Chapter 1563: The Vice Lord

The Modir’s Travels lay quietly atop the stone pillar, its black cover unadorned except for the title. The Lady of Night’s gaze descended from the clouds, lingering long on the book that, compared to her colossal form, was but a speck of dust. After a long pause, she softly broke the silence: “…Ah, he has finally found peace. After all these years… I still find it hard to get used to.”

“It was known from the moment Modir set out from the Northern Harbor that this day would come,” Gawain spoke for the first time. “We warned him that direct contact with his ‘other half’ could very well shatter the fragile equilibrium he currently maintained…”

“Yes, Wilde knew as well,” the Lady of Night said slowly, “but the great adventurer did not want his journey to stall forever at the final step. A journey should have a beginning and an end; an adventure should have a start and a finish. When he set out six centuries ago, he hoped to reach that moment of completion… I am glad for him, because along the way he witnessed many wonders—and that was what he desired most.”

Amber looked up at Gawain, then at the Lady of Night seated on her throne. After several seconds of hesitation, she shrugged helplessly. “You’re both right, but we still have to figure out how to explain this to Victoria. Her ancestor is gone…”

“Victoria probably expected this,” Gawain said thoughtfully, shaking his head. “All the farewells that needed to be said have been said. I believe she will understand Modir’s choice. As for us… we should feel comforted that Modir’s wish was finally fulfilled.”

He then turned his gaze to the ancient god before him. The memories of the illusion he had just experienced were still vivid in his mind, though after reordering them, those decades of sweeping change felt dreamlike and unreal. Gathering himself, he asked seriously, “The experience you gave me… was that the necessary process for the ‘anchoring’ operation?”

“Yes,” the Lady of Night replied calmly. “Anchoring is not something that can be done by external force alone. It requires your cooperation and unwavering will—if you waver, no matter how well the anchor generator functions, it will be useless. To be honest, I was somewhat surprised by how smoothly it went. I expected success, but I didn’t expect you to remain so clear-headed and… resolute throughout.”

She paused, her gaze from the sky tinged with curiosity. “I’m curious—how did you realize you were in a dream?”

Gawain met her eyes, then glanced at Amber. “From the moment I ‘returned to the surface’ and saw Amber suddenly appear, I knew something was off. At the time, I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I was certain the world around me was distorted to some degree. And throughout those ‘decades,’ that Amber was always the biggest anomaly.”

Amber looked at Gawain, utterly confused, then glanced at the Lady of Night, her mind full of questions she swallowed back.

The Lady of Night’s curiosity deepened. “Oh? I thought that was the most intricate and carefully crafted part of the dream… Why did it become the biggest inconsistency instead?”

“First, although Amber is always sneaking around the Shadow Realm, her stealth skills never fooled my senses,” Gawain shrugged and spoke bluntly. “I’m not sure if it’s because I ‘descended’ into this world just as she pried open the coffin lid, making me unusually sensitive to her presence, but she never just ‘popped up’ out of nowhere around me.”

“Second, Amber might call me ‘Old Dumpling’ sometimes, but that’s usually a slip or when she’s joking alone. And after making that joke, she always immediately hides or braces herself for a beating—she’s not the type to blurt things out carelessly like Rebecca.”

“Third, and most importantly—Amber actually goes to the Intelligence Bureau office on time every day to handle paperwork, even staying past lunch to approve reports! I left a plate of sunflower seeds on the desk and locked Amber in a room with them for thirty minutes. When I opened the door, the seeds were still there! How could that be Amber? Thirty minutes! Normally, if I’m slow opening the door, she’d have already hidden the plate…”

As Gawain finished, Amber’s eyes widened in disbelief—though she still didn’t understand what Gawain and the Lady of Night were talking about, she could tell her image was under attack. “That’s not true! When have I ever hidden a plate…”

Gawain ignored Amber’s protests, calmly meeting the Lady of Night’s gaze until she finally spoke after a moment of silence: “…It seems I made quite a few mistakes in my portrayal.”

Gawain raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. “So that ‘Amber’ was really you?!”

His surprise grew as he sifted through the memories of those ‘fifty years,’ calculating how many times he had knocked on ‘Amber’s’ head in the dream. Though he had suspected he was in an illusion, he never imagined that the Amber beside him was the Lady of Night herself. No wonder the first time he knocked on Amber’s head in the dream, she was so stunned for so long!

The Lady of Night seemed to catch the flicker of realization in Gawain’s eyes, her voice tinged with amusement. “Yes, that was me. To ensure the injection process went smoothly, I had to personally control the dream’s development. Though the details differed slightly from what I imagined, thankfully everything worked out in the end. You need not worry about what happened in the illusion—it was an interesting experience for me. After all, neighbors helping each other is only natural.”

The more Gawain listened, the more he felt something was off, as if the ancient god was barely holding back a smile. But he quickly glanced at Amber and refocused on what mattered most. “Now that the so-called ‘anchoring’ process is complete, can we speak openly? What exactly is the relationship between you and Amber…?”

“Don’t you already know the answer?” The Lady of Night smiled. “A flawed copy, an overflow of data—in a sense, Amber is my ‘extension’ and ‘replica.’ Though she is now an independent individual, our connection near the ‘source’ has never been severed.”

Gawain’s brow furrowed deeper. “Then the way Amber keeps ‘drawing closer’ to you, and the changes happening to her…”

“In a way, we are one. She is a tributary branching from the great river, flowing across the land before returning to the mother stream. Over time, the soil between the two channels is washed away, and the tributary naturally tends to merge back with the main river… As you feared, she is gradually returning, becoming part of me again,” the Lady of Night said calmly, then shifted tone. “But you need not worry—the process will not continue.”

Gawain’s heart, which had been rising with hope, suddenly froze at the unexpected twist. Amber’s reaction was even more dramatic. “Wait, why? You cut yourself off?”

Gawain felt a wave of relief at Amber’s familiar, sarcastic tone. No matter what, this sharp-tongued shadow assault goose was the Amber he knew.

The Lady of Night seemed unfazed by Amber’s biting remark, smiling gently at her “shadow” and softly reminding, “Do you remember the city shrouded in shadows and mist, and those who helped you, guiding you beyond its walls?”

Amber froze. Suddenly, a flood of complex memories surged from the depths of her mind. She recalled what she experienced after entering this “Shadow Divine Realm,” the confusion after losing Gawain, wandering into a vast city that welcomed her like a hometown despite her being a stranger. She remembered the strange residents with silver hair and pale skin, and the bizarre natives…

She had lived in that city for many years before setting out again. It was there she regained her sanity and from there began her search for Gawain…

She looked up in shock to see the Lady of Night still watching her, those amber eyes so familiar—the same eyes she saw every morning in the mirror.

“I created an ‘anchor’ for you,” the Lady’s voice descended from the sky, yet seemed to echo deep within Amber’s consciousness. “Modeled on the anchor generator’s principle, I wove a complete ‘information loop’ for you, using the City of a Thousand Towers as a template. The city at the border of the Shadow Divine Realm was transformed into the ‘City of Nightfall,’ serving as your anchor generator.

“Now, in this shadow realm, you have your own ‘root.’ You no longer draw water from me, the source, nor are you a tributary. You are Amber of the City of Nightfall, the ‘Vice Lord’ residing at the edge of the divine realm. You travel the mortal world by your own free will, and the city you belong to will be managed by me during your absence. As long as that city endures, you will never vanish from this world.”

Amber’s eyes grew wider and wider as the Lady’s words echoed like a declaration to the mortal realm. When the voice finally faded, she couldn’t help but stammer, her emotions swirling into near incoherence. “You… I… thank you?”

Gawain nearly lost it. “You held that in for so long and all you could come up with was a ‘thank you’—and with a question mark?”

“I don’t know what else to say!” Amber’s eyes were huge as she looked between Gawain and the Lady of Night, finally managing to gather her thoughts. “So… you mean I don’t have to worry about anything anymore? I can just go wherever I want and do whatever I want?”

“First, drop the formalities—we share the same essence, and your honorifics make me feel strange. Second, at least regarding ‘returning to the main stream,’ you have no more worries. You are now a complete, self-consistent individual, no longer at risk of being absorbed by the source,” the Lady of Night said calmly, then added with a hint of mischief, “As for where you go to ‘wander,’ I think that depends mostly on your strength.”

Gawain: “…”

Amber: “…”

Hearing such fresh and straightforward words from an ancient god was quite a shock to Gawain. But beyond the initial surprise, he keenly noticed an even bigger truth—

“So, aside from removing the immediate threat, her own strength hasn’t really changed, right?” Gawain’s eyebrows twitched as his gaze swept over Amber. “If she couldn’t win before, she still can’t now.”

Lady Night was silent for two seconds before replying, “…I didn’t do anything unnecessary. Every extra step in the anchoring process doubles the system’s complexity and halves the success rate.”

“But you just called me a ‘Vice Lord of the Divine Realm’!” Amber suddenly caught on, her face full of disbelief. “I was so excited when I heard that title earlier, but it turns out it’s just a title? That won’t do—I need at least one fancy title. If I’m weak out there, I can’t even save face…”

Lady Night paused again for two seconds, then offered some advice: “If you lose a fight after you leave, don’t mention you’re the Vice Lord of the Divine Realm.”

Amber blinked, confused: “…?”

The shadow assault goose held back for a moment, then added, “Besides, when you fight dogs, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose…”

“…Why are you fighting dogs in the first place?”

Amber was speechless.

“Just don’t fight dogs anymore,” Lady Night said earnestly.

Gawain watched in disbelief as the conversation veered into such an absurd direction within just a few sentences. He finally couldn’t hold back: “Ahem, I don’t think this is the time to be discussing this…”

He glanced at Amber, and under that look, she immediately wilted and fell silent.

But Gawain didn’t blame her in the slightest. He knew this girl wasn’t joking around or deliberately derailing the conversation. She was just too excited—an almost self-destructive crisis had been averted, and the thing she’d feared most for so long was now proven not to happen. In that sudden relief, she simply couldn’t hold her tongue. After all, although Amber usually acted carefree and reckless, she did feel pressure.

Compared to her usual wild antics, this little slip-up was actually quite restrained.

What truly amazed Gawain was how Lady Night so effortlessly played along, twisting the topic with Amber like they were one person (which, in a way, wasn’t far from the truth). This mysterious and majestic ancient god followed Amber’s winding train of thought with ease, neither annoyed nor embarrassed. The reason behind this was deeply thought-provoking…

So Gawain stood there, pondering for a few seconds, until he felt Lady Night’s gaze settle on him, growing heavier with unspoken pressure. He forced himself to keep a straight face, pretending he hadn’t been thinking about anything, and smoothly changed the subject: “Now that my own problems are solved, Amber’s issues are settled, and Modir has completed his journey, shouldn’t we talk about the Voyagers?”

“Of course,” Lady Night smiled faintly through the mist and slowly rose. “Now, you are worthy of knowing the hopes the Voyagers left for this world.”

(End of chapter)