Chapter 206: The Great Void of the Shadow Realm

After being abruptly ejected from the Shadow Realm’s threshold state, Amber stubbornly tried several more times. But each time, just as she barely crossed into the critical state, she was immediately bounced back into the real world—no change whatsoever.

By the fourth attempt, she was dizzy and couldn’t take it anymore.

Gawain was equally baffled by the situation—though, admittedly, the repeated threshold shifts had left him a bit dazed too. Instinctively, he asked, “What’s going on? Did your ‘cheat’ expire?”

“Cheat? What cheat?” Amber didn’t understand what he meant, but judging by his expression, it probably wasn’t a compliment. She pouted in annoyance. “It’s definitely something wrong with this place! Wait here, I’m going to take half a pound of shadow potion and try again—I refuse to believe even my shadow affinity…”

“Stop, stop,” Gawain waved her off, “Don’t get worked up. Calm down and analyze the situation. Try sensing the shadow environment here carefully, then test some basic shadow step or stealth skills. See if those work.”

Taking his advice, Amber calmed herself and took a deep breath. Her form gradually faded in the air.

After several tests, she dispelled her shadow state. “Normal shadow step and stealth skills work fine, even shadow mist and similar abilities function smoothly. It seems only when entering the Shadow Realm itself do I get… some kind of interference that instantly ejects me.”

“The Shadow Realm… so the problem lies on the ‘other side’,” Gawain muttered thoughtfully, glancing at the circular device in the center of the room that looked like a magic gate. Then his brow furrowed as a plan formed. “The Shadow Realm is basically a kind of reflection of the real world, right? Try entering the Shadow Realm from outside this room, then come in from the ‘other side’ and see what happens.”

“I’ll give it a shot!” Amber agreed, grabbing Gawain’s arm as they headed out the door. “You come with me and cover my back…”

Was he treating himself like some kind of protective shield, like a bullet curtain to block the Old Gods’ gaze?

Gawain sighed but followed behind. After putting some distance between themselves and the circular room, the two of them successfully entered the Shadow Realm.

The familiar black-and-white world appeared before their eyes. Amber’s form shifted into that unique elemental banshee-like shape exclusive to the Shadow Realm. Gawain breathed a sigh of relief. “You scared me—I thought your ‘cheat’ really had expired.”

“You talk so weird, I don’t even understand you,” Amber muttered, then grabbed Gawain’s arm and headed toward the circular hall within the Shadow Realm.

They crossed through the ancient door, but what they saw on the other side was just an ordinary circular hall.

No divine flesh, no hidden research facilities, not even extra doors or corridors—there was nothing here.

Amber looked around curiously. “Strange… it’s just a normal hall. Why is there interference? And it’s so ridiculous—just taking a slight detour lets you get in…”

But Gawain’s sharp eyes quickly caught something off. “No, I don’t think we actually bypassed it.”

He raised a hand, pointing to the center of the hall. “That circular device is gone. There are tear marks on the floor.”

In the real-world hall, the most eye-catching feature was the circular device in the center. But here, the three- or four-meter-tall ring was missing, replaced by a patch of broken floor and a large chunk dug out—undeniably, something had been there.

“Except for the lab where we encountered the divine flesh, the Shadow Realm and the real world basically correspond one-to-one. Judging by the marks on the floor, there should be a corresponding ring here, but it’s gone,” Gawain frowned, walking over to the missing floor section. “The size matches the base of the ring.”

“Someone sneaked into the Shadow Realm and stole the gate on this side?” Amber’s mind raced. “That’s quite a move…”

“No one steals a magic gate just for fun,” Gawain shot her a look. “I think some force tore this place apart, ‘transferring’ whatever was here to somewhere else. When we enter the Shadow Realm from the real-world hall, we should arrive by the corresponding ring. But entering from the corridor outside the room, we only see this empty ‘inner hall.’ It’s some kind of displaced reflection…”

Amber wasn’t sure how Gawain came to these conclusions, but since her own thoughts were blank, she followed his lead. “So what’s the purpose of that ‘interference’ force?”

Gawain frowned, letting his mind wander. “Maybe it’s to prevent unauthorized people from bypassing the magic gate and reaching certain places… Only the correctly paired magic gates can lead to the right location. Otherwise, you either can’t enter the Shadow Realm or end up in this empty hall. The ancient Gondor mages often used this method to encrypt important vaults.”

“So, if we want to figure out the correct corresponding location here, the only way is to fix the ring in the real world?” Amber raised an eyebrow. “That’s beyond my knowledge…”

“Not just yours. No one in the territory can decipher such a complex ancient magical device,” Gawain shook his head regretfully. “The ring outside isn’t just a simple magic array—it’s a complex magical device combining magic arrays, ancient composite materials, and Gondor magic gate technology. At this level, the current spellcasters in the territory simply can’t handle it.”

Amber stuck out her tongue, feeling helpless in this area. Then she wandered aimlessly around the circular hall.

She glanced here and there, occasionally scraping her small dagger along the runes on the walls or floor. But when she reached the opposite side of the hall, she suddenly stopped.

She noticed a black crack on the curved wall—not very wide, but branching into many fissures. The dense network of cracks covered the entire visible wall.

Curious, she reached out and touched the crack.

Gawain was examining the rune marks on the floor when suddenly a continuous cracking sound came from nearby. He looked up in shock, and what he saw stunned him:

The far side of the hall, away from the entrance, was rapidly disintegrating and collapsing. The once seamless curved wall was now covered in massive black cracks. The sturdy ancient concrete was falling away in chunks, as if an endless abyss outside was swallowing the building whole!

Amber, standing before the wall, seemed frozen by the sight. The ground beneath her feet had begun to crack slightly, but she remained motionless.

“Watch out!” Gawain shouted, rushing forward and yanking the stunned Amber back. They retreated all the way to the hall’s entrance before stopping. Only then did Amber cry out, “Oh no, I poked the wall and made it collapse!”

Gawain gripped her arm tightly, watching the collapse carefully, ready to retreat at a moment’s notice. But soon he noticed the collapse stopped after devouring only a quarter of the hall—though dramatic, it ended surprisingly quickly.

Yet what lay beyond the collapsed wall and ceiling made him frown deeply, a strange unease rising in his chest.

Beyond was utter darkness, as if the world had vanished, the universe extinguished.

“What… is that?” Amber’s voice trembled with tension. Even more unsettling, she watched Gawain approach the collapsed edge. “Hey! Be careful!”

Gawain was cautious, edging to the boundary of the collapse and peering into the space beyond.

Behind the wall should have been the dense rock and soil layers of the Dark Mountains. But all he saw was complete blackness and void—an absolute darkness filling his vision, as if all existence abruptly ended beyond that boundary.

Squinting, he studied the darkness carefully and finally glimpsed some extremely distant, faint shapes.

Far off in the black space, he saw what looked like the outline of “land on the other side.” Above, a faint glimmer of light—like a sliver of sky—shone dimly. Even in the void, he could barely make out floating objects: massive stones and islands drifting weightlessly, tumbling in midair.

Suddenly, Gawain understood what this darkness was: not the end of all things, but an unprecedentedly vast “void.”

This void was so enormous it exceeded the limit of human sight’s ability to perceive light, creating the illusion that everything had vanished. But the Shadow Realm’s unique “lighting environment” meant it wasn’t absolute darkness, allowing Gawain to faintly discern objects within.

He pulled out a magic crystal, infused it with mana to activate it, then hurled it forward.

The crystal shone brightly, enough to illuminate a large room. But upon entering the great void, it instantly shrank to a tiny, insignificant point of light—without reflective surfaces around, its glow seemed minuscule.

This confirmed Gawain’s theory.

“A… cavern?” Amber followed cautiously, staring in awe at the scene and noticing the faint sky above. “It seems to lead directly to the surface? How big is this void?!”

“Size aside, Sir Byron spent so long exploring the Dark Mountains, and the corridors he mapped include the area corresponding to this void—meaning this void doesn’t exist in the real Dark Mountains,” Gawain said, shaken. “This void is limited to the Shadow Realm… If it’s not natural, then it must be caused by some unimaginable power…”

Amber finally caught on. “So the reason I couldn’t enter the Shadow Realm before wasn’t some magic gate interference, but because this area… doesn’t correspond to the real world. The displacement here is too severe?”

“…I don’t know,” Gawain admitted honestly, just as confused. “All I know is we probably can’t solve this mystery… Unless we fix the ring outside, no one will understand what the ancient Gondor mages were doing here.”

Amber rubbed her arms, goosebumps rising. “Ugh… I can’t stay here any longer. This place is too weird. I think we should get out of here as soon as possible.”

Gawain let out a breath. “This time, I have to say, I quite agree with you.”

(End of chapter)