Chapter 1492: “Faulty Replica”

Gawain could tell that Amber was even more surprised than he was when she saw the Shadow Scepter, but that didn’t stop him from teasing the shadow assault goose casually. “Don’t you think it’s time to reflect on your habit of ‘finding’ things wherever you go? You actually managed to swipe Lady Night’s Shadow Scepter—no wonder she still has a throne to sit on. Lucky for her, that thing’s built into the altar, so you couldn’t just pry it off, right?”

“Uh, no, I really didn’t steal it!” Amber’s eyes widened in protest, feeling utterly wronged. “I told you, I just barely touched the scepter and got kicked off the throne by some error message. All that climbing for nothing! I have no idea how this thing ended up following me out… And look at it—it’s clearly not the original Shadow Scepter!”

“That’s true,” Gawain nodded knowingly. He was well aware Amber couldn’t have actually stolen the real scepter, but the short staff she ‘summoned’ still bore a clear connection to the Shadow Scepter. He recalled the voice she heard before being kicked off the throne, and the data recorded in the anchor generator at Sky Station. Slowly, a theory formed in his mind. “Maybe… this is a ‘faulty replica’ of the Shadow Scepter.”

“A faulty replica of the Shadow Scepter?” Amber blinked, immediately realizing the next issue of the Sacred Chronicles might have a new entry. Then she asked, “You mean I just touched the real scepter, and it automatically made a fake copy for me—and even kindly delivered it to the real world? But why emphasize that it’s a ‘faulty’ copy?”

“Obviously, if it wasn’t faulty, this thing would be at least as thick as a beam!” Gawain shot her a look. “And think about it—this probably isn’t the first ‘faulty replica’ you’ve gotten. Remember those ‘Shadow Dust’ and the ‘Shadow Rift’ you accidentally ended up with?”

Amber immediately caught on. One hand gripped the black-and-white short staff she’d just summoned, while the other waved casually through the air. In the next moment, wisps of grayish-white dust appeared out of nowhere, swirling gently beside her. A grayish-white light rift, like a tear in space-time, shimmered within the dust before settling neatly into her empty hand.

Gawain looked at Amber, who had just summoned the “three artifacts”: the shadow dust swirling around her, the ancient and mysterious black-and-white staff, and the space-ripping light rift. Honestly, any one of these would be a world-shaking concept on its own—enough to cause several world-class underground factions to wipe each other out in a more normal setting. But somehow, when all three were gathered on Amber, the whole scene just felt… off.

After some thought, he concluded it had to be the fault of the “fake” label. Otherwise, why call it a faulty replica? Amber’s entire set of ‘found’ gear was like a copper-plated iron version compared to Lady Night’s genuine article—utterly worthless, except for the fact that it didn’t sink when tossed into a pool. Especially when Amber used the shadow dust to blind opponents or the shadow rift as a makeshift slingshot to smash glass… If Lady Night knew, her blood pressure would probably skyrocket.

Gawain’s thoughts drifted uncontrollably, but Amber had no idea what he was pondering. She just stared thoughtfully at the pile of knockoff artifacts she’d summoned, then suddenly said, “Hey, doesn’t this short staff look about the same size as the baton I usually use?”

Gawain hadn’t even finished digesting his inner rant when she said that, and his bronchial tubes twitched involuntarily. He stared at Amber for a long moment before managing to say, “After all that thinking, that’s your conclusion? That Lady Night’s entire Shadow Scepter is just a fancy baton for hitting people?!”

“Practicality first—that’s what you always say!” Amber argued confidently. “And look how perfect this thing is—from size to balance to that hard lump on the end. Swing it around and it’s perfect for cracking skulls. Plus, I can hide it when I’m not using it and just summon it when I need a silent surprise attack. Isn’t that way better than a regular baton? And who knows what it’s made of—it looks way tougher than any steel on Earth. In a pinch, it could even work as a crowbar…”

She waved the shadow staff around seriously as she spoke. “I even suspect Lady Night usually just uses the scepter as a baton. After all, night and baton go perfectly together…”

Gawain suddenly realized he could never win an argument with Amber when it came to these absurd theories—probably because he still cared about his dignity.

But this wasn’t a serious topic, and he didn’t have time to argue with a shadow assault goose, so he waved it off. “Fine. Considering your combat skills, I can’t expect you to charge into battle wielding a free knockoff stick. Let’s not discuss what that staff can do for you… Tell me, do you feel anything special holding it? Or did any new information suddenly pop into your mind?”

He remembered how Amber had strange reactions when she first got the shadow dust and the light rift. The dust had connected her to the Shadow Divine Realm, and the rift had let her briefly sense Lady Night’s lingering ‘presence,’ even causing her to faint once. This black-and-white staff seemed to have an even higher ‘status’ than the dust or rift. What effect would it have on Amber?

But Amber just casually swung the staff around, looking anything but affected—in fact, she seemed downright smug.

Amber was snapped back to attention by Gawain’s question. She quickly glanced at the hand holding the staff, frowned, and concentrated for a long moment before shaking her head hesitantly. “I don’t feel anything special… That’s weird, because I remember reacting strongly to the other two things. And you saw it yourself—I was shocked when I ‘summoned’ this thing. I didn’t even realize I’d brought it out from ‘over there’…”

“No unusual feelings at all, and you didn’t even notice it before…” Gawain frowned deeply. “Don’t you think that’s strange?”

Amber thought carefully, then said uncertainly, “Maybe it’s because I’m really powerful? So I’ve gradually adapted… Isn’t it a good thing that I don’t have any weird reactions after touching Lady Night’s stuff?”

Her optimism was admirable, but Gawain’s frown only deepened. He was thinking in a very different direction—

If Amber’s earlier strange reactions to Lady Night’s artifacts were because she was mortal and contaminated by divine essence, then her lack of reaction now might mean the ‘distance’ between her and Lady Night had shrunk again—maybe even past some critical point. Like two substances that used to repel each other suddenly losing that property. Either their connection was completely severed, or… they were slowly merging.

He suddenly looked up at the Shadow Scepter in Amber’s hand and reached out. “Give it here.”

“What are you doing?” Amber was startled, her expression instantly tense. “I’m not petty, but this thing’s connected to Lady Night, and I haven’t even finished checking its status. If you mess with it carelessly, it could be dangerous…”

“Enough, give it here,” Gawain said, giving her a look. “Your knockoff junk can’t be dangerous. That pile of dust is still being studied in the Theocracy’s lab, and you know me—I’m immune to ‘divine contamination.’ I’ve even seen the real form of the Dragon Goddess Enya multiple times.”

“Well… okay,” Amber had no choice. Seeing Gawain’s firm attitude, she slowly handed over the scepter, reminding him, “Be careful with it. Don’t break it—I was planning to test if it’s good for cracking walnuts…”

Hearing that, Gawain’s mouth twitched involuntarily, but he didn’t hesitate to take the scepter from the hands of this walking embarrassment.

A faint warmth radiated from the staff’s surface. It was heavier than he expected, unlike the weightless light rift or the feather-light shadow dust. The material felt unlike any metal, wood, or crystal he knew. Holding it, all he sensed was… “This thing exists.”

A solid, undeniable presence seemed to deliberately assert itself, conveying that feeling to him. It caught his full attention.

But beyond that strange sensation, he felt nothing else from the scepter—no foreign knowledge or memories entered his mind.

“Do you feel anything?” Amber asked, staring intently at Gawain as he held her newly acquired “epic baton.” After a long moment of serious contemplation with his eyes closed, she finally couldn’t hold back. “Maybe…”

“Let me keep it for a few days,” Gawain interrupted firmly, not waiting for her to finish. “I want to study it carefully—assuming it can maintain its existence away from you, like the shadow dust.”

Amber opened her mouth, hesitating slightly at the request. To Gawain’s surprise, after just a few seconds, she nodded. “Okay, you can have it for now. Don’t worry, it won’t disappear immediately if it’s away from me. As long as I don’t actively ‘recall’ it, it’ll stay stable—I don’t know how I know that, I just do.”

Gawain nodded, then couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you agree so quickly? I thought with your personality, you’d refuse at least three or five times, and only give in when I was about to throw you against the wall…”

“I’m not stupid,” Amber rolled her eyes. “I’ve been by your side for years. I know when you’re serious, when you genuinely care about me, and when you’re just joking around. I can tell.”

She waved her hand dismissively as she spoke. “I know what you’re worried about. You’re afraid that my connection with Lady Night is growing too close, that I’m being slowly drawn in and consumed by that lost Shadow Divine Realm. You’re afraid I might end up like Wilde—a ‘Lost One’ trapped in the Shadow Divine Realm, unable to ever leave, or worse…”

She blinked, then let out a soft sigh. “The logs from the ‘Anchor Point Generator’ mention that after the star chart keeper falls into an abnormal state, there can be erroneous copies and overflow… When you learned that, you didn’t smile for an entire day.”

Gawain’s voice was low. “So you noticed it too.”

“Didn’t I just say? I’m not stupid. Besides, I’m the one in charge of intelligence—though I admit, when something happens to you personally, it takes a little longer to process,” Amber said with a smirk. “Right now, Lady Night is slowly waking from her slumber. And with her awakening, Prandel has vanished, Palansanto has disappeared, the entire Violet Kingdom is gone, and the ruined city at the border of the Shadow Divine Realm has been restored. In a way, the ‘errors’ caused by her sleep seem to be getting fixed one by one as she wakes up. So tell me… what do you think the next ‘error’ to be corrected will be?”

“…It’s all just speculation. There’s no proof to back this up.”

“Proof? How could there be? The Gondor mages who worked on the artificial human project are all dead. Heaven knows how they captured my soul back then,” Amber waved her hand again. “But even without solid proof, there are plenty of indirect clues. My shadow talents, my experiences traveling through the Shadow Divine Realm, my connections with the shadow dwellers, the cryptic things those shadow dwellers keep whispering to me… and these.”

She raised her hand, and shadowy dust swirled around her fingertips like ethereal smoke, like shards of light and shadow.

“These things you call ‘knockoffs’—like you said, they seem to be some kind of ‘erroneous copies’ originating from Lady Night. And if I’m the one who keeps bringing these ‘copies’ out of the Shadow Divine Realm, then I’m probably the very first and biggest ‘erroneous copy’ of all.”

Some things—Gawain had thought of them, Amber had thought of them too—but they had always been tacitly agreed upon: until things became clear, until they had a reliable solution or at least a lead, they wouldn’t say a word.

But now, Amber had broken that silence.

She suspected that she was the “erroneous copy” mentioned in the Anchor Point Generator’s logs, created after Lady Night fell into an abnormal state. That would explain all the strange phenomena surrounding her.

It also explained her innate shadow “talents.”

Gawain said nothing. He just stared into Amber’s eyes. After an unknown length of time, he finally broke the silence. “We’ve dealt with divine disasters before.”

“But this might not be a divine disaster,” Amber said casually. “Maybe it can’t be solved with force. Honestly, if Lady Night really was a hostile god who chose to descend and wage war, I wouldn’t doubt that you’d just rally a coalition of dozens of nations and charge in headfirst. You’ve taken down gods and demigods before, after all. But what if this is just a system error in the Voyager? You can’t exactly dismantle the Celestial Station, and even if you did, it might not fix anything…”

(End of chapter)