East Coast of Pritte, Tivia.
In Tivia's North City, upon the vast square of the Cathedral District's Grand Chanting Cathedral, a colossal beam of light descended from the sky, enveloping the evil creature within the formation. Shackles of faith and silence had firmly bound it, yet a sudden mishap loosened those bonds.
The Umbral Wardens are essentially an extension of the Monarch of Secret-Keeping attached to Pritte; thus, when—inside the Crystal Palace—Pritte's current Monarch, Charles IV, suffered backlash during his secret-keeping ritual, the Umbral Wardens surrounding the cathedral square were also affected. Every warden present became momentarily indistinct, as if unable to maintain solid form. This shift directly stripped one layer of shackles from the monster.
As the binding power weakened, Gosskina strained to break the remaining seals. Piously she repeated the Lady of Pain's sacred name within her heart, and her mistress did not hesitate to pour power down upon her.
"You… cannot… hold… me… now!!"
Amid a staccato crackling of bones, Gosskina's frame visibly swelled; the extra arms previously suppressed began to re-sprout. Her face split anew, revealing the huge blood-red eyes within. Over her once-pale skin, dense black bristles—stiff as needles—reappeared.
Under the Spider Queen's divine might, Gosskina regained her terrifying form. Resisting the torrent of faith crashing upon her, she slowly tore free of her cage, fixing the Archbishop—Samuel of Pritte, robed in ornate vestments—with a cold, dreadful stare.
At that moment, from an empty stretch of sky, several razor-sharp longswords suddenly plummeted. With whistling shrieks they shot toward the formation imprisoning Gosskina, skewering her—head, torso, arms, chest—every part pierced in an instant. Thin chains, glowing faintly, ran from the blades up into the distant heavens and vanished; the slight tug of those chains made her falter, her movements slowing a fraction.
Those swords were support from the Twilight Pious Shadow, a sacred-steel airship still cloaked in radiance above. Facing the spiraling crisis, it strained every resource to regain control, aiding Samuel in suppressing Gosskina. Yet even with its help, her escape could not be halted; her transformation continued. The airship's intervention merely delayed the inevitable.
Confronting the ever-strengthening divine monstrosity, Samuel—while grimly maintaining the Binding of Rank—glanced at the flickering, vanishing Umbral Wardens, his heart sinking to its nadir.
What had befallen King Charles IV? It was the question tormenting Samuel. Though ignorant of the precise mechanism, he sensed the wardens' power derived from the monarch.
Facing Gosskina's swelling divinity, Samuel could only hope Charles would recover quickly; once she shattered the fetters of faith, neither Tivia nor all Pritte could stop her.
She was a Chosen of the Golden God—an earthly proxy of the true deity—an existence surpassing ordinary Goldens!
"Lord Keeper-of-Secrets… where are you!? The situation… is slipping out of control!"
"We must… notify Holy Descent Mountain at once!"
While keeping the Faith-Bind for a final suppression, Samuel—defying Atcherley's prior counsel—channeled a sliver of attention through the cathedral's extraordinary system, sending an urgent call to Holy Descent Mountain and the other cardinals, reporting Tivia's crisis. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Tivia, three hidden spots on secluded rooftops gathered shadowy figures.
Wearing pale white robes stamped with the emblem of a moth, they chanted softly, gazing skyward with vacant eyes.
"The hour is come… yet no rain falls… the sigil of the rite unopened… the harvest tendrils… fail to extend… the plan has failed… yet the plan must succeed… if we cannot reap others, we must reap ourselves… for the Moth's Advent demands sacrifice—if not them, then us…"
Beneath the cloudless sky, three distant circles of people recited in unison, faces wooden. At the center of each ring stood three motionless figures in slightly richer robes, likewise staring dully at the heavens.
The downpour they had awaited never arrived; at the appointed hour the conditions for the ritual were still absent.
Yet for these hypnotized disciples of the Moth, the rite was compulsory; lacking the proper conditions, they would create them—whatever the cost.
"For the Moth's Advent demands sacrifice—if not them, then us…"
Repeating the phrase, the central figures watched their lesser comrades begin to pace in slow circles around them, intoning secret words.
As the chant rose, huge circular arrays glowed beneath their feet, the central figures standing at the heart of each formation.
With the ritual's progress, translucent phantoms burst from the three central figures, spiraled briefly, then shot skyward, rapidly expanding.
Three vast specters—twenty or thirty metres long—suddenly manifested above three distant edges of Tivia: huge moth-wings dense with white cocoons, bloated abdomens, heads without mouths, thoraxes sprouting countless ghostly tendrils.
Pseudo-moths—or, in Black Dream's tongue, three fully grown scale-moths—now hovered over the city, gazing down at all below. The hypnotic waves they radiated rippled outward, sending whole districts into deep slumber.
After the three Pseudo-moths suddenly appeared at the edge of the city, they did not immediately begin hunting or join any of the ongoing battles inside the city. Instead, they hung silently in mid-air, their colossal bodies slowly breaking into tiny motes of light that drifted through the air.
Disintegration—yes. The first thing the three mature Pseudo-moths did after appearing was to disintegrate themselves. In an instant their massive forms almost completely dissolved, scattering a vast number of floating specks of light that swiftly gathered toward the sky.
Sacrifice—this was a necessary step in the ritual the Eight Spears had originally planned. They had meant to spread sigils throughout the entire city of Tivia, expanding the ritual's reach to nearly the whole area. In that ritual, hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens would have been sacrificed, their extracted spirituality used for the next phase.
Because the rain clouds were held back over the distant sea, and no rain fell, the sigils Eight Spears and Black Dream had placed on the souvenirs never shed their disguises and took shape. The first stage of the ritual simply could not proceed, so Black Dream had to activate a fallback plan.
The first stage of the ritual was essentially to obtain vast spirituality through the mass sacrifice of citizens. Now Black Dream shifted the target of that sacrifice—from the residents to its own Pseudo-moths.
Every Pseudo-moth had grown by draining the spirituality from the dream-cocoons of countless ordinary people, so the spirituality they contained was not only vast but of higher quality. Moreover, before this operation the three remaining Pseudo-moths of Black Dream had actively linked to large numbers of "Moth" believers scattered across the world—deceived commoners, slaves bought from traffickers, and many of Eight Spears' own penal slaves. Sacrificing one Pseudo-moth would simultaneously sacrifice all those linked to it, releasing spirituality that would fuel the next stage of Black Dream's ritual.
As the ritual proceeded, invisible hypnotic ripples swept across the whole of Tivia as a side effect. Under these waves nearly every ordinary person and low-level Extraordinary sank into deep sleep.
Over Tivia, countless motes of spirituality drifted skyward, gradually converging in the cloudless air to form a colossal array that blanketed more than half the city. After a faint flash, the patterns inside the array began to turn transparent, allowing those below to glimpse through it a very different landscape from the waking world.
As the array resonated with something in the Inner World, the barrier between realms grew ever thinner. The grand ritual Black Dream had long prepared across both the waking world and the Inner World had finally activated. While fierce undercurrents surged through Tivia and hidden contests unfolded, a fierce clash had also reached its climax in the Dream-realm of the Inner World.
When an ancient roar from another world rang through the forest, that primal howl turned into raw savage force. Issuing from the dragon's maw, it struck the ground from above, toppling countless dream-trees and shaking even the far horizon.
Above a crater hundreds of meters wide, the soaring dragon beat its vast wings and dived straight down into the thick dust that still lingered at the pit's center—where its foe, just smashed to earth by the roar, should lie if it had not already been ground to powder.
Plunging through the dust, the dragon reached the crater's bottom in moments. With another quake it landed squarely in the center, the impact booming—yet the sensation underfoot felt wrong.
Beating its great wings, the dragon whipped up a gale that swept the dust away, revealing the crater floor.
There, no enemy remains were found. Instead, the ground was littered with broken white shell-like shards, as though some hard, massive object had been shattered.
"These... are chrysalis shells. That fellow must have turned his old cocoon into a defensive relic and summoned it in haste to block the blow." A shimmer flickered beside the dragon's head, and a translucent Black Cat floated there, eyeing the shards gravely.
This was the cat-grandfather of little fox Shalia. In this spectral form he kept his consciousness beside the dragon through a sigil, observing the battle and lending aid.
"There are traces of Dream-realm transit here. It opened a portal and fled while the attack was held off. I can track the ripples—please wait a moment, I'll open a gate so we can pursue!"
After a quick check the Black Cat spoke, and the dragon—Dorothy—gave a slight nod. The cat dared not delay; his eyes glowed as he called on his power.
Under that power, a huge Dream-realm portal formed before the dragon. The great wyrm surged through the shimmering gate toward another part of the dream-world.
Moments later the dragon emerged into a new region of the Dream-realm: an unspoiled forest. She swept her gaze and quickly spotted her target.
At the foot of a colossal tree nearby stood a figure. The barely-escaped Gumian hovered weakly in the air; once-grand moth wings now hung torn, his fur fallen in patches, barbed feelers ripped away, and his long bizarre limbs bent at unnatural angles.
Though he had mostly evaded the dragon's roar, he had not escaped unscathed. His body was mending swiftly with spirituality, but full recovery would take time—time he did not have against an almost unharmed dragon. Direct confrontation was impossible.
With a low growl the dragon—Dorothy—spread her wings and sped straight for the crippled Gumian, intent on finishing him off. Against such an onslaught, the grievously wounded moth seemed to have no chance at all.
Right at this moment, as the dragon's mountain-crushing pressure bore down on Gumian, a strange gleam flashed in his inhuman eyes. In his stump-like, grotesque hand he gripped two pieces of jet-black jade.
Under the jade's sudden stir, a thick fog erupted across the entire Labyrinth forest. White mist materialized out of nowhere, spread at terrifying speed, and almost instantly filled the whole woodland; countless giant trees became shadowy silhouettes within the haze.
In an instant the dragon was shrouded by the blinding white fog; a dense wall of mist now stood between it and Gumian. Everything before the dragon's eyes turned blank—nothing could be seen.
Yes—this fog was the very Bewildering Mist produced by the Holy Chrysalis of the Moth Saint, the same mist that created the Labyrinth at the heart of the Labyrinth!
When Gumian had fled by teleportation earlier, his destination had been the Labyrinth. Upon arrival he used the two pieces of black jade to disperse the mist temporarily; after luring Dorothy's dragon form in pursuit, he immediately re-activated the jade and called the Bewildering Mist back to envelop the area.
At this point the dragon would be completely trapped: unable to locate its foe to attack, unable to leave—imprisoned forever. Holding the black jade, Gumian could keep the dragon pinned while clearing a small pocket of mist for himself and teleport away.
Gumian knew the dragon had help from old friends and enemies and could surely follow his trail by teleportation, so he had deliberately set this trap. And the prey had bitten—now the attacking dragon was surrounded by fog; any strike would veer off course because of the mist. The mighty dragon no longer posed a threat; it would be confined here until death!
As Gumian gloated over the white mist, a smug smile rose in his heart—only to shatter within a second.
As if an invisible wind had blown, the white fog before him thinned and scattered in all directions. The colossal dragon, previously hidden, re-appeared in full, bearing down on him with overwhelming pressure. Gumian was stunned.
How could it disperse the Bewildering Mist!?
That question flooded Gumian's mind, and the answer was simple: whatever method he had used, Dorothy had used the same.
Dorothy knew perfectly well that Gumian liked to trap people with the divine mist of the Labyrinth; he had already trapped Atcherley this way, so she had prepared a countermeasure.
One of Gumian's subordinates, Withered-Wing of the Pseudo-moths of the Black Dream Hunt, had once tried to buy a key item at Moncarlo's auction. After Dorothy slew Withered-Wing she claimed the item: a fragment of a treasure called the Lunar Diadem, capable of piercing the Bewildering Mist.
Once she gathered enough intelligence on the Black Dream, Dorothy concluded they were collecting Lunar Diadem fragments to traverse the Bewildering Mist created by the Holy Chrysalis; the complete diadem should let them reach the chrysalis again.
After Atcherley was trapped, Dorothy—aided by the Black Cat—tried to use her fragment to rescue her, but failed. With only one shard she could merely clear a small area around herself, ensuring she would not get lost on the Labyrinth's outskirts and could teleport out, yet she could not pinpoint Atcherley inside and therefore could not extract her.
Although she could not save Atcherley, the fragment was enough for self-protection. When Gumian lifted his fragment's power and let the mist swallow Dorothy, she activated her own shard and the fog rolled back.
Roaring, the dragon Dorothy opened its colossal jaws and snapped straight at Gumian, intent on swallowing him in one bite. Facing the dragon that had broken through the mist, Gumian focused his mind and desperately dodged to the side, narrowly evading the bite, while readying another Dream-realm teleport to escape elsewhere.
"You're not getting away, Noka!"
At that moment the Black Cat's phantom appeared, hovering in mid-air. Meeting Gumian's gaze, it rippled colour within its pupils and released a deep hypnotic wave similar in nature to the one Gumian had used earlier.
The wave was noticeably weaker than the one that had threatened the dragon and should have had no effect on the fully-powered Gumian, but right now he was injured and weakened from the dragon's roar; the Black Cat's wave caught him off guard.
"Aro… vart…"
The interrupted Gumian stood frozen, glaring in fury at the floating Black Cat, as if planning to tear it to pieces the instant the hypnosis broke. But Dorothy gave him no chance; the moment his teleport failed, the dragon slammed a titanic claw down, pinning him to the ground beneath its weight.
Without mercy the dragon pressed harder, and under the crushing force Gumian let out a shrill, almost shriek-like cry. His entire body began to crack under the pressure, on the verge of collapse at any second.
Just then another anomaly erupted: across the ground beneath the dragon a vast, soft light flared, and countless esoteric symbols and runes raced outward, spreading far into the mist-shrouded distance until the entire earth was carpeted with them.
"What… is this…?"
Seeing the intricate symbols suddenly appear on the Dream-realm soil, the Black Cat exclaimed in shock. Sensing something amiss, Dorothy continued to exert maximum pressure on Gumian, determined to obliterate him completely.
Yet in the next instant the once-solid ground of the Dream-realm turned illusory and transparent, losing all substance. With nothing beneath it the dragon's foot slipped, and it began to fall; the Gumian pinned under its claw was released the moment the ground vanished, and—having shaken off the Black Cat's hypnosis—he sped away.
As she fell Dorothy stared downward in astonishment: through the now-semi-transparent ground she could see an entirely different scene—an aerial view of a city, and one she knew well.
It was actually Tivia! She was seeing Tivia from within the Labyrinth! It looked as though the entire forest hovered above the city!
In Dorothy's eyes, she saw an illusory, colossal Labyrinth suspended above the real city. The endless mist that had existed only within the Labyrinth now poured down like an unprecedented, gigantic waterfall, cascading toward Tivia as a whole.
"Those madmen… actually used the Chrysalis Rite to anchor Tivia's and the Labyrinth's dream-manifest coordinates, blurring and shattering the boundary between Dream and Reality. Are they trying to drag the Labyrinth into Tivia?!"
Watching this sudden scene unfold, the Black Cat drifting beside the dragon couldn't help but speak out in shock. When Dorothy saw it, she froze for a moment, her heart suddenly full of doubts.
"Blur the border of reality and dream, bring the Labyrinth to Tivia? Could this… be the grand ritual Black Dream has been preparing? So they really do have a backup plan?"
"But… what's their goal? Confusing Tivia's dream and reality, turning the city into another Labyrinth—what are they after? What exactly do these people want?"
Dorothy wondered inwardly. At that moment she suddenly recalled the visions shown to her not long ago in Mirror Moon's revelation, and the recent news Venia had told her about Holy Descent Mountain. A terrible conclusion formed in her mind.
"Could it be that they intend to— No, I have to warn Venia right now!"
Above the heavens of Tivia, within that incomparably vast array, an illusory forest of dreams gradually appeared, like a gigantic mirage hanging over the city. With the forest came white mist pouring from the sky—Bewildering Fog from the Labyrinth of the Labyrinth—now directly intruding into the real world!
As the Bewildering Fog kept pouring in, the entire city of Tivia was shrouded in white within moments. The more the mist cascaded, the denser the fog became throughout Tivia.
With the barrier between realms now blurred, the boundary between Tivia and the Labyrinth grew indistinct. Under the fog's influence, Tivia began to transform into a Labyrinth.
This city-wide upheaval naturally reached the Cathedral Quarter in the north. Archbishop Samuel of Pritte sensed the anomaly at once, yet he had no strength to spare. His suppression of Gosskina had reached its limit, and his gaze at her was solemn and grave.
"Heh… the ritual on that side has finally begun. Give it up, priest—your persistence now means nothing except to stoke my wrath and make your future suffering worse!" Gosskina spoke with a monstrous face and an echoing, eerie voice. Samuel remained silent.
At that moment Gosskina, still within the Rank-Binding, raised a hand against the restraints. A Crimson blood-blade condensed above her palm, and her already hideous face showed a hint of cruelty.
"I said I would make everyone in this city feel pain! The time has come!"
Gosskina shouted. Sensing the abnormal gathering of divine power upon the blood-blade, Samuel instantly knew what she intended. Having studied the Spider Queen's divine nature after the previous incident, he judged that she meant to strike the Rank-Binding itself, channeling ultimate agony through the faith-link directly into himself and into the millions of Radiant believers across the city!
Most citizens of Tivia were asleep, yet faith still flowed in their dreams. If their minds were shattered by pain, the very root of that faith would be severed. Gosskina sought to destroy the sanity of millions in an instant, driving them mad with suffering.
Facing this, Samuel immediately released the Rank-Binding upon Gosskina, but he did not lift the vast restraints of faith. Instead he gathered the power of the entire Grand Chanting Cathedral in a different form.
Freed from the Rank-Binding, the almost fully monsterfied Gosskina shattered the longswords impaling her and broke the Twilight Pious Shadow's bindings in an instant, then lunged toward Samuel.
Yet now Gosskina found that Samuel himself had changed: blazing flames roared across his body, turning him into a man of fire, fully elementalized. Between his hands he gathered a "Fireball"—a sphere of light so brilliant and hot it surpassed any Crimson flare, a blazing product born of faith!
This was what Samuel created by channeling Tivia's faith to empower himself. Unlike the Rank-Binding, which relied on the cathedral and preparatory rites, this manipulation used his own body as the vessel for such immense force—unstable and certain to damage the very foundation of his existence as an Extraordinary.
"Purify!"
Chanting, Samuel hurled the blazing sphere straight at Gosskina, who had only just broken free of the swords. She dodged easily, but the Fireball exploded beside her.
"Boom!!!"
Radiance, roar, flame, shock—devastating destructive power burst from the basketball-sized sphere, expanding outward in a blinding glare that swallowed everything nearby, consuming Gosskina and Samuel in an instant.
Amid quaking earth the inferno swelled, a violent explosion erupting across the cathedral plaza. A shockwave of scorching flame swept through the Grand Chanting Cathedral quarter and surged into the surrounding streets, spreading devastation far and wide. The thunderous blast shook nearly all of Tivia, and a mushroom cloud slowly rose above the cathedral quarter, even disturbing the Bewildering Fog cascading from the Dream-realm.
After the cataclysmic blast, the Grand Chanting Cathedral and the entire cathedral quarter were obliterated. Nearby streets were leveled, and beneath drifting dust the once-grandiose quarter had vanished, replaced by an immense crater. Buildings within almost a kilometer were toppled, and structures for several kilometers beyond suffered severe damage.
Although the entire Tivia Church had long since evacuated the cathedral district in anticipation of a large-scale destructive Extraordinary battle, and had used every means possible to forcibly speed up the evacuation of the surrounding civilians on the eve of the fight, the sheer force of the explosion just now had still swept up innocents. Fortunately, the sinking Bewildering Mist absorbed part of the blast, causing it to lose direction; otherwise the collateral damage would have been far greater.
After the blast, inside the dust-choked crater, Samuel—now returned from his elemental form—lay in tatters, deathly weak, covered in dirt, eyes unfocused, breathing as if each might be his last.
Taking the vast tide of faith into his own body had already ravaged him; during the explosion his elemental state spared him heat and pressure but not the shock-wave. When that form collapsed he simply crumpled, unable to move, combat strength spent.
In his current state he could produce only one such blast; his body could not bear enough faith for a second strike at Gosskina. All Samuel could do was hope the attack had destroyed that divine monstrosity—he had no strength left to resist.
Reality, however, proved his hope a fantasy… "Hmph, a final struggle? You still have some spirit…"
A cold snort echoed, heavy footsteps sounding through the air; a vast shadow appeared ahead of Samuel in the dust, approaching with every footfall.
At last Gosskina's three-metre, eight-limbed, eight-eyed, no-longer-human form loomed over him. Crimson mist swirled around her, flowing into grisly wounds and knitting them closed; even severed limbs re-grew within the coalescing blood-fog.
Seeing Gosskina not only survive but regenerate at speed, Samuel's eyes widened, his body trembled faintly; he tried to speak but only coughed up blood.
Without a word Gosskina stepped forward, raised a blood-forged blade in the air, ready to deliver the final blow.
She would have enjoyed slowly tormenting the Archbishop, but time was short and other tasks awaited. While the Bewildering Mist still hung thin over Tivia, aided by allies she could move freely and finish her business.
Yet as she prepared to end Samuel, the surroundings shifted again: from the dust behind her a shining projectile shot out. Gosskina twisted aside and evaded it, but as the light passed her shadow rippled like black water and suddenly erupted.
A petite figure burst from the shadow, streaking toward her as a blur. Gosskina lashed out with six arms, scarlet weapons slashing at the incoming phantom.
But the spectre's ghostly footwork surprised her; it slipped past her storm of blades, carved deep wounds across her body and severed one arm.
Gosskina's eight split eyes snapped toward where the blur landed. There stood a cloaked girl, short black hair, slim frame, long sword in hand. She rose slowly, met the monster's gaze in silence, and Gosskina grated through her teeth,
"Holy Confidential枢… Atcherley…"
One of the Seven Saints of Holy Descent Mountain, Auditor-General Saint Atucheri, had been trapped by Gumian in the Labyrinth. When Black Dream's ritual blurred dream and reality and the Bewildering Mist enshrouded Tivia, her prison's ties to the waking world loosened.
Samuel's final detonation of faith failed to destroy Gosskina, yet the colossal burst of "Lamp" power shook the fog, forging a fleeting Beacon that let shallow strayers glimpse the correct direction.
Gumian held only two fragments of the Moon Crown; the snare could not lie in deep dream-domains near the Holy Cocoon. Sensing the Beacon, Atcherley broke free and, by inner-realm transit, arrived on the battlefield in an instant to strike at Gosskina.
"In the name of the Saintess, your rampage ends here… hound of the evil god!"
She leveled her blade at the monster and spoke in quiet resolve.
Across Tivia the Bewildering Mist thickened. While the capital of Pritte faced unprecedented calamity, far away in the south-central mainland upon Mount Holy Descent Mountain a grave council was already underway.
After the urgent call from the Grand Chanting Cathedral, War-枢 Saint Hilbert convened an emergency assembly of every cardinal remaining on the mountain.
Within the grand sanctum of Holy Reaches Cathedral, four of the six cardinal seats were filled: War-枢 Saint Hilbert, Judicature-枢 Saint Crama, Discipline-枢 Saint Marco, and Salvation-枢 Saint Amanda. Only Auditor-General Saint Atucheri—away on major business—and Foundation-枢 Saint Alberto—preparing for the coming Great Crusade—were absent.
"According to urgent word from the Grand Chanting Cathedral, the Lady of Pain's apostle Gosskina has appeared in Tivia. Archbishop Samuel Logus is using the city's faith to contain her, but he cannot hold long. He requests immediate aid from the Cardinal Council."
Standing before his seat, Hilbert addressed his colleagues with a grave expression, and after hearing him out, the gaunt Marco frowned slightly and spoke.
"Gosskina, the Eight-Pointed Spider-Head? One of the few Chosen Agents among the living Golds? Why has she suddenly appeared in Tivia? Isn't the Universal Exposition being held there right now? If I remember correctly, the Lord Keeper-of-Secrets should be investigating a case in that area too—why wasn't she the one to contact us, but the Archbishop instead?"
"I don't have the specifics. Samuel's situation is urgent; the emergency message he sent was extremely brief and yields no further useful information. But I can confirm that something major is happening in Tivia—I've already corroborated it through many other channels."
Hilbert continued responding to his colleagues. After hearing him, Krama at his side also spoke bluntly.
"We haven't even dealt with that previous Yunina, and now another Gosskina pops up. What's wrong with these heretical agents? Lately they've been challenging the sanctity of our Church one after another—let them be punished with the harshest sanctions!"
Krama spoke coldly, and on the other side Amanda responded with equal solemnity.
"If we can indeed confirm that Gosskina has appeared in Tivia and adopted a hostile stance, we must dispatch immediate support—no delay. War-枢, your Purging Blaze is the only Holy-Steel ship that can be rapidly deployed to Tivia. We can send one person there to try to contact the Lord Keeper-of-Secrets and join forces with her to resolve the crisis. If that fails, we'll dispatch additional forces."
Amanda spoke thus. According to the regulations set by the Pontiff, at least three cardinals must remain in the Holy Descent Mountain at all times. Even in the gravest crises requiring more cardinals to be sent out, two must always stay behind as a safeguard.
Listening to Amanda, Hilbert nodded slightly and then continued.
"Even before convening this meeting, I already ordered the Purging Blaze to prepare for a spatial jump. The problem now is that the coordinates for Tivia and its surrounding regions are completely undeterminable—all parameters related to Tivia are in an unprecedented state of chaos; we simply can't lock onto it for a jump."
"Unable to lock on? Chaos? What exactly is going on?" Amanda asked gravely, and Hilbert answered at once.
"The specifics are unclear. The Holy War Court has exhausted every remote-detection method to reconnoiter Tivia, yet gained nothing. All reconnaissance returns nothing but bizarre, never-before-seen chaotic scenes. Even the mightiest Far-Radiance Mirror can't see what's happening there. Our link with the Grand Chanting Cathedral was completely severed not long ago; we're trying to restore it, but so far without result."
Hilbert replied solemnly. At this point Marco spoke pensively.
"To block so many of the Holy War Court's reconnaissance methods, that Chosen agent of the Lady of Pain must have deployed some powerful Shadow barrier in Tivia—perhaps even involving divinity…"
"Discipline-枢's thoughts mirror mine. Those cultists must have used some means to blind our probes of Tivia and block our support. If we want to project effective force there, that barrier must be destroyed!"
Hilbert spoke thus, then swept his gaze across his colleagues and continued steadily.
"My fellow prelates, the mighty Shadow power now shrouding Tivia may involve divinity, and divinity can only be broken by divinity. To pierce that barrier, we must employ the Pontiff's relic, the Scepter of Solar Decree, to transform the Radiant Wheel's glory into a cleansing light that will dispel every shadowy veil across Pritte… That is one of the chief reasons I summoned you—I cannot decide alone to activate the Scepter; I need your prompt vote."
Hilbert addressed the other three cardinals earnestly, and they quickly replied.
"I have no objection to judging those vile heretics."
"At this juncture, activating the Scepter is imperative; even the Pontiff would make the same decision were he here."
"Tivia's situation is critical; we must ascertain conditions there. Let us hope it's not too late to prevent large-scale casualties."
Faced with Hilbert's entirely justified proposal, Krama, Marco, and Amanda agreed without hesitation. Seeing their assent, Hilbert nodded solemnly and spoke.
"Then… let us invoke the Scepter."
At his words the four cardinals rose together and began a brief prayer. As the rite proceeded, a pure light shone from the sky-like ceiling of Holy Reaches Cathedral's sanctuary, and a slender object slowly descended from the clouds above.
Just then a commotion sounded outside the cathedral doors. Several cardinals glanced over; the tightly closed doors suddenly burst open, and a petite figure stood before the mighty portal, hands still on the handles.
"Who dares trespass into this sanctum!" Krama shouted sternly at the sight, while Amanda, recognizing the figure, widened her eyes and blurted out.
"Venia…"
Beneath the titanic doors of the Grand Sanctuary, Venia—still in the posture of having pushed them open—stood gasping, dressed in a white nun's habit.
Behind her, on the broad and lengthy steps leading to the sanctuary, lay dozens of armored guards, all of them at least Chalk-rank. Every one was now sprawled unconscious, having been felled almost instantly with scarcely any chance to retaliate.
Facing the cardinals inside who were clearly taken aback, Venia exhaled, then walked forward. After only two steps, just as some prelate prepared to act, she suddenly knelt in deep obeisance and addressed them.
"Your Eminences, I beg you—do not invoke the Scepter now!"