Chapter 1237: Lost Within

Direct contact with the shadow dust.

Amber wasn’t acting on a whim. Despite her usual mischievous and lively nature, she was also incredibly cautious—her survival instinct was finely tuned to avoid unnecessary risks. She valued her life too much to recklessly touch some unknown substance without solid reason.

Others had already come into contact with this shadow dust. Modir himself, who first brought it out, as well as Victoria and Maggie, who later collected and transported samples, had all handled the sand. None of them showed any adverse effects afterward. It seemed that although this dust might be connected to a deity, it wasn’t like other divine relics that posed a direct threat to ordinary people. Touching it was probably harmless.

These thoughts raced through Amber’s mind as her fingers brushed against the pale gray grains—so tiny that she barely felt them on her skin.

She blinked, staring at her fingertip where a single speck of sand clung, its misty gray edges shimmering faintly, as if alive.

“Huh, no reaction at all…” she muttered to herself, flicking the grain off casually and leaning back—only to find the expected support of the chair’s backrest was gone. Instead, she suddenly lost her balance, her whole body tipping backward as the chair beneath her vanished. The world around her blurred and shook violently, all happening so fast she didn’t even have time to scream before she crashed hard onto a bed of sand.

“Ow…” Amber’s startled cry finally escaped, echoing across the vast, empty desert.

A dry breeze swept in from afar. Beneath her, the gritty texture of sand pressed against her skin. She widened her eyes, taking in the endless expanse of gray-white desert stretching out in every direction. The sky above was pale and washed out, and everything she saw was cast in shades of black, white, and gray—an all-too-familiar scene.

“Uh…” Amber pushed herself up from the ground, sand grains falling from her clothes. She froze for a moment, then muttered guiltily, “Maybe today’s just not a good day to tempt fate…”

Though she said it half-jokingly, the tension on her face eased slightly. She realized the familiar sensation of control—the ability to manipulate herself and her surroundings within the Shadow Realm—was still intact. Her connection to the real world hadn’t been severed; she could return anytime. And, perhaps it was just her imagination, but she felt her perception and command over shadow powers were even stronger than usual.

Plus, this was the Shadow Realm she knew best. The combination of her stable state and the familiar environment helped her calm down quickly.

Still, calm or not, her inner vigilance remained sharp. She remembered the intelligence Maggie had brought—the description of this gray-white desert. This place was very likely the Shadow Goddess’s divine domain, or at least a similar kind of otherworldly space. For mortals, such places were inherently dangerous.

That danger stemmed from divine nature itself, regardless of whether she was a “Shadow Chosen” or not.

Amber took a deep breath, her conviction in her identity as the Shadow Chosen unwavering. She began scanning the vast desert, searching for the landmarks Maggie had mentioned—the colossal throne like a mountain, or the distant black silhouette of ruined cityscapes.

But all she saw was endless gray-white sand and some jagged, strange black stones scattered across the desert floor. Nothing else.

“Strange…” Amber whispered, “Maggie said there was a throne or altar as big as a mountain here…”

No sooner had she spoken than a sudden gust of wind roared up from nowhere, sweeping across her like a furious storm. A towering wall of gray-white sand surged forward like a mountain rising into the sky, thunderously rolling toward her. The terrifying sight made Amber leap backward several meters with a startled “Whoa!” Realizing she couldn’t outrun the sandstorm, she quickly dove into a shallow pit, curling up and clutching her head tightly—ready to bolt back to the real world if the storm overwhelmed her.

Yet no sand fell on her. The thunderous roar came and went in moments, and soon the oppressive pressure of the storm vanished. Still crouched, she waited several seconds before cautiously standing and turning her head.

Before her stood a massive throne. Its base resembled a crumbling, ancient altar, surrounded by toppled and broken stone pillars—each one grander than any tower she’d ever seen. Nearby lay shattered stone slabs and scattered, ruined artifacts, all enormous and exquisitely crafted, remnants of a forgotten era laid out in fragmented ruins.

Amber’s eyes widened as she took it all in, momentarily forgetting to breathe. After a long pause, a vague realization dawned on her: the throne’s sudden appearance was likely connected to her earlier “thoughts.”

“So…” she murmured, turning slowly to face the throne’s opposite side. Years ago, she had been a clueless little thief, but now, after tirelessly absorbing knowledge and handling intelligence from the Divine Council, she had a solid grasp of occult lore. Faced with this strange situation, she quickly formed a preliminary theory. “These things were always here, but invisible to me until I became aware of them? Or maybe…”

Her gaze drifted toward the endless desert beyond. She recalled Maggie’s description: across the sands lay a black silhouette, like the ruins of a city, and the Lady of Night sat eternally watching over those ruins from the crumbling throne.

The distant desert seemed to shift. A hazy dust cloud rose from the horizon, and within it, black shapes began to take form. But just as the shadows were about to solidify, Amber snapped back to reality, struggling to suppress her thoughts about the “city silhouette”—because she suddenly remembered that not only was there a ruined city, but also a terrifying, grotesquely twisted monster lurking there!

“Stop, stop, can’t think about this anymore… Who knows what’ll show up if I keep going…” Amber broke out in a cold sweat. Her knowledge of divine corruption screamed warnings in her mind. The harder she tried to control her thoughts, the more images of the “city silhouette” and the “twisted mass of flesh” flooded in. In desperation, she bit her tongue hard, and suddenly a flash of inspiration struck her—

“Let the function y = f(x) be defined on some interval…”

Amber frantically recalled the opening lines of that “Ultimate Horror: Dark Nightmares, the World’s Darkness, Eternal Defilement, and Shocking Terrors” book she’d seen in Gawain’s study. But as soon as she summoned the memory, her mind went blank—forget the city ruins and the indescribable flesh monstrosity, she nearly forgot her own name.

“Phew… that was close… thank goodness that worked.”

The half-elf patted her chest, still shaken, and glanced toward the horizon. The shadow that had just emerged at the edge of the dust had indeed receded back into invisibility, confirming her earlier suspicion: in this bizarre Shadow Realm space, the state of certain things depends on the observer’s own “awareness.” As a “special observer” with deep ties to the Shadow Realm, she could control, to some extent, what she was able to “see.”

For some divine-related entities, as long as they remained unseen, untouched, and unheard—never entering the observer’s cognition—they would have no effect or contact.

“Incredible… is this the Shadow Goddess’s authority? Or do all divine realms have this property?”

Amber muttered quietly. She usually didn’t talk to herself, but in this eerily silent desert, she had no choice but to calm her nerves through self-talk. Then she withdrew her gaze from the distance, forcing herself to look back at the massive throne to avoid dwelling on forbidden thoughts.

On the throne, she saw no towering figure like the mountain-sized silhouette Maggie had described.

“This must be the place Modir saw in his ‘dream’…” Amber murmured doubtfully. “According to Maggie, the Shadow Goddess sits on this throne… so where is she now?”

Standing beneath the throne, she strained her neck to look up. The mottled, ancient stones and altar reflected in her amber eyes. She stared blankly for a long moment before whispering, “Shadow Goddess… is this really her divine domain?”

She glanced at a broken monolith nearby, a massive stone that had fallen from one of the pillars and now jutted from the sand. Its surface bore thick, intricate carvings. It had stood here for who knows how many years—time seemed meaningless in this place. Thoughtfully, Amber reached out and touched the pale stone, feeling its coldness—and a profound emptiness.

She was the Shadow Chosen.

She had heard the Shadow Goddess’s voice more than once.

That voice was warm and bright, without a trace of darkness or cold. It told her many happy things and patiently listened to her complaints and troubles. Though the voice had grown rarer over the past two years, Amber was certain the “Shadow Goddess” she knew felt nothing like this desolate, barren desert.

The aura lingering here… was not that of the Shadow Goddess she was familiar with.

Yet this desert still felt deeply familiar—more than familiar, almost comforting.

Amber took a slow breath and turned toward the throne. She climbed over the huge stones surrounding the crumbling altar at its base, stepping across vast chasms between the blocks. The throne was so immense that even though she had stood near its base before, reaching the foot of the throne itself required a long, arduous climb.

She didn’t even know what she wanted. Maybe she just wanted to see what lay in the direction of that throne, or perhaps she was curious if the view from the throne was somehow different. She thought to herself how incredibly reckless she was—after all, the throne’s owner wasn’t here now, but who knew when they might suddenly appear? And yet, she still dared to do something like this.

But despite everything, she pressed on, climbing steadily toward the throne, as if something there was calling out to her.

Just as she finally reached the base of the throne and began to scale its surface, which was covered in ancient, mysterious engravings, a voice suddenly came from nearby, startling her so much she nearly tumbled backward in a panic—

“Little girl, what are you doing?”

Amber jumped in fright, her grip slipping so she landed hard on her backside. The next moment, like a startled rabbit, she sprang up and darted behind the nearest boulder. Instinctively, she tried to slip into the shadows, to vanish into the Shadow Realm, but then she remembered—she was already in some kind of shadowy, otherworldly space. The shadows around her flickered once, then silently dissolved into the air.

Her heart pounded wildly as she cautiously peeked out, listening for any sign of movement. After a moment, the voice came again, gentle and calm: “Little girl, did I scare you?”

It was an old voice, warm and kind, without a hint of hostility. Though she hadn’t seen the speaker, Amber immediately pictured a kindly old man standing at a distance. She quickly recalled the information Maggie had given her and matched the voice to the one Modril Wilde had heard in his “dream.”

The Shadow Goddess wasn’t on the throne—but that voice, identical to Modril’s, was here?

Amber steadied herself, convinced the stranger meant no harm, and finally dared to peek out and look for the source of the voice.

“Little girl, I’m right here. See? There’s a pillar…”

The voice spoke again, and Amber finally spotted its owner. Gathering her courage, she moved toward the figure, who greeted her with a smile.

“Ah, I never expected to see a visitor here—especially one who seems sane. I’ve heard that very few intelligent beings have accidentally wandered into this place, but since I arrived, I haven’t seen any… What’s your name?”

“Amber,” she answered casually, her eyes fixed on the top of a stone pillar barely over a meter tall. “And who are you?”

“You can call me Wilde,” the old, kindly voice chuckled softly. “Just an old man who’s not much use to anyone.”

Amber took a quiet breath, not daring to relax even a little. “Modril Wilde? Are you the great adventurer?”

“I don’t know who this Modril you speak of is. I’m just Wilde, and yes, I am an adventurer,” the man said cheerfully. “I never expected… do you know me?”

“I don’t know you personally, but I know of you,” Amber said cautiously, then pointed at him. “And I have a question—why are you… a book?”

(End of chapter)