Within the desert of Busalet in the pseudo-history world, sudden changes erupted—earth trembling, dazzling lightning swirling in the skies, deafening thunder roaring through the space, and strange noises echoing in the void. The entire world seemed to be quivering faintly.

“What… what’s happening? The weather suddenly changed—Scholar, did you rewrite something?”

Standing on the sands of the desert, Vania looked around at the sudden upheaval in the heavens, her expression full of concern. Not far from her, Dorothy responded with a serious tone.

“No… it wasn’t me changing anything. This place is being affected by an external force—interference from outside!”

Dorothy’s tone was grave. As the creator of this pseudo-history world, she possessed a certain degree of connection with it and could sense its foundational state. And right now, she was feeling it—this world was being invaded by some external power!

“External interference? If this is some sort of inner realm, then… you mean cross-layer interference? From the Holy Mother’s domain?”

Elsewhere, Ivy, speaking from within her iron coffin, asked worriedly after hearing Dorothy’s words. Dorothy immediately responded in a low voice.

“The interference is… from the real world.”

“The real world… What? Could it be Unina? She’s invading this world too? Still chasing us?!”

Hearing Dorothy’s answer, Ivy exclaimed in disbelief.

“Yeah… I’m afraid so. The invading power is an overwhelmingly strong force of Chalice. She’s likely the only one who could manage it…”

Dorothy’s tone remained grim. Ivy, upon hearing this, replied with disbelief.

“It’s really her… Impossible… How is this even possible? She’s capable of invading an inner realm? In just four hundred years, how did she become so powerful? She should’ve been completely destroyed… How is she not only alive, but possessing such potent Chalice power?”

Her voice was thick with shock and confusion. Dorothy also frowned slightly before speaking.

“Four hundred years ago? You mean… this Unina is from the Muddy Stream War era?”

“That’s right. She was a high-ranking member of the Redemption Faction during the era of the Muddy Stream War… and the mastermind behind the worst betrayal in the Church’s history. The damage she and her conspirators caused was immeasurable, and its consequences linger even today.

“But… that traitor was supposed to have been utterly destroyed by the Holy See through divine judgment, alongside her fellow conspirators. No one should’ve been able to survive such divine wrath. How did she manage it…? Could it be… divine aid?”

Ivy murmured in utter bafflement. Dorothy, hearing this, narrowed her eyes.

“Divine…”

The unease already looming in Dorothy’s heart deepened. This pseudo-history world had been constructed using residual divinity from the Heaven’s Arbiter—it operated on divine laws, far surpassing those of mere spirituality. Interfering with divinity required divinity in turn.

The Heaven’s Arbiter was the main deity of Revelation, and its divine order was ranked above even many mixed spirituality deities. To tamper with this world meant Unina was likely using divine power of comparable rank. Which meant… she might have the favor of a deity equivalent to the Heaven’s Arbiter. A Pure-Color Deity.

Dorothy had once fought Gossmore, and from that battle she knew that powerful organizations backed by real gods often had roles like “Witch Regent” or “Divine Emissary”—individuals chosen and beloved by deities, capable of channeling their divine powers. Just like Gossmore was the Witch Regent of the Spider Queen…

Which meant—if Unina could wield divine power, she was most likely a Divine Emissary. And if her divine interference rivaled that of the Heaven’s Arbiter… then the god backing her was most likely the Mother of Chalice, the main deity of the Chalice domain in the Fourth Epoch.

“Holy hell… she’s not only a Gold-rank, but also a Divine Emissary. The Mother of Chalice’s Emissary. That rank puts her above even Gossmore—higher than any of the six saints of Holy Mount aside from the Pope! Within the Afterbirth Cult, she’s not just an upper echelon—she could be the leader! The highest seat under a god!”

Having pieced the logic together, Dorothy felt deeply shaken. She had expected Unina to be of significant status—but not this high. With such a level of power, Unina wasn’t just strong—she was the final boss tier.

Dorothy had never imagined this tiny backwater like Busalet—a place where for over a thousand years the strongest Beyonders barely reached White Ash-rank—would suddenly become host to such absurd events. First came super anomalies like the Crimson-rank Amuyaba plague and the Withering Plague, which were already off the charts… but now an apex-level Gold-rank like Unina had shown up here? Not even hiding at the Afterbirth Cult’s headquarters, but here of all places? Was she inspecting her underlings? Or… was she here specifically for the Heaven’s Arbiter’s divine remnants?

“Just my luck…”

Dorothy muttered bitterly. She’d gone up against higher-ranked foes before—but never someone this far beyond her. No amount of tricks could bridge this kind of gap. Strategy might work across one or two ranks—but against a Pure-Color Deity’s Emissary? It was hopeless.

Now, there was only one thought in Dorothy’s mind: Run.

Forget the pseudo-history world. Forget Heopolis. Just run. If Unina truly wanted the Heaven’s Arbiter’s residual divinity, so be it. There was no way she could protect it anyway. She had to get out while the virtual world wasn’t completely overtaken.

The coordinates in the pseudo-history world mapped 1:1 to those in the real Busalet. Wherever someone disconnected from the virtual realm, they’d reappear in the real world at the corresponding location. So to escape, Dorothy just needed to move to a point far enough from Unina’s position in the pseudo-history world, then log out.

But that would take time—time she might not have. Unina could finish corrupting this place before Dorothy reached safety.

Fortunately, the pseudo-history world allowed for time compression. If she rewound the global time setting and moved in the “past,” then returned to the present, she could instantly shift her position without using real-time travel.

Determined to flee no matter what, Dorothy pulled out her fake history manuscript, ready to delete entries and adjust time.

But as soon as she opened it, she froze.

The manuscript in her hands—at some unknown point—had become covered in dense blood threads. They grew along the pages, obscuring the false history’s contents. Much of the writing was now unreadable. Some of the letters had even turned blood-red.

Faced with the current situation, Dorothy was momentarily stunned. Then she attempted to use a blade to scrape away the blood threads on the manuscript—but the moment she cleared a portion, they instantly grew back. Realizing they weren’t so easily removed, she tried writing directly onto the pages with her pen instead. Yet any word she wrote instantly dissolved into blood, vanishing from the paper.

“This is… Unina’s power? This pseudo-history world is deeply linked to the manuscript—changes to the world directly affect the manuscript. Does that mean the Mother of Chalice’s power has corrupted the world to the point that I’ve lost control? I can’t return to the past anymore!”

Seeing this, Dorothy felt a cold chill in her heart. If she couldn't return to the virtual past, that meant she couldn’t compress time to escape. With virtual time now synchronized with real-world time, there was no way she could escape to a safe location before Unina completed her corruption.

“This is really bad…”

Looking at the manuscript, Dorothy covered her forehead with a bitter expression. With Unina’s rampant invasion and her own inability to manipulate time, even fleeing was now out of reach.

“So this is the power of a Gold-rank Divine Emissary… Even with something as overpowered as a pseudo-history world on my side, I don’t even get the chance to run…”

Dorothy brooded, and her silence only made Vania more uneasy.

“What’s wrong, Miss Scholar? Did something happen?”

Vania asked. At the same time, Ivy’s voice came from the iron coffin lying on the sand.

“Could it be… has that woman’s corruption reached an unstoppable degree? Isn’t this place a relic of Revelation? Don’t you have any countermeasures?”

“Even if there are countermeasures, I don’t know how to use them! I don’t fully control this place…”

Dorothy silently grumbled in her heart. Though the pressure Unina imposed made her feel despair, she hadn’t yet given up. She still had one or two things left to try.

“Whatever. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ll try anything now…”

With that thought, Dorothy opened an information channel to contact Nephthys in the distance.

At this moment, Nephthys was flying through the skies of the virtual desert, closing in on Dorothy’s location. Due to her coordinates, she had been transported to the virtual version of Bastis, which was dozens—nearly a hundred—kilometers away. Reaching Dorothy would not be easy, and she was still mid-flight.

“Senior Nephthys, can you hear me?”

“Eh? Miss Dorothy? I’m flying toward your location now—please hold on just a bit longer.”

Nephthys responded mentally upon hearing Dorothy’s voice. Dorothy continued.

“I need you to contact your steward. I’ve already prayed to Aka to establish a channel—relay a message from us. We need his help.”

“The steward… Eh? You mean Grandpa Nust? What do you need from him?”

Nephthys asked in confusion, to which Dorothy replied with an explanation.

“Nothing new—just like last time, when we fought in the Baruch Royal Mausoleum.”

“The Royal Mausoleum of Baruch…”

At Dorothy’s words, Nephthys involuntarily shivered, recalling that terrifying event with absolute clarity.

“D-Do you mean we have to use that again? Is the situation really that dire? Will I be okay if we use that…?”

Nephthys asked with some apprehension. Dorothy immediately replied.

“It’s far more urgent than back then. Aside from that trick… we barely have anything that might turn this around. To be honest, even if it works, it probably won’t save us completely—but it might buy us a little time. Just contact your steward quickly. You won’t be affected by it directly while you’re still in this world.”

Dorothy spoke with solemn urgency. Hearing this, Nephthys swallowed hard and then nodded.

“O-Okay…”

And so, still mid-flight, Nephthys quietly closed her eyes and reached toward her distant homeland.

…

“Milady…”

In a well-lit room within a manor in Tivian, the Boyle family’s elderly steward, Nust, suddenly froze mid-sentence as he read a book in the study. He slowly put it down and looked toward the window, frowning as he muttered softly.

Following the abduction case and the incident at the Baruch Royal Mausoleum last year, Nephthys had instructed Nust to pray to Aka, allowing Dorothy to link her information channel directly to him. This was to prevent any further incidents and to give Dorothy access to a special emergency measure.

Just now, Nephthys successfully used the channel to contact Nust, informed him of the situation, and requested that he carry out the emergency protocol they had agreed upon. Though concerned, Nust stood up without hesitation and left the study.

After passing through several hidden doors and mechanisms in the manor, he arrived at a secret chamber. In its center stood a golden scepter, inscribed with twin bird wings and the Eye of Revelation, embedded in a ritual array. Dim candlelight glinted off its surface.

Upon seeing the golden scepter, Nust knelt before it and grasped it silently. He then initiated a long-prepared ritual, quickly draining all the spirituality of Revelation stored within the navigation scepter, rendering its functions inert.

“To think… a curse that’s plagued the Boyle family for decades could become such a potent weapon. I only hope milady can control the ancient force of hatred it unleashes…”

Nust whispered, gazing at the golden scepter. For now, he would remain in the chamber, waiting for a message from Nephthys or another member of the Rose Cross Order to signal him to recharge the scepter and suppress the curse once more.

…

North Ufiga, a certain desert in Busalet.

Under the star-filled night sky, a twisted, grotesque, and unspeakable hellscape was unfolding in the desert.

Across a vast stretch of more than twenty kilometers, a glaring blood-red veil covered the land. From a bird’s-eye view, the barren sands had been cloaked in flesh and muscle. Exposed, thick veins spread out like tree roots, pulsating with violent vitality. Countless gaping mouths and eyes split open across the fleshscape, staring skyward at the thunderclouded heavens. Giant, malformed arms grew like trees across the land, with countless smaller branch-like arms sprouting from the main limbs. Tens of thousands of fingers, like densely packed leaves, hung and quivered in the air.

At the center of this grotesque forest of malformed limb-trees stood Unina—her body transformed into red flesh, stripped of all facial features and hair, now resembling a monstrous entity. She had one arm plunged into the fabric of space before her. Where her arm entered, tumors sprouted midair, blood threads spreading in every direction and growing in scattered points through space. These blood threads had already extended several hundred—nearly a thousand—meters into the sky, slowly unfurling as if they were the very organs of space itself.

Unina continued her work, steadily corrupting the mysterious world before her. With the blessing of her mighty divine “mother,” she was methodically desecrating the ancient legacy buried beneath this land. She could feel the deep, immense power of this legacy—her granted divinity yearned for it, hungered for the supreme delicacy of another god’s might.

“Please be patient… I’ll handle this power with care. The final taste will not disappoint You… I promise…”

She murmured softly as she worked, her faceless form unable to convey expression, but intense longing rang clearly in her voice.

Just as Unina’s corruption pressed forward, she seemed to sense something. She turned her faceless head, gazing toward the grotesque forest of blood hands. There, several flickering green soul-fires suddenly flared into being—and with them came a dry, hoarse, ghostly voice out of thin air.

“Heh… You’ve exposed yourselves again. Boyle—you won’t escape this time… Hm?”

As the voice spoke, a massive apparition emerged among the green flames. It was a colossal mummified upper torso, seven or eight meters tall, gaunt and skeletal, draped in tattered robes and adorned with glittering jewels and golden ornaments. Its skull-like face burned with green soul-fire deep within its hollow eyes.

Appearing on the scene, Hafdar immediately began searching for his cursed target. But before he could locate the bloodline he loathed so deeply, he noticed the strangeness of the surrounding terrain.

“This savage Chalice power… What is this?! No—this is the Record Vault! How did it become like this… You filthy maggot! What are you doing!!!”

After surveying the area, Hafdar finally realized how wrong everything was. When he saw Unina enacting her corruption not far away, the soul-fire in his eyes flared violently—and he let out a furious shriek of rage.

The Death Wail of the Death Monarch, imbued with powerful curse energy, burst out from Hafdar. The surrounding bloodland rapidly shriveled and decayed, vitality draining from it at once. The mighty forest of blood-hand trees immediately withered into brittle, mummified wood. The corrupted ground shriveled and died under Hafdar’s aura.

“A projection of the Death Monarch’s power? Why is he appearing here?”

Unina paused mid-corruption, surprised as she looked at Hafdar. His sudden arrival had caught her slightly off guard.

Drawn by a fleeting wisp of aura, this ancient undead—Hafdar—projected his power here, channeling his deathly curse upon the bloodline he had vowed to destroy.

Anyone cursed by Hafdar could be slain no matter how far they ran. The closer they were to Hafdar, the stronger his curse projection became. In North Ufiga, Hafdar could unleash a death curse stronger than most Crimson-rank powers. When Nust had disabled the protection of the golden scepter, Hafdar immediately sensed the presence of the Boyle bloodline and projected his curse, aiming to slaughter all of Boyle’s descendants.

Normally, if Nephthys were in the pseudo-history world, even with Nust’s removal of the scepter’s protection, Hafdar shouldn’t have been able to sense her. The divine protection of the virtual realm heavily isolates it from the real world.

But now—things were different. Unina’s corruption was eroding the boundary. Dorothy could feel it: the divide between the virtual and real worlds was weakening. She could even faintly sense what was happening in reality from within the virtual world. And with that weakening, Hafdar might have sensed Nephthys and been drawn to her.

Hafdar’s presence didn’t mean he could enter the virtual realm. Even Unina, a top-tier Gold, required divine power to slowly erode her way in. Hafdar couldn’t do that. All he could do was wait—right at the "doorstep" of the virtual world.

And coincidentally, Unina was at the door too—already trying to force it open.

So then—what would Hafdar, a loyal subject of the First Dynasty, do when he saw the sacred site of the Heaven’s Arbiter—their chief deity—being invaded?

On this, Dorothy couldn’t say. She could only hope that this undead creature, thousands of years old, still bore some loyalty to the First Dynasty and the Heaven’s Arbiter. And as it turned out, her hope hadn’t been in vain.

“Die, filthy blasphemer!!”

With another shriek, Hafdar’s death curse surged mightily. His ghostly green gaze locked onto Unina as he released the curse directly toward her. The blood-soaked land around her withered rapidly, collapsing into desiccated remains.

Though caught at the center of the curse, Unina herself remained unharmed. Her sleek, supple red skin merely dried out a little under the curse’s power—its sheen and moisture slightly dulled.

Faced with Hafdar’s full-strength curse, Unina glanced at him with an unbothered gaze. Then, with a gentle wave of her hand, the still-living fleshland outside Hafdar’s domain began to squirm. In a crashing wave, it surged toward him. As the wave rushed in, it began to shift—taking the shape of crimson wolf heads lined with fangs.

A dozen wolf heads howled in unison, shaking the air with their deafening roars. From every direction, their layered howls formed a concentrated spiritual soundwave that reverberated through Hafdar’s manifested form. His phantom body wavered visibly, becoming unstable—his protective death aura flickering and weakening.

At that moment, the dozen or so crimson wolf heads surged forward, jaws wide open, instantly tearing apart and devouring Hafdar’s projected form, leaving only a head—its face still twisted with fury—flying upward into the air.

“This power…”

With only his head remaining, Hafdar stared incredulously at Unina in the distance. She, in turn, spoke in a quiet, emotionless voice.

“Even if your true body came in person… even if I went to your tomb and faced you at full strength, you still wouldn’t be my match. Yet now, you’re merely a manifested projection, and you’re already this arrogant. As the rumors say, your kind has existed for too long—decayed through and through, even in soul…”

Unina murmured, and just as she was about to command her red wolves to devour the final remnant of Hafdar’s projection, a sudden anomaly occurred.

A spell array—etched with the complex marking of Silence—appeared out of nowhere in the air above Hafdar’s severed head. It lit up suddenly, then rapidly expanded. The moment Hafdar saw it, he recognized its purpose.

“Necromantic summoning…”

As the blood-wolf heads born of the fleshland lunged toward Hafdar’s head, countless swift spiritual forms burst forth from the summoning array, diving straight toward the wolves. Each spirit entered a wolf’s head, and in the next instant, those wolves paused—then turned to roar and snarl at each other. The next moment, they began attacking one another, tearing into a chaotic frenzy, spraying torrents of blood.

“This level of spirit-possessing summoning… could it be…”

Eyes wide, Hafdar stared at the still-glowing summoning circle. From it, a figure began to slowly descend.

This figure was also a dead being—but unlike ordinary incorporeal undead spirits, this one had a physical form.

Wrapped in a refined white-gold gown, her withered and emaciated body was so thin it seemed mummified, creating unnatural hollows throughout her form. Slender hands wrapped in bandages extended from the long sleeves, each finger adorned with glittering rings. Her feet, similarly bandaged, stepped delicately in ornate gold-trimmed shoes beneath her flowing skirt, which was embroidered with mysterious markings.

Beneath a large, elaborate crown, her face was veiled, though beneath it faint traces of a mummy-like visage could be glimpsed. Flowing black hair, silky and straight, cascaded down around the veil, adorned with arcane golden hair ornaments—unclear whether it was a wig or her real hair.

This descending undead clearly had feminine features. Compared to Hafdar, she had taken great care to conceal the signs of death. Her visible limbs were wrapped in cloth, her face veiled, and her garments and jewelry were immaculate—nothing like Hafdar’s tattered and rotted appearance. If one didn’t look closely, she could easily be mistaken for a beautiful and mysterious living woman.

“Long time no see, Hafdar.”

As she slowly descended from the summoning array, the female undead caught Hafdar’s head in her hand and spoke in a hoarse, yet softer tone than his.

“Shepsuna… What are you doing here?!”

Hafdar exclaimed in shock at the sight of the woman. The undead woman, Shepsuna, responded calmly.

“I came here through necromantic summoning, using your projection as the medium, of course.”

“I know that—what I mean is, why did you choose to summon yourself now, of all times?!”

Hafdar’s tone was urgent and puzzled. Shepsuna answered serenely.

“Oh, that? It’s because I knew that at this precise moment today… I would summon myself to you.”

As she spoke, her gaze turned toward the crimson figure of Unina in the distance.

“Seven thousand years ago… when I last gazed upon the river of fate under divine revelation… I pushed past the boundary and glimpsed countless fragments of the distant future. Among them, I saw a vision—through your fate—I saw that filthy crimson, desecrating the Holy Domain…

“I’ve been awaiting this moment for a long, long time…”

Shepsuna spoke slowly, then turned again to Hafdar.

“Now… prepare yourself. Get your true body ready to respond to my call. This foe… neither of us can face her alone.”

As she finished speaking, Shepsuna raised her hand. With the soft clinking of her many pendants and jewels, three additional summoning arrays appeared out of thin air beside her. From each one came the deep, ancient presence of something long-forgotten.