Near the outskirts of Pritt, the Devonshire family crypt, beneath the ground in the Hall of Honor.
Inside the cold, dark underground tomb, Misha lay concealed within a pitch-black stone coffin, dressed in tight black clothing. Frowning slightly, she asked anxiously in her mind.
"What’s going on out there? What happened?"
"Seems like our old friends have arrived. I had a hunch they might show up, but I didn’t expect them to actually come…"
Dorothy, seated far away in a hidden location, responded to Misha. Hearing Dorothy’s words, Misha was momentarily stunned, then replied.
"Old friends... you mean those spider freaks?"
"Most likely. But the way this one came in is odd. I can’t confirm it’s them for sure. Either way, don’t open the lid yet. I’ll re-phase your body before you come out…"
Dorothy continued, and Misha silently nodded inside the stone coffin.
At the same time, Dorothy managed Misha’s status while observing the underground tomb through a miniature corpse marionette. She saw that the figure who had entered in a strange phantom-like form was now inspecting the engravings on the stone coffins one by one. Cloaked in a pitch-black mantle, the figure examined each inscription carefully, reading the engravings on the coffin lids. After checking several, the figure stopped in front of one.
That coffin bore ancient-style Prittish script. The engraving included the epitaph and the name of the coffin’s occupant:"Ampere Devonshire — No matter how clamorous the slander, my loyalty remains eternal — for the Land of the Wind King."
Upon seeing the inscription, the cloaked figure paused slightly. After examining it once more, he seemed to confirm the target and placed his hand on the heavy stone lid, slowly applying force.
With a deep, resonant hum, the thick lid began to shift, revealing a wide opening. The black-robed figure immediately stopped and reached inside to feel around for the remains.
Due to the age of the burial, nearly all items inside had decayed. But amidst the ruin, one item immediately caught his eye — a small silver pendant.
The figure retrieved the pendant, held it up for close inspection, then tucked it away and prepared to leave. But just then, a faint sound came from behind him. Instantly, the black-robed figure drew a sword from his waist and slashed behind him.
With a flash of steel, his blade collided with another. A crisp metallic clash rang throughout the dim tomb.
Clang!
Startled, the black-robed figure narrowed his eyes. In front of him now stood a second figure — also cloaked in black with a fitted combat outfit and a mask. Behind the black fabric, amber eyes flickered with light.
Her blade had been blocked, and both their weapons now bore faint cracks from the force of the collision.
This new attacker was none other than Misha. Upon seeing the intruder so swiftly retrieve something from Ampere’s coffin, she had lost patience. Having just stealthily emerged from her own coffin, she immediately struck — but even her full-power surprise attack had been countered. She frowned.
“This guy… his reaction speed is insane…”
Just as Misha realized her opponent was no ordinary foe, the black-robed figure moved again. Gripping his sword with both hands, he exerted force — and Misha suddenly felt an overwhelming pressure bearing down on her.
His blade pushed against hers, and despite having previously enhanced her body using Devouring Sigil, Misha couldn’t match his strength.
At that moment, a mysterious force surged through spiritual threads from afar — Dorothy’s doing. It passed through Misha’s blade and into the opponent’s weapon.
Instantly, the man’s hands went numb with a jolt, his grip momentarily unstable. Misha quickly tilted her sword, redirecting the force and causing his blade to slide off to the side. His strike missed, creating an opening, which Misha immediately exploited, thrusting her sword toward the gap.
The man twisted his body just in time to avoid a lethal hit, but Misha’s sword still cut across his side, drawing blood.
This was the support effect produced by Dorothy transmitting the Flowing Current Form through spiritual threads. Though the Hall of Honor contained Frost Netherstone, its quantity was far less than that used in the Royal Mausoleum of King Rachman. Since this was a large shared family crypt, there wasn’t enough Frost Netherstone to fully suppress mystical effects.
While it could block phantasmal life forms, it couldn’t fully negate external mystical influence. Dorothy’s spiritual threads were weakened by about half — but not rendered useless.
Having failed to land a clean blow and now slightly wounded, the black-robed figure quickly readjusted his posture. Just as Misha prepared to pursue, he stepped back to create distance, then lunged forward once more.
Misha also charged with her sword, and the two clashed again.
In the tight, dark tomb, shadows blurred and blades flashed. Two rapid figures tangled amid the cramped space, their movements sharp and intense. Sword lights gleamed as their weapons collided over and over, leaving fresh marks on ancient coffins and stone walls.
In just moments, Misha and the black-robed attacker had exchanged more than a dozen rounds.
Clearly, they were evenly matched in speed and agility — both at the White Ash rank of the Shadow path. However, the attacker held a distinct edge in raw strength — exceeding even Misha’s Devouring Sigil-enhanced body. His power was at least a second-stage Chalice enhancement.
Normally, such disparity would leave Misha overpowered. But with Dorothy’s Flowing Current Form aiding her, every time their weapons clashed, the enemy was hit with jolts of electricity that numbed his hands, preventing him from using his full strength.
This mitigated his advantage and allowed the close-quarters duel to temporarily reach a stalemate, though it was clear this balance wouldn’t last.
Clang!
With a crisp clash of steel, Misha and the black-cloaked man’s blades met once again—only this time, the man’s weapon shattered into countless fragments, scattering through the air. Though Misha’s sword was also covered in cracks, it remained intact.
Both Misha and her opponent were Shadow-primary White Ash-rank Beyonders, and both had enchanted their weapons with Shadow-based effects, boosting sharpness, armor penetration, and weapon corrosion. In close-quarters blade combat, this became a direct contest of weapon durability—whoever’s sword broke first under the corrosive power of third-stage Shadow would be at a disadvantage. If neither combatant wielded a weapon with special mystical traits, then normally both blades would end up equally damaged.
However, while both were formidable Shadow Beyonders, their secondary spiritualities differed. Misha’s auxiliary attribute was Stone—which, while it didn’t give her overwhelming advantage like Chalice might in melee, it did let her reinforce her blade’s durability through enchantment, granting it exceptional toughness.
Her sword, doubly enchanted with Shadow and Stone, had both powerful penetration and enhanced resilience. Naturally, it outlasted her opponent’s pure-Shadow-enchanted blade. The black-cloaked man originally planned to break through Misha’s defense before his sword shattered using his overwhelming strength, but his advantage in power had been suppressed by Dorothy’s Flowing Current Form, putting him on the back foot.
While Misha was able to apply both Shadow and Stone enchantments, her opponent’s Chalice spirituality was the hardest to enchant onto metal. That was because metal, by nature, aligned with Stone, and Chalice was spiritually opposed to it.
With his blade shattered, the man was now unarmed. Misha seized the opportunity and thrust forward. He tried to dodge while simultaneously attempting to lock eyes with her for a split-second hypnotic strike—but Misha had been guarding against that all along. Throughout the fight, she had focused on his body movements, never meeting his gaze, and all blind spots caused by her angle of vision were compensated for by Dorothy—who relayed processed visual feeds from her micro corpse marionette.
Now facing an unrelenting Misha, the black-cloaked man was forced into retreat, step by step. As he was nearly driven into a dead-end of the crypt with no room left to move, he knew continuing like this was not an option. Just after one more backward step to widen the gap, his body suddenly spun and dispersed into a swarm of bats.
Misha had been waiting for this moment.
Seeing him transform, she immediately gathered power and swept her blade through the air. A flurry of wind blades burst forth, slicing toward the bat swarm. In an instant, dozens of bats were struck down, erupting into clouds of blood mist. With a single move, Misha had nearly wiped out half of them.
This was her tried-and-true tactic for fighting vampires—save wind-type abilities for the moment they transformed into bats. Newly transformed bat swarms were densely packed and vulnerable. If the opponent reacted slowly, they’d be wiped out entirely. Even if they reacted fast, half would still die.
After losing nearly half the swarm, the remaining bats swiftly scattered to the corners of the crypt. Misha unleashed several more wind blades in pursuit but only managed to hit one or two. The majority of the swarm regrouped in a far corner and quickly reformed into the black-cloaked man’s body. Now bearing several deep wounds, he had narrowly escaped death and created significant distance between himself and Misha. He stood doubled over, clutching his chest, seemingly recovering from the strain caused by the bat transformation.
“Putting distance between us? That won’t help you.”
Seeing her opponent rematerialize, Misha didn’t hesitate. With a wave of her hand, she launched several more wind blades at him, concealing them in the air, intending to finish him off completely.
But just then, something strange occurred.
Facing the incoming invisible blades—compressed wind laced with deadly force—the injured black-cloaked man shakily raised his arm toward the oncoming attack. Suddenly, a powerful burst of wind surged out from him in the opposite direction.
With a loud gust, the strong airflow from the man collided with Misha’s wind blades, diverting their trajectories. The blades veered off course, slicing into the stone wall behind him instead. Deep gashes appeared where they struck. One blade even grazed his arm, cutting through his sleeve and brushing his skin—yet not a drop of blood appeared. His skin seemed tough enough to resist even this kind of glancing blow.
“What… wind? That was wind? How is that possible?! He’s supposed to be an Eight-Spired Nest’s Vampire!”
Misha’s eyes widened in disbelief. She knew that ability well—it belonged to the Storm Path, her own path!
“That can’t be… unless…”
Watching the scene unfold from afar, Dorothy couldn’t help but slightly open her mouth in astonishment. For the first time in this world, she saw someone else use abilities from two different Beyonder paths simultaneously.
And he didn’t appear to be a dual-soul Spirit Medium. Dorothy had seen no sign of necromantic power at all. Then how—how was he doing this?
Just as certain possibilities began to form in Dorothy’s mind, the black-cloaked man moved again. He raised his hand once more, aiming at Misha, as an even fiercer surge of wind gathered in front of him.