Lichtenstein Castle, the main chapel on the lower level.
A heavy silence filled the towering cathedral, its stained-glass dome casting down colorful, mysterious rays of light.
A priest in a white robe, wearing a silver crown, stood solemn and alone at the altar, his eyes tightly shut in reverence.
Afternoon sunlight pierced through the clouds, coating everything inside with a warm golden glow.
The priest was surrounded by stillness, broken only by the soft whisper of wind carrying the faint toll of church bells.
The chapel had already been cleaned. The remains of Archbishop Caligula, the castle’s former master, had been buried outside, and the priest had offered his prayers for him.
The priest slowly raised his hand.
“Merciful Goddess, please wash away the sorrow, pain, and confusion of the departed. Grant him peace, release him from his shackles, and guide him into the tranquil and radiant kingdom of heaven, where he may enjoy the blessings of the next life.”
His deep, resonant voice echoed off the cathedral walls like a warm current of power.
Every word carried both reverence for the dead and comfort for the living.When the prayer ended, the noise of the mortal world seemed to fade away.
After a long silence—
“So this is the power of divine arts?”
The young heir of the Canberra Kingdom’s Merchant Guild lifted his head, watching faint feathers of light drift above Archbishop Caligula’s grave outside, and sighed in awe.
This prayer ritual to release the spirits of the wrongfully dead not only prevented strong souls from becoming vengeful wraiths, but also ensured necromancers couldn’t enslave the dead or plunder their memories.
But now, with the investigation advancing so quickly—and the detective not only altering the rules of the Shadow Realm but vanishing from the map altogether—everyone realized they suddenly had no clear goal this afternoon.
The pressure shifted entirely onto the traitors’ side.
Originally, the traitors had five whole days to find the Witch and the Werewolf. That window had now shrunk to just two days.
At the priest’s suggestion, they buried Archbishop Caligula’s remains first.
Though this world wasn’t real, the Shadow Realm was a projection of history. This meant such a great archbishop, who sacrificed himself for humanity’s freedom, had truly existed. He deserved a burial.
At the same time, it prevented any traitor with necromantic intel-gathering abilities from extracting key information about the Shadow Realm’s origin from Caligula’s corpse.
And so, the challengers gathered once more in the cathedral hall, just as they had that morning.
But this time, silence lingered.
No one knew what they could do besides wait for the traitors’ turn.
The atmosphere, however, was less oppressive than it had been earlier.
There were still hours before nightfall.
By then, the traitors’ Blood Lords would awaken, and they would gain the powers of the vampire lineage—posing a grave threat to all challengers.
“Do you all think the traitors are very likely to be Resurrection Cultists?”
Lan Qi suddenly broke the silence from a corner.
Everyone’s attention snapped to him.
He looked serious, as if he had been waiting for this discussion.
“Very likely. We can basically assume anyone willing to trigger a world-ending disaster is one of them—and a particularly twisted one at that.”
The Merchant Guild heir answered first, confidently:
“According to statistics from the Shadow Realm Association of the Southern Continent, in every Shadow Realm where challengers faced this kind of scenario, 98.2% of the ones trying to trigger real-world calamities were Resurrection Cultists.”
That figure left everyone present a little surprised.
So the pampered guild heir actually knew things after all.
“I see.”
Lan Qi nodded slowly, glancing sideways at Huperion and briefly locking eyes with her.
They knew well that the Resurrection Church was deliberately targeting them.
It wasn’t surprising—when their match was made, plenty of cultists would have queued into the Shadow Realm at the same time.
And with Huperion’s [Actress] dual premonition identity from the very beginning, that 98.2% statistic basically jumped to 99.9%.
“Priest, do you believe the Goddess of Fate truly exists?”
Lan Qi suddenly turned toward the three clergy members from the Northern Continent.
His abrupt shift in topic left the other challengers baffled.
The priest replied gently:
“Though no one has seen the gods in countless ages—they have faded into the very fabric of the world’s laws—their presence remains in another form. They can no longer intervene in the material realm, but they still exist. This is why we clergy can use divine arts. Our very existence proves theirs.”
Indeed, priests always patiently answered such questions. It was their duty.
“I see.”
Lan Qi nodded again.
He already understood most of this back when he studied clerical magic and divine spellcards on the southern Ventina border.
For someone like him, with his attributes, becoming a priest would have been the most optimal path.
Divine arts were a variation of magic—drawing upon lingering divine power that formed part of the world itself.
Even without using one’s own mana, divine arts could manifest miraculous effects.
The strength of these arts depended on one’s mental attributes and level of faith.
But Lan Qi, being a materialist, didn’t believe in gods.
Even if he became a priest, his faith would be weak. That road was not for him.
So he had instead chosen another healing profession—the White Mage.
The enthusiastic Inquisitor added:
“No matter which benevolent deity one believes in, their clergy can use the same divine arts or spellcards. But different gods grant different added effects. These effects align with the ancient legends pieced together from the Thirty-Two Original Tablets. Perhaps, in some distant God Era beyond our reach, the gods truly walked among us.”
“Among the temples of both continents, the reason the Goddess of Fate has the most priests and followers is not because her added effects are the strongest, but simply because the most people sincerely wish to believe in her.”
“She has the richest body of myths—‘The Goddess of Fate loves all beings equally,’ ‘She is the only god who can still intervene in this world,’ and so on.”
“There’s even a legend that her divinity lies in this: whenever you pray to her, she gains a slight power to interfere with your fate. The longer and more faithfully you pray, the more of your heart’s voice reaches her.”
The three clergy members of the Fate Goddess Church took turns explaining.
In this world, swearing oaths to the gods was a solemn matter. People believed the gods heard them.
You could never make such oaths lightly, whether or not the gods still existed or could intervene.
The Resurrection Church had even had high-ranking members who defected after praying to the Goddess of Fate for salvation—or perhaps they had always been her clergy in disguise. Either way, these “children of fate” had dealt devastating blows to the cult again and again.
It was hard to say whether the Goddess of Fate truly intervened in their destinies.
This was exactly why the Resurrection Church and the Fate Church were mortal enemies.
“I understand. Thank you, all three of you.”
Lan Qi thanked them politely, but didn’t show any intent to join their faith. Instead, he turned back toward the gathered challengers.
Everyone watched him, unsure what he was plotting.
And then—under their collective gaze—
“Please, everyone, say this with me: Praise the Goddess of Fate. If I am a cultist, a vile traitor, then may she guide my destiny toward destroying the Resurrection Church!”
Lan Qi raised his right hand high, fist clenched, and declared in a clear, ringing voice.
“...?”
The challengers looked at him in confusion.
Then, someone finally understood what he was doing.
Even if such an oath might not actually come true—fate was a mysterious thing—
The Resurrection Church had an unwritten rule:
Anyone entangled with the Goddess of Fate’s karma could never rise to their upper ranks.
The one thing they feared most was her invisible interference.
And what Lan Qi had just done was essentially cutting off the cultists’ future path!