Chapter 681: The Soul of Shadows

Veronica—Or rather, Ophelia’s—response came so swiftly and directly that for the first two or three seconds, Gawain didn’t even register it. Then it hit him: he had just stumbled upon the key to Amber’s origins—an insider, standing right before his eyes.

“Why did you suddenly mention the Shadow Fortress?” Veronica asked, noticing the change in expressions among the three of them, her curiosity piqued. “Where did you hear that name?”

Gawain didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he fired back a question of his own. “Let’s put that aside for now—since you know about the Shadow Fortress, have you ever heard of a royal shadow guard named Sari Randolf?”

In theory, this “Saint Princess” before him hadn’t even been born during Sari Randolf’s active years. But Gawain knew that beneath Veronica’s youthful appearance lay the soul of an ancient rebel—one who had been wandering the world for centuries through soul possession, inhabiting countless bodies. Perhaps one of her vessels had been active in the Ansu Kingdom decades ago, and maybe even the missions Sari Randolf undertook were connected to her.

But Veronica shook her head. “That name doesn’t ring a bell.”

Her expression didn’t suggest she was lying, though Gawain knew better than to expect much from the inscrutable calm of an ancient rebel. For now, he had no choice but to take her at her word.

“Sari Randolf was a royal shadow guard from decades ago,” Gawain said carefully, deciding not to reveal Amber’s identity just yet. “We found some old records indicating that she was ordered to search for an ancient Gondor ruin called the Shadow Fortress. It seems this fortress was indeed part of the old rebel plan?”

Amber, standing beside Gawain, quickly chimed in, “Can you tell us more about this fortress? What was it used for? And why do you say it was abandoned?”

Veronica gave Amber a long, penetrating look, making the younger woman feel a flicker of unease. Then she spoke: “It was a dead-end—a route for escape and hiding. The Shadow Project aimed to fundamentally alter human life by transforming people into shadow creatures, retreating into the Shadow Realm to evade the magical tides of the real world, even to escape the gods’ influence. The Shadow Fortress was the main research base for this project.”

“Change the very essence of human life? Transform into shadow beings and hide in the Shadow Realm?” Gawain frowned. This explanation aligned with some of his earlier theories after reading Sari Randolf’s diary. The rebel plan was essentially a ‘human survival plan,’ so the fortress must have been built to help humanity avoid disaster. But was the Shadow Realm really a place safe from the magical tides?

Veronica nodded gently. “The Shadow Realm has existed since time immemorial. Its inhabitants are an ancient race, older than humans, elves, or any known intelligent species on the continent. Naturally, when the rebel plan began, we took notice of them. Evidence shows that changes in the real world are mirrored in the Shadow Realm according to certain patterns. When the magical tides sweep through reality, the Shadow Realm shifts accordingly—but its inhabitants remain unaffected.

“They possess traits similar to elemental beings, allowing them to avoid the magical tides’ effects and quickly adapt to drastic changes in the magical environment, stabilizing their forms anew.

“Moreover, shadow power is the most mysterious and widespread among all known elemental and quasi-elemental forces. The Shadow Realm completely overlays our reality, unlike other elemental domains which have significant limitations. From a ‘development potential’ standpoint, the Shadow Realm is a far superior refuge.

“Taking all this into account, the rebels launched the ‘Shadow Project’ early on, constructing a subspace fortress in the crevice near the Shadow Realm. For research purposes, the fortress had no physical entrances or exits; it connected to the material world only through specific spacetime anchors.”

True to her usual candor when discussing the rebel plan, Veronica laid out the basic facts about the Shadow Fortress without holding back, giving Gawain a clearer picture of its origins and purpose.

“How exactly did you do it?” Pittman, who had been silent until now, suddenly asked. “How did you transform humans into shadow beings?”

“At first, the method was crude and direct,” Veronica explained. “We introduced shadow power into the human body in stages, similar to an ‘elemental corrosion’ process, gradually altering the body’s material structure. This produced some powerful shadow mutants, but their condition was extremely unstable. Human souls couldn’t fully control the foreign shadow power, and their bodies couldn’t withstand the drastic mutations. Early volunteers quickly lost the ability to distinguish between the material and shadow worlds, and gradually lost their human self-awareness…”

She shook her head as she spoke.

“Later, we gained experience and realized that simply introducing external power and changing the physical body wasn’t enough. We needed to modify the soul as well, and cultivate the subjects’ adaptability to shadow power from the embryonic stage. That’s when we started the ‘Artificial Human’ program.”

Gawain noticed Amber’s breath catch slightly at the mention of the “Artificial Human” program, but he didn’t interrupt. He listened as Veronica continued.

“Using biochemical technology developed in the ‘Divine Sin’ project, the Shadow Project team created synthetic embryos. Their somatic cells came from the first batch of failed mutants but were deeply modified and stabilized. At the same time, we captured an equal number of Shadow Realm inhabitants. By merging and re-encoding their souls with human souls, we created synthetic souls capable of retaining humanity while controlling shadow power. Injecting these into the embryos produced the ‘Artificial Humans.’”

At that moment, Gawain couldn’t help but speak up. “The souls of the Artificial Humans are from the Shadow Realm inhabitants?!”

“They’re hybrids of humans and Shadow Realm beings,” Veronica corrected. “It sounds incredible, but the Shadow Realm inhabitants have soul structures similar to humans—in fact, they’re almost pure ‘spirit’ beings. Aside from the shadow mists they control and some mysterious runes, their entire structure is just soul. During the ancient Gondor era, the empire had advanced soul extraction and modification technology.”

She gestured to herself with a faint smile. “You can probably guess—I’m one of those who underwent this technology.”

Without a doubt, “Ophelia Norton,” who had survived over a thousand years through soul possession, had also been modified at the soul level.

But Gawain had no time to dwell on the technical details. He glanced at Amber.

She wasn’t a half-elf.

She was a hybrid—human and Shadow Realm inhabitant—at the soul level.

Amber met his gaze briefly, then turned back to Veronica. After a moment of thought and silence, she asked, “How many of these embryos were created back then?”

“126 survived to term,” Veronica said. “That’s what the reports I received stated.”

“Then why was the project abandoned?” Gawain pressed. “Were there risks?”

His biggest concern now was why the project was scrapped—because that directly affected whether these ‘Artificial Human embryos’ posed any hidden dangers. Amber had grown up healthy for decades, but who could guarantee she wouldn’t have problems someday?

Veronica’s eyes flicked between Gawain and Amber. After a few seconds of recollection, she spoke softly: “If an Artificial Human survives, it’s not inherently dangerous. But the project itself had issues.

“Once the experiments reached the embryonic cultivation phase, the entire Shadow Fortress—and even the subspace rift housing the research team—became unstable. Unknown extra energy flows appeared in the fortress’s power circuits. The communication system frequently picked up mysterious, fleeting echoes. Projections of Shadow Realm inhabitants wandered the halls. Later, some rooms vanished without explanation, and strange extra branches appeared in certain corridors.

“As the fortress deteriorated, core personnel began suffering from hallucinations and auditory illusions. Many reported hearing the embryos in the incubation pods speaking—hissing noises as if they were conversing. But no monitoring equipment detected any such activity. As the embryos grew into juveniles, these phenomena worsened. Hallucinations spread beyond the central area, making it harder for researchers to distinguish reality. The entire fortress began to fracture from within.

“We tried various supernatural countermeasures, all failed. Risk assessment concluded that the experiments might have breached the ‘domain boundary’ beyond the Shadow Realm and our world. To prevent the project from breaking the safety barrier and attracting divine attention, I had no choice but to order the termination of the entire Shadow Project—and the fortress was abandoned.”

That was the Shadow Fortress’s fate.

Pittman looked Veronica in the eye and asked slowly, “What happened next? Were the embryos just left there?”

“By then, the embryos had grown into juveniles but remained inactive. I ordered their destruction—before they opened their eyes,” Veronica said. “The project was out of control. Nothing could be left behind. It was better to let the subjects vanish before gaining self-awareness than to let them be born only to face death.”

Amber took a quiet breath and asked softly, “Were they all destroyed?”

“All of them. At least, that’s what the reports say.”

“But one was left behind,” Amber said, staring at Veronica, speaking each word deliberately.

Veronica raised an eyebrow but said nothing, simply meeting Amber’s gaze.

Amber pointed to herself calmly. “I am Artificial Human number 36.”

“Ah,” Veronica murmured, with little surprise. “So it is…”

Gawain looked at her. “What do you mean? You knew all along—?”

“No, I didn’t recognize her before,” Veronica shook her head. “But after all your questions, how hard is the truth to guess?”

She studied Amber carefully for a long moment, a trace of emotion in her voice. “So… this is what you’ve become.”

Amber stepped forward. “Don’t you have anything else to say?”

“For a thousand years, few things have truly surprised or moved me. But today’s events caught me off guard,” Veronica replied calmly, meeting Amber’s eyes. Yet her expression betrayed little real shock or sentiment. “I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth as I feel it now. I don’t know how you survived—maybe it’s related to the hallucinations that engulfed the fortress back then. But your survival is a surprise to me. I’m glad to see you standing here, healthy.”

“Oh? So you don’t regret not destroying me back then?” Amber stared at Veronica. “Isn’t that a risk for you?”

Veronica’s reply was calm and composed. “You’ve grown up safely until now; you’re no longer a liability.”

Gawain’s gaze shifted between Amber and Veronica. He expected Amber to react strongly, but after a few seconds of silence, she simply shook her head. “Then let’s just leave it at that.”

Her figure slowly faded into the air, and a faint voice drifted back, “I’m going outside for some fresh air.”

(End of chapter)