Dorothy’s Forbidden Grimoire

Chapter 779 : Aftermath

Fleeing… she was fleeing, fleeing without pause…

Deep in the Nether Realm, Dorothy, clad in heavy frost armor, was doing everything in her power to fly at maximum speed in the direction opposite her earlier charge. She was escaping—escaping from the impending cataclysm. Behind her, a chorus of ghostly howls and wails echoed violently.

As though billions of souls subjected to inhuman torment were screaming in agony all at once, the soul-tearing shrieks—enough to shred even high-ranking Beyonders—reverberated through the entire Nether Realm. The source of this apocalyptic howl was in the midst of grotesque mutation, reaching its limit…

It was none other than a massive, dazzling dead sun, blazing with ghostly blue and purplish-black light and flame. Countless faces of the dead covered the surface of this "sun," all screaming in unison with their mouths agape. As the dead sun violently distorted and expanded, it devoured the surrounding bone-planets.

When Dorothy’s violet arrow had struck the King of the Underworld’s mouth, the moment that eerie skeletal form came into contact with the arrow’s light, a violent and abnormal reaction occurred. The arrogant god entered a state of uncontrollable mutation, expanding into this horrifying form—the dead sun—and continued its rampage of self-destruction.

Thousands of meters… tens of thousands… hundreds of thousands… millions of meters wide—it swallowed the black giant and every bone planet around it. The size of the dead sun quickly ballooned to an outrageous scale. Had it been in the physical world, it could have easily devoured a nation the size of Pritt. But such expansion would not continue indefinitely… Eventually, it would reach its limit and…

Explode.

At the moment of the explosion, Dorothy had just escaped the Nether Realm prison through a spatial rift shattered earlier by Inut. She jumped to a secondary inner realm—a layer she had reserved as a fallback—and arrived in the Frost Realm. Just as she touched down on the eternally frozen plains, an earth-shattering howl echoed from behind.

“AaaaAAAHHH—!!!”

Heaven and earth cried out! A torrent of annihilating black light erupted from the spatial rift Dorothy had fled through. She turned her head—and her small frame was immediately engulfed. The entire Frost Realm began to tremble violently.

As if violently disturbed by some external force, the endless glacial landscape cracked open. Ancient glaciers quaked and split apart, forming bottomless abysses. Ice that had endured for eons crumbled and fell into darkness.

It wasn’t just the glaciers. The very space of the Frost Realm had become unstable. The eternal snowstorms dispersed, and ghostly, half-formed faces of the dead began appearing across the vast sky—wailing, twisting, then shattering apart. Amid these mirages, strange symbols also appeared in the sky, disassembling and breaking down.

As if the space itself could no longer withstand the pressure, it began fracturing and collapsing. From the massive rifts, more black light surged out as though finally unleashed, smashing against the glacial landscape. The collapse of the ice accelerated, chasms grew deeper and wider, and cold ice kept tumbling into the endless dark.

Each beam of black light spilling from the spatial rifts was capable of splitting apart an area the size of a city—or even an entire province. When the barrage ended, large portions of the Frost Realm were left pockmarked and broken. And this devastation echoed throughout many inner realms aligned with Silence just like it.

At last, the black light faded. The cataclysm unleashed by contact with another divine domain had ended. In the ravaged Frost Realm, the sky was crisscrossed with shattered space, and the ground was lined with yawning black abysses stretching to the horizon. Amid the darkness, a few tenacious icy peaks still stood alone and proud.

Atop one of the tallest, sharpest peaks, Dorothy lay atop the ice. Breathing heavily in relief, she stared up at the distorted dimness within the spatial rift above. Her corpse-ice armor was in ruins, riddled with cracks and fractures.

“Haaah… it’s finally over…”

Letting out a long breath, Dorothy spoke aloud. Slowly, she began moving, sitting upright atop the icy summit. She looked around at the devastated glaciers and thought to herself.

“That destructive power… is completely absurd. The Frost Realm was only adjacent to that Nether Realm prison space, and even then it got wrecked this badly. The prison space itself must have been completely obliterated…”

“If that divine eruption had happened in the physical realm, destroying an entire planet would’ve been getting off easy. It could have destabilized the entire structure of reality…”

“And that catastrophe… was merely the result of a partial contact between the Revelation and Silence divine authorities. Yet when Hyperion once tried to fuse the complete Lantern and Shadow divinities, the resulting disaster only affected half a continent? That’s unbelievable… He must have done an incredible job preparing for the fallout…”

Indeed—what had just occurred was the result of Dorothy forcibly bringing her Revelation-aligned divinity into direct contact with the Silence divinity of the King of the Underworld. It was her final strategy.

From the moment she entered the prison realm atop Inut, Dorothy had used her Divine Eye to analyze the nature of the King of the Underworld.

He was not a god in the conventional sense. Rather, he was a fragment of divine authority—a shard of the Great Soul’s power that had developed its own will and independence.

In other words, the King of the Underworld wasn’t a separate god, but a living organ split off from the main deity. Simpler. Purer. More… exposed. Like a piece of flesh detached from the body, still writhing on its own.

Such exposed divinity was unstable and fragile, which was why the King of the Underworld required a vessel to contain himself. That vessel was the puppet known as the Cursed Black Skeleton. Through it, he became stable.

This vulnerability gave Dorothy her opportunity. Once she understood his nature, she remembered a warning the automaton had once given her.

“Never attempt to fuse opposing spiritualities.”

Ordinarily, a god must actively absorb another’s divinity through ritual or violent consumption. But the King of the Underworld was different—he was naked divinity. If he merely touched another divine attribute, it would react—whether he wanted it to or not.

So Dorothy’s plan from the start was to bait the King of the Underworld into expanding his form by pushing the Cursed Black Skeleton to its limit, thus exposing his true self. At that moment, she would inject a portion of her Heaven’s Arbiter divinity—provoking a divine-level reaction between incompatible powers.

After all, the Cursed Black Skeleton was only an artificial shell—it couldn’t serve as a true divine body. It could stabilize and protect the King of the Underworld, yes—but it also restricted his full strength. Only the Great Soul could serve as his proper vessel…

“The divine Lantern’s vision… is absolutely incredible…”

Standing slowly, Dorothy murmured in admiration. Her entire strategy had been founded on her ability to analyze the King of the Underworld through the Divine Eye and calculate his downfall with divine thought. The combination of Lantern and Revelation powers yielded incredible synergy. The battle may have seemed risky—but she had confidence from beginning to end.

“If I remember right, the Heaven’s Arbiter of the Second Epoch had a close relationship with the Lantern’s main god back then… If those two cooperated, could they have reached omniscience and omnivision?”

“If so… why did they both eventually perish? Is there something in this world… that even such complete awareness cannot overcome?”

Still gazing at the devastated Frost Realm, Dorothy sank into deeper thought. Just then, her ruined corpse-ice armor began to tremble and emit a low hum.

Finally, the armor began to disassemble on its own. Piece by piece, it fell away from her body. In just a short while, Dorothy had returned to her Radiance Scion form. The fragments of her armor floated before her—and slowly reassembled into the shape of a humanoid figure. From within the darkness of its dragon-helmed head, two ghostly blue flames flickered to life.

Staring at the fragments of ice armor before her, Dorothy spoke directly.

“We’ve won, Northern Emperor. This victory belongs to you too…”

“…Mm… in-deed… Despicable usurpers… do not deserve the blessing of victory… A defeated opponent… is still… a defeated opponent… And those who dare profane Me… will pay… will surely pay the price…

“…Still… what I never expected was… that you, child of Hyper… are not, in essence… of the Lantern... Hah… haha… But that’s good… Otherwise, you’d never have been able to deal with that thing…”

The shattered corpse-ice armor floating before her murmured in a low, fragmented voice. Upon hearing it, Dorothy continued softly.

“Thank you for protecting me, Northern Emperor… Are you alright now?”

“…Ha… ha… Just… a small matter… Once I’ve rested… and regained my strength… myriad of realms… shall welcome the return of my conquest… my dominion…

“…Farewell… little scion of Hyper… Next time we meet… we may be enemies… and I shall not hold back…”

As Inut’s voice faded, the broken armor slowly rose into the sky. It turned into a stream of energy and shot toward the horizon, disappearing into the icy heavens. Dorothy watched the scene unfold, and sighed with quiet emotion.

“In a world overrun by evil gods… so long as you still intend to govern the mortal world with some semblance of order… our next meeting might not necessarily make us enemies… Inut…”

Indeed, during the fight against the Cursed Black Skeleton, Inut had taken on armor form to shield Dorothy, absorbing a massive amount of damage for her. Even when the King of the Underworld’s divine backlash erupted as she escaped the prison, it was the armored Inut who bore the brunt of the impact. Thus, while Dorothy emerged unscathed, Inut had suffered grievous wounds.

By Dorothy’s estimation, without some extraordinary recovery method, Inut’s wounds would take two or three centuries to fully heal. And even after that, he would remain in a divine corpse state. To fully recover his frost divinity would require something else entirely.

In short: although Inut—having risen from the grave—was now an unstable and dangerous factor to the new world order and to the Shamanism of the New Continent, in the near future, he would pose no real threat. With the chaos of evil gods growing ever more urgent, he might even be an asset worth winning over. After all, he can still be reasoned with, unlike the true evil gods.

After watching Inut’s departure, Dorothy turned her gaze back toward the sky, toward the spatial rift she had escaped through—toward the prison domain that might no longer exist.

When the King of the Underworld went berserk due to contact with opposing divinity, the presence behind him was also affected. The King of the Underworld was a fragment of the Great Soul—an “organ,” with a mysterious mystical link to the Great Soul itself. Through this link, Dorothy had briefly glimpsed a part of the Great Soul’s true form…

In other words, she had just completed another phase of her Gold-rank ritual. The Silence phase was now finished. She had taken one more step toward her Gold-rank self…

Having endured countless divine-level battles beyond the Gold-rank threshold, Dorothy now sensed that what awaited her at the end of this ritual was not merely ascension to Gold, nor even simple demigodhood. With both the Divine Eye and the divine thought, she could feel the contours of destiny itself. Deep down, she felt that the end of her ritual would also be the end of all secrets.

“Hoo… For now, I should just retrieve my stuff…”

Letting out a soft sigh, Dorothy set aside these murky intuitions and raised her hand, reaching out through the rift where the prison domain had once been—seeking the sliver of Heaven’s Arbiter divinity she had launched as a weapon.

Divinity could broadly be divided into Divine Flame and Divine Power. Divine Flame generates Divine Power endlessly. The flame itself is eternal—its “quantity” essentially constant, only able to be split or recombined. Gods and demigods possess Divine Flame. Most Apostles receive faint traces from the gods they serve, while Chosen act purely as vessels of Divine Power, granted strength from their god’s flame.

To force a divine reaction from the King of the Underworld, Dorothy had fired a piece of her own Heaven’s Arbiter flame as an arrow. Now, she needed to retrieve it.

Staring into the void beyond the rift, Dorothy could no longer sense the King of the Underworld’s presence. But she didn’t believe she had defeated him completely. Not even the King of Light and the God of Craftsman, thousands of years ago, had found a way to truly destroy him. Dorothy doubted her actions had done what they couldn’t. Most likely, the King of the Underworld had suffered a heavy blow and retreated into the far reaches of the inner realms, to some hidden place even she couldn’t see—to recover.

At such depths, he would be powerless to affect the real world for the next several centuries. With most of the leadership of the Nether Coffin Order wiped out, that entire organization would likely fall silent for a long time.

Guided by her Divine Eye, Dorothy traced the scattered fragments of her divine flame. Soon enough, she accurately located the lost essence within the boundary seams, and with her remaining internal divine flame, she cast out a tether to draw it back.

At first, the retrieval went smoothly. But just as the divine flame was about to enter the Frost Realm, something changed—Dorothy suddenly sensed another force trying to pull it away!

“This is…”

Her brows furrowed. A mysterious and invisible force was trying to seize control of her divine flame. She fought back, and when the struggle didn’t subside, she channeled more divine power to strengthen her grip.

With her increased pull, the divine flame finally started moving toward her again. But several times during the process, the unknown force redoubled its efforts, trying to drag it back. Dorothy, determined, closed her eyes and focused everything on the task—exerting all her power to overcome it.

It was a tug-of-war across the boundaries of existence.

Eventually, when Dorothy pushed her divine pull to its near limit, the opposing force gave up. The divine flame resumed its path toward her.

From the rift in the heavens of the Frost Realm, a faint violet light emerged and slowly descended. It fell to the peak where Dorothy stood… and gently merged into her chest. She opened her eyes.

Though she had successfully reclaimed her divine flame, there was no joy in her expression—only a heavy seriousness. That mysterious force had left her deeply unsettled.

“What was that power…? Why could it attract—no, seize—a fragment of Heaven’s Arbiter flame? What exactly happened just now?”

Her confusion grew. The only way she could have retrieved the flame was by using a matching divine flame within her own body. And yet, something else had also been able to draw it? That could only mean one thing.

“Could that unknown source… also contain Heaven’s Arbiter flame…?”

The thought struck her like lightning.

“My Heaven’s Arbiter divinity came from Viagetta, but it wasn’t complete… There must be other fragments scattered across the world, existing in different forms…

“Was the one that tried to pull my flame… one of those other fragments?”

Dorothy’s expression turned grave. If that were true, then there was another aggregation of Heaven’s Arbiter divinity somewhere in the world—and judging from the strength of the pull, it was no small remnant. Dorothy had only won that tug-of-war because she was “closer” in inner-realm terms.

“And if this Arbiter fragment can act on its own… does that mean it has developed some degree of self-awareness? Then what kind of existence is it? How much of Heaven’s Arbiter divinity has it gathered? And… how much does it know about me…?”

Questions spun through her mind.

She swept her radiant gaze across the surrounding inner realms, trying to find even a trace of the force’s origin—but in the end, she found nothing. With a helpless sigh, she withdrew her vision and muttered.

“Haaah… looks like there’s even more I’ll have to worry about going forward…”

Sighing, she turned her gaze back to her hand, where she held Hyperion’s Bow. She sensed the divinity of the Lantern within it—and she could feel it fading.

Without an elemental advantage over the Ice Dragon, maintaining the Radiance Scion mode required a heavier reliance on the King of Light’s divinity within the bow. But this caused the already-depleted divine flame inside it to overload, burning harder to provide sufficient divine power. Although divine flame could emit power endlessly, that was only true if it had time to rest and recover.

Now, after fighting at full strength in her scion form for so long, Dorothy’s divine flame had reached its limit. The power it could provide was rapidly declining. Soon, she would be unable to sustain her scion form at all.

She had to leave the Frost Realm before that happened—or she’d risk freezing to death in this desolate wasteland, which would be an irony too absurd to bear.

Having decided, Dorothy transformed into a streak of golden light and shot into the sky. After circling once above, she dove into a distant spatial rift—reentering the main body of the Nether Realm. From there, she began retracing her steps, searching for the spatial rift Inut had smashed during their arrival, crossing between inner realms. She followed almost the exact path she had taken in, making her way back to the physical world.

In the physical world, in Aransdel of Frisland, upon the plaza of the Requiem Cathedral, the two cardinals and the True Spirit Shaman were gazing up at the broken sky of Aransdel with worried concern. When they saw the strange characters—sprawled across the sky and scattered among the rifts—suddenly vanish, and when the oppressive evil god’s presence across all of Frisland abruptly dissipated, their expressions eased, and they all let out a long breath of relief.

“The curse from the Evil Spirit King… is gone! They did it! The Divine One and the Lord of Calamitous Cold—they defeated the Evil Spirit King!”

The True Spirit Shaman, still in his soul-form, spoke with barely contained excitement as he looked at the now-cleared sky. Amanda and Kramar, on the other hand, murmured in disbelief.

“They really did it… The evil god was actually defeated… That divine being truly had the power to fight alongside a heretical god-corpse and triumph over an evil god…”

“It’s… baffling, but also a rare and precious victory. Whatever the process, the mortal world has been preserved. All thanks to the mercy of the Lord above…”

The powerful beings on the Requiem Plaza each voiced their amazement. Meanwhile, on a rooftop elsewhere in Aransdel, Nephthys stretched lazily as she looked up at the sky—still fractured, but clearing—and quipped lightly.

“Mmm~ see? Didn’t I tell you it’d all be fine in the end? No need to panic—there’s an expert on the job~”

Nephthys said with a grin, glancing at the stunned Rachman nearby. He’d been so deeply anxious earlier that it had started to affect even her. But clearly, it had all been unnecessary.

“Geez… he’s supposed to be an ancient king from centuries ago, a high-ranking Beyonder long since accomplished, and yet he acted like he had less composure than I do. Got me all worked up for nothing.”

Nephthys thought to herself. Hearing her teasing tone, Rachman gave a wry smile and sighed with quiet admiration.

“You always do have a way of shattering people’s expectations… Miss Mayschoss…”

At that moment, all across Aransdel and the rest of Frisland, the still-conscious living were rejoicing in the retreat of the evil god’s power. The last remnants of the Nether Coffin Order panicked and withdrew into hiding, vanishing into the shadows.

As the remaining Golds atop the plaza prepared to investigate the situation further, Vania—who had been solemnly praying—suddenly opened her eyes, sensing something, and whispered.

“She’s returned…”

At her words, a golden streak of light shot out from a rift in the sky and plummeted rapidly toward the ground. Upon seeing it, the two cardinals and the True Spirit Shaman grew instantly solemn, staring at the light without blinking.

Under their gazes, the golden light plunged toward the Requiem Cathedral. Before all eyes, it pierced through the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling. Seeing this, Vania stood immediately and ran toward the chapel. Amanda and Kramar exchanged glances and quickly followed. The True Spirit Shaman hesitated for a moment, then floated after them.

What they beheld upon entering the cathedral would be seared into their memories for the rest of their lives…

At the end of the empty rows of prayer benches, in the depths of the grand sanctuary, stood a radiant, holy figure. Before the altar, beneath a giant stained glass window depicting the Savior redeeming the world, she hovered—barefoot, with a long bow in hand, clothed in sacred and ancient vestments, her small frame bathed in a soft light like the dawn itself, soothing the soul.

Her expression was unreadable, but her presence alone was overwhelming—as if the sun at dawn had appeared before them. Though petite in stature, the divine majesty she exuded made her nearly impossible to look at—especially for the faithful of the Radiance Church.

Upon seeing this figure, Vania’s face lit up with joy. Without hesitation, she dropped to her knees in the posture of prayer, offering her reverence in a manner reserved only for deities.

Amanda, the Cardinal of Redemption, paused, a complex expression crossing her face. Then she respectfully bowed her head and lowered her posture in a grand ritual gesture. Seeing Amanda perform a rite reserved for an audience with the Holy See itself, Kramar bit his lip in hesitation, visibly uncertain. But after two seconds of pause—glancing at the divine figure and then at his peers—he, too, bowed his head and offered a more casual but nonetheless reverent salute.

Kramar’s posture was also one used before the Holy See, albeit in less formal settings. Amanda’s, in contrast, was reserved for the most solemn of occasions. Vania’s was an act of pure divine prayer, used only before the gods. The True Spirit Shaman, seeing their reactions, chose to offer a traditional Shamanic salute—perhaps not as lofty as that given to the Great Soul, but certainly equal to the one for the apostle.

None of the high-ranking Beyonders, each with immense worldly status, dared to speak first before this divine girl.

Only Dorothy, after scanning the familiar faces, broke the silence with a quiet declaration.

“The Evil Spirit King has been repelled. For centuries to come, the mortal world shall be spared the scourge of the Silence domain’s evil power…”

Her words echoed through the empty sanctuary—not spoken with thanks or celebration, but like a decree.

Amanda faltered briefly upon hearing this, then respectfully asked.

“We thank Heaven for its mercy. The countless lives of the mortal realm will forever remember Your compassion… If I may be so bold, may I ask the name of this divine being from the upper realms…”

She spoke with utmost reverence. She and Kramar both yearned to know how this holy figure related to their faith—and to their god.

But Dorothy did not answer directly. Instead, she released her grip on the sacred longbow, letting it float toward Amanda and the others. As it drifted, it began to emit a gentle light and slowly changed shape—into an object they both recognized.

“The Sacred Staff… The Holy See’s Sacred Staff!”

“Why is the Sacred Staff here…? Unless… that time…”

Amanda and Kramar exchanged stunned glances. How had the sacred relic, once housed in Holy Mount, ended up here? And how had this being wielded it so freely, even transformed it?

Dorothy spoke again.

“This is a divine armament of my lineage. It has been heavily depleted by battle. Take it back—tend and preserve it well.”

Her voice rang once more in their ears. And in those words, Amanda and Kramar both felt a wave of overwhelming realization.

A divine armament of her lineage? She was referring to the Sacred Staff—left behind by the Holy See—as a weapon of her own bloodline. Was this not a tacit acknowledgment that she shared a lineage with the Holy See? That she was one of them?

And if the staff was a “divine armament,” that implied it had once been wielded by the deity of Radiance—by the Lantern deity. If that were true… then the one before them… had a direct link with the Holy See… perhaps even with the Radiant Savior Himself…

As they processed her implication, Amanda broke into a cold sweat. She suddenly remembered the divine genealogy Vania had urged them to acknowledge earlier—a genealogy linked to the Radiant Savior. If that genealogy were true, then the girl before them would be…

As memories of that divine lineage flooded her mind, Amanda was struck by a realization. She had seen this girl’s face somewhere before… and as the truth dawned, her suspicions grew heavier. Both Amanda and Kramar were now almost certain of the girl’s identity.

But now another question loomed.

If that divine genealogy was true—if this girl, the Savior, and even the Holy See were as she appeared to be—then what of the Three Saints?

Those three exalted figures had long stood as the focal point of the Radiance Church’s faith.

Could it be that in this divine lineage, they held no place at all?

Just like now—in a world where evil gods trampled the rules of reality—they seemed to have vanished entirely, as if their influence had never truly existed…

A torrent of conflicting thoughts overwhelmed Amanda and Kramar, to the point that they momentarily forgot about the drifting Sacred Staff. At that moment, Vania reached out and respectfully caught the staff, offering a pious response.

“As the Divine Will commands…”

Meanwhile, the True Spirit Shaman glanced at the two cardinals beside him—both now quiet and visibly conflicted—then turned his gaze forward again and asked with a more composed tone.

“May I ask, Your Holiness… where is the Lord of Calamitous Cold now? Did He perish fully in His battle against the Evil Spirit King?”

Clearly hoping that Inut had perished alongside the King of the Underworld, the shaman posed his question. Dorothy responded calmly.

“The Northern Emperor has not returned to slumber. He sustained grave injuries and has gone to rest and recover. He will not disturb the Starfall Continent again in the near future.”

Noticing a flicker of concern in the shaman’s eyes, Dorothy continued.

“Now that evil gods stir in all realms, you who shepherd the mortal world on behalf of the divine must cast off isolation and pride. Seek contact. Stand together against calamity.

“The Northern Emperor is arrogant and violent, but he does not side with evil gods. The wise course is to be vigilant, put aside old grudges, and win him over rather than provoke him.”

Her tone was earnest—an admonition, not a command. Hearing her words, both cardinals and the True Spirit Shaman were briefly startled, then responded with respectful bows to show their understanding.

Seeing their respectful response, Dorothy gave a silent nod, then transformed once more into a streak of golden light. She flew out from the cathedral and soared into the sky.

Using the last of her Lantern-infused divine power, Dorothy flew swiftly out of Aransdel. Her task of post-battle resolution was nearly complete.

She had analyzed the Staff of Radiant Decree carefully. For it to recover properly, it needed to be stored in a place worthy of it—a high-spec Lantern sanctuary, like Holy Mount. That was why she had chosen to return the Sacred Staff: partly to allow it to recharge, and partly because she didn’t want Holy Mount’s defenses weakened by its absence—especially with future evil god disasters looming.

After this divine catastrophe—one even more intense than the Tivian incident—Dorothy had no doubt that the next evil god crisis would come swiftly. The cultists had been acting increasingly deranged in recent times, causing chaos on a massive scale. In such events, the support of the Church would still be necessary.

With the cults and evil gods growing bolder by the day, Dorothy was now hoping to unify all possible forces to resist them. The Radiance Church and Shamanism were two key players. By appearing before them in the form of the Radiance Scion and returning the Sacred Staff, she had used her divine identity to issue a sincere appeal—urging them to establish contact and, perhaps, one day form a united front against the evil gods.

“Whew… With this, my part is truly finished. The rest of this mess… is up to the Church to clean up.”

Dorothy muttered to herself as she flew. She looked up at the massive spatial rift still looming overhead. Compared to the aftermath in Tivian, this cleanup would be far worse.

But… that wasn’t her problem anymore.

And so, carrying a swirl of complex thoughts, the golden streak that was Dorothy vanished into the distant sky—while at the same time, countless warships of Radiance Church were now grandly entering Frisland’s borders.

…

East Coast of Pritt, several weeks later.

It was daytime in Tivian. Cold rain fell from a foggy sky, draping the massive city in a blanket of damp chill. On the wet streets, countless carriages passed each other, and pedestrians walked with worry on their faces. Deep in the mist, the heavy chimes of church bells rang continuously.

At a tea house on a street corner in the city’s northern district, Dorothy sat in a corner seat near the window. She was dressed in a black dress and white cotton stockings, wearing a fur hat and a thick coat. Leisurely sipping her tea, she gazed out at the rainy street.

From her vantage point, Dorothy saw many people on the street carrying worry in their eyes. Many of them were heading together in the direction of the bell towers—the Cathedral District. Although the Church had always drawn large crowds, lately the number seemed to have grown. The atmosphere on the street felt unusually heavy.

She didn’t watch for long before withdrawing her gaze. After another sip of tea, she turned her attention to a newspaper. The article she’d opened was reporting international news.

“Damage assessments from the Great Cold Surge are still ongoing. Preliminary estimates suggest at least five nations in the northern part of the Continent were affected to varying degrees, with Frisland suffering the worst, where nearly all cities have reported heavy casualties—especially Stinam…”

“Stinam! The cursed city! It suffered the most intense wave of the Cold Surge. Reports say the entire city was devastated, and the casualty count may be incalculable. Across nations and cities, prayer gatherings are being held, led by those who have family in the disaster zone, praying to the Lord for safety…”

“Official agencies continue to strictly enforce a blackout on Stinam, refusing to release more details… No reporters have been able to uncover what’s really happening…”

“Suspecting obstruction of civilian rescue efforts, cities across Frisland led by Aransdel have erupted in mass protests, demanding that the government lift the blackout and reveal the truth…”

“Elsewhere beyond Frisland—unknown calamities across the New Continent…”

Reading these stories and seeing the pile of newspapers full of coverage about Frisland, Dorothy couldn’t help but shake her head and sigh.

“This aftermath’s a nightmare… With things this bad, even the Church will have a hard time keeping everything suppressed. The cardinals themselves might have to get involved…”

She sighed again. It had been weeks since the Nether Coffin Order incident, and this latest divine-level event had made cleanup exponentially harder for both governments and the Church.

In order to protect the hard-won veil of secrecy and prevent the chaotic proliferation of unregulated mystical forces or even new cults, the Church had poured enormous effort into covering up the events in Frisland.

Though Inut had come from the sea, the edge of the climate anomaly had still significantly affected Pritt and many other northern countries. This was officially labeled as a natural disaster, a freak weather event. Stinam—already a dead city—was presented as one destroyed by the calamity.

But they hadn’t finished setting up a proper illusion of “natural destruction,” and couldn’t allow people into Stinam yet. This led to a series of difficult social issues. Public sentiment even began to turn directly against the Church, forcing it to pull personnel from the Great Holy War just to send more speakers to the north for damage control.

Compared to Stinam, the spatial rifts that filled the sky were easier to deal with—no one could reach them, after all. Just hide them with illusions and wait for the world to slowly heal.

Though the Church had more or less managed to patch up Frisland’s public image again, the scale of this divine catastrophe meant the job was far from perfect. Many people had already noticed the inconsistencies between the Tivian incident and the one in Frisland. Conspiracy theories were running rampant among the populace. Fear and superstition were on the rise—and with it, church attendance.

But where superstition could still be channeled into faith, others had started forming actual “cults”—often composed entirely of ordinary people with no mystical power at all. Of course, that didn’t mean they couldn’t one day be co-opted by true cults…

In short, yet another large-scale divine disaster had made the Church’s cleanup and propaganda efforts more difficult than ever.

Fortunately, they had one extremely useful “asset” for calming the masses:

Sister Vania, the Mortal Shadow of the Holy Mother.

“The Mortal Shadow of the Holy Mother! Sister Vania Chafferon has arrived at Decay Bay, delivering vital supplies to the disaster victims. Countless people celebrate her coming—she is the conscience shining through the Church’s darkened veil! The true will of the Holy Mother…”

Reading that headline from yet another newspaper on the table, Dorothy couldn’t help but chuckle and remark.

“Heh… They’re even letting the press call Vania the ‘Mortal Shadow of the Holy Mother’ now. Looks like the Church is using her public image without restraint to stabilize Frisland’s public opinion…”

She recalled how the Church used to be extremely strict about how Vania was described in the media. Titles were carefully vetted—typically things like “the Lord’s faithful servant.” This current title, “Mortal Shadow of the Holy Mother,” was clearly over the line. In the past, any media that tried such wording was immediately censored.

But now, in order to let Vania continue anchoring the people's faith, all restrictions had clearly been loosened.

“If she's already the Holy Mother’s shadow on earth… I wonder what they’ll call her next—'the incarnate Holy Mother' herself? I’d love to see the look on Kramar’s face when he reads that…”

Still smiling faintly, Dorothy continued sipping her tea as she read.