When Gothsmore saw the Mirror Moon Golem ascending abnormally and seemingly beginning to revert its transformation, a bad premonition arose in her heart. Thus, she endured the pain and further accelerated her speed, rushing towards the Mirror Moon Church that had returned to its Church form.
When Gothsmore finally rushed into the Mirror Moon Church, breaking through the main door and entering the grand chapel, what she glimpsed was a faint, floating silver light suspended beneath the dome. Although Gothsmore didn't immediately understand the meaning of that silver light, she instinctively believed that the being who had been obstructing her with various means in the dark must be within that silver light.
Finding the Mirror Moon Church in advance before them and manipulating it to suddenly appear, tampering with her substitution ritual, this Church transforming into a giant Golem, using strange illusions to interfere with her actions... Ever since Gothsmore came to Glamorgan to perform her mission, that suspected existence from Prit's Vigilant Faction had tripped them up again and again, causing Gothsmore's original plans to fail repeatedly. Facing so many setbacks, Gothsmore was already burning with rage; she wished she could drag out the person behind it all and pierce them a thousand times.
Gothsmore knew that the person behind it all had a close connection with this Mirror Moon Church, and within this Church, there was no one who fit her expectations more than the being inside that silver light. Thus, after Gothsmore burst into the chapel, she immediately targeted the soft silver light and charged straight towards it. She could vaguely see the figure faintly visible within the silver light, and she was certain that was her target.
Rushing into the silver light, Gothsmore swung her six arms, each holding a sharp spike, and mercilessly stabbed towards her ultimate target in this battle. However, what greeted her was an onslaught of darkness.
In Gothsmore's field of vision, just as she was about to stab her target, a pure blackness spread out from the figure within the silver light, assailing her and the surrounding space. Instantly, she could see nothing; the silver figure completely vanished from before her.
However, this did not impede Gothsmore's offensive. She maintained her attacking posture, charging towards the position where the figure had been. But when Gothsmore reached the intended spot, she stabbed nothing. Her full-force attack hit empty air, and the momentarily unbalanced Gothsmore began to fall downwards. The direction she fell was not the original Church floor, but a space of darkness.
"What..."
Seeing this situation, Gothsmore activated her Spirituality and flew up again. She hovered in mid-air, looking around to observe the surroundings, and what she saw was only darkness.
Darkness, deep darkness, empty darkness, darkness so thick she couldn't see her hand in front of her face, boundless darkness... At this moment, all that was presented before Gothsmore's eyes was pure blackness.
Facing this scene, Gothsmore first thought her vision was problematic, that her eyes were affected by some extraordinary power. So she decisively gouged out her eyeballs, crushed them, atomized them into blood mist, and grew them back. However, everything before her was still pure darkness; the regenerated eyeballs saw nothing. This darkness was so pure that even a """Shadow""" of the Crimson Tier like Gothsmore couldn't see anything within it.
"Hmph, a pure black space?"
Facing the current scene, Gothsmore let out a cold snort, then slowly controlled herself to descend until she landed on the ground of this pitch-black chapel. After that, she just stood there, making no movements.
At this moment, Gothsmore was using her keen hearing to observe every sound around her, preventing any surprise attacks from the darkness.
As expected, after a slight silence, Gothsmore heard a sound of rapid footsteps coming from behind her. Gothsmore decisively threw a blood spike towards the direction of the footsteps. However, the blood spike did not stop the footsteps from approaching; Gothsmore heard something rapidly approaching her.
"Dodged it?"
Saying this, Gothsmore immediately manipulated the blood spikes she held, becoming wary towards the direction the sound came from. Then she heard the sound of a sharp blade being swung. Gothsmore used the blood spike to block towards the direction of the sound, parrying an unseen blow with a sharp clang. Then Gothsmore controlled her other arms holding blood spikes to counterattack, but she did not hit anything.
'Dodged...'
Seeing this situation, Gothsmore thought to herself. Then she immediately prepared a more ferocious offensive to attack, but she still failed to hit the target. After sparring with Gothsmore for a while, the target in the darkness seemed to retreat again and re-entered the unseen shadow.
Witnessing this situation, Gothsmore once again became vigilant about her surroundings, focusing on listening to the sounds around her. And after a while, the familiar sound of footsteps indeed came from another direction.
As before, Gothsmore launched an attack towards the direction the sound came from, once again engaging with the seemingly invisible enemy. Her blood spikes blocked several of the opponent's attacks, but all of her own attacks still hit nothing. Finally, after a period of intense "combat" between the two sides, the invisible target retreated again, and Gothsmore returned to the darkness. Gothsmore still failed to successfully pursue.
"Tch..."
Facing this scene, Gothsmore was filled with anger. Facing an enemy she couldn't see or hit, countless cruel thoughts in her heart couldn't be acted upon, and a suppressed rage burned ever stronger within her.
Afterwards, Gothsmore relied on her hearing and repelled another attack from the invisible enemy. Then she stood ready, continuing to focus on defending her surroundings, listening for the direction of the enemy's next sound. However, this time she waited for a long while without the attack arriving.
Facing this situation, Gothsmore showed confusion. Just as she was wondering if the opponent was preparing a big move, a sudden change occurred: a sharp pain came from Gothsmore's back. She could feel that this was a back injury caused by a blade's slash; her back had just been severely cut.
'What!'
Gritting her teeth, Gothsmore endured the pain and counterattacked behind her. However, this attack still didn't hit anyone; it was empty like before.
'What's going on!? Why didn't I hear anything!' At this moment, Gothsmore was extremely surprised. She hadn't heard any sound at all just now, so why had she suddenly been struck by a blade? Had the opponent flown over? But Gothsmore hadn't heard any sound of air disturbance either.
Just as Gothsmore was astonished internally, she suddenly felt another sharp pain in her side. Her flank was struck by another blade when she was completely unprepared, and this blow made Gothsmore unable to help but cry out.
—!!
After letting out that cry, Gothsmore finally knew where the problem lay: she couldn't hear her own voice just now! She couldn't hear anything now; she had lost her hearing!
Facing this situation, Gothsmore was stunned. She hadn't expected that after her vision was taken away, her hearing would also disappear. No wonder she had received two consecutive blows while completely unprepared.
Having continuously lost her sight and hearing, Gothsmore was slightly panicked. To face the upcoming attacks, she began to sense the blood she had left on the enemy's weapon, hoping to know the enemy's location by sensing the connection between herself and her blood. This action was initially successful; through Spirituality perception, she initially managed to evade two more slashes from the darkness. However, on the third strike, Gothsmore's throat was cut. She was surprised to find that her Spirituality perception was also gradually dimming in this darkness, eventually disappearing.
Having continuously lost three means of sensing the external world, Gothsmore became even more panicked for a moment. She began to desperately sniff the bloody smell in the air, attempting to sense the opponent by smelling her own blood on the enemy's blade. Furthermore, she started trying to destroy the floor beneath her feet, wanting to smash through the ground of this dark chapel and get outside, to leave this strange dark environment.
Relying on her not-so-keen sense of smell, Gothsmore only barely managed to block one attack, but had two of her arms severed. As she felt her sense of smell also growing weaker, she began to attack the floor beneath her with more effort. Finally, at the very moment she completely lost her sense of smell, Gothsmore smashed through the chapel floor with a desperate punch, and her entire body fell out through the large hole, dropping outside the Mirror Moon Church.
Just as Gothsmore was rejoicing that she had finally escaped that damned pure black chapel, the scene she saw next filled her with despair.
Darkness, still the endless pure darkness, not a single ray of light could be seen, not a single sound could be heard. Eternal darkness appeared before Gothsmore's eyes. After leaving the dark chapel, what she saw was not Dazzle Star Lake bathed in moonlight, but an even vaster and boundless darkness.
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Not only within the Church, but even the entire Dazzle Star Lake outside the Church, and even the whole of Glamorgan, were now plunged into this absolute darkness. Gothsmore had escaped one cage, but found herself in another, larger cage.
Facing this scene, Gothsmore's heart turned cold. Without thinking much, she rapidly rushed out into the darkness towards a place she didn't even know. She had no other thoughts in her mind now; she only wanted to escape this damned darkness. This darkness shouldn't be infinite; she could definitely rush out.
However, before Gothsmore could rush out too far, another burst of intense pain appeared on her body. Without any warning, Gothsmore felt a sword pierce her abdomen from back to front. That mysterious enemy had somehow caught up!
Attacked once again, this time Gothsmore steeled herself. Based on the location of her injury, she spun around and slashed towards the direction where the enemy should be behind her. What she received in return was a parry from the opponent. After losing her sight, hearing, and smell, Gothsmore once again successfully judged the enemy's position, although her counterattack was still blocked.
Then, knowing she still couldn't escape, Gothsmore simply floated in place and began to be wary of her surroundings again, guarding against the incoming attacks.
Gothsmore now couldn't see, hear, smell, or perceive... What she could rely on now was only her powerful vitality. After being slashed, she would immediately judge the enemy's position based on her pain and quickly launch a counterattack, gaining the enemy's location at the cost of a severe injury.
Just like this, amidst waves of painful slashes, amidst cuts like slow torture, Gothsmore counterattacked the invisible enemy again and again. Although her counterattacks were either evaded or parried, Gothsmore still persisted with this fighting style of exchanging injury for information. She was hoping for the opponent's mistake, hoping for a miracle to happen.
However, the miracle Gothsmore waited for did not arrive. What replaced it was indeed deeper despair.
In her repeated painful counterattacks, Gothsmore discovered that the opponent's offensive had actually begun to weaken. The originally vicious sword edge was gradually hurting less and less when it cut her body.
Facing this situation, Gothsmore initially thought the opponent's strength was running out and she was about to endure it with her regeneration ability. However, it wasn't until Gothsmore had an arm cut off that she discovered the real problem.
In the darkness, Gothsmore couldn't specifically see how large her wounds were, but she knew clearly how large the wound from a severed arm was without needing to look; it wouldn't exceed the cross-section of the arm.
Gothsmore knew clearly how much pain losing an arm would cause her. Now, she was surprised to find that the pain she felt when her arm was severed just now was far less than the pain she had experienced before. It was at this moment that she realized it wasn't the enemy's offensive that had weakened, but her ability to feel pain that had diminished.
Gothsmore discovered that gradually, her last remaining sense of touch and pain was rapidly disappearing, swallowed by the darkness along with her other senses.
"No... no!!"
It wasn't until this moment that Gothsmore became afraid. When she lost her previous senses, she was just panicking, but it was only when she lost the sense of pain that she truly began to fear. She, who had always been arrogant and scornful of everything, was finally starting to feel fear now.
"No! Don't take this away!! Pain!! This is a gift bestowed upon us by the Queen!!"
Gothsmore in the darkness began to wail. She started attacking everything around her haphazardly, wanting to stop the disappearance of pain. However, all of this was futile. Gothsmore found that she felt less and less pain, and her last remaining senses became weaker and weaker, finally disappearing completely.
"Don't do this! Stop!!"
At this moment, the arrogance in Gothsmore's heart was completely gone. The only emotion left in her heart was fear.
After losing her sight, hearing, smell, and Spirituality perception, she finally lost her sense of pain and touch. Now, she could perceive nothing. What she saw, heard, felt, and touched was all endless darkness.
Perception... is the channel for acquiring information. Losing all perception means facing endless unknown, and the unknown... is the source of fear, the most genuine fear. Therefore, one of the most important layers in the Spirituality expression of """Shadow""" is fear. The endless unknown hidden deep within eternal darkness is one of the essences of """Shadow""", and also the authority held by the Lord of """Shadow""".
After losing all her senses, Gothsmore had completely gone mad. She no longer attacked her surroundings haphazardly, but began to create countless blood needles, wildly stabbing herself. She fully activated the divinity granted to her by the Spider Queen, frantically creating extreme pain for herself, wanting to experience pain again, to escape fear through pain.
However, none of this helped. No matter how she self-mutilated, Gothsmore couldn't feel a shred of pain. Thus, already insane, she began to constantly create blood thorns to pierce herself, seeking to experience pain again. In this way, she fell into endless self-consumption.
"Pain... gift... the Queen's... gift..."
She didn't know how long had passed in this darkness where nothing could be felt. Gothsmore finally exhausted her Spirituality. Without the support of Spirituality, her regenerative ability could no longer be maintained. Gothsmore welcomed the death she brought upon herself.
"Crack"
Suddenly, the sound of glass shattering came out. Within the pitch-black space, cracks overflowing with silver light began to spread everywhere, eventually spreading throughout the entire space.
Finally, the pure black space collapsed with a bang, shattering into pieces like glass. After the pitch-black fragments dissipated within the space, the silver moonlight from the sky poured down, once again shining upon the surface of Dazzle Star Lake.
In the night sky, the full moon still hung high above the firmament. The surface of Dazzle Star Lake was illuminated by the moonlight, reflecting shimmering ripples. On the edge of the lake shore, two strange figures were standing there at this moment.
One was a twisted and horrifying corpse, a female corpse covered in blood, with sharp blood thorns sticking out of her body, fixing her to the ground so she wouldn't fall over. Blood continuously flowed from her wounds, staining the earth red and flowing into the nearby lake water. Her wide-open eyes and mouth, facing upwards, were filled with an expression of terror.
The other was a strange girl standing before the horrifying corpse. She had long silver hair, wore a white light veil, and floated slightly in mid-air. Large areas of her skin were like crystal and clear mirrors, transparent and radiant, particularly noticeable on her hands. While her chest, waist, and face also had a crystalline transparency, they largely retained the texture of snowy white skin. On her exquisite face, carved like fine jade, were a pair of eyes with silver pupils, revealing an indifferent expression.
Under the moonlight, the mirror girl quietly looked at Gothsmore, who was now lifeless before her. She did nothing, seemingly waiting for something. And not long after, there was a strange movement within Gothsmore's corpse.
Gothsmore's head, which had been completely still, slowly began to move again under the impetus of some mysterious power. It silently lowered, turning towards the girl before her. Within the wide-open eye sockets, eight pupils began to spin rapidly, finally stopping simultaneously to stare at the figure before them.
Facing the scene before her, the mirror girl disappeared and spoke in a cold tone.
"Long time no see, Morrigan. I hope you've been well..."
Hearing the girl's words, "Gothsmore's" head mechanically twitched twice, then opened its mouth and spoke in a hoarse voice.
"Selene..."
"You... at this point, you can actually still maintain yourself, and even interfere with Britain again... Unexpected..."