A Trick Up Her Sleeve

Time seemed to come to a standstill.

The golden holy flames, which had looked ready to burn everything to ashes, did not harm any of the undead creatures present.

The burning golden fragments continued to crumble and vanish in the air, eventually turning into specks of light.

"Crack! Crack!" The sound of space shattering rang out.

A huge black rift opened above Seraphina's head.

If anyone had dared to look directly into that rift, they would have seen it filled with nauseating blood-red hues, accompanied by whispers from the abyss.

But on closer inspection, it seemed as though nothing was there at all.

Then, a bizarre scene unfolded.

The fragments of Seraphina's memories, which had already burned away as fuel, inexplicably resonated with Su Li.

The memory fragments then gathered again like fireflies returning to their nest, before all flying straight back into the center of Seraphina's brow.

"Boom!" The spatial rift shuddered violently.

A huge hand wreathed in golden flames emerged with great difficulty from the red barrier.

But the hand looked terribly battered.

The golden flames on it were dim and feeble, as though they might go out at any moment.

And the skin, which should have been pure and flawless, was covered in wounds so deep they exposed the bone.

Most horrifying of all, the wounds weren't bleeding. Instead, each one had opened into an eye, its pupil spinning wildly!

The hand seemed to have no reason of its own. It simply carried out some kind of command mechanically.

Ignoring Su Li, who stood below, it grabbed the unconscious Seraphina and the dazed Vivian from the ground.

"Whoosh—"

The hand vanished in an instant with the two of them. Then the spatial rift closed, leaving behind only the fading echoes of those whispers.

A moment later, in a desolate stretch of the Gobi Desert somewhere on the Aiseland Continent.

Space twisted, and two battered figures were flung to the ground.

"Cough, cough..." Vivian paid no heed to the pain wracking her body. She scrambled over to the girl beside her.

"Fina! Fina, are you okay? Do you still remember me?" Vivian's voice trembled.

That had been a forbidden spell! One that came at the cost of memories and the soul! Even if someone survived, there was a good chance they would become a soulless idiot.

Ever since the Abyssal Corruption began, no one had dared use a Teleportation Spell.

Unless they were one of those chosen ones watched over by the World Will, they had no choice but to use a powerful forbidden spell like this to force a teleportation.

Vivian shakily checked Seraphina's injuries. She only breathed a sigh of relief when the severed stump had stopped bleeding.

"I'm all right, Vivian." Seraphina slowly opened her eyes.

"My memories are still there. I even have a few extra things now."

"What?" Vivian was taken aback.

Seraphina raised her right hand and rubbed the center of her brow.

"Just as that move was about to erupt, the fragments of my memories seemed to resonate with the undead's soul. Deep in her mind, I saw something."

"What did you see?" Vivian pressed anxiously.

Seraphina fell silent for a moment, as though trying to find the right words.

"I saw a person... No, a group of people... And some knowledge that was completely unfamiliar to me, yet felt immeasurably vast."

"Vivian, let's go back to the Holy Church. There are some things I want to ask my teacher..."

Undead Mountain Range.

With the enemy gone, the Blood Boiling state wore off, and Su Li's intelligence returned to its rightful place.

Su Li stood where she was and blinked in confusion.

"Huh? What did I do?"

The side effect of Blood Boiling was losing one's reason—going berserk, as people liked to call it—not losing one's memories.

So Su Li remembered everything that had just happened perfectly clearly.

She'd hacked at people like a mad dog, cackling all the while.

Then she'd struck an arrogant pose and shouted at Vivian, "Enough! I'm sick and tired of all this red tape!"

"..."

As the scene replayed in her mind, Su Li's pale, pretty face flushed red before her very eyes.

"Ahhhhh! What the heck did I just say?!"

Su Li covered her face, wishing she could claw a whole Magic Fairy Castle out of the ground with her toes.

"How did a line like that come out of my mouth? Am I some terminal case of chuunibyou?!"

It was so embarrassing! It was like being publicly executed!

Su Li could already picture what would happen in the future:

The next time she met Vivian, her opponent would fight her with a blank expression while repeating, "Su Li, are you sick and tired of all that red tape again?"

"Help... Just let me die."

Su Li crouched on the ground, her embarrassment as a modern person reaching its peak.

This was worse than having to take on a hundred bosses by herself.

"Phew... Calm down, Su Li. You have to stay calm."

"As long as I'm not embarrassed, everyone else is. Besides, I'm a lich now. It's perfectly reasonable for a lich to talk like a chuunibyou, right? Yeah, totally reasonable!"

After giving herself a pep talk, Su Li finally recovered from her mortifying ordeal.

"Let's see how the quest went first."

She stood up and opened the System Panel.

[Battle evaluation in progress... Enemy's main target detected escaping. Kill objective incomplete.]

[However, you had a major impact on the Candidate Saintess of the forces of light.]

[Overall evaluation: Quest completion progress: 80%]

[Rewards: Experience +1600, all attributes +8]

A flash of golden light passed, and Su Li's stats panel updated once again.

[Strength: 60 → 68+15, Spirit: 58 → 66, Constitution: 50 → 58, Agility: 24 → 32+13, Faith: 37 → 45+12, Current Experience: 24250/24800]

"Whoa? That doesn't count as a failure?" Su Li raised her eyebrows in delight as she looked at her skyrocketing stats.

"I get rewards even if I don't kill the boss? You've gotta hand it to the devs. When there are rewards to give, they really give them!"

She was less than 600 experience away from reaching Lv11! She was leveling up at rocket speed!

But before she could enjoy it for long, another notification popped up.

[Warning: You seriously wounded the Candidate Saintess of the Holy Church of Light and her Guardian Knight. Your threat level among the forces of light has risen significantly!]

[When facing NPCs or players from the forces of light, your Charisma attribute will be greatly reduced.]

"Huh?" Su Li rolled her eyes at the notification.

"So I'm Red Name now?"

"Does that mean every Priest I pass on the road will want to hit me with a Purification spell?"

"Whatever. Who needs your forces of light? I'm undead! I belong to evil by nature... Wait, that doesn't sound right. Oh, right—I belong to the righteous Dark Faction!"

After clearing the system messages, Su Li's gaze fell on the ground not far away.

A severed arm lay there, still and silent.

Even now, its hand clutched the ornate staff tightly.

"Well, that Saintess really is something. She even left me a little something before she went."

Su Li stepped forward, her eyes fixed on the staff.

"Isn't this a staff just waiting to be picked up?"

The system quest had said she needed to find a staff. There was no way this thing could be low quality!

"If it comes with a few High-Level Light Magic spells, then taking down the Death Ritual Bird will be a piece of cake! That thing's weak to holy power."

Su Li rubbed her hands together, then bent down eagerly to pick up the scepter.

But the instant her fingertips touched the severed arm—

"Vmm—!" Something unexpected happened!

The severed arm suddenly came to life and rapidly disintegrated along with the staff, turning into a mass of pure golden energy!

Then—

The energy surged along Su Li's fingers and rushed wildly into her left arm!

"Holy crap?! What's going on?"