A Hidden Hand

Time seemed to stop at that moment.

The golden holy flame, which had looked like it would burn everything, did not harm the undead creatures present.

Those burning golden fragments continuously disintegrated and scattered in the air, finally turning into specks of light.

"Crack! Crack!" The sound of space shattering echoed.

A huge black rift tore open above Seraphina's head.

If anyone dared to look directly at the rift at that moment, they would find it filled with nauseating blood-red hues, accompanied by whispers from the abyss.

But upon closer inspection, it seemed like nothing was there.

Then, a bizarre scene unfolded.

Seraphina's memories, which had been burned away as firewood, inexplicably resonated with Su Li.

Subsequently, the memory fragments gathered like a swarm of returning fireflies, then plunged into Seraphina's brow.

"Boom!" The spatial rift trembled violently.

A giant hand, burning with golden flames, emerged with extreme difficulty from the red obstruction.

But this large hand looked exceptionally disheveled.

The golden flames on it were weak and listless, as if they could be extinguished at any moment.

And on the skin that should have been pure and flawless, there were wounds that revealed bone.

The most terrifying part was that the wounds did not bleed; instead, they opened into countless frantically spinning eyeballs!

The large hand seemed devoid of reason, merely mechanically executing some command.

It ignored Su Li standing below and directly grabbed the unconscious Seraphina and the stunned Vivian from the ground.

"Whoosh--"

The large hand vanished instantly with the two of them, and then the spatial rift closed, leaving behind only the lingering echoes of whispers.

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

Space distorted, and two battered figures were thrown onto the ground.

"Cough... cough..." Vivian ignored the intense pain all over her body and scrambled towards the girl beside her.

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

That was a forbidden technique! A forbidden technique that cost memories and soul! Even if they survived, they would most likely become a soulless idiot.

After the abyss's erosion, no one dared to use teleportation spells anymore.

Unless one was a chosen one favored by the World Will, they could only use such powerful forbidden techniques for forced teleportation.

Vivian tremblingly checked Seraphina's injuries and breathed a sigh of relief when she found that the severed ends of her wounds were no longer bleeding.

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

"My memories haven't disappeared; in fact, I've gained something."

"What?" Vivian was taken aback.

Seraphina raised her right hand and rubbed her brow.

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

"Saw what?" Vivian asked eagerly.

Seraphina was silent for a moment, seemingly organizing her thoughts.

"I saw a person... no, a group of people... and some knowledge that is very unfamiliar to me, yet feels incredibly vast."

"Vivian, let's go back to the Papal Court. I have some things I want to ask Teacher..."

Undead Mountain Range.

As the enemy disappeared, the "Blood Boiling" state ended, and Su Li's intelligence regained control.

Su Li stood in place, blinking in confusion.

"Huh? What did I do?"

The side effect of the "Blood Boiling" skill was the loss of reason, commonly known as going crazy, not memory loss.

Therefore, Su Li remembered everything that had just happened.

She had gone berserk like a mad dog, slashing wildly while cackling maniacally.

Then she had struck an arrogant pose and shouted at Vivian, "Enough! I've had enough of these formalities!"

Recalling the scene just now, Su Li's pale, pretty face turned red at a visible speed.

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

Su Li covered her face, wishing she could dig a fairy castle out of the ground with her toes right then and there.

"How could these lines come out of my mouth? Am I a late-stage chuunibyou patient?!"

This is too embarrassing! It's practically public execution!

Su Li's mind even conjured up a future scene:

The next time she met Vivian, Vivian would fight her expressionlessly and repeat, "Su Li, are you tired of formalities again?"

"Help... let me die."

Su Li squatted on the ground, her modern-day sense of shame reaching its peak at this moment.

This was more unbearable than fighting a hundred bosses alone.

"Hoo... calm down, Su Li, you need to calm down."

"As long as I'm not embarrassed, others will be. Anyway, I'm a Lich now. It's reasonable for a Lich to talk in a chuunibyou way, right? Yes, it's reasonable!"

After forcibly building up her mental fortitude, Su Li finally recovered from her social death.

"Let's check the mission status first."

She stood up and opened the system panel.

[Initiating comprehensive combat evaluation... Detected enemy core target escape, kill not completed.]

[However, you have successfully caused significant impact to the candidate saintess of the Light faction.]

[Comprehensive evaluation, mission completion progress: 80%]

[Reward obtained: Experience +1600, All Stats +8]

With a flash of golden light, Su Li's status panel updated again.

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

"What? This isn't a failure?" Su Li raised her eyebrows in surprise as her stats surged.

"There's a reward even without killing the boss? This planner is reliable, they really give rewards!"

She was less than 600 experience points away from leveling up to Lv11! This leveling speed was like riding a rocket!

However, before she could celebrate for too long, another system notification popped up.

[Warning: Due to your severe injury to the candidate saintess of the Holy Church of Light and her guardian knight, your threat level in the Holy Faction has greatly increased!]

[When facing NPCs or players from the Holy Faction, your Charm attribute will be severely weakened.]

"Huh?" Su Li couldn't help but roll her eyes at the notification.

"So, I've become a red name?"

"From now on, will every priest I meet on the street want to cast Purification on me?"

"Tch, who cares about your Holy Faction? I'm an Undead! I naturally belong to the evil... Ah, something's wrong. Right, I belong to the righteous Dark Faction!"

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

A severed arm lay quietly there.

Even now, the hand of the severed arm was still tightly gripping a gorgeously designed staff.

"Yo, that saintess is really something. She left me a little something before she left."

Su Li walked over, her eyes fixed on the staff.

"Isn't this a ready-made staff?"

The system mission said to find a staff, and this thing's quality was definitely not low!

"If this staff comes with a few high-level light magic spells, wouldn't fighting the Death Ritual Bird be a piece of cake? That thing is weak to holy power."

Su Li rubbed her hands together, a look of anticipation on her face as she bent down to pick up the scepter.

However, the moment her fingertips touched the severed arm.

"Buzz--!" An anomaly occurred!

The severed arm suddenly seemed to come alive, rapidly disintegrating into a mass of pure golden energy along with the staff!

Then--

This energy surged through Su Li's fingers and madly rushed into her left arm!

"WTF?! What's going on?"