Chapter 1504: The Stone Pile

The moment the mysterious silver-haired girl called Morningstar vanished, the world snapped back to normal.

The wind stirred again through the forest, the previously obscured atmosphere returned to perception, and the dappled light and shadow of the dense woods settled into that twilight state—dim, but not yet night. The rangers who had been nowhere to be seen moments before were now on alert all around, their sharp eyes scanning the surroundings. These soldiers, fully focused, seemed never to have left; they maintained the exact positions and postures Maggie remembered from their last moment together. No one appeared to have noticed anything unusual in the forest.

Before her stood the great adventurer Modir, weaving an intricate array of arcane runes in his hands, seemingly at the final step of a memory extraction spell.

But then, unexpectedly, Modir blinked. The rune array in his hands suddenly shifted, the nearly completed memory extraction abruptly reversed by the legendary mage into a kind of mental defense spell. Maggie felt the magical energy in the air pulse with a terrifying intensity—rising, converging, then forcibly suppressed and reshaped by a powerful force. Layers of protection instantly wrapped around her mind. In that brief moment of mental sluggishness, Modir’s voice echoed directly inside her head: “What’s going on? I just sensed another consciousness inside your mind… but I couldn’t quite catch the intruder.”

At that instant, Maggie truly grasped just how formidable this seemingly harmless, always cheerful old man really was. The “consciousness injection” that had lasted less than a fraction of a second in her mind hadn’t escaped his notice. The moment he detected the anomaly, he had already erected multiple layers of mental defenses—completely overriding even her own draconic magical resistance and mental fortitude!

No wonder the girl called Morningstar had come and gone so quickly. It seemed that if she had lingered even a moment longer, Modir would have extracted and trapped her mental projection without difficulty.

Fortunately, it was all a false alarm. Maggie quickly steadied herself and responded mentally, “Don’t worry, I’m fine. The uninvited guest has left.”

She blinked to show she still had full control over her body and mind. Once Modir visibly relaxed, she began to explain: “There really was an ‘intruder’ just now. I’m not sure if they invaded my memories or interfered with my perception… Modir, I need a moment to sort through my thoughts.”

Under Modir’s suddenly serious gaze, Maggie gathered her thoughts and organized her words. She recalled the entire “exchange” in detail, piecing together every suspicious and important element before recounting her experience—from Modir guiding her memories to surface, to the arrival of the mysterious figure, the surrounding environment’s strange distortions, and finally the intruder’s departure and her sudden awakening.

Though her explanation was brief, Modir grew increasingly alarmed as he listened. Even the rangers on high alert nearby were affected—these were elite soldiers, flawless in training, equipment, and combat experience, yet utterly unaware of what had just transpired. The event was beyond their capacity to handle, and it shook them deeply.

“She claimed to be a senior operative in the Intelligence Bureau’s Shadow Affairs Division? And she explicitly mentioned ‘Director Amber’?” Modir’s eyes widened. The old mage had traversed the world for decades—perhaps longer—and such bizarre occurrences were rare even in his experience. “Are you sure you didn’t misread it? That insignia really belongs to the Intelligence Bureau?”

“I’m certain. The insignia is correct—and honestly, that’s the lesser issue. If she lied about that, it would make no sense,” Maggie frowned, her confusion deepening despite being back in the real world. “She displayed very obvious non-human traits… skin tone, eye color, aura—none of it could be hidden. And she didn’t seem to want to hide it. If she wanted to fabricate an identity, anything would be better than claiming to be an Intelligence Bureau agent…”

She hesitated, uncertainty creeping into her voice. “Also, I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, but when she mentioned being a ‘senior operative,’ she seemed genuinely proud—as if that identity was not only real but honorable… Modir, have you ever heard of this ‘Shadow Affairs Division’?”

“Of course not. If you don’t know about it, how would I?” Modir shrugged helplessly. “You know my situation—I’m at best the ‘family’ of Victoria’s Grand Regent. I probably know less about the Empire’s inner workings than a clerk in the Administration Office.”

The old man’s words were true, and Maggie nodded in understanding. “That girl called Morningstar gave me a very strange feeling. I’ve encountered many odd races in this world—even Miss Tyr who once flowed out of a faucet, and Mr. Nicholas who rolled down a hill after catching a cold—but Morningstar’s aura felt unlike any human’s, almost as if she didn’t belong to this reality. It was the first time I sensed something like that. Her words were full of contradictions and oddities… I even think she was deliberately mysterious, but the information she revealed was important.”

“Indeed. Even if she was putting on a show, she did so while mentioning Lady Night… and any connection to the Old Gods makes the cryptic tone less surprising,” Modir stroked his beard, his expression growing serious. “Whatever the case, everything that happened today must be reported to the capital. His Majesty Gawain needs to know—especially the ‘message’ Morningstar asked you to deliver.”

“Are we really going to deliver that message?” Maggie sounded a bit uneasy. “Morningstar’s origins are a mystery, her motives unclear, and the message comes from an even more mysterious ancient deity. That ‘message’ might contain… elements beyond mortal perception. You know how divine power can be hidden within words and cognition…”

“…It still has to be delivered,” Modir said firmly after a moment’s thought. “On one hand, I don’t think Lady Night would set a trap like this. All evidence points to Her being a clear-headed and benevolent true god, and during the Talash campaign, She was clearly on our side. On the other hand, even if the words carry power, I doubt His Majesty Gawain would be affected. He’s Gawain Cecil—Death cannot claim him, Evil cannot defeat him, the God of War fell beneath his cannon fire. I’ve heard even the Dragon God’s true form has no effect on him. How much power could Lady Night really pack into a single sentence?”

Modir’s admiration for Gawain was unmistakable. Anyone who knew the great adventurer understood he idolized the pioneering hero, and Maggie was no exception. She simply nodded in agreement and then asked, “So, shall we continue with the plan to investigate the ‘stone pile’ four kilometers from here?”

“…Yes,” Modir said after a brief pause, nodding. “We need to find a safe place to spend the night before sunset. The area around the stone pile is open terrain, which is better than the shadow-heavy forest interior.”

“Understood,” Maggie replied immediately. She turned to the rangers on watch nearby. “Keep moving—avoid areas where shadows are unnaturally thick. Don’t stay under the canopy too long. Report any unusual sensations immediately.”

Operating on Violet Isle, where shadowy forces were strong, required constant caution. Personnel had to avoid overly dense shadows when moving, and never remain under tree cover for extended periods. Even when camping, they sought open ground bathed in starlight. Though faint, starlight couldn’t dispel darkness, but it did weaken the power of the shadows somewhat.

These were lessons Modir, Maggie, and their team had learned along the way.

Lady Night bore no hostility toward the real world, and the island held no predatory traps or beasts that chose victims. Yet the pervasive shadow environment itself was dangerous to mortals. While there was no proof that the forest shadows “devoured” people, soldiers who had accidentally lingered too long in heavy shadow reported strange feelings of being “watched” or “drawn” by the darkness. These reports made the entire team more cautious.

Still, their caution didn’t slow them down. Trained special forces moved swiftly through the forest, and with Maggie—the dragon in human form—and Modir, the legendary mage, blazing the trail, the squad advanced quickly. Before sunset, before the deep night fell, they reached their destination: the edge of a clearing in the woods.

Bathed in the rich twilight glow, the shadowed forest seemed to have been hollowed out, revealing a large, flat clearing. At its center stood a strange stone pile—an eerie totem-like structure made of hundreds of precisely carved stone pillars stacked into a towering cone some tens of meters high. Its style was unlike any known culture’s architecture, ancient and mysterious.

There was no doubt it was man-made.

The ground around the stone pile was covered in fine white sand, blanketing nearly the entire clearing. It starkly contrasted with the black soil of the nearby forest floor. The white sand reminded Modir of the endless deserts in the Shadow Divine Realm—but he felt no extraordinary aura from the sand beneath his feet, nor any divine power emanating from the stone pile itself.

“So this is the ‘strange megalith’ the scout mentioned…” Maggie looked up cautiously at the massive stone pile in the clearing’s center. “This is what you saw with your Mage’s Eye before, right?”

“Exactly,” Modir nodded gently, stepping forward. “These stone piles are scattered throughout the forest, maybe even across all of Violet Isle… They’re spaced far apart, with no obvious pattern, and each is surrounded by bare open ground. But I have a feeling… they’re connected to the long-vanished Violet Kingdom.”

When Modir had previously used the Mage’s Eye (Heavy Armor Variant) to scout deep into the island, he had come across these randomly scattered giant stone “structures” in the forest. Even then, he was intrigued by these strange formations. Unfortunately, the Mage’s Eye was ultimately a summoned entity with limited capabilities, ill-suited for detailed, complex exploration. So in the end, he never quite figured out what these things really were—only that, judging by their appearance, they were man-made. Now, at last, he had the chance to investigate them properly.

“Scan the surrounding area and set up runes for early warning,” Maggie instructed the accompanying rangers. “Contact headquarters and let them know we’re setting up camp at Point Three.”

Once the soldiers acknowledged the orders, she stepped forward to follow the great adventurer who was already approaching the stone pile. As she studied the stones, she quietly asked, “What do you think these are for?”

“They look like some kind of magical device… a style of magic I’ve never seen before,” Modir replied, sharing his first impression. “I’ve never encountered anything like this, but somehow it feels familiar… Not the appearance itself, but the ‘aura’ they give off. It’s as if I’ve dealt with this kind of presence before, but I can’t recall when or where.”

“You feel familiarity, but have no memory to match it…” Maggie mused thoughtfully. She knew this adventurer struggled with gaps in his memory. This sensation of “knowing but not remembering” wasn’t new to him. Yet this time, a different thought struck her. “Could this sense of familiarity be coming from… the ‘other side’?”

“The other side… you mean ‘the other me’?” Modir paused, surprised. He had once told Victoria about his conversations with ‘Velde’ in his dreams. Since the dragonborn lady was present then, it wasn’t strange for Maggie to make the connection. Her suggestion nudged his thoughts in that direction. “That’s hard to say for sure…”

He sighed as he spoke. “Now that I think about it, the closer I get to the center of Violet Island, the closer I seem to be to that… boundary. Lately, I’ve been having strange dreams—visions of lives connected to me, but completely unfamiliar and lacking any real substance. Maybe the ‘other me’ and I are drawing so close that our memories are starting to bleed into each other…”

“…Could that cause problems?” Maggie asked, concern flickering in her eyes. “Maybe you should—”

“Should what? Stop moving forward?” Modir chuckled. “Victoria advised me the same, but even she couldn’t convince me.”

“Don’t worry, Maggie. I know what I’m doing. I’m uncovering a new secret. I’ve spent my life unraveling mysteries, but this is the first time a secret has unraveled me. Not everyone gets to experience that.”

He waved a hand dismissively as he strolled to the edge of the massive stone pile. “Come on, as the first explorers here, we should focus on what’s right in front of us. Like figuring out what exactly this thing is… Wait, it’s glowing!”

(End of chapter)