying with ever-increasing speed.

Accelerating—relentlessly accelerating—until the blood currents roared like crashing surf, flowing faster and faster. From torrents to rapids, from rapids to waterfalls… then beyond, accelerating endlessly.

The rivers within the sea of Abyssal Serpent’s blood collided with Lord of Forge’s body, even though they weren’t in direct contact. At first, the turbine-shaped Lord of Forge turned its gear wheels in line with the currents to harness their power. But eventually, the speed of Abyssal Serpent’s blood flow became so extreme that the very structural integrity of the mechanical construct began to falter.

Running water can power a waterwheel—but a violent flood can tear it to pieces. This was precisely Lord of Forge’s current predicament. While it used turbine transformations to channel the flow’s force, the Abyssal Serpent's currents had become too overwhelming—even for its design.

Ordinarily, Lord of Forge could adapt through continuous upgrades and modifications. However, the relentless physical assaults from Gluttonous Wolf were now draining too much of its energy. Much of its processing power was diverted to repair, preventing it from restructuring itself effectively to withstand the mounting pressure.

Lord of Forge wanted to draw power from the Abyssal Serpent’s blood, just as it had before, extracting its essence to weaponize it against Gluttonous Wolf. But now, Abyssal Serpent’s control over its own blood had surged—Lord of Forge could no longer extract any of it.

Thus, amidst the endless howls and surging tides of blood, the turbine-shaped Lord of Forge approached its mechanical limit. The roaring of its spinning mass gave way to metallic groans of fatigue. Fine cracks spread throughout its massive, complex body.

If this continued, Lord of Forge’s divine mechanical body would inevitably collapse. Watching the tide of battle turn against them, Beverly—already at a disadvantage against the ever-strengthening Afterbirth deities—remained composed but deeply contemplative.

"As expected of the Mother of Chalice’s milk… Those brats actually powered up this much after drinking it…"

"Just wait…"

…

Material realm, in the planted shrouded by plague.

While the intensity of battle in the divine battlefield surged to new heights, the crisis in the material realm deepened as well. It wasn’t just Gluttonous Wolf and Abyssal Serpent who had tasted the nourishing milk. The Plague Vulture had received this gift of power too.

The planet, now stained green by the thick plague mist, was engulfed in an even denser concentration of divine plague. As the green hue deepened, the atmosphere’s plague saturation expanded beyond natural limits—swelling into space like the planet itself was rapidly growing in size.

Beneath this dense atmosphere—on a ground forever deprived of sunlight—the Holy War Legion and the plague horde continued to clash. Yet the sudden strengthening of the plague had once again turned the tide against the Holy Legion.

"Why are these things regenerating faster and faster…"

After slashing through yet another horde of mutant werewolves, the spectral Artcheli frowned as she watched the severed limbs reassemble—stitched together again by countless fungal threads to reform into a new, grotesque army.

Previously, Artcheli had been able to push forward at a steady pace. But now, with the enemy regenerating several times faster, she found herself unable to advance further. And this was only part of the problem brought on by the strengthened plague.

"Damn it… I can’t hold this form much longer…"

Looking at her own hand, Artcheli noticed even more ghostly green filaments spreading through her phantom body—her form as an Anecdote Projection. Her expression darkened. Despite being a projected being, she could still be infected by divine plague. If the corruption got too severe, she would be forced to disperse her current body and re-project a new one from the story world, leaving behind only a trace.

With the plague spreading faster, she had to summon new bodies more frequently—wasting time and severely diminishing her offensive capabilities. She could only watch as more and more plague-born monstrosities emerged from the mist, impossible to keep up with.

This situation wasn’t unique to her—similar conditions plagued the entire Holy War Legion. The sudden surge in plague strength had slowed their advance across every front, with some units even beginning to lose ground.

And yet… the Plague Vulture wasn’t even targeting the Holy War Legion with its full might. Its true offensive was elsewhere.

Across the great ocean to the west, deep in the heart of the Starfall Continent, within the ancient Shamanic sanctuary known as the Ancestral Valley—the sacred and ancient Great Wild Rite continued. But the forces safeguarding this ritual were now being swiftly eroded.

The bronze bell-shaped barrier enveloping the entire Ancestral Valley grew increasingly fractured under the intensified erosion of the surrounding plague. Cracks began to web across its surface. Compared to the Holy War Legion, the valley was receiving even more attention from the Plague Vulture, and was now clearly teetering on the brink of collapse.

“We… We can’t hold on much longer… We’ve held out for so long. Why aren’t the shamans done yet?!”

At the edge of the Great Wild Rite, seated upon a ritual array, the Gold-rank members of the White Craftsmen’s Guild—Whitestone and Yellowstone—were currently reinforcing the nameless bell's power through a specific ceremony. But now, both of them could feel that the bell's divine might was no longer sufficient to withstand the rapidly intensifying plague erosion.

As Yellowstone began to complain about the shamans’ sluggish pace, a thin crack suddenly split open in the bronze barrier, now densely overgrown with fungal threads. From that rift, tendrils of green plague gas began to seep inside—startling both Yellowstone and Whitestone.

“This is bad—!”

Crack!!

Just as danger approached, a mighty thunderclap burst within the protective field. Blinding arcs of lightning tore through the sky, unleashing countless bolts of divine thunder upon the invading plague miasma.

At the moment of contact, the divine plague was immediately affected by the divine energy within the lightning. From its very core, the plague’s fundamental composition began to unravel. Once disassembled, its properties changed entirely—it was no longer plague at all.

Despite the plague’s enhanced corruption, the bronze barrier only occasionally cracked. Whenever wisps of plague leaked through, they were swiftly intercepted by lightning that flickered and danced throughout the barrier’s interior. Each breach was neutralized before it could harm the inner sanctum.

On a nearby hill overlooking the valley, a figure stood gazing skyward at the crackling arcs of divine thunder.

He appeared to be a man in his mid-forties to fifties, dressed in a sharp suit. His hair was slicked back neatly, and a carefully trimmed beard framed his face, exuding a spirited vigor. His fingers bore many opulent rings—all clearly crafted in the style of the First Dynasty. In his hand, he held a short staff, atop which the Eye of Revelation gleamed faintly with violet light.

“Never thought I’d get the chance to draft documents on behalf of the Fate Sovereign again… what an honor…”

So spoke the once-dead pharaoh of old—Setut, reborn anew. As he manipulated the lightning to unravel the seeping plague miasma, he mused aloud. No matter where the gas leaked in, he was able to suppress it immediately. The divine rings on his hands gave him the ability to resist the divine plague’s corruption.

Like Hafdar, Setut lacked the qualifications to become a Chosen and could not bear divine power on his own. But with the aid of Lord of Forge, it was a different story. The God of Craftsman could channel any divine power into suitable vessels, forging them into divine artifacts. By equipping these artifacts, ordinary people could break past the Chosen threshold and borrow fragments of a god’s strength.

And so, armed with his new divine artifacts, the former pharaoh commanded long-lost lightning across the protective barrier, exterminating every thread of plague that slipped in. Through his efforts, he constructed a new line of defense for the continuation of the Great Wild Rite.

Yet… this god-summoning ritual had truly dragged on a little too long…

…

The Holy War Legion and the Ancestral Valley were the last bastions of resistance on this plague-infested world. Though both fought valiantly against the divine plague, from the perspective of the Plague Vulture, they were insignificant. The only reason they hadn’t been fully eradicated yet was that most of the Plague Vulture’s attention was occupied elsewhere.

But that was about to change.

As the plague fog thickened, the planetary atmosphere swelled rapidly. The planet itself began evolving into a gas giant—a world of rampant microbial infection. Within the rising atmosphere, the green plague mists churned violently, condensing into monstrous beasts that surged toward the brilliant thunder-star above.

These plague manifestations were far more abundant and potent than before. The thunder-star—radiating white light like a miniature sun—lashed out with a million bolts of lightning across the upper atmosphere, shattering the plague beasts and suppressing the viral smog. But the sheer volume of the plague now overwhelmed its efforts. The star’s influence waned.

Worse still, the plague’s infection rate spiked sharply. The white lightning extending from the thunder-star was swiftly corrupted. Under the plague’s influence, the pure lightning twisted into pale fleshly limbs, teeming with parasitic worms that swarmed back toward the thunder-star.

Within Dorothy’s thunderform avatar, the parasites multiplied rapidly. At first, she could still use spiritual threads to control them—restraining the infestation and preventing her physical form from being fully parasitized. But as the Plague Vulture’s power surged, the parasites' reproduction reached terrifying levels. She was losing control.

Though Dorothy’s true will remained on the divine throne, her presence in the material realm—while a mere incarnation—was still vulnerable. If this incarnation were destroyed, she would suffer greatly and be unable to intervene in other realms for quite some time. That outcome was unacceptable.

Thus, she acted.

With a single thought, the thunder-star high above the plague atmosphere began to change. The dazzling lightning shattered and vanished. In its place, the broken arcs of light flickered, transforming into countless characters and symbols, dispersing across the cosmic firmament above the planet.

These glyphs—drawn from countless nations, cultures, species, eras, even cycles of reincarnation—coalesced into a storm of scripts, sweeping rapidly across the globe. Whispers in myriad tongues began echoing in every corner of the planet.

Abstract runes flashed before every eye. Maddening murmurs poured into every ear. It was the inescapable memetic payload from the God of Revelation, forcibly inserted into every mind—no consciousness could resist it.

Information-conversion—this was Dorothy’s method to counter the divine plague. By assuming a form furthest removed from physical substance, she temporarily escaped the plague’s infectious reach. But in doing so, her only remaining weapon was memetic contamination.

The meme, imbued with Dorothy’s will, permeated the plague fog. The Plague Vulture’s consciousness could not avoid being infiltrated. However, the enemy had long been prepared.

In the thick plague atmosphere, countless microorganisms converged—forming into white maggots. These maggots rapidly fused into massive brain-like clusters, floating in the sky like grotesque balloons. In moments, the planet’s atmosphere became populated with uncountable floating brains.

The murmurs echoed through the green mist. Upon hearing them, the surfaces of these floating brains began to glow with strange glyphs. One by one, they swelled and burst.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

The explosive chorus outnumbered firecrackers. In the sky thick with plague vapor, the brains erupted in droves—spraying pus and reforming anew moments later.

These were the Plague Vulture’s brains—or more precisely, extensions of its cerebral mass. Dorothy had once used memetic contamination against Abyssal Serpent. In anticipation of this technique, the Afterbirth deities had devised a countermeasure: explosive cerebral overgrowth.

Dorothy’s memes could not instantly fill such colossal mental volume. If a memory region became infected, the brain would immediately self-destruct and be replaced. The Plague Vulture now employed this very strategy.

By massively expanding its brain capacity and continually replacing infected brains, the Plague Vulture—true to the nature of a god of Chalice—survived Dorothy’s memetic assault. Now, neither side could harm the other: Dorothy, in information form, was immune to physical attacks; the Plague Vulture, immune to memes through sacrificial brain rotation.

But this stalemate wouldn’t last. Though the Plague Vulture couldn’t strike Dorothy directly… it could still strike everything else.

“In such an ethereal form, you cannot protect that which is real… young Arbiter…”

With a sharp whisper, the Plague Vulture shifted its focus to the planetary surface—to the Holy War Legion and the Ancestral Valley ritual. Deprived of Dorothy’s thunder and memetic suppression, the Plague Vulture finally had the strength and attention to address these lingering nuisances. Dorothy could no longer protect them!

Yet upon hearing its whisper, Dorothy’s will upon the divine throne merely smiled faintly and murmured in reply.

“That’s not certain…”

…

“Shatter, oh Ironhearted one… you cannot resist the flood stirred by our Mother…”

“Yes… Shatter into pieces for me… I’m going to devour every last bit!”

Inner Realm, Divine Battlefield.

The intense divine war continued. Due to the strengthening of Gluttonous Wolf and Abyssal Serpent, Lord of Forge was momentarily unable to suppress them. The Hungerer and the Thirster were becoming increasingly reckless, intent on completely obliterating Lord of Forge in one final strike.

But just as their assault reached its climax—something unexpected occurred.

Surrounded by a torrent of blood seas, under constant assault by black shadows that simultaneously destroyed and repaired, Lord of Forge—now transformed into a super turbine engine—had reached the critical limit of its divine steel endurance. The violently spinning machinery, whipped into motion by the raging blood currents, began to tremble. The massive, complex divine machine body was clearly nearing total structural failure.

And yet, at that very limit, Lord of Forge’s vast internal mechanisms began to transform.

Within its intricate body—hidden from the perception of the Afterbirth deities—a new mechanical structure rapidly took shape. Unlike the turbine form that still dominated most of its body, this new construct took the shape of… a record player.

Yes—a record player.

As a massive, charred “disc,” thousands of kilometers in diameter, began to spin atop the platform, a precision needle touched its surface—etched with countless arcane runes. Then from it emerged wave after wave of silence, dense, piercing whispers—maddening in clarity—as they spread outward.

“Fate… whispers…”

It was clear that Gluttonous Wolf and Abyssal Serpent had not expected such mind-piercing murmurs to appear on the battlefield. As these polluted utterances reverberated through the divine battlefield, the Afterbirth deities scrambled to respond.

Countless brains sprang up in the blood sea to absorb the meme-laden whispers—only to burst instantly. Even the rapidly dashing Wolf God visibly slowed down—forced to grow new brains, though clearly displeased with the need for such unhelpful organs.

“Ugh… Useless, redundant organs! I hate them!”

Abyssal Serpent and Gluttonous Wolf scrambled to react to the whispers unexpectedly echoing through the battlefield. But unlike in the material realm, the divine nattlefield’s combat intensity was far higher. Even the slightest distraction meant a breathing space for the enemy—often fatal.

The pressure from the Afterbirth deities slackened just slightly. Lord of Forge immediately seized the opportunity and accelerated its transformation process—constructing more massive record players within its body, each playing forbidden meme-etched records.

Two… three… four…

One after another, forbidden machines sprang into existence inside Lord of Forge’s divine form. The whispering voices grew into duets, then trios, then quartets… And more: Lord of Forge channeled divine power—originally converted from Abyssal Serpent through its turbines—into these machines, accelerating them further. The result: increasingly high-frequency playback of Revelation’s memes.

Powered by Lord of Forge’s immense industrial might, the number of whispering record players quickly exceeded hundreds, then thousands. Each matched Dorothy’s own output in meme intensity. It was as if thousands of Dorothy’s voices were whispering simultaneously across the battlefield—with greater frequency and wider range.

“ROAR!!!”

“Stop it!!”

Under the intense meme-bombardment from thousands of industrial-grade record players, the newly grown brains of Gluttonous Wolf and Abyssal Serpent were instantly overwhelmed. The sheer number of memes and their frequency made the density of invasive information surge geometrically. Their brain-regeneration couldn’t keep up. They had no choice but to divert more divine power into growing new brains.

This, in turn, further slowed Gluttonous Wolf’s attack frequency and caused Abyssal Serpent’s blood currents to weaken. That, again, freed up even more of Lord of Forge’s resources. No longer needing to sustain turbine form to adapt to the ocean’s fury, Lord of Forge instead built more and more record players to broadcast Dorothy’s memes.

It didn’t stop there.

Lord of Forge even transformed part of itself into a massive mechanical typewriter. As its keys slammed down manically, floods of arcane glyphs—denser than a deluge—poured out, spreading into the surrounding space and sea of blood. This deepened the mental corruption inflicted on the Afterbirth deities.

Dorothy’s memetic contamination was devastating to any will. But her limitation was in scale—she had only herself to spread the memes, so the information density was capped. That made the Afterbirth deities capable of defending by constantly regrowing brains.

But Beverly, the God of Industry, changed everything. As the Core of Order, she could mass-produce divine machinery. By crafting divine record players and typewriters, she gave Dorothy a vast network of broadcasting tools.

Information is infinitely replicable. So are information weapons. Dorothy merely needed to send her memes to Beverly. Beverly could then unleash them through mass-produced propaganda machines—escalating the meme density far beyond what the Afterbirth deities could withstand.

Now, Beverly became a super amplifier—magnifying Dorothy’s information attacks by the hundreds, by the thousands. And to ensure maximum output, she used her spring-driven energy reserves, converted from Abyssal Serpent’s power, to accelerate every machine to its limit, unleashing a burst of overwhelming memetic force.

With the spring drives spinning at full power, Beverly became a supreme mechanical media entity, flooding the divine battlefield with incomprehensibly dense memetic information. In agonized howls, the minds of Gluttonous Wolf and Abyssal Serpent were filled to capacity, the inflow of information outpacing their brain-growth capabilities.

But it didn’t stop there. Riding this explosive burst of energy, Beverly crafted countless enormous brass megaphones across her body, dramatically increasing the penetration of the memes. The memetic shockwave pierced the already-thin boundaries between realms, spilling into other domains.

In an instant, the voices of Dorothy’s whispers swept across countless realms in the vast cosmos. Every otherworldly being attempting to invade the material realm screamed madly. The closer they were to the divine battlefield, the more intensely they were affected. The material realm itself was fully enveloped in Beverly’s broadcast.

“What—?!”

The high-pitched droning of the whispers penetrated the boundaries of reality, saturating every corner of the material realm. Denser than anything Dorothy had ever emitted herself, this wave of memetic information pierced into the Plague Vulture’s brain. Just like its siblings, the Vulture couldn’t grow new brains fast enough. Just as it was about to strike the Ancestral Valley, its mind was flooded and it screamed in agony, sending the plague-filled atmosphere into wild upheaval.

The combined force of Dorothy and Beverly—amplified by energy converted from Abyssal Serpent—unleashed a terrifying wave of information. Even the three Afterbirth deities, despite their preparation, found their oversized and mostly useless brains overwhelmed. They now writhed in madness, screaming in pain. If nothing changed soon, Dorothy would seize complete control.

At last, in that hellish howling, across the inner realm and material realm, all those swollen brains floating in the seas and skies exploded at once—bursting into clouds of blood mist and pus. Even the five wolf heads of the black wolf burst apart.

The Afterbirth deities had destroyed all their own heads.

To survive Dorothy’s memetic onslaught, they abandoned their minds, surrendered their wills, and entrusted their bodies entirely to instinct.

In an instant, the plague mist over the material realm churned violently. Countless plague-born aberrations at the bottom of the fog descended into pure madness—ripping each other apart with no regard for friend or foe.

Back in the divine battlefield, Abyssal Serpent’s blood sea became turbulent again—but its currents now twisted erratically, clashing with themselves, unable to form a coherent threat against Beverly. The now-headless black wolf wandered aimlessly, devouring whatever it could reach—and even started fighting with Abyssal Serpent’s own blood sea.

With no minds or wills left, the three Afterbirth deities became nothing more than divine phenomena driven by primal urges. Gluttonous Wolf wanted only to devour. Abyssal Serpent wanted only to drown. Plague Vulture wanted only to infect.

While their threat to Dorothy and Beverly as individuals was greatly reduced, their uncontrollable power rapidly became a danger to the material realm itself. This rampaging force might soon destroy the main world.

“Heh… so in the end, we’re back to the same old ‘brain-bursting’ tactic, huh? Good thing I made some preparations…”

Faced with the runaway divine plague, Dorothy’s memetic avatar murmured. Then, she turned her gaze toward the upper layers of the cosmos—where a Saint Steel Vessel floated in the void.

Aboard the deck of the Saint Steel Vessel Stride-Forging Sacred Stone—a vessel of the Foundation Court—stood a lone figure.

Wearing crimson heels and a red dress, with golden hair and a stunning, elegant figure, a beautiful woman looked down upon the raging plague storm below. A complex, unreadable emotion flickered in her eyes. At that moment, a gentle voice whispered in her ear.

“What is it, child? Are you afraid?”

“No… Respected Lady of Blossoms. I was only thinking—how not long ago I was nothing but a fugitive, hunted by the Afterbirth deities. Even dreaming of avenging my teacher felt like a luxury… and now, I find myself face to face with these gods themselves. As a descendant of the fallen House of Bourbons… I never imagined I would reach the pinnacle of the Flower Path… or that I might even surpass my legendary ancestors…”

With a swirl of complex emotions, Adèle murmured softly. In response, Astarte’s voice—gentle and smiling—answered in her ear.

“Indeed… I never imagined that I, in such a state as I am now, would have the fortune to partake in this war. Let us witness together the marvels of a new destiny that will lead this world forward…”

Astarte spoke with such emotion. And at that moment, footsteps echoed behind Adèle—along with a crisp voice.

“Please prepare yourself, noble lady…”

Draped in a flowing white gown adorned with golden jewelry, her face veiled and head covered in a scarf steeped in the style of the First Dynasty, a black-haired woman slowly approached from the rear of the deck. Facing Adèle and the invisible noble presence beside her, Shepsuna stood upright and continued solemnly.

“It is time… to begin.”

Hearing Shepsuna’s words, Adèle took a deep breath, then gazed seriously down toward the surging sea of plague beneath them. In a soft voice, she spoke again.

“I entrust this to you…”

Shepsuna nodded. She placed her hands upon her ample chest and lifted a golden pendant hanging from her neck. Upon the exquisite pendant, the open Eye of Revelation shimmered faintly.

“What my eye beholds is the future, what my mouth speaks is fate… The decline of the lost flower-dancers is but temporary. They shall flourish once more… witnessed by my own eyes…”

As Shepsuna made her declaration, a faint pink radiance spread around Adèle. In that moment, she felt an unfamiliar surge of power flowing into her—raising her being to a higher state.

Empowered by this mysterious force, Adèle began to move and twirl—dancing with grace. Her every movement stirred the pink halo around her, spreading it outward…

At that moment, Shepsuna’s pendant shone with violet divine light. Illuminated by that glow, she raised her voice once more.

“I have seen it… the Lady of Blossoms shall bloom anew! A thousand blossoms shall bloom, the floral dance shall leap—both in the future and in the now!”

With this renewed declaration, a surge of divine might burst forth from Adèle. Her red dress transformed into wide, petal-like folds of pink; jewelry was replaced by natural vines and leaves. Her golden hair grew longer and more flowing. Atop her head, two elegant horns—like winding tree branches—sprouted, adorned with tiny blossoms. Her high heels vanished, and wherever her bare feet stepped, grass sprouted and flowers bloomed.

Flowers—real and illusory—spread from Adèle in all directions, blooming across the vacuum of space itself, even seeping into the plague-laden atmosphere.

As the blossoms spread, so too did the power of the Lady of Blossoms.

Adèle, descendant of the Bourbon family, carried the legacy of the flower priestesses. She possessed the potential for Divine Chosen and was innately compatible with the Flower divinity.

However, Adèle was currently only at the Crimson rank—not a divine child like Dorothy—so her capacity to act as a vessel for divine power was limited. That was where Shepsuna’s power became essential.

The current Shepsuna was a replica—a copied will of the original. She had no power of her own. But thanks to Setut’s efforts, fragments of Shepsuna’s shattered soul had been recovered. Though insufficient to resurrect the original, these fragments could be merged into the replica.

With restoration by the strongest soul-based Beyonder—the True Spirit Shaman—the replica Shepsuna and the soul fragments fused. Through a death-soul body, Shepsuna inherited her former strength.

The ancient pharaohs had once undergone Hafdar’s transformation ritual—becoming the dead without experiencing death. Hafdar had also prepared a reversal method—one requiring the cooperation of the Revelation God’s throne. This was how Hafdar and Taharka had once returned.

Now that Dorothy possessed the divine throne, she could also restore Setut and Shepsuna. With that, Shepsuna could wield Gold-rank precognition and bestow Adèle—who was fated to ascend to Gold—with her future power ahead of time. And with divine artifacts forged by Beverly and imbued with Dorothy’s power, even the damaged Astarte could partially restore her godhood.

Were it not for the fact that Dorothy’s current divinity was so excessive that not even Shepsuna could safely interfere, Dorothy herself could have tasted the power of Gold ahead of time.

Now temporarily empowered to Gold-rank, Adèle’s qualification as a divine vessel rose further. But unlike a normal Chosen who merely borrowed divine power, Adèle directly accepted the incomplete Astarte, becoming her vessel and fully unleashing the flower goddess’s might. She now surpassed most Chosen—even Apostles—becoming a high-level divine entity.

Her flowing floral dress twirled. Her dancing steps bloomed lotuses. Divine power surged from her down toward the plague-wracked world below—grasping the wild divine force.

The plague god’s will was gone, and all that remained was instinctive desire. Astarte, through Adèle, began to guide and control that primal hunger—seizing it before it destroyed the planet.

Such a feat would have been impossible had the Plague Vulture still been lucid. But now that it had blown up its own brain, only its instincts remained.

As the plague mist of the atmosphere gradually stabilized, Astarte finally managed to establish rudimentary control over the god’s desire. The next step was to redirect that desire—toward the Blood-Limb Temple, toward the Mother of Chalice’s seal.

…

Meanwhile, within the ship Stride-Forging Sacred Stone, Cardinal Alberto stood before a machine composed of countless humming gears. He muttered softly.

“All systems normal. As expected of the great Lord of Forge’s craftsmanship…

“As long as the receiver is placed correctly, other realms should also come under this ship’s influence…”

…

Dreamscape, the Forest.

In the Dreamscape's once-lush forest, thick fog now blanketed all. Everything was engulfed by this mist so dense that one could not see a hand before their face—endlessly lost. Even a god like the Spider Queen was not exempt.

Clang!

With a sharp clang, the Spider Queen—wielding her blood-red spear—relied on her blood-colored threads to sense and shatter a phantom sword that had struck from the dark. At this moment, she stretched out her six arms, each wielding a different crimson weapon. Her eight pupils spun rapidly in their sockets, wary of enemies that might emerge from the mist.

Since engaging with the newly reborn God of Illusory Dreams, the Spider Queen had been trapped in this bewildering fog. The mist, thickened to unimaginable degrees by the god’s return, rendered even her—who had devoured fragments of dream divinity—unable to discern direction.

Within this fog, the God of Dreams had conjured a myriad of powerful phantasmal constructs—beasts, humans, weapons, even nightmare avatars of other divine beings—all attacking from different angles.

Despite the disadvantage, the Spider Queen held her ground. Using her glowing web-lines—imbued with Pain divinity—and the blood-shadow weapons, she had repelled each ambush without injury so far.

But this couldn’t last. This was the Dreamscape—the god’s own domain. The Spider Queen, far from fully recovered, couldn’t possibly defeat the Dream God here. Her webs couldn’t spread far in the oppressive mist. Even her limbs—still attached to her body—could become lost if extended too far. Weapons, and even her own hands, risked being separated from her consciousness.

In this terrifying fog, she couldn’t even maintain a large divine form—only this relatively compact humanoid shape. If she assumed her massive spider form, her eight legs would soon vanish from her awareness.

Yet what worried her more than the fog was something else: the whispers—faint murmurs that seeped past the borders of reality, through the thin membranes of realms. These were Dorothy’s memetic whispers, now being broadcast into the Dreamscape by Beverly’s high-powered speakers.

Though the memetic strength had weakened after passing through multiple realms, the Spider Queen—unlike the Afterbirth deities—lacked sufficient brain-regeneration ability. She was now under constant mental strain: fending off dreamspawn assaults while enduring forced memetic intake.

Her mental state was beginning to fray.

“No… I can’t stay here any longer… I must escape the Dreamscape!”

After a brief clash with the newly reborn God of Illusory Dreams, the Spider Queen realized that she stood no chance of defeating her opponent in her current state. Prolonging the fight any further would only grow more dangerous—she had to retreat immediately.

“Tch... Hmph... I’ll deal with you later…”

Clutching her temple, disoriented, she let out a cold snort. For now, she decided to withdraw and recover—only once she’d nearly fully healed would she scheme anew to take down the Dream God. For now, the Dreamscape was clearly a perilous place for her.

“Clear the way…”

With a soft whisper, the Spider Queen simultaneously swung all six of her blood-drenched weapons. A violent whirlwind erupted around her—startlingly, the fierce gale instantly blew away a large swath of the ever-present dream mist, revealing a clear view of the surrounding scene.

This wind carried the Wind Knight divinity, a result of the Spider Queen having partially digested Arthur’s divine corpse. Given more time, she would be able to fully absorb Arthur’s power.

Dispersing the bewildering mist, the Spider Queen slashed open space with her blood weapons, creating a rift, and immediately leapt through—leaving the Dreamscape before the fog could return. If she had attempted to teleport while the mist still cloaked everything, she would’ve been lost in unknown corners of reality forever. Only by briefly clearing it with the divine wind could she make her escape.

Upon exiting the Dreamscape, she arrived in an inner realm glowing with countless luminous crystals. Riding the gale winds, she flew at high speed—yet even here, Dorothy’s whispered memes lingered in the air. The Spider Queen gritted her teeth and growled.

“So noisy…”

To escape the torment of the whispers, she had to fly toward a realm untouched by them. During her high-speed flight, she raised her weapon once more and sliced open space—performing another cross-realm traversal.

And so, the Spider Queen began a rapid series of realm-hops to distance herself from the whispers. But just as she prepared for her final jump, disaster struck.

She slashed at space—but instead of opening a new realm path, the entire surrounding space collapsed. The sky of dark red, the barren mountains—all of it crumbled into darkness. The entire realm fell into black.

“What—?!”

Faced with this sudden collapse, the Spider Queen's expression turned visibly shocked. Surrounded by pure darkness, she spun around, stunned.

“Where is this place?”

“This is… your dream~ Respected Lady of Pain…”

A familiar soft and childlike voice sounded at her ear. She turned swiftly toward the voice—only to see the God of Illusory Dreams hovering midair, smiling down at her.

“You… This is your doing! What did you do?!”

Gnashing her teeth, the Spider Queen glared at the petite, innocent-looking deity. But the god only giggled and replied lightly.

“Nothing much~ Just that while you were still in the Dreamscape, I quietly led you into a deeper dream. Then, within that dream, I guided you here…”

“Led me into a dream? Impossible! There’s no way you could make me dream without my knowing!” the Spider Queen snapped.

She had entered the Dreamscape in her true form, constantly keeping herself stimulated through the power of pain to prevent being deceived by illusions. There was no way she could have fallen asleep.

“Yes, normally it would’ve been extremely difficult for me to do so. But right now… you are far from your peak—wounded and weakened,” the Dream God said, unflinching, still smiling with a hidden edge.

“The mists of the Dreamscape already cloud the mind. Then came the whispers of the Fate Sovereign, dulling your perception even more. And just recently, the power of the Lady of Blossoms seeped into the Dreamscape, subtly manipulating your desires and further disorienting you…

“So the Fate Sovereign… the Lady of Blossoms… and me… plus the wounds you never recovered from… All of it layered together… and I led you, without you even realizing it, deeper into the dream—and here.”

The God of Illusory Dreams smiled gently as she finished. The Spider Queen, wide-eyed, stared at her in disbelief and muttered.

“The Fate Sovereign… and the Lady of Blossoms… When…? When? That’s impossible. That’s absolutely impossible! I couldn’t have dreamed this!”

In a defiant roar, the Spider Queen whipped her blood-blade through the air and plunged it into the ground. At once, the pitch-black space around her cracked, including the figure of the Dream God herself. All of it began to collapse.

As the dark space shattered, what emerged around her was a grand open-air temple—its countless columns soaring as if built atop a mountain peak. In the sky above, a luminous full moon hung high, its tranquil light falling upon the temple’s ancient stone tiles. The architecture bore clear markings of an ancient imperial style.

At the end of the temple’s columns, atop a simple stone throne, a silver-white figure bathed in holy light sat silently, gazing down at the Spider Queen.

Then, the radiant figure spoke—softly, like greeting an old acquaintance.

“Ah… Morrigan. Welcome… It’s been a long time since we met like this…”

Staring at the girl-like, sacred figure seated on the stone throne, Morrigan stood frozen for a moment before gritted her teeth and uttered.

“…Selene.”

Due to the wounds in the cosmos caused by the solar eclipse, the Mirror Moon Goddess could not leave her domain, nor easily interfere with other realms. But that didn’t mean she was powerless within her own realm.

Though Selene could not step outside… if someone, during sleepwalking, was somehow guided or lured into her realm—well, that was a different story entirely.