So long as a single person held a Small Doll, everyone accompanying them could enter Irithyll.
Fair enough — there was a limit to how many people could occupy the dungeon at once. Unlike the Academy of Raya Lucaria, though, there was no need to restrict how many people a single Academy Key could unlock for.
Before entering Sein Dungeon this time, the Light Eagle Corps had prepared two Small Dolls per group — the captains' way of signaling to Eliphis that every necessary preparation had been made.
"Let's move out."
Eliphis wore his familiar White Eagle armor, mounted atop a white horse fitted out in matching plating. Flanked by his subordinates, he cut a figure heroic enough to send every young woman in the kingdom into cheers.
Princess Serina watched the mercenaries prepare to depart from a distance, then glanced sideways at the maids beside her — every one of them wearing openly lovestruck expressions.
She couldn't help but feel genuinely worried about this country's future.
To keep up the appearance of having already fallen under Eliphis's control, she had to periodically play the part of a lovestruck girl and pay a "visit" to the Light Eagle Corps' encampment.
I must be a once-in-a-century acting talent. Nobody's seen through me yet.
Fortunately, Eliphis seemed entirely disinterested in romance. The most intimate gesture between them ever amounted to linking arms in public for appearances.
Having someone whose entire mind stayed locked on career ambition was, honestly, something of a blessing.
But what would happen once he actually seized control of the kingdom?
Though Serina had originally been dragged into this role against her will, the passing days had left her with a small, growing sense of responsibility toward this "future kingdom" of hers.
But standing before an Eliphis she had no real way of resisting, that sense of responsibility only piled on more pressure and misery.
At this point, she genuinely half-wished she were some carefree idiot without a single thought in her head.
As for asking anyone for help —
She didn't even know who around her hadn't already fallen under Eliphis's control. Every word, every action in her daily life had to be weighed in advance.
She was practically being driven insane by it.
Who could she possibly turn to?
Should she form some secret alliance with the King of the neighboring Warrior Nation and ask him to invade her own country?
"Why can't Lord Ornstein just descend from the heavens and skewer Eliphis on the spot? Come on, Sein Dungeon — throw a little more trouble his way."
Serina suddenly thought of the Smough's Great Hammer sitting in her room.
If she could ever actually lift the thing, she was absolutely using it to flatten that brainwashing eagle's smug little face.
Unfortunately, that stayed pure fantasy.
For now, she had to keep smiling brightly, waving him off with:
"Lord Eliphis — safe travels! May fortune favor your expedition!"
Eliphis departed alongside his carefully selected eighteen mercenaries and a single route-familiar guide. He'd also arranged for ten additional mercenaries to wait in Bedford City at a set time, entering the dungeon simultaneously.
If everything lined up, they might cross paths inside and combine into the full thirty-person exploration cap the dungeon allowed.
Everyone in this expedition, save Elsa and Sali, held the ability to use the Demonfall Egg.
That said, Eliphis had no intention of letting anyone actually transform into a beast inside Sein.
From the moment they'd gained access to the Demonfall Egg, their baseline human forms had already been reinforced well past that of ordinary mercenaries. Post-transformation, their raw strength generally climbed several times higher.
But against Sein's bosses — was multiplying a bunch of low-tier mobs actually going to matter?
A weakling with a combat power of five wasn't defeating Frieza at five hundred thousand, tenfold multiplier or not.
Eliphis had brought this squad mainly to see whether their presence might trigger a wider range of boss abilities.
The people genuinely capable of making a real difference here were, most likely, the captains flanking him.
"Why's the area around the teleportation gate this lively today?"
The Assault Captain raised his telescope to check.
A crowd had gathered near the gate, cheering enthusiastically while beating someone half to death.
"That's it! Hit him again! Beat him to death!"
"Don't actually kill him! Beat him half to death and throw him into the dungeon — that way he'll just revive!"
"I'm going in too! The moment he revives, I'm going in for another round!"
A wall of bloodthirsty commentary drifted over to the mercenaries.
They stared, genuinely stunned.
Normally, people only said things like that after getting fully swept up in the heat of battle.
Yet these adventurers were casually shouting it like it was nothing unusual at all.
Sali watched for a moment before offering the explanation.
"The man being beaten's apparently a notorious invader. Word is he deliberately dragged genuinely disabled people into the dungeon as fake teammates, exploiting the invasion system's strength-matching mechanic to invade people considerably weaker than himself. Supposedly he especially enjoyed humiliating victims after killing them — repeatedly crouching over someone on the verge of death, that kind of thing."
"That's genuinely despicable," the Assault Captain sighed.
"Recently, whoever's carrying the Blade of the Darkmoon that invaded him figured out his real identity. He's getting hunted down and beaten daily now."
Elsa nodded.
"Serves him right."
Over the past several days, the Blade of the Darkmoon's influence had continued climbing. Simply having a mechanism to hunt down obnoxious invaders had drawn a flood of adventurers toward the covenant — plenty willing to pay whatever it took just to get escorted into Irithyll and join up.
Its popularity by now rivaled the moment ordinary citizens had once thrown enormous sums at adventurers to unlock the shortcut between Firelink Shrine and the Catacombs, opening rapid travel between Bedford City and the Royal Capital.
That earlier development had created the genuinely remarkable lifestyle of earning wages in the capital by day and spending them in Bedford City by night.
The Blade of the Darkmoon covenant also carried a quieter secondary benefit: prioritizing invasions against anyone who had themselves invaded you. That made revenge a considerably more accessible prospect for ordinary adventurers.
Whenever a successful revenge play landed, the victor would ring the bell three times and shout praise for Sein Dungeon.
An eye for an eye. A grievance for a grievance.
Genuinely effective, apparently, at relieving people's accumulated psychological stress.
Watching the delighted expressions of the adventurers who'd just settled a score, though, Eliphis frowned.
"Go tell them to clear the road."
If Eliphis genuinely sought revenge against every wrong he'd committed, his enemies could probably form a line stretching from the depths of Hell all the way to Heaven's gate.
Fortunately, everyone who knew they had reason to hate him had already died and gone straight there.
As for those who didn't know they should —
Every one of them stood right here, working diligently on his behalf.
The Light Eagle Corps mercenaries surrounding him moved to carry out the order.
Getting a crowd this thoroughly worked up to obediently part ways, though?
That might prove a little difficult.
Then, quite suddenly, the adventurers fell silent entirely on their own — the crowd blocking the teleportation gate shifting aside without prompting.
Because they'd noticed Eliphis?
No.
Someone else entirely.
"Eliphis. Entering the dungeon today too?"
An old but distinctly energetic voice carried from the gate.
As the crowd parted, a plump figure emerged.
Eliphis knew this man extremely well.
Oro — the minister who'd risen to the very top of the kingdom's power structure once the King fell ill.
Anyone else would instinctively step back at the sight of Oro's substantial frame and the imposing authority he'd accumulated through years of wielding political power.
Eliphis wouldn't.
He knew perfectly well that this embodiment of the kingdom's authority had, quietly, already become a prisoner of his own particular talent.
With an ability this useful — how could he possibly resist using it on Oro?
"Minister, lost your appetite today? I don't see any food on you."
Eliphis smiled.
Minister Oro had a well-known habit of eating constantly, regardless of time or place. He'd once exercised some restraint about it — but ever since falling under Eliphis's influence, that restraint had entirely evaporated.
"Getting old. Keep eating like this, and my body might not hold up much longer."
He glanced toward the knights surrounding him.
"Besides — these hands belong to the kingdom's elite knights. Meant for holding swords."
Several royal knights stood flanking him. One glance confirmed it — genuine elites, comfortably comparable to the Light Eagle Corps' own captains.
Only then did Eliphis remember to actually ask why the minister was heading into the dungeon.
Oro laughed heartily, looking genuinely refreshed and full of energy.
"Sein Dungeon truly is a remarkable place. So many things inside I've never experienced anywhere else."
"For instance... the Secret Rite of Kindling."
He clapped Eliphis on the shoulder, corners of his mouth curling upward.
"Haven't felt this refreshed in a very long time. Lord Eliphis — I'd genuinely recommend giving it a try yourself."
With that, Minister Oro waved a hand, offered a casual "Good luck with today's expedition," and departed with his knights in tow.
Eliphis watched him go for a moment.
His expression didn't shift.
Not long after.
Sein Dungeon — Irithyll of the Boreal Valley.
The Light Eagle Corps successfully rendezvoused with the remaining ten mercenaries. The moment they entered Irithyll, they made straight for the shortcut the boy had described to them, killing monsters only when absolutely necessary — refusing to waste energy anywhere else.
The shortcut cut through the "forest" of gravestones Pontiff Sulyvahn had erected for his Outrider Knights. Beyond the transparent figures drifting endlessly through the streets, monsters could randomly emerge from beneath the stones themselves — type and number scaling with the strength of whoever approached.
The Light Eagle Corps ran into three Outrider Knights.
Counting the boy's brother from before, that made four total across this relatively small stretch of ground.
For ordinary adventurers, that would have been genuine hell. But after losing two elite mercenaries, the Light Eagle Corps made it through with a casualty rate that still fell within acceptable bounds.
Just as the boy — doomed no matter what — had told them, an opened grave sat at the deepest point of the cemetery. Drop down into it, and a tunnel came into view below.
They crawled through the dark passage — the kind of environment that screamed ambush and turned out to be entirely safe — and finally emerged into the square enclosed by iron gates.
Their first move was breaking through the surrounding Pontiff Knights, whose numbers and quality had clearly scaled up further than before. Then they pried open the gate facing the city's main avenue.
With that, the shortcut was unlocked for good. Even dying later wouldn't force them to retrace the full route.
The second thing they noticed was the corpse resting behind the gate — laid across a massive altar, golden motes of light flickering faintly around it.
Eliphis registered something off immediately.
The golden light had turned purple.
That displeased him. He picked it up and studied it.
[Ring of the Sun's Firstborn]
A ring said to carry the inherited radiance of Gwyn, First Lord of Cinder, passed through his Firstborn. This particular version is a replica, crafted by later generations.
Increases the potency of miracles.
The Sun's Firstborn once served as the God of War, before being cast out of the divine ranks for his own foolishness. His very name has since faded entirely from history.
The Ring of the Sun's Firstborn was a fixed spawn — always present here, obtainable exactly once per person. Whoever had already claimed one would never see it appear for them again, though a party member who hadn't yet obtained it would still find it waiting.
According to prior reports, the ring surfaced in two variants: purple and gold. Both replicas, crafted by later hands. The distinction lay in the gold version's markedly stronger boost to miracle power.
Eliphis had always considered himself fortunate.
He hadn't expected that, of all outcomes, his own first pull would land purple.
Naturally, he wasn't about to waste the drop regardless. He ordered a subordinate to collect it. Whatever foolishness the former God of War had once committed meant nothing to him — all that mattered was whether the reward itself was worth having.
The paths flanking the altar climbed upward into a wide, open plaza. Beyond it stood their true destination — Irithyll's most magnificent cathedral.
Almost certainly, the boss's territory.
And yet, so far, nobody had actually laid eyes on Irithyll's boss.
Because —
"Haa!"
A large formation of Pontiff Knights stood arrayed across the plaza in tight order. Behind them, several Fire Witches. And behind those, a single Pontiff Knight wielding a scythe.
His presence radiated considerably more strength than the rest — one look was enough to know he wasn't someone to take lightly.
Perhaps this whole formation could reasonably be called Sulyvahn's army.
This, likely, was the reason nobody had glimpsed the cathedral's true guardian yet.
Beyond that, of course, frontline explorers like Fingri, Leon, and Luluwo had all been pulled away by their own separate distractions lately. Leon and Fingri had poured everything into the rescue attempt for the boy since discovering the shortcut, neither of them touching Irithyll again since.
As for Luluwo —
She'd holed herself up in Liurnia of the Lakes, too rattled to venture out for the time being.
Which meant the Light Eagle Corps was, genuinely, the strongest force to have confronted this Pontiff Knight formation to date.
Every scrap of stamina they'd carefully banked beforehand had been saved precisely for this moment.
Eliphis produced the artifact he'd wielded against High Lord Wolnir —
[Ring of Harvest]
With its amplification behind him, he unleashed that pseudo-Legendary spell once more.
A sphere of pure light descended over the Pontiff Knight formation like a miniature sun.
Then —
BOOM!
Endless radiance erupted outward.
In the same instant, the Light Eagle Corps' mercenaries surged forward. The Knights, thrown briefly into confusion by the blast, recovered fast and charged back in.
Both sides collapsed into a chaotic melee — something close to a miniature war.
The raw ferocity of the battlefield carried Eliphis's thoughts backward, briefly, to the beginning.
He, too, had once built his organization from a tiny founding group barely a few dozen strong. Each captain now standing beside him could reasonably fight several opponents at once — and against an enemy formation already softened by his pseudo-Legendary strike, they held a clear, overwhelming edge.
Then Eliphis registered something.
The scythe-wielding Pontiff Knight, stationed toward the rear alongside him, kept summoning fresh reinforcements without pause.
In other words —
That one was the key to this entire encounter.
Eliphis triggered the Ring of Harvest a second time. Holding nothing back, he blasted the scythe-wielder into oblivion.
Wasting time letting power accumulate here would be the single greatest mistake he could make. When an enemy demanded removal, the correct move was always to crush them at the outset — no hesitation.
Once the last enemy dissolved into ash, countless glowing motes scattered across the plaza. Just looking at them stirred something close to the satisfaction of a bountiful harvest.
Eliphis, though, simply sent the guide off to clean up the aftermath.
The cathedral ahead was the genuine main event. He had no intention of losing focus over minor spoils.
"Step... step..."
At some point, the howling of the snowy wind had faded to something barely audible.
The group advanced along the road toward the cathedral, footsteps ringing out with unusual clarity. The closer they came, the more its towering architecture pressed home how genuinely small they were by comparison — the sense of standing, insignificant, before something vast.
Insects before a god.
Eliphis pushed the feeling down.
A few steps out from the cathedral, a hymn-like chant suddenly rose from somewhere unseen, weaving together with the faint hiss of falling snow and wind.
Something about the melody carried a sorrowful, icy quality — a near-perfect match for the impression Irithyll left on every visitor.
Rumble.
The cathedral's massive doors swung open on their own, as though welcoming the group's arrival.
Or, perhaps more accurately, as though some vast beast were slowly opening the abyssal maw of its mouth.
Even from outside, the interior's magnificence and solemnity were unmistakable — luxury and grandeur folded seamlessly into something holy and grave. This, in full, was the essence of Irithyll.
But where were the defenders?
Why wasn't a single enemy visible?
Understanding settled across Eliphis's expression.
He stepped inside.
The familiar routine.
The cutscene was about to begin.