Chapter 617 : Substitution
Night had fallen over the central plains of Tivian.
Under the moonless, windy sky, the vast and open black plains lay quiet and desolate. The sturdy wheat fields swayed faintly in the night breeze. Everything appeared serene and tranquil—until a sharp whistle from the distance shattered the stillness.
Steel wheels rolled swiftly across the tracks, carrying a long train forward at high speed. The humming locomotive spewed thick smoke as it pulled the heavy carriages along through the dark plains.
The train raced through the night, cutting across the wheat fields. Most compartments were already darkened; passengers in the second and third class coaches slowly drifted into slumber amidst the cramped atmosphere, while a few lights still flickered in the first-class cabins.
Inside one of those first-class compartments, a short-haired nun dressed in ecclesiastical attire sat on the couch. By the gaslight on the table, she studied the holy scripture with a serious expression.
As time passed and the night deepened, fatigue gradually appeared on her face. After checking the time on her pocket watch, the nun closed the book and placed it into her open suitcase. Then she got up, sat on her bed, turned off the gas lamp, and quietly fell asleep.
Once the nun drifted into slumber, the hands of the clock continued their silent march. Before long, it was deep into the night. Nearly all lights on the train were extinguished, and aside from a few crew members, every passenger had succumbed to sleep.
Within the nun’s private compartment, a wisp of invisible vapor slowly drifted in through the ventilation duct, gradually filling the space. Bathed in this unseen mist, the nun’s sleep grew even deeper.
Time continued to slip by. Just as the nun reached the depths of sleep, a faint rustling sound came from the ventilation duct. Then, a small black bat emerged and flew toward the sleeping nun, eventually landing on her neck. It bared its sharp fangs—and bit down on her throat.
As the bat drained her, the nun’s face gradually turned pale. In her dreams, she quietly ceased breathing. Once her breath stopped, the bat gently lifted into the air, hovering in the center of the room. More faint rustling followed from the ventilation, and one by one, additional bats emerged. They gathered in the compartment and soon coalesced into the shape of a human figure. When the shadow around that form dissipated, a pale-faced young man in a long trench coat stood there, his expression cold and merciless as he stared at the lifeless nun on the bed.
Then the trench-coated man turned his gaze to the compartment door. Reaching out, he opened it and stepped into the dim corridor. Glancing to the side, he spotted another figure—a middle-aged man in a black suit carrying a large suitcase. Upon seeing him, the man in the suit asked in a low voice.
“All done?”
“Mm. How about your side?” the trench-coated man nodded and asked in return.
“All settled. Just a bunch of White Ash nobodies. No reason we’d screw it up.”
As he spoke, the suited man walked past his companion and entered the open compartment. He glanced at the nun’s corpse lying pale and breathless on the bed, confirmed the situation with a simple check, and then opened his large suitcase.
The trench-coated man returned to the compartment as well. Staring at the nun on the bed, his face began to shift—twisting and reshaping until it became an exact replica of the nun’s own face. Even his body changed, taking on a feminine form.
Once his transformation was complete, the suited man approached the bed, dragged the nun’s corpse off, pulled out a sigil, and placed it on her body. The nun’s remains rapidly began to vaporize. In moments, all her flesh had turned to green mist, leaving behind only bones and clothing.
Wordlessly, the suited man gathered the nun’s bones one by one into his suitcase. The now disguised “nun” then asked.
“Is it alright to just deal with the body and leave the soul untouched? What if someone performs spirit summoning?”
“They won’t try unless the Church realizes someone’s dead. As long as you convincingly take over their identities and reach Glamorne, no one will suspect that the original advance team is already gone.”
The suited man responded calmly. Once he finished collecting the bones and stood up with the suitcase, he added.
“Strictly speaking, we should’ve prepared soul-sealing methods. But this mission came down too suddenly—there wasn’t time to coordinate with the Nether Coffin Order on soul-handling. Still, given the current circumstances, it shouldn’t matter…”
“Mm, that’s true. The Church won’t find out they’ve lost anyone anytime soon.”
The disguised nun nodded, watching as the suited man left the compartment with his suitcase. She glanced back one last time before closing the door.
For a moment, the dark cabin was utterly silent—only the fake nun remained, staring quietly at the nun’s empty robes crumpled on the floor.
…
Within the speeding train in the dead of night, a series of grim murders had played out. The ecclesiastical team from Tivian was silently slaughtered by assassins born from shadow, and then covertly replaced.
A dark conspiracy had reached completion under the cover of night. The bloodstained killers believed they had carried out their task flawlessly, leaving no trace behind. But the truth was far from that.
Elsewhere on the same train, in a compartment far removed from the carnage, Nephthys sat calmly in the shadows of a couch, her expression focused as she meditated—linking herself mystically to a faraway place.
“Miss Dorothy, they’ve finished. All five flesh puppets—none remain. They’ve all been ‘killed’ and fully replaced…”
Reporting through the telepathic link, Nephthys relayed the news to the distant Dorothy. A reply came quickly.
“All replaced? Good. What about the spirits we planted in the flesh puppets beforehand—did they get bound?”
“No. It seems the attackers were in too much of a hurry and didn’t prepare any means to handle souls. The spirits I embedded weren’t triggered. I’ve already reclaimed them and will conduct a ritual to return them to Mr. Uta.”
Nephthys responded to Dorothy from afar, and after pondering briefly, Dorothy continued.
“They didn’t have time to prepare soul-sealing measures? I suppose that makes sense… The schedule I leaked to those people for the ‘advance party’ was pretty tight. They had to act immediately to catch up, so it’s expected they wouldn’t have time for that kind of prep. After all, the Eight-Spired Nest isn’t some Silence-affiliated organization. If their plan goes smoothly, they wouldn’t even need to seal souls. Handling the spirits is just an added layer of insurance...
“You did very well, Senior Nephthys. All that’s left now is to return the spirit fragments. I’ll thank Shaman Uta personally afterward, even if he didn’t end up helping directly.”
“Understood. It won’t be long before I return to Glamorne myself…”
After ending her communication with Dorothy, Nephthys let out a soft breath and began guiding the spirits she had stationed throughout the train to start post-operation cleanup.
…
Meanwhile, far away in Glamorne, Dorothy sat in the hotel suite’s chair, finally breathing a sigh of relief after receiving Nephthys’s report.
“Nephthys’s operation is now completely finished. The Church’s real advance team has been imprisoned, while the fake team was successfully ‘replaced’ by the Eight-Spired Nest. From their perspective, everything must appear to be unfolding exactly according to their plan…”
Dorothy reflected inwardly. She had earlier sent Nephthys back to Tivian to assist Gregor and Adèle in ambushing and capturing the Church’s true advance team.
Then, using her Corpse Marionette Ring and the Corpse Brooch obtained from the werewolf Alex, Dorothy had Nephthys animate four corpse marionettes. Adding one more controlled directly via Nephthys’s own spirit possession, a total of five were raised—each equipped with gear looted from the real advance team and disguised to match them, departing from the Tivian train station.
During this process, Dorothy not only controlled Nephthys’s now soul-vacant body but also provided her with massive external computational power via the information channel, outsourcing the heavy cognitive load of managing five bodies simultaneously. With Dorothy’s auxiliary calculations, Nephthys was able to control all five marionettes flawlessly—they moved and behaved no differently from living humans.
These corpse marionettes had been prepared specifically as decoys for the Eight-Spired Nest’s assassins. To make the deception more convincing, Dorothy had even asked Uta to summon several cooperative and obedient spirit fragments from the New Continent and embed them in the marionettes—just in case the Nest tried soul detection and restraint. While these spirit fragments resembled ghosts, they were different enough that traditional soul-binding methods for undead wouldn’t fully apply unless modified. This meant Uta could easily summon them back if needed. In the end, though, none of these countermeasures were triggered—after all, the Eight-Spired Nest wasn’t a Silence-affiliated group.
Such measures were sufficient to fool any Eight-Spired Nest Beyonder below White Ash-rank, but would never work against Crimson-rank members. However, the two Crimson-rank individuals within the Nest were under constant surveillance due to their responsibilities in monitoring the Mirror Moon Cathedral. They couldn’t move freely. As far as they knew, Pritt’s Church’s upper ranks were secretly plotting around the cathedral. The Crimsons wouldn’t easily leave Glamorne, so the replacement operation targeting the advance team had to be left to their subordinates. This indeed was the case—if either of them had left Glamorne, Dorothy would’ve risked all her resources to forcibly perform the ritual.
“Releasing the real advance party will have to wait for the right moment. For now, with the fake advance team having been replaced by an even faker one... let’s see how you perform from here on.”
Staring out at the moonlit night beyond the window, Dorothy quietly contemplated. All she had to do now was wait.
…
Time passed swiftly. Soon, the “advance team” from the Tivian Church arrived at Glamorne. At the Glamorne train station, when the five figures dressed in clerical and nun robes stepped off the train, they were greeted by the local Church—and of course, Vania, as the head of the pilgrimage delegation, was also present.
After the formal reception, the groups shared a modest meal and exchanged briefings. The Glamorne Church recommended that the advance team take some rest before surveying the temple, but the “advance team” expressed willingness to perform a quick preliminary inspection.
Ultimately, under Vania’s guidance, the “advance team” crossed the wide waters of Lake Starweave by small boat and arrived at the cathedral situated at its center. In this uniquely styled chapel, the “advance team” began their investigation.
In the eyes of Vania and her escort team, the five members of the “advance team” fanned out across various sections of the cathedral, carefully observing its many details. After a thorough check, a short-haired brown-haired nun approached Vania and said:
“Sister Vania, we now have a preliminary understanding of this cathedral’s overall structure.”
“Er… You’re Sister Gray, right? If I may ask, what have you managed to decipher so far?”
Vania inquired after recalling the nun’s self-introduction from earlier. The so-called “Sister Gray” responded immediately.
“This cathedral once belonged to a foreign deity. It is associated with a now-extinct moon-and-lake faith that was once practiced across the lands of Pritt. The Church here sanctified most of the remnants centuries ago. I didn’t expect such a large structure would still remain.”
“A foreign deity faith… To think, a cathedral so similar in design to those of the Orthodox Church is actually heretical… I had assumed it was from some fringe sect.”
Hearing the explanation, Vania responded in contemplation. At that moment, “Sister Gray” continued.
“Though the cathedral is quite large, there doesn’t appear to be anything particularly vital inside. Sister Vania, there’s no need for you to waste too much time here. You might consider leaving the site to us now and continuing your pilgrimage. We’ll remain here to conduct a detailed investigation while we await Tivian’s reinforcements.”
“Sister Gray” said this, but Vania immediately replied.
“Leave the chapel to you now...? No, no, Sister Gray—you’re only five people in total. Isn’t that far too few to guard such a large church? I think it would be best if we help maintain order for a while longer, at least until Tivian’s main forces arrive. We’re not in such a rush—safety must come first. Once reinforcements are here, we’ll resume the pilgrimage.
“After all, ensuring that the sanctification ritual proceeds safely, and returning this grand hall to the Lord’s radiance, is the most important task right now. A pilgrimage can certainly wait a little.”
Vania stated this with natural conviction. “Sister Gray” paused, caught off guard, unsure how to respond for a moment. Eventually, she replied slowly.
“Well... thank you very much for your kindness, Sister Vania…”
As she spoke, her eyes flicked slightly, as if she had just thought of something, and she added.
“By the way, Sister Vania—earlier, you mentioned you had some interest in the sanctification ritual, didn’t you…”