This world was just that fascinating.

Even if you had prophetic foresight and a macro perspective, when the tide surged with overwhelming force, there was often little you could do. Maria was experiencing just that. She knew Torrent City was a major gathering point for closed-beta players and was inevitably tied to the main storyline quests.

Even if she tried to shift the course of events—

Once she experienced the unstoppable momentum of that collective surge, her heart swelled with conflicted emotions.

After all, she was Maria von Cainhurst!

The future gatekeeper of the [Nightmare Plague]. The unyielding boss standing between players, NPCs, and the secret guarded by the [Astral Clocktower]. The source of all misfortunes in version 3.0—a curse so malevolent that it would linger for generations.

Maria didn't really believe she'd end up sitting on that tall chair in the Clocktower... but you could never say never.

The sewers of Torrent City were almost absurdly advanced.

Even by modern standards from her previous world, Maria found the sewer systems in Fractured cities to be unusually sophisticated. More like spacious mazes than sanitation tunnels. The city often dispatched specialized workers for upkeep and repair, so the sewer’s condition was actually quite decent.

Even Maria, with her fastidious habits, only wrinkled her nose slightly upon entering—then said nothing.

The two players she dragged along as disposable laborers had even less right to complain.

Tyr and Ralph led the way, each holding up a divine spell called [Radiance]—like two 100-watt incandescent bulbs illuminating the tunnel in stark clarity. Between them, the [Flame Warrior] and the black-robed nun advanced cautiously, their weapons drawn, seeking out traces of the [Abyss].

It was Maria’s job to find those traces.

And she was uniquely suited to the task.

In this environment, only a [Scholar] like her could pick up on subtle clues that even other transcendents would miss.

Even with military intel from a defector on the general area of the [Root Serpent] nests, navigating a labyrinthine underground with too little care would only backfire.

“Wait.”

Her crisp, clear voice echoed through the empty sewers. With a flick of her voluminous sleeves, Maria crouched.

The others quickly gathered around.

“Ralph, lower the [Radiance] a little,” Maria instructed kindly.

As the bright but gentle light drew closer to the floor, everyone could see it: a faint black smear on the ground. Even Tyr—who knew next to nothing—could tell this black residue was unlike the usual [Root of Man] traces.

“Black fungal growth… faint [Abyss] signature…” Maria extended a slender, porcelain-white finger and touched the mark. Tiny black filaments visibly twitched and writhed. “This is a mycelial mat formed by concentrated [Root of Man]—its purpose is to feed the infection and amplify the [Abyssal] presence.”

“And that means…?” Tyr tilted his head with feigned professionalism, stroking his chin.

“It means your brain has the same structure as a curly-haired baboon,” Phoenix snapped, his tongue especially venomous toward the sneaky rogue.

“...Damn NPC, I swear I’m gonna wipe your whole bloodline.”

“Enough, Mr. Phoenix, stop bullying Tyr,” Maria interjected gently. “It means this place, not long ago, was covered—floor to ceiling—with what’s on my fingertip. Like the digestive tract of some massive creature—squirming, consuming, excreting. A true nightmare.”

Her pale, bloodless face suddenly turned grim.

With her grisly description, the two players—still not recovered from their last encounter with the horrors of the [Root of Man]—felt their stomachs twist again. That sight hadn’t just been a nightmare, it had been hell itself. Imagine standing in a sealed cavern carpeted in pulsing fungal mats, surrounded by throbbing vascular tubes, with twisted abyssal creatures crawling in and out of view.

Just imagining it made their skin crawl—standing there for real would be unbearable.

“We’ve caught the rat’s tail.”

She was speaking to Phoenix.

This area wasn’t being combed by just their group—multiple elite squads were conducting parallel sweeps under coordinated divine spell link-ups.

If it were only the four of them, by the time they located the [Root Serpent], it would already be too late.

“Coordinates... distance... approximate depth...”

Maria recited a string of technical estimates based on her keen analysis. Phoenix immediately relayed the data to the Command Hall.

LUMINOUS CATHEDRAL – COMMAND HALL

Clerics bustled around an enormous map, updating real-time positions. As reports came in, one particular location in the northeast quadrant began to draw focus—the predicted path of the [Root Serpent].

“Who provided the intel?”

“Reporting to Lady Dolores—it came from Lord Phoenix.”

“Hah, impossible. I know him. He doesn’t have the brainpower for this. Who’s his second?”

The voice belonged to a tall nun clad in black, red, and white—the colors of penance and war. Her armor was light, but brutal. In her left hand, she held a chained iron codex. In her right, a dual-bladed war axe nearly as tall as she was.

She was the Iron Nun. And her name was synonymous with judgment.

Her cold, flame-like eyes burned with a fury that made others avert their gaze—fearful of the punishment she might deliver.

“It was Sister Maria.”

“Interesting. Seems while I was away from the cathedral, a remarkable sister has risen.”

With a flourish of her white cloak, Dolores lifted her axe and strode forward.

A feast of retribution against the corrupted abyss?

She wouldn't miss it for the world.

On her pristine white robes were faint but unmistakable signs of prior slaughter—bloody handprints and splattered gore. No one needed to guess what happened to the heretics she had “purified.”

Smiling brilliantly, Dolores slammed shut her chained codex with a metallic clang, and began chanting her favorite divine verse:

“The heretics crave salvation through flame—

They need not fear,

For I shall grant it.”