Dorothy’s Forbidden Grimoire

North Ufiga, Western Addus, Dorsa.

After arriving in Dorsa by train, Dorothy, through her control of Ed, who was disguised as the Special Consultant named Nei, disembarked along with Nephthys and made contact with the local Revolutionary Army commander, Adan.

Adan invited Ed and Nephthys for a simple dinner. Over the meal, he provided Dorothy with more detailed information about the current situation and the failed expedition to Karnak.

Through this conversation, Dorothy learned that the unit sent to clear Karnak's outer defenses had been ambushed by the undead not long after departure, before even nearing Karnak. The undead had hidden beneath the sands along the route, suddenly emerging as the troops passed overhead. Skeletons and zombies armed with cold weapons launched a surprise attack on the marching army.

Many of the soldiers had never encountered the undead before. Faced with such a terrifying assault, a large number of them suffered mental breakdowns, and the army quickly descended into chaos. The disorder had barely begun to stabilize when they were immediately hit with artillery bombardment.

The combination of ranged shelling and an undead ambush threw the entire force into disarray. Despite the officers' efforts to restore order, their efforts yielded little. A large-scale rout began. Just then, the Savior's Advent Sect forces arrived—emerging from beyond the horizon, undead warriors wielding firearms at the front, and ordinary human soldiers behind them. They charged into the confused Revolutionary Army troops, utterly crushing them. The forward unit suffered catastrophic losses. Only a few officers managed to rally the remnants for an organized retreat. In the end, barely a third of the troops returned to Dorsa, delivering a severe blow to the morale of all Revolutionary Army forces stationed there.

In the accounts of the retreating soldiers, the undead were described as utterly terrifying in appearance and overwhelming in number—tens of thousands strong. Dorothy did not fully accept such exaggerated figures.

Compared to the Central Continent, the residents of North Ufiga lived much closer to the mysticism world due to the region's instability and abundance of ancient ruins. Local people had long been surrounded by all manner of mystical legends. Mystical injuries and cognitive poison outbreaks were common. As wartime soldiers, they were at least vaguely aware of the existence of mystical beings and had heard of undead legends.

But a full-fledged undead army of this scale? That was almost unheard of. The psychological trauma left by the undead on the survivors was immense. Their exaggerated retellings quickly inflated the undead army's size to the tens of thousands. When this reached Adan's ears, it triggered widespread fear, dragging morale among Dorsa's Revolutionary Army into a slump. Even Adan himself was visibly affected—Dorothy could see traces of fear on his face during the meal.

"The Savior's Advent Sect in Karnak… suddenly gaining massive undead support… Tch… This is bad. The situation I feared most seems to have come true. The Nether Coffin Order has joined forces with the sect."

Seated by the window, enjoying the breeze fanned by her corpse marionette, Dorothy furrowed her brow and shifted her gaze to a large world map laid out on the table, focusing on the area around Holy Mount.

"According to intel from Shadi and Vania's side, the Church confirmed through its informants that Muhtar is dead. After seeing Shadi genuinely purging sect forces from Addus, they've largely accepted his sincerity in conversion."

"After the attempted assassination in Kankdal was foiled, the Church faction aligned with Ivy gained control over the Addus situation. To support Shadi's purge, Holy Mount dispatched pilgrim teams led by archbishop-level figures to other areas of North Ufiga heavily influenced by the Savior's Advent Sect. These moves threatened key sect territories, drawing the attention of their main organization and preventing them from supporting Addus' remnants—leaving Karnak's forces isolated."

"Such isolated remnants are indeed easier to eliminate… but also more prone to desperation—more likely to attempt reckless operations and ally with any available force. Ever since I learned that Dead Eagle Valley was under sect control, I've been concerned that the Nether Coffin Order, who's also targeting the Rachman Royal Mausoleum, might join them. And now that worry has come true. They've really joined forces. No one but the Nether Coffin Order could pull off such large-scale necromancy."

Dorothy thought grimly. She still didn't know what exact agreement had been made between the sect remnants and the Nether Coffin Order, only that it was likely tied to the Rachman Royal Mausoleum. Perhaps they had reached a pact to excavate it together.

"If they truly plan to excavate the Rachman Royal Mausoleum together… that would be disastrous for me. I must find a way to stop them. The combined power of both factions may well exceed what I can handle. If I want to oppose them, I'll need to form strong alliances—starting with Shadi's Revolutionary Army…"

With this in mind, Dorothy had already begun formulating plans to assist the Revolutionary Army in storming Karnak. For that, she needed to act quickly. For Dorothy, intelligence gathering was always the first priority in anything.

"Know thyself, know thy enemy, and you shall never lose a hundred battles. That principle held in small-scale mystical battles before, and it holds even truer now. My most urgent task is to collect detailed intel on Karnak—understand their strength—then devise a plan."

So decided, Dorothy made her next move: she would approach Karnak tomorrow and use corpse marionettes to scout the entire city, gaining a clear picture of the forces belonging to both the sect and the Nether Coffin Order.

After making this preliminary plan, Dorothy wiped sweat from her brow and turned to look at the tireless marionette still fanning her. She ordered it to fan harder. Feeling the stronger breeze cool her down, she finally relaxed—only to start wondering how she'd survive the sweltering North Ufiga night once she fell asleep and could no longer operate the marionette.

…

Time passed swiftly, and morning came.

At dawn, Dorothy had her consultant alias Nei (Ed) rise from the hotel near the command center. After a brief rest, she sent Ed out of the city under the pretense of surveying the terrain. Dorothy herself slipped into a departing caravan.

Dorsa was about 70 kilometers from Karnak. Dorothy's small, light-equipped team marched under the blazing sun and blowing sand for most of the day. By afternoon, they had reached the outskirts of Karnak. During this time, Dorothy had been using eagle corpse marionettes to patrol the skies, surveying the wide expanse of barren yellow sand from a bird's-eye view.

Dorothy deployed several eagle marionettes as forward scouts to investigate the area ahead, covering about ten kilometers. But as one of them flew to within thirty kilometers of Karnak, Dorothy sensed something was off—and immediately ordered a halt to the forward recon.

Within a lightly equipped, small camel caravan composed almost entirely of corpse marionettes, Dorothy sat atop a camel, utilizing the enhanced vision of her eagle corpse marionette in combination with her own spirituality-sight to scan the distant sky and land—and she immediately noticed something unusual.

Several kilometers ahead of the eagle marionette, Dorothy saw scattered wraiths floating in the sky. Each appeared at long intervals. They all faced the ground, hovering in a bent-forward position, as if peering intently at the land below.

And on the desolate, flat terrain below, Dorothy also saw skeletons or zombies roaming about every few hundred meters. They maintained fixed intervals between each other, carried firearms, and marched with their mouths agape across the desert, heading off into the distance.

On the road toward Karnak, from sky to ground, the entire region was filled with roaming undead. Driven by some force, they were spaced every few hundred meters, arranged into a massive and expansive patrol formation, constantly moving—completely blocking Dorothy's group from advancing any farther toward Karnak.

"All these undead… they're on patrol. Looks like those people have completely sealed off the area surrounding Karnak to prevent anyone from getting close…"

Sitting on her camel in a sun-shielding cloak, Dorothy thought grimly. She had anticipated the Nether Coffin Order would use undead for surveillance—but she hadn't expected their patrol range to be this vast, nor the number of undead to be this overwhelming.

Next, Dorothy began exploring in other directions. She skirted the edge of the undead patrol perimeter, mapping its border in her mind. After a long period of observation, she successfully determined the central control point of the mass of undead and the total coverage area of the patrol zone—only to be deeply shocked.

"This… this control range is far too large. The scale of this patrol zone is completely beyond expectations…"

By Dorothy's calculations, this undead surveillance area was enormous. With Karnak at the center, it had a radius of over thirty kilometers, within which undead were patrolling at intervals of just a few hundred meters. This wide patrol ring was nearly solid—anyone entering their line of sight would trigger an alert. She even personally witnessed a herder being detected by undead and driven off, leaving him terrified and fleeing with his livestock abandoned.

"A surveillance zone with a 25-kilometer radius and hundreds or thousands of undead under control… Can an ordinary Silence-path Beyonder even achieve this? Is there some old Crimson-rank monster in Karnak? Or did they use a relic or other means to boost undead control?"

Faced with the sheer scale of this undead perimeter, Dorothy grew visibly grim. No matter what the actual situation inside Karnak was, this massive undead cordon made it extremely difficult. She could think of no current method to infiltrate the city without being detected and conduct reconnaissance.

In fact, based on her observation, the undead only responded to humans and large animals approaching on the ground. Her small corpse marionettes, especially when paired with the Concealment Ring, could fully evade undead detection and infiltrate—but the problem was, her marionettes could cross the perimeter, but she herself could not.

Dorothy's corpse marionette control range had a limit: normally a ten-kilometer radius from her body, extendable to twenty kilometers with additional spirituality. In other words, the distance between her and her marionettes could not exceed twenty kilometers.

But the surveillance radius around Karnak was absurd—over thirty kilometers. If Dorothy wanted to send her small corpse marionette into the city, she herself would need to penetrate at least ten kilometers into the patrol zone—yet she, as a human-shaped target, would be easily detected. Once discovered, the consequences would be severe.

The surrounding terrain was mostly flat desert plains, vast and empty with no natural cover. A person as conspicuous as herself attempting to evade undead scouts stationed every few hundred meters on both ground and air was completely unrealistic. If she couldn't get close, she couldn't send in her marionettes.

"Tch… this is troublesome. If I can't gather intel, I can't develop any strategy. I really didn't expect the Nether Coffin Order to be this ruthless—to construct such a massive surveillance zone…"

Frowning, Dorothy thought to herself. Cautious by nature, she would never take rash action without intel—unless absolutely necessary. So in the face of this immense undead perimeter around Karnak, she chose not to take the risk, but instead to return to Dorsa and reassess.

…

Later that night, inside the Revolutionary Army headquarters in Dorsa, Consultant Nei sat in a chair, recounting to Commander Adan the findings of the day's reconnaissance mission outside the city. Upon hearing Nei's report, Adan's face twisted into a troubled expression.

"Before you returned, Mr. Nei, I had already dispatched scouts toward Karnak. But not one of them made it back alive… I never imagined those traitors would use so many undead for surveillance… It seems that uncovering what's going on inside Karnak will be extremely difficult…"

Adan spoke with furrowed brows. Hearing this, Dorothy was momentarily silent, then had Consultant Nei ask.

"Mr. Adan, given Dorsa's current forces—without sufficient intel—do you have confidence to launch an offensive? Not necessarily to capture Karnak, but just to advance the frontlines within striking distance of the city?"

Dorothy asked this through Nei because if the Revolutionary Army could advance to within twenty kilometers of Karnak, she could approach the city within the ranks and deploy her corpse marionettes effectively. But Adan's response showed little optimism.

"That would be extremely difficult. After the recent crushing defeat, troop morale is very low. Fear of the undead is spreading, and the soldiers have no will to fight. In the short term, I fear it will be impossible to mount another offensive.

"I've already telegraphed General Shadi and explained the situation here. I requested additional reinforcements and weapons. Perhaps only when the reinforcements arrive and morale is restored will we have a chance to launch the next assault."