Cromancia was itching to curse.

Lately, for some reason, she kept running into monsters that defied all common sense. Once or twice might be tolerable, but if it keeps happening, it’s just too unlucky.

To introduce, Miss Cromancia is one of the high-ranking leaders of the underground organization known as the “Eternal Throne,” holding the position of the Ninth Throne. She is also nicknamed 【The Thousand-Faced Phantom】.

As her name suggests, Cromancia’s specialty is using transformation and imitation to assume the identities of others, achieving the goals of gathering intelligence or assassinating key figures.

Cromancia’s skill in disguise, or rather transformation, is an ancient art that has long been lost to history. In her early years, she sought a secret method to preserve her youth but instead accidentally acquired this ability through a twist of fate.

The reason she can imitate so perfectly, to the point where even close acquaintances find it difficult to detect the difference, is due to the powerful efficacy of this ancient transformation technique.

Cromancia’s transformation art allows her to read a significant portion of her target’s memories and daily habits. She can even mimic most of their not-too-complex abilities, achieving a terrifying effect where she performs almost identically to the original and can perfectly replace them in daily life.

However, this ancient technique also has a flaw: it is relatively cumbersome to perform. The practitioner must have close contact with the person being imitated for a period of time, and during the period when the imitation is active, the original must not die. Otherwise, the spell will be automatically nullified.

Of course, these drawbacks are known only to Cromancia herself. After all, the 【Eternal Throne】 is not a righteous organization, and even among the Thrones, it is quite normal for them to undermine and compete with each other for various interests.

Cromancia’s rank within the 【Thrones】 is not very high, and her combat abilities are relatively average. If the weaknesses and secrets of her abilities are exposed, her position could become precariously unstable.

Returning to the earlier discussion:

Over a year ago, the Eternal Throne suffered a major defeat during the coup in the Human United Kingdom. Not only did their long-time ally, Prince Ben Melchior, fall to an unknown attacker, but several high-level combatants, including the Second Throne, “The Twin Dragon Princess Alexia,” also fell or went missing in a series of operations.

The new Queen, Lilya Melchior, retaliated by launching a full-scale purge of the Eternal Throne’s strongholds within the kingdom, resulting in severe losses.

Given the support they had provided to Prince Ben Melchior, including several assassination attempts directly targeting Queen Lilya herself, it was clear that the new queen was determined to eradicate the Eternal Throne’s influence from the country.

With the confirmed betrayal of the Seventh Throne, “The Hidden Thief” Prakaka, who provided intelligence to the new regime, it was impossible for the organization to maintain a foothold in that area in the short term.

Despite the Eternal Throne’s deep roots, it is ultimately a secret society with a total membership of only around ten thousand.

Rather than futilely clashing with a superpower like the Human United Kingdom, which ranks among the top five globally, it is more practical to temporarily avoid direct confrontation and minimize losses.

So, after narrowly escaping from the capital Courage City following their defeat, Miss Cromancia returned to the Bright Light City in the Western Holy Empire as per the subsequent instructions.

Many of the organization’s forces had withdrawn from the Human United Kingdom and were consolidating in the Beastman Kingdom to the west and the Holy Empire to the east.

The religious faith in the Holy Empire is deeply rooted, and the Church itself is a significant ruling class, making it more difficult to infiltrate than the former Human United Kingdom.

Even an organization as far-reaching as the Eternal Throne has only established two large strongholds within the Holy Empire over several hundred years, each overseen by a 【Throne】.

In the Western Holy Empire, Cromancia happened to be responsible for the region.

After returning to the Western Holy Empire, due to the organization’s temporary strategy of “lying low and recuperating,” Cromancia enjoyed a rare period of relaxation in this city for over a year. Although she is also an undead, her shape-shifting abilities make her one of the easiest members of the Throne to blend into the crowd.

Except for those with exceptionally acute senses, even a transcendent being would have difficulty detecting her undead presence unless they were specifically aware and observing in advance.

In Bright Light City, Cromancia’s surface identity is that of a high-ranking nun from the Eastern Star Bear Temple. Of course, she did not attain this position through legitimate means but rather through the use of her shape-shifting abilities. The original nun had long been captured and imprisoned in the underground dungeon of the stronghold.

Most of the time, Miss Cromancia lives the daily life that would belong to this young nun. In fact, her family members have been living with her for over a year without realizing that their loved one had been replaced.

It might sound unbelievable, but such situations are nothing new for the “Thousand-Faced Phantom.”

However, this peaceful life was recently disrupted.

Half a month ago, the leader of the Eternal Throne, who is also the First Throne, 【Eternal Mage】 Timos Young, personally visited Bright Light City in the Western Holy Empire.

He handed a very peculiar black-and-white mask to Cromancia and instructed her to select a suitable candidate from the “materials” in their stronghold to wear this mask.

Although Cromancia was puzzled by such a strange request, she dared not defy or delay the order, given that the 【Eternal Mage】 was the strongest and the true leader of the organization. Thus, under his supervision, she promptly took action.

The chosen individual was Chloe Lowry, a girl with a quarter of Lightborn Tribe bloodline in her veins. Although this test subject had experienced some issues with her mental state and physiological structure due to a certain individual named Leopold, resulting in her becoming unable to grow and remaining in a semi-vegetative state for most of the time.

Her Lightborn Tribe bloodline was genuine. Therefore, her physical attributes were exceptional compared to ordinary people. Since Cromancia was also tired of taking care of this motionless girl day and night, it was natural to push her forward as the test subject.

Thus, Cromancia witnessed a scene so deeply terrifying that she has found it unforgettable to this day.

The girl, who should have been in deep sleep, twitched as if driven by necromantic magic, rising once more like a zombie. The expression on the black-and-white mask, now seemingly awakened, exuded unimaginable, terrifying malevolence that even this legendary powerhouse, Cromancia, found chilling.

It was smiling, rejoicing at finding a new host, celebrating… its return to this world.

Afterward, the mask that began operating Chloe’s body had a private conversation with the 【Eternal Mage】. Cromancia was excluded from this discussion, so she was unaware of its details.

After briefly outlining a few matters, Timos Young quickly left Bright Light City. However, the strange mask was left behind.

It began to spread and create more sub-units, transforming many useless test subjects in the stronghold into things similar but different, all controlled by the eerie mask.

The most frightening aspect was that this thing could even transform undead beings. The wild malice and bizarre nature of it made even the self-proclaimed villain Cromancia feel disgusted, repulsed, and deeply terrified.

Although Cromancia had encountered numerous strange, bizarre, and even inhumane things during her time with the Eternal Throne, developing considerable psychological resilience, watching the mask creatures increase daily in the stronghold and roam like phantoms, even with the 【Eternal Mage】 assuring her before his departure that they wouldn’t attack their own, Cromancia couldn’t help but feel growing anxiety.

Before long, the number of mask creatures in the stronghold reached saturation. So… they began to spread outward.