In the depths of night, on the shores of Starbind Lake, Gossmore—now in her eight-limbed, eight-eyed form—gazed into the moonlit, rippling waters. She caught sight of a strange aquatic monster and, atop its back, Francesco. After a brief moment of surprise, she gritted her teeth and snapped. “What the hell is that thing!? Daring to oppose me?!” With a venomous curse, Gossmore pushed off the ground and shot toward the lake monster at high speed. Francesco, still lying on its back, struggled to lift himself. Having just barely recovered from the searing pain, he raised his sword and summoned a towering wall of flame across the water’s surface to halt Gossmore’s charge. But Gossmore accelerated, veering swiftly around the fire wall to continue her pursuit. Seizing the opportunity, the lake monster began to dive underwater. Unable to follow it beneath the surface, Francesco leapt off the creature’s back, transforming into a trail of fire that shot into the sky. When Gossmore circled around and looked toward the lake again, she didn’t see Francesco flying off or the monster diving. What she saw was the creature and Francesco still in their original position—an illusion. Without hesitation, she struck, slashing at them with her blood-forged blades—only to find her attacks landing on nothing but phantoms. “Damn it!” Realizing she had been fooled once more, Gossmore growled in frustration. Francesco had used her mistake to gain significant distance, and from beyond her field of vision, launched a fireball straight at her. Just after her attack hit the illusion, the fireball struck her from behind with a deafening explosion. Her back was torn open, skin and flesh ripped apart. Screaming in pain, she nearly fell into the water. The Moonlit Water Hag—this was a fabled creature Dorothy had crafted using her ability as a Bizarre Author, a power she obtained after advancing to the rank of Omni-Law Mentor. The skill of manifesting a legend into reality is precisely a hallmark of the Crimson-rank under the Bewitching Dreams Path. As a Bizarre Author, one could transform known urban legends into tangible beings. These “anecdotal beings” would possess the forms and powers from their associated lore and remain under the author’s control. Their strength, however, depended on multiple factors. Spread of the legend: The wider it’s known, the stronger the being. Context of summoning: The more closely the summoning situation mirrors the legend’s content, the greater its strength. Spirituality: The more spirituality the author invests, the stronger the creature—even if the other two conditions are weak. Notably, since these anecdotes are not based on belief, Bizarre Authors cannot create gods through them. The best results come from eerie or unsettling tales that align with the Shadow domain. The Moonlit Water Hag, for example, was based on a relatively obscure legend known only around Lake Starbind, mostly among the people of Glamorne. It likely stemmed from misunderstandings of supernatural events linked to the Mirror Moon Temple’s mystical system. Despite its obscurity, the summoning context was perfect: Lake Starbind, on a full moon night—matching the tale precisely. Dorothy, rich in Shadow spirituality, had infused it with a great amount of her own spirituality, ensuring its power was enough to affect even someone like Gossmore, who had begun to exhibit traits of a Crimson-rank apostle. The creature’s ability was to induce hallucinations in the surrounding water and nearby land, making beings subconsciously see what they expected or believed should be present. That was why Gossmore saw Francesco and the monster where they no longer were. With this illusion, Dorothy rescued Francesco and put distance between him and Gossmore, even managing to injure her. However, the double success taxed the Moonlit Water Hag severely. It could no longer influence Gossmore for now, so Dorothy ordered it to dive and recover. Although this bought some breathing room, it was far from enough to truly defeat Gossmore. Dorothy immediately launched her next move. With her will extended, her corpse marionettes stirred into action. From atop the fallen giant Mirror Moon Golem, veiled figures flew into the night sky. On the other side, Gossmore, now furious at being deceived again, let out a wrathful roar. She turned her burning gaze to Francesco in the sky and charged him once more. Francesco responded by launching fireball after fireball at her, trying to blast her down mid-air. But his projectile speed was too slow—none of the fireballs landed. Using her extreme speed and agile movements, Gossmore weaved through the attacks and closed in rapidly. At this rate, she’d soon reach him. Empowered by the divine enchantments of the Spider Queen, a single strike from her would be enough to incapacitate him completely. But just then— A blazing, orange-red beam of light split through the darkness and pierced toward Gossmore. Caught off guard, she was hit squarely by the high-speed railgun shot. Her abdomen was blown open—flesh seared and torn by the sheer force and heat of the blast. “Urgh…” With a groan, Gossmore—who had been in continuous pursuit—fell from the sky. She barely managed to stop her fall halfway to the lake, struggling to rise again. Glaring in the direction the railgun blast had come from, she saw a line of men floating above the lake, clad in varied garments. “Who… are you people?!” She hissed through clenched teeth. Before she could act further, several massive fireballs came flying straight at her face—Francesco had seized the moment while she was recovering to launch another attack, this time striking true. “Boom!” With a thunderous explosion, Gossmore was blasted away and crashed into the lake below—without even time for a scream. “Even against a Crimson-rank, railguns still do the trick.” On the Mirror Moon Golem, Dorothy, cloaked in a hooded mantle, murmured as she watched from afar. She had indeed used the railgun to shoot down Gossmore—but the blast hadn’t come from Dorothy herself. It had been fired by one of her corpse marionettes. This is one of the abilities of the Fate-Binding Spindle from the Spiritual Threads Path. After reaching the Crimson rank, the spiritual threads possessed by Beyonders of the Spiritual Threads Path are further enhanced, enabling them to transmit even greater power. Now, Dorothy is not only able to transmit passive abilities to her corpse marionettes—she can even allow them to unleash her own active abilities! That is, as long as her spirituality is sufficient, Dorothy’s marionettes can function as if they were White Ash-rank Beyonders. At present, Dorothy can not only use electromagnetic force via her marionettes to fly, but also actively launch White Ash-rank railgun blasts. To strike a high-speed target like Gossmore—one that moves beyond the limits of the naked eye—a faster ballistic method is naturally required. The railgun, which travels at many times the speed of sound, is an ideal weapon for this. However, while Dorothy’s railgun was fast enough, she herself couldn’t lock onto Gossmore, whose flight speed exceeded what the eye could track. None of Dorothy’s marionettes could visually capture Gossmore’s movements—without a target lock, having a powerful weapon alone was meaningless. Fortunately, while Dorothy lacked enemy-detection capabilities, Francesco did not. As a Crimson-rank Heavenly Flame Saint, Francesco possessed fourth-stage Lantern insight, granting him the perception to track Gossmore’s movements. His fireballs missed only because they were too slow, not because he couldn’t see her clearly. Therefore, all Dorothy had to do was observe Francesco—watch his every attack motion, analyze the trajectory of each fireball, and deduce his intended target. From there, she could calculate Gossmore’s real-time position and trajectory as seen by Francesco, and command her marionette to fire a railgun shot at the predicted location. With this tactic, Dorothy and Francesco successfully shot Gossmore out of the sky. Yet neither believed she had been defeated so easily. Dorothy, through her corpse marionettes, maintained a vigilant watch over the vast surface of Lake Starbind. Suddenly, below the location where her marionettes had gathered, the surface of the lake exploded with a splash. Gossmore, bearing an expression of rage and with most of her injuries already healed, burst forth and charged at Dorothy’s marionettes at high speed. Dorothy immediately directed them to evade, but electromagnetic flight simply wasn’t fast enough to outpace Gossmore—ultimately, one marionette was caught. Without hesitation, Gossmore drove her blood blade straight through the marionette’s chest. As the puppet coughed blood, she snarled viciously. “So it’s a flesh puppet. But don’t think using marionettes will spare you from the Queen of the Deepweb’s wrath, coward!” As she spoke, the divine enchantment on her blood blade activated. Because marionette manipulation is a sustained Beyonder ability, the intense pain inflicted was naturally transmitted along the spiritual thread—straight to Dorothy’s body. But Dorothy was prepared. When the searing pain hit, she closed her eyes and fell into a dream, entering a dream-cocoon formed by herself. Within it, her dream-form took the shape of a massive dream dragon. As the agony reached her core, she channeled it into her dream-form. Inside the dream, the fifty-meter-long dragon form of Dorothy roared in fury from the extreme pain, while her real body trembled involuntarily. After enduring that devastating pain in draconic form, Dorothy finally caught her breath again, collapsing to one knee, gasping, her forehead drenched in sweat. This was the ability of White Ash-rank Dream Voyager under the Bewitching Dreams Path—the power to redirect mental or spiritual influence targeting oneself into a dream realm. Dorothy used her dream dragon form to withstand a divine blow from the Spider Queen’s enchantment. Only in this form could she tank such pain without collapsing. If she were in her normal state, she might have fainted on the spot. Even so, the pain left her badly shaken. “Heh… strong will. Still not down after that?” Suspended above the lake, Gossmore glanced at the marionettes that remained standing and muttered in disdain. Then, changing tactics, she thrust her hand deep into the captured marionette’s body and began draining its blood. The puppet shriveled rapidly into a dry husk. By consuming the marionette, Gossmore also absorbed its spiritual thread. Like Boade before her, the moment she acquired the thread, she sensed its source—where it had extended from. “Found you…” Now that she had sensed the controller’s location, Gossmore flew toward it at full speed. While doing so, she deliberately severed the spiritual thread to avoid any feedback attack, having learned from Boade’s experience that Dorothy could transmit pain or damage back through the connection. Since she had already confirmed the location, there was no need to keep the thread. She was confident the controller couldn’t outrun her. Following the trace left by the spiritual link, Gossmore hurtled toward a forest at the lakeside. Before long, she reached the location she had sensed. And sure enough—a masked figure was fleeing in a panic. “You’re not getting away!” Without hesitation, Gossmore lunged forward and drove her blood blade through the masked person’s back. Inside the Mirror Moon Golem, Dorothy once again nearly blacked out from the transmitted pain. Fortunately, this indirect damage was much weaker than direct harm. Drawing upon her dragon mimicry, she barely managed to endure it. Gritting her teeth, she began operating the stabbed marionette remotely. That’s right—what Gossmore had found was not Dorothy’s true body, but yet another marionette! With the new ability of active power transfer, her marionettes could also cast spiritual threads, enabling them to control other marionettes. Dorothy could command a puppet to control more puppets, layering her manipulation like a recursive web. Just as Gossmore finished stabbing the marionette, Dorothy sprang the trap she had laid. From the marionette’s back, a thin crimson thread shot out, latching directly onto Gossmore, who stood right beside it. At the same time, multiple matching red threads erupted from the ground beneath Gossmore. “Manifested Spiritual Thread!”