Inside the massive Mirror Moon Golem, within the intricately structured balance chambers nested with rings. The serene mirror moon statue stood there as always, and before it, the old ritual site had been cleared, and a new ritual setup was complete.
In the space filled with incense, a huge and complex ritual array was drawn on the floor. Dorothy, wearing a black and white dress and a small Madam's hat, sat in the center of the array, where the eye of """enlightenment""" had opened, becoming the pupil of its eye. Around her, at the edge of the array, six items were currently placed.
The first was a deep blue crystal gem, this was the deep blue heart, a divine artifact of the """Cup""" domain, originally held by the Sea Abyss Church, stolen by Thief K, performed by Dorothy and Neff together.
The second was an unadorned metal weight, named the Code of Balance, a divine artifact belonging to the """Stone""" domain, originally held by the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild, rented by Dorothy for a heavy price.
The third was an exquisitely crafted spherical incense cage, called the phantom scale incense cage, a divine artifact belonging to the """Shadow""" domain, originally an item of the Butterfly God faith but later seized by the Black Dream Hunter Group. Dorothy helped the Butterfly God believers reclaim it.
The fourth was an old piece of cloth covered in scriptures, named the Holy Relic Scroll, a divine artifact of the """Light""", belonging to the Shining Light Church. Vanya was granted custody of this item for her merits.
The fifth was a wine cup carved with a skull, named minyin zunzhan, a divine artifact of """Silent""", originally a burial item of the founding king of Adus, Rahman, who personally gave it to Dorothy.
Finally, there was an ordinary book with a thick cover, this was the extraordinary item Dorothy often used in the past, """wen hai hang zhi"". Just now, through a ritual, in the name of akasha, she had blessed """wen hai hang zhi""" into a divine artifact of """enlightenment""", Dorothy's own divine artifact.
Now, Dorothy had placed all six divine artifacts for the promotion ritual in their designated positions. She also quietly closed her eyes and, according to the method known from the Qiwen Temple, began to gradually circulate her Spirituality.
Subsequently, under an invisible force, the six divine artifacts surrounding Dorothy began to automatically levitate, each emitting faint specks of light of different colors. Amidst this light, Dorothy's promotion ritual officially began.
'The world of wisdom is boundless, the sea of consciousness is infinite, the multitude of beings are deluded, and so am I...'
'All principles are not principles, all forms are not forms, the six paths are all void, causality is also false, even the ultimate mysteries are still fleeting illusions... The wise and the wicked cannot know, meditation cannot enlighten, to attain the wisdom of saints and sages, do not seek divine solutions, but seek to solve the divine...'
Silently reciting the incantation in her mind, Dorothy's ritual continued to operate. In a state of trance and confusion, her spirit and consciousness seemed to detach from the realm of reality, advancing towards the inner side of the world.
...
Just as Dorothy was undergoing her promotion, at this moment outside the promotion chamber, on Dazzle Star Lake, the battle belonging to the Scarlet powerhouses was still ongoing.
Beside Dazzle Star Lake, on the top of a formerly complete hill, within a high-temperature meteorite crater burning with raging flames, Francesco, clad in full plate armor, stood at the edge of the giant pit. Through the full-face helmet that obscured his features, he gazed at the vast surface of Dazzle Star Lake before him.
Francesco's gaze first locked onto the tallest and most conspicuous Mirror Moon Golem on Dazzle Star Lake, but after only two seconds, his gaze shifted. It moved to the shore of Dazzle Star Lake further away, staring at Gothsmore who was struggling to stand up there.
After confirming Gothsmore's condition, Francesco no longer hesitated. He immediately straightened his body and then activated the Spirituality within him.
As the scorching Spirituality spread throughout Francesco's body, thick smoke billowed from the gaps in his heavy armor. The body beneath his armor was ignited all at once, and raging flames instantly erupted from the joints of the armor. Flames also shot out from the gap in front of the helmet.
Next, the flames inside Francesco's armor began to expand, pushing open the armor components piece by piece, and his entire body became even taller. Francesco transformed his body into raging flames while the armor remained as it was. His entire body directly turned into the form of a flame man constrained by pieces of suspended armor fragments.
After elementalization, Francesco immediately shot a stream of flames downwards. He thus transformed into a raging fire, soaring straight up from the ground, directly charging towards Gothsmore's location on the other side of the lake. On the bell tower of the Mirror Moon Golem, Aldrich watched the raging fire streak across the lake surface and couldn't help but exclaim.
"A Heavenly Fire Saint now in Prit? Looks like it's Tivian's Francesco. I didn't expect the strong reinforcements that girl mentioned would actually be him. He's quite powerful, I wonder if he was invited or tricked... Probably the latter..."
Aldrich said with a hint of a smile. Francesco's appearance undoubtedly made him breathe a sigh of relief. He didn't have much Spirituality left and couldn't hold Gothsmore back for much longer. Now that a Heavenly Fire Saint had joined the battle, things would be pretty stable from then on.
With this thought, Aldrich adjusted his hat brim and then controlled the Mirror Moon Golem to slowly follow the opponent's actions.
On the other side, Gothsmore, who was reciting prayers in her heart, couldn't help but be startled when she saw the fireball coming from afar and growing larger. She immediately dodged it at high speed. Not long after Gothsmore dodged, the fireball transformed from Francesco directly struck the position where Gothsmore had just been, immediately triggering a large explosion.
"Boom!"
In the explosion comparable to heavy artillery bombardment, Gothsmore, who had not dodged far, was affected again. The shockwave shattered the blood mist armor on her body, and the sweeping flames severely burned large areas of her skin. Gothsmore bounced several times on the ground before hitting a rock and stopping, then she violently spat out a mouthful of blood.
Propping herself up with the blood spear, Gothsmore took out two large syringes filled with bright red liquid. She injected one into her arm, gritting her teeth as she injected herself, allowing the burns on her body to quickly heal. The other syringe she directly shattered onto the blood spear, letting the liquid within merge into the spear body. Immediately after, her blood mist armor fully regenerated. Then, Gothsmore focused intently on the direction Francesco had impacted, holding her spear in high alert.
From the dissipating smoke and dust, a fireball suddenly broke through and attacked Gothsmore. Gothsmore easily dodged it with a sidestep, but the fireball directly hit a rock not far behind Gothsmore, causing a violent explosion. Gothsmore was affected by the explosion again and stumbled a few steps unsteadily. Just then, a flash of fire shot straight up into the sky from the smoke and dust. Looking closely, it was a burning Flame Knight, none other than Francesco. He hovered in mid-air, constantly condensing fireballs in his left hand and throwing them towards Gothsmore.
Facing the continuous barrage of fireballs, Gothsmore began to dodge desperately. These fireballs were not fast, far less so than the wind blades created by the mirror moon statue before, but they could explode. Even if they didn't hit Gothsmore, they would quickly detonate after hitting the ground. The large-area flames and shockwaves generated by the fireball explosions were difficult for Gothsmore to completely avoid; she would always be affected by some.
In the continuous explosions, Gothsmore was affected by the impacts and flames from all directions. Although these were not fatal with her nimble dodging, they invisibly restricted her range of movement. After Francesco, who was hovering above, used a four-shot fireball barrage to seal Gothsmore's movements, he directly swooped down, raising his flaming longsword and slashing straight at Gothsmore, quickly reaching her.
Seeing this situation, Gothsmore condensed numerous blood mist weapons and attacked the swooping Flame Knight, but those blood mist weapons were immediately vaporized upon contact with Francesco's flame body.
Francesco, possessing a fire elemental body, could not only directly vaporize Gothsmore's blood mist but also completely immune to Gothsmore's pain amplification. As a raging flame, Francesco could not feel the pain of living beings.
Easily breaking through Gothsmore's blood soldier barrage, Francesco charged in front of Gothsmore. The flaming longsword had almost reached Gothsmore's forehead. With all her might in dodging, Gothsmore at least wasn't cut in two. The flame sword that was originally slashing towards her head grazed past her side face and continued downwards, severing Gothsmore's arm. Amidst the smell of flesh and blood vaporizing, Gothsmore cried out in pain.
Facing the Heavenly Fire Saint, even Gothsmore with her blood mist armor had almost no ability to resist. Among all extraordinary paths, the path of Saint Child could be said to be the most restraining existence against Gothsmore in direct combat. It would not be an exaggeration to call it a nemesis path.
Her left arm was severed. Gothsmore's painful scream lasted for less than a second before she gritted her teeth and suppressed it. She glared at her severed left arm which was falling. Immediately, her left arm twisted and transformed into a large bat, opening its mouth towards Francesco and emitting a sharp high-pitched sound. The vibration of the high-frequency sound waves caused the flames that constituted Francesco's body to flicker unsteadily, affecting Francesco's subsequent consecutive attacks on Gothsmore. Francesco's second sword strike was interfered with and missed.
Seeing this, Francesco directly punched through and shattered the bat, which immediately exploded into a cloud of blood mist that spread out, obscuring his vision. Seeing this, Gothsmore immediately fled towards the sky. When Francesco evaporated the surrounding blood mist and looked up, she saw that Gothsmore had already flown far away.
Just then, a strong gust of wind swept across the lake shore, and a powerful tornado suddenly formed. The tornado sucked up the raging fires that Francesco's moves had ignited on the ground and spread them widely into the sky, instantly surrounding the recently escaped Gothsmore. Scorched by the firestorm, Gothsmore screamed in pain again, and her flight speed immediately slowed down.
Seeing this situation, Aldrich immediately stopped the process of creating the tornado and controlled the Mirror Moon Golem to punch Gothsmore fiercely. Gothsmore was hit in mid-air and was violently knocked down by the giant fist, crashing into the ground at high speed, creating a large pit. The blood mist armor she was wearing completely shattered into pieces.
"Ugh... cough, cough, cough..."
In the large pit, Gothsmore used her only remaining right hand to support herself with the blood spear and stood up, coughing up large mouthfuls of blood. However, the current situation did not allow her to rest for another second, because at this moment, in the dark night above her, the Flame Knight was already suspended there, pointing his Flaming Longsword at her.
"Purify!"
Accompanied by a deep, inhuman sound, the Flaming Longsword in Francesco's hand shot out a dazzling, high-temperature pillar of fire, directly attacking Gothsmore below. Facing this fiery bombardment, Gothsmore, who was injured and had not had time to recover, was unable to dodge and could only gather all the blood mist armament on her body into a shield, holding it in front of her.
The dazzling pillar of flame struck down, completely enveloping Gothsmore's entire body. Immediately, the blood mist shield in her hand began to be continuously burned by the scorching flames, rapidly vaporizing in the high temperature. The ground around Gothsmore that was scorched by the pillar of fire also began to slowly turn red, and even melt into lava.
"Gothsmore... are you ready yet? I can't hold on any longer..."
Gothsmore, who was using the blood mist shield to block the flames, heard a faint, thread-like sound at this moment, and she gritted her teeth and said fiercely.
"Shut up! Just hold on for one more moment, it'll be ready soon!"
After speaking, Gothsmore continued to hold up the shield to block the flames, while closing her eyes. In her heart, she completed the final prayer.
When Gothsmore's eyes opened again, in the whites of each eye, there were three more pupils. At this moment, Gothsmore's eyes were crowded with a total of eight pupils, looking very strange and terrifying.
In the sky, Francesco continued to use the flames to continuously scorch the earth, seemingly trying to completely burn and purify Gothsmore.
During the continuous spraying, the intensity of his flames did not weaken at all. The ground around the center of the spray was constantly collapsing and melting due to the high temperature, and the area where the flames raged was completely red. Just as Francesco wanted to continue like this and completely burn the cultist, a sudden change occurred.
Pain, stinging pain, a sharp stinging pain suddenly made Francesco's expression freeze. As a being of flame, he should have been completely immune to the feeling of pain in a flesh and blood body, but at this moment, it was as if he had been pricked by a sharp object. Intense pain spread through his consciousness, and the stinging sensation actually came from the pillar of fire that he had been continuously spraying, which was almost an extension of his body.
"Ugh!"
Under this sudden intense pain, Francesco's hand trembled, and the pillar of fire that had been maintained immediately dissipated. The strong stinging sensation almost made him fall from mid-air. He managed to maintain his posture with great willpower. When Francesco finally resisted the pain and calmed down, he looked towards the area he had been attacking, and discovered a shocking scene.
In the scarlet and bright earth, a slender and tall figure stood there. Gothsmore, with a pale body, bare upper body, and only a burnt and tattered skirt hanging on her body, was standing there, her eyes wide open, staring at Francesco with the eight pupils squeezed within them.
At this moment, Gothsmore's previously broken left arm had already recovered, and even more so, above and below her arms, two more pairs of arms had grown. Gothsmore, with a total of six arms, held a different style of blood mist armament in each hand. She stared at the Flame Knight in the sky with a wild smile.
"Ahahaha!!! Burn! Burn! Why aren't you burning anymore?! Wasn't the temperature quite high just now? Why aren't you continuing to burn? Are you afraid of pain?!"
Looking at Francesco in the sky, Gothsmore mocked him to her heart's content, while Francesco looked at the scene below and said in a deep voice.
"Despicable cultist... what did you just do?!"
"What did I do? Nothing... just made something that doesn't know pain feel what pain is. Experience it well... this is the Deep Web Queen's grace. In her presence... even flames will understand the profoundness of pain..."
Facing the Flame's question in the sky, Gothsmore replied mockingly, and Aldrich, who was on the Mirror Moon Golem in the distance, couldn't help but frown when he saw this scene.
"Forcibly attaching the concept of pain to something that does not have pain... is this the divine enchantment bestowed by the Pain Lady?
"That woman... has already begun to undergo preliminary Apostle transformation. This is completely troublesome now." Aldrich sighed, and at this moment, he already felt that the situation was not good.
'The Pain Lady's gaze seems to be really starting to focus here. Are you not ready yet?'
...
During the ritual, Dorothy's consciousness completely left her body and advanced towards the inside of the world. She felt herself detaching from reality, soaring in a kaleidoscope of colors, traversing another invisible barrier, and constantly descending, descending into the depths of the inside of the world.
In this process, countless spirits, countless things, and countless other various paths appeared before Dorothy's eyes, but Dorothy ignored them, and instead continued to adhere to her will, following a certain guidance in the dark, sneaking all the way until she finally arrived at a strange realm after crossing a certain barrier.
Color, temperature, time, space... At this moment, Dorothy found that she could not perceive the existence of any of these dimensions. Vision, smell, hearing... commonly used senses, could not help Dorothy perceive the surrounding things.
It was so abstract, counter-intuitive, and counter-concrete. Dorothy could not describe the scene of this space with any language. She could only rely on intuition to perceive everything around her, and all of this was only the surging flow of information, boundless information, information as vast as the sea, and extremely complex information.
No sight, no sound, no smell, no touch, only thought and contemplation. Although she did not see a single leaf or blade of grass, she contemplated countless forests. All sensory mediums were superfluous. Here, one could think far and wide, and recognize billions of pieces of information. This wonderful state made Dorothy somewhat intoxicated for a while.
For her own convenience, Dorothy translated the various things she felt in her consciousness and presented them in a visual way. After adjusting herself, she could finally "see" the "appearance" of this space.
Words, symbols, numbers... countless carriers and symbols of information converged into rivers and streams, surging in the void space. Pictures, musical scores, articles... countless fragments of information piled up like a sea, extending to the boundless distance. Dorothy herself was also presented in the form of densely intertwined characters, suspended on this "sea."
Looking around, Dorothy curiously surveyed the surrounding scenery, until she witnessed a giant creature in the depths of the distant sea.
Bones... that was a huge, rotting skeleton floating on the boundless sea of information. The skeleton was constructed from mysterious, unknown, and mystical runes. Most of it was submerged under the "water," and a small part floated on the "water." The "flesh" was decaying, and large areas of the "skeleton" were exposed. The body was too large and the decay was too severe to see what kind of existence the skeleton was, and it was even impossible to distinguish between human and animal.
Dorothy saw that from the decaying giant skeleton, "black" decaying "foul blood" was continuously flowing out, extensively contaminating the surrounding sea of information and dyeing it "foul black."
Seeing this scene, Dorothy was startled, and then she immediately felt a splitting headache, her consciousness almost exploding.