Dorothy’s Forbidden Grimoire

To the north of Kanak, within Rachman's Mausoleum, just as the physical form of the Sand Lizard had been completely blasted apart, Nephthys leapt down from the beam of the mausoleum ceiling. She aimed to assassinate Chabakunka from above in a decisive plunge, but Chabakunka reacted swiftly.

He instantly commanded his chicken-shaped wild spirit, which let out another piercing soul cry.

In an instant, the soul-rending screech surged across the entire mausoleum. Shihab's protective commandment—already weakened from his earlier wounds—shattered under this second wave. He and his soldiers were overwhelmed. Their souls were violently shaken; they froze in place, their eyes dazed and vacant.

That harsh cry, striking directly at the soul, pierced through Nephthys mid-air. It was the same unbearable pain she had suffered earlier, only now far more intense due to her proximity.

Grimacing in agony, Nephthys clutched her head, losing all control over her balance. Not only was her assassination attempt going to fail, but she was also about to crash hard to the ground.

At the critical moment, Soulwhisker took control of Nephthys' body. As a fellow wild spirit, it had stronger resistance to the soul cry. Under its control, Nephthys twisted in midair, landing nimbly on all fours like a real cat, completely unharmed.

Letting out a low growl, Nephthys, like a feral beast, lunged at Chabakunka with bared fangs. Yet Chabakunka remained calm, raising his hand with a casual motion. A summoning array manifested beside him, from which dozens of howling wraiths burst forth and rushed into Nephthys, trying to wrest control of her body from Soulwhisker.

Nephthys instantly went rigid, unable to move. With so many hostile souls disrupting her from within, even Soulwhisker couldn't fully control her anymore.

Staring coldly at the immobilized Nephthys and the nearby Shihab and his troops, Chabakunka softly declared.

The moment those words left his lips, Shihab and his soldiers involuntarily opened their mouths, releasing wisps of soulfire. These glowing embers floated straight toward Chabakunka, merging into one and being absorbed by his open mouth. Their souls drained, Shihab and the others collapsed lifelessly, eyes and mouths wide open, unmoving.

Nephthys too, affected by Chabakunka's soul speech, began to lose her grip on her own soul. Her translucent spirit form detached from her body, turning into soulfire and drifting toward Chabakunka's mouth, about to be devoured along with the others.

But just then, Soulwhisker burst out of Nephthys' body, its lower half still inside her while its upper half stretched forward like a long cat noodle, grabbing Nephthys' drifting soul and dragging it back into her body, resisting the pull.

"Meeeowww!"

With her soul safely restored, Soulwhisker let out a fierce cat's roar that drove out all the interfering wraiths within Nephthys, sending them fleeing in terror. The roar also jolted Nephthys back to clarity.

"You too… can communicate with the wild spirits?"

Chabakunka frowned, watching this strange scene unfold. His expression then grew serious, and he began a strange ritual dance, arms and legs moving in an ancient rhythm.

"Ah… all souls are drifting wind… all the dead have their resting place… spirits of the wild, this is not your domain… follow the will of the great one, and return!"

Chanting in Spirit Glyph language, Chabakunka began to perform a shamanic dance. Hearing the incantation, Soulwhisker's expression grew tense. It immediately commanded Nephthys to drop to all fours and leap at Chabakunka again.

Just as Nephthys' claws were about to strike, Chabakunka completed the final movement of his dance. He thrust a palm forward—not striking her directly, but stopping a meter away.

That was enough.

An invisible force struck Nephthys, sending her flying backward. At the same time, a translucent spirit was flung from her body—it was Soulwhisker.

Soulwhisker tumbled through the air, barely regaining stability. It began "swimming" through the air to return to Nephthys, but Chabakunka would not allow that.

"Return!"

With a wave of his hand, a specialized sealing array, similar yet distinct from a summoning circle, appeared beneath Soulwhisker. It crashed into an invisible wall, recoiling in pain.

The array began to emit a strong glow. At its center, a dark spiritual vortex opened. The pull was immense. Soulwhisker tried to cling to the edge, but was ultimately sucked into the abyss. The vortex vanished. The array disappeared. Soulwhisker was banished, forcibly exiled from the physical realm.

"Now… it ends."

With those words, Chabakunka slowly raised his arms, and the surrounding airborne sand and dust surged toward him. The particles swirled around him, forming once more the massive body of the Sand Lizard. In moments, the ten-meter-long beast was whole again, with Chabakunka protected at its core. It charged Nephthys.

Still dazed, Nephthys had just managed to stand. The beast's sheer size and sweeping attacks were too much to dodge easily.

But at that moment, the sand beneath her turned to thick, pitch-black fluid, like oil. This "black water" lifted her into the air and swiftly whisked her aside.

"This is…?"

Seeing the "black water" currently lifting her into the air, Nephthys glanced around in astonishment. Sure enough, in the sky not far away, she spotted Dorothy, robed and masked, seated atop a magnetically levitating steel flying carpet. Dorothy had finally stepped out of the shadows and chosen to enter the battlefield in person!

After witnessing Chabakunka's true strength, Dorothy immediately realized this wasn't an enemy that could be dealt with simply through remote support while leaving Nephthys to fight alone. Worse, not only might they fail to defeat the enemy, but Nephthys herself could fall into grave danger.

In light of that, Dorothy decisively abandoned the idea of fighting from afar and came to the battlefield herself. Without the aid of the Temple of Revelation Runes, many of her abilities required her physical presence to function properly. For instance, at this very moment, Dorothy was using magnetism to manipulate the iron sand within the surrounding desert soil, gathering it into a solid mass to carry Nephthys away. That "black water" was, in fact, a fine aggregation of microscopic iron sand.

"Senior Neph, prepare to chant!"

Seeing Nephthys' stunned face, Dorothy transmitted a direct message through her information channel. Nephthys blinked in surprise, then quickly understood.

"Chanting… I understand…"

Realizing it had missed its strike, the Sand Lizard let out a roar and renewed its assault on Nephthys. Dorothy quickly directed the iron-sand platform beneath Nephthys to evade its advance. As they dodged, Nephthys looked toward the monstrous lizard and began to chant in soul speech.

"Ah… great Heaven's Arbiter… forgive our sins… our fall was for survival… our betrayal for loyalty…"

This was the "Dirge of the Penitent Dead"(T/N: previously Lament of the Dead), an esoteric mystical text derived from a powerful ancient undead. As Nephthys recited it in Soul Speech, the Sand Lizard let out a pained wail. The two wild spirits inhabiting its form began to falter. The chicken-shaped wild spirit's buildup for a soul cry was interrupted, and the Sand Lizard's core spirit began to show signs of instability, verging on losing control.

This method of using cognitive poison against spirits was a tactic Dorothy and Nephthys had prepared in advance, and it was clearly effective. However, as a shaman far more experienced than even Uta, Chabakunka was prepared for this.

From within the Sand Lizard's body, Chabakunka's possessing soul, anchored inside Mohn, opened its mouth and released a barrage of chaotic soul noise. This sound was disordered and piercing, not enough to shatter minds like a soul cry, but potent enough to mask other soul-based signals, effectively muting the mystical chant.

Using soul noise interference, Chabakunka shielded himself and his spirits from the effects of the mystical text. Stabilizing the wild spirits again, he brought the Sand Lizard back to full form and resumed the charge toward Nephthys.

"Damn… cognitive poison failed. He anticipated this too…"

Dorothy frowned as she watched the unaffected Sand Lizard continue its advance. Without delay, she moved on to the next phase. Extending her finger toward the charging beast, she released a bolt of dazzling lightning. With a thunderous crack, the bolt cut through the mausoleum's darkness and struck the massive lizard, causing it to howl in pain. Dust burst from its damaged form, and Chabakunka, nestled within, felt the tremor.

"That's lightning… spiritual lightning… and earlier—that mystical text… It's the Heaven's Arbiter Sect!"

Chabakunka murmured with sudden understanding. He then diverted part of the souls he had absorbed to the wild spirits, allowing them to devour those fragments and restore their spiritual power. In an instant, the wild spirit forming the Sand Lizard—Sandtongue—was revitalized. The scattered dust reformed into its body. Letting out a renewed roar, it shifted its target to Dorothy.

Seeing the beast charge toward her, Dorothy promptly fired off two more lightning bolts. These only caused minor stumbles in its advance. Though the lightning damaged the Sand Lizard's spirit, Chabakunka could quickly restore it using consumed souls and spirituality. Her spiritual lightning was not enough to halt it—it merely slowed it briefly. Dorothy could only dodge at high speed using her mag-lev flying carpet.

"Direct lightning won't work either… And I can't even tell where his real body is inside that lizard for a decisive strike. This is bad…"

Realizing the lightning wasn't enough, Dorothy grew tense. She now understood she couldn't afford to keep fighting this strange and powerful undead shaman in the mausoleum. Worse, he still had his AOE soul cry cannon—if it recharged again, she wouldn't even be able to dodge. If that cry hit her, she'd be soul-stripped instantly.

Resolving not to risk it, Dorothy decided to flee the mausoleum and regroup later. Outside, she could safely use her powerful Dragon Shout—a mystic voice attack—to try shattering the Sand Lizard. Doing so inside the mausoleum would collapse it entirely, burying both her and Nephthys alive.

With this in mind, she directed the mag-lev carpets carrying herself and Nephthys toward the mausoleum's large exit gate, flying along the walls at top speed. Dorothy was confident she could outrun the clumsy Sand Lizard and escape.

But as the beast saw its prey attempting to flee, it didn't give chase. Instead, it slammed both claws into the ground, and a surge of sand rose at the mausoleum's exit. In mere moments, it formed a thick wall—a Sand Gate—completely sealing off the mausoleum!

Sandtongue, as a wild spirit specialized in desert adaptation, was a territory-controlling spirit similar to Black Hoof. These spirits could dominate and reshape their environment—especially one they had gradually infused with spirituality. With sustained spirituality supply, they could convert entire environments into extensions of their own body.

From the start, Chabakunka had never stopped channeling spirituality into Sandtongue, allowing it to deepen its control over the area throughout the fight. Initially, it could only form its body from sand—now it could raise walls at a distance.

With the Goblet of Nether Guidance enhancing him, even while operating via possession, Chabakunka was nearly as strong as his full body. Stronger than any of his Crimson-rank clones. Such is the power of divine artifacts during ritual use.

Faced with the sealed exit, Dorothy's expression turned grim. She halted the flying carpet before it could crash into the solid Sand Gate. Slowly, she turned to face the roaring Sand Lizard charging toward her from the depths of the mausoleum, her expression turning deathly serious.

Trapped. No way out. And sharing a mausoleum with a nearly unkillable beast.

"What now?!"

Thoughts raced through Dorothy's mind until her gaze locked onto a specific location.

A ritual altar before the staircase leading to the Stone Gate at the rear of the mausoleum.

There, an unfinished ritual setup remained.

Behind the altar, five copper lanterns were lit, and beside them—a sixth still unlit.